The TrueTalk Blog

Is Perpetual Violence Sustainable?

Imagine waking up every day planning to cause as much damage as you possibly can. Imagine the highlight of your life being the moment at which you shout some religious
formulation or another and detonate the explosives strapped to your chest. Imagine hoping your children will live their lives similarly.

Difficult to fathom, isn't it?

It's that difficulty that ultimately gives us all our greatest hope because it points to an aspect of human life that is hard to extinguish: eventually, we all become exhausted by conflict. The fatigue that must blanket the people of the Middle East is impossible for we Americans to imagine. Yes, we've been "at war" for over five years but, for most of us, daily life is nothing like the scenario depicted above.

Cornflakes, gas prices and baseball scores is more like it.

And there's something else for peace loving people to count on beyond exhaustion. The constant churning of moral reflection lives in the minds of thinking people everywhere. In this excellent piece in the New Yorker, Lawrence Wright, author of the definitive history of Al Qaeda, chronicles the current conflict for the moral sensibilities of global jihadists.  What it shows is the hope that humanity has always held out for itself is still alive within Islam: ultimately, we all want to see our children and grandchildren live peacefully and joyously.

Ordinary and Extra-ordinary

Titrating in an age of unprecedented opportunity for public expression.

How Many Yous Are There?

We all carry around notions of the meaning of "self," many of which are not  supported by experience and research. In this video, I explore the notion of "situation" and "context" and their relationship to the design of on-line social sites. I look forward to your thoughts.

Earlier video here.

Yon W Has A...

From Washington Irving:

Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs? No, no, 'tis your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.

Now, there's a man who understands human nature!

Care And The Meaning of The City

I'm a Heideggerian.

There, I said it.

Martin Heidegger's work was a large part of the foundation for our Ph.D. program in psychology at Duquesne University in the early 1970s. We were the most progressive thinking psychology program in America at that time.

Our work was based on a long and fruitful intellectual history going back to the pre-Socratic Greeks. I was introduced to this approach to the discipline, which I eventually came to know as existential-phenomenological psychology, by my mentor at the University of Dayton, Dr. Antos Rancurello. Antos was a genius. He had two Ph.D.s, one in philosophy from a university in Italy whose name I, ashamedly, do not know for certain (Bologna?), and one in psychology from Loyola University in Chicago. Antos carried within him an appreciation for the human spirit that was so abiding, so embracing, that nothing, nothing that any human being had ever done, or could do, was foreign to him, and, by extension, all of us. He recognized the commonality of human experience for what it was (is): a broad continuum on which we all abide. This is what Alfred Adler eventually came to call "social interest."

I digress.

At Duquesne, we psychology students were required to take graduate courses in the philosophy department, the same courses that their Ph.D. students were taking; major league shit. So, in my first year, when I took a course in Heidegger's Being and Time taught by Father Andre Scheuer, I had no idea that I was about to be guided in  the reading of this incredibly enigmatic, poetic, impenetrable tract (or, Part 1, to be wholly accurate), by one of Martin's own lifelong friends, someone who, in summers, would stroll through the Black Forest with the author himself, contemplating the true essence of sorge, translated in the English, as "care."

So, Andre had big time street cred.

And, he was an amazing prof. First, he was, after all, "Father" Scheuer, at a Catholic educational institution in 1971. One expected a bit of communal conformity.

No. None was discernible.

Each week, Andre silently walked into class impeccably dressed in a dark near-ganster-striped suit (even thinking about writing about Heidegger gets me started with the hyphens), wearing gold-framed wire rim glasses, carrying a sheath of papers. He'd walk slowly to the podium, take out another pair of reading glasses (identical to the ones he was removing), take a deep breath, and begin. In a thick German accent, Andre would read his lecture notes from the papers on the podium. He would precisely explicate the meaning of a particular paragraph, phrase or word from Being and Time; sometimes for up to two hours.

We were rapt. This was studying as close to the feet of the master as any of us could ever hope to get. The coolest intellectual experience I've ever had. I will remember it always.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend of mine last night and Heidegger came up. Well, not explicitly, of course, but he came up just the same.

My friend and I were talking about the powerful appeal of establishing online relationships with people (and things) that "interest" you. We allowed as how searching for, finding and connecting with...what?...people and things you care about...is the great engine for today's "social media" boom.

"Engagement" is the new black.

And, since (here's another Heideggerian part) care drives experience, we see that we find what we care about when scanning a richly populated landscape (read: crowded marketplace). So, literally, we see that-about-which-we-are-already-concerned (since fully explaining Heidegger's concept of "care" would wear us both out, let's use that phrase as a placeholder: "that-about-which-we-are-already-concerned").

Well, that may seem trivially obvious, but it's anything but. It  means that as we enable ourselves to connect with the people and things we care about, and to interact with those people and things in the ways-we-do-when-we-care-about something, cool shit can happen (that's not exactly the Heideggerian "being-with," but "cool shit" gets it just fine).

And, that's what the city is all about.

PS - Oh, yeah. If Heidegger's picture freaks you out because he looks like some kind of SS stormtrooper, turns out you're probably about three-quarters right. Those beliefs were not at issue for us in the early 70s, struggling, as we were, to learn the basics of Heidegger's thinking, beyond which, I know, I have never progresses.

Does Your Work Environment Matter?

If you just went by what you saw in most American companies, you'd think that senior executives believed that people can do great work in any kind of setting.

But others don't. I know you're probably sick of hearing about Google by now, but take a look at this workspace.

Given what we know about creativity it seems obvious that putting employees in a setting that gets the juices flowing is the way to go. One of the key elements, for me, is the degree to which this space reflects personal identity. This working environment is a unique statement of this individual's way of being-in-the-world, fully encouraged and enabled by his employer. Contrast that  with an approach that insists on workplace homogeneity and inter-changeability and you begin to see how organizational culture dramatically affects space. And innovative thinking.

Here are five more cool offices.

Hat tip: Core77/BusinessWeek Design Directory

The "Boston Phenomenon": Is Excellence Contagious?

Last week, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the second time in four years. The New England Patriots have also won half of the last six Super Bowls. This got me thinking: Is winning in sports contagious? And then, the bigger question: Is excellence contagious?

I think the answer to both questions is, yes.

Imagine yourself a member of the Red Sox during the 2004 season. Your team has not won a World Series since 1918. Meanwhile, in the 2001-2002 season, the Patriots had won their first Super Bowl in franchise history.

Do we believe that Red Sox players saw the heroics of Tom Brady and company? Of course they did. Did their performances have an impact on Sox players? Here, the answer must be conjectured, but it's hard for me to believe that the sight of the local football team winning must have had some effect on the entire Red Sox organization.

After all, though seasonal, pro sports teams vie for the affections of their fans. A winning team in one sport raises fan (front office?) expectations for all. It's possible that it's coincidence that the records of the Patriots and Red Sox have improved in tandem. But I think it's unlikely. More likely is that those highly powerful human motivators, pride and competition, came into play.

Think about your own experience. Is your performance affected by your work context? Many of us have had the good fortune of being part of a great project team, one that refused to settle for anything less than the best from each of its members. I certainly have. And I know that my performance in those situations has been better because of it. Conversely, we all know that moment when we realize that our organization is simply not stepping up to its challenges, not delivering excellent work, not good enough...and felt our own motivation and energy slowly slip away.

This is what it means to develop a "winning culture." This is why winning begets winning.

Now, we'll get to see if the Boston Phenomenon can carry over to the area's two other pro sports franchises: the Celtics and the Bruins. The Celtics certainly made a statement in this past off-season by picking up two talented stars, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, and opened their season last night in rousing fashion. As for the Bruins, well, I can't even look at a NHL game or score until May, so I have no idea.

It will be interesting, albeit mildly nauseating, to see if this infectious trend continues. After all, as a long-standing Boston/New England and Bill Belichick hater, this whole situation is intriguing, but wholly unpleasant.

Oh, and heaven help us if Boston College wins the BCS Championship!

Go Buckeyes!!

Managing Overconfidence

How can we maintain confidence in our abilities without going overboard? That's the subject of this video. I hope you enjoy it.

Wait...Wait...PLEASE Tell Me!

Remember learning the multiplication tables?

Happened in, what?, third grade? The moment was a serious rite of passage as the educational system said to you:

"OK, young man/lady, it's time to start training you in the rigorous process of memorization. This will provide you with the foundation of your educational achievement, so we're going to take you all the way from 1x1 through 12x12. Ready? Begin!"

And off we went, flexing our little memorization muscles, showing off our proficiency at instantaneously recalling everything from 9x6 to the capital of Mississippi. And, we were proclaimed "smart."

Fast forward 50 years. What do I do today if someone asks me what 9x6 is? Well, I snap off "54" just like that! Gold star!! How about the capital of Mississippi? Well, I just snap off...er...wait...wait...I know it...

A few years ago, that "er" moment would have bothered me. I'd have thought, "damn, how could I not have the capital of Mississippi on instant recall? Am I no longer, 'smart?'"

But not today. Today, I'm so completely Googlified that recall hardly matters. I can find out whatever I want whenever I want (practically) wherever I want.

So, have we passed into a "post-memory" period of human intelligence? Have the machines begun replacing portions of our brains, portions that can now be devoted to other matters? Maybe it's the same as the introduction of the lever, wheel or steam engine. These inventions changed human history by destroying the connection between the size of human muscles and the capacity for work. Before them, we couldn't move big stuff. After them, no problem. We could then use our muscles for other things instead of gathering thousands of people in one place to build pyramids.

Hmm.

Let's look to medicine for some insight. Medicine, to me, has always been the ultimate "memory-based" discipline. First, there's all that, "knee-bone's connected to the thigh-bone" stuff. Then there's the syndrome stuff; "fever plus redness and local swelling equals infection." Then all the treatment stuff: "take two of these and call me in the morning."

But as our knowledge of disease processes has become more complex, treatment options broader and algorithms more nuanced, physicians have been forced to use technological assists to supplement their memory-based knowledge with databases, formularies and decision-trees. More and more, physicians are relying on assets other than memory to augment their practices.

As are we all.

And in the process, Google has become more and more critical to our lives. Want a recipe? Hmm...what cookbook was that it? Ah, hell, just Google it. Here's one! (Elapsed time: 5 seconds.) Who played Abe Lincoln in that old movie? (Elapsed time: 8 seconds.) What's the capital of Mississippi? (Elapsed time: .21 seconds.)

Google the words, "nine times six."

When memory is no longer the primary basis for evaluating intelligence, what will we use? And, what will we use that part of our brains for when fact-based memory is no longer necessary?

From The Upper West Side to the Upper West Coast

Whenever a good friend makes a radical life change, things get called into question.

Here's what I mean.

Karen and I had dinner this evening with an old friend, a good friend with whom we've been through plenty of interesting, sometimes wrenching, experiences. I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that this friend has traveled a very far distance since we first met her, 17 years ago, as she'd departed a high-power corporate job for a less duplicitous life. In all that time, our friend had maintained the fundamental infrastructure of her life: an Upper West Side of Manhattan lifestyle, even though she'd undergone a significant re-calibration of economic resources. Despite being born elsewhere, she was, beyond any doubt, a New Yorker through and through.

Then, about a year ago, an old friend came back into her life; a high school fascination, never quite a beau, but always, apparently, as the government is now fond of saying, a "person of interest."

Thing is, her friend lived in the wilds of British Columbia. When she first began talking about him, she called him "Mountain Man," with great affection. A life-long wanderer, Mountain Man invited our friend to join him in the wilderness and, after a few months of watching him apply his nature-based survival approach to Manhattan's mean streets, she agreed to join him in a cabin about an hour's drive from this place.

Hearing our friend describe hew new life was like hearing a travelogue from Vasco Da Gama on his cruise around the Cape of Good Hope. No electricity (except that provided by a generator that her friend would run as long as she wanted it to), no running water, an outhouse, no people to speak of, certainly no newspaper and, my god, no chance of seeing her former wake-up staple, the New York Times.

Clothing stores? Please. While the "post" (about a mile away) had Internet access and several other markers of modern civilization, it's unlikely our friend could find the kinds of fashion bargains she'd gleefully reported during our years of animated conversation.

In short, here was someone who had, at age (and you'll pardon the indiscretion here) 64 or so, changed everything.

It's hard not to take a step back and look at one's own life in the face of this kind of change. After all, someone who used to roam the aisles of Fairway, who tells me she's now pooping in the same privy as a marten, will undoubtedly get my attention.

And, once gotten, my attention takes me here: The fact is, as life proceeds, we all review our range of options often, most of the time without giving the process a second thought. Is it time to downsize? Should we think about moving to a warmer, cheaper place to live? How about balancing the portfolio so that we're not living with quite as much risk?

But all those questions sidestep the big one: "What is my life all about, anyway?" And, in this case, a corollary: "Could I fulfill whatever purpose I think my life has living in the wilds of British Columbia?"

After all, isn't life all about living amidst the beauty and grandeur of nature?

Well, I guess mine isn't.

Turns out mine's about creating environments that help fulfill human potential.

That just sounds like a load of manure, doesn't it?

Well...be that as it may, it's as close to articulating my purpose as I can get.

I believe I was blessed with a gift: the ability to enable people to connect with one another to accomplish great things. Being a part of those moments...the moments when sparks fly among talented people and new ideas are born...those are the happiest moments of my life. Enabling those moments, helping myself and others get beyond the sticking points that prevent us from reaching for that illusively inarticulable notion that's gnawing at the back of our heads...that, for me, is the magic.

And I just can't see myself doing that in the Northern Canadian wilds.

So, while I deeply respect anyone whose life-purpose leads them to the immense solitude of the wilderness, I also know that mine calls me elsewhere. After completing six decades of living, I'm comfortable knowing that what I am doing is what I should be doing.

And, I wish my friend the best up there in the wilds. She looks to be as happy as I've ever seen her.