I'm struck by this point made by Josh Faga in his article Starving for Wisdom:
It used to be the case that we had to make up our mind about something. But, the advent of modern mediums has been so successful at packaging intellectual positions into digestible vitamins that they have essentially “made up our minds” for us.
We don't make up our minds at all. Instead, we are presented a pre-packaged intellectual position that the medium we consume it over conveniently places into our minds for us; a process not too dissimilar from placing a CD into a CD player. Then, also not too dissimilar from a CD player, when in the appropriate situations, we are conditioned to push a button and “play back” the opinion that was burned on the CD.
To complete the feedback loop, whenever we 'play the songs' on our CD players, we are rewarded by those that have the same CD. We regurgitate the opinions and information we consume to the group of people that have also consumed it and receive our reward for having successfully consumed and spit back what we have 'learned'. This process is at the bottom of our ideologically possessed and polarized political landscape. We are educating, organizing, and rewarding ourselves for simply putting a CD in a CD player and pressing play.
In a recent podcast, Cal Newport shared his view that the internet is best when it's decentralized, disorganized, and weird. Life was simpler when content from crazy people actually looked crazy, with green text, yellow backgrounds, wacky mouse pointers, ugly scrollbars, and bald eagle GIFs polluting the page.
I think he's right.
The thoughts webring is old-school, low-tech, and scatter-brained. It's sometimes nauseating, occasionally delightful, and definitely weird. I love it.
I consider myself a skeptic. I try not to believe anything that isn't supported by commensurate evidence. In my mind, a claim is a sacred thing, something to be carefully considered, not taken for granted or believed for some practical purpose.
Moderation is important, of course, but this is my default outlook. I want to know what's true about the world. Very little is more important to me.
Maintaining credibility is useful, too. I want others to take my views seriously. That might be harder if I had a reputation for believing things that aren't true.
It may be true that everyone is a genius at something. There is someone on Earth who is better than anyone else at small talk. Someone is the world champion of adapting recipes or napping for just the right amount of time.
It can be fun to search for these abilities in others. What are you a prodigy of? Is someone you know expert at something amusing or unimportant? Consider sharing it with me. Don't comment here; comments are intentionally disabled because they are often so counter-productive. Instead, let's have a conversation about it. If we haven't met, you can find my email address on my website.
“Never proclaim yourself a philosopher, nor make much talk among the ignorant about your principles, but show them by actions. Thus, at an entertainment, do not discourse how people ought to eat, but eat as you ought… For sheep do not hastily throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten, but, inwardly digesting their food, they produce it outwardly in wool and milk.”
—The Enchiridion of Epictetus
The irony of this post is not lost on me. This micro-blog exists to communicate my ideas.
At the same time, I've adopted this approach in other contexts, on other topics that are very important to me. Boasting and moral posturing can be satisfying, but they don't achieve much. In some cases, they can even be counter-productive, turning reasonable people away from ideas and causes that we care about. There is a fine line between grandstanding and judging others, and as I've written previously, I don't know anyone who has genuinely changed their mind as a result of being scolded and judged.
It's unfortunate that social media encourages grandstanding when it can be so harmful. Why are we so angry, resentful, and divided? Perhaps we should follow the kudos.
I don't want this micro-blog to come off as holier-than-thou. I am guilty or have been guilty of many of the things I criticize, especially when it comes to social media. I also know that I have blind spots. I just hope that my blind spots are different than the blind spots of others. I want to share my perspective and learn from the perspectives of others.
I'm frequently disappointed that, in general, people don't independently analyze claims. Rather, people join teams and allow those teams to decide for them what is true.
Before leaving Facebook, I ran a little social experiment. I wanted to determine how many people were actually paying attention.
My posts began triumphantly. “I'm so proud to have finally made a dream come true.” The last sentence would likewise contain subtle gloating. Only the sentences in the middle gave it away. “There is no dream. Nothing came true. I just want to know who's reading this.” I included a photo of myself smiling, surrounded by friends, for good measure.
I received a surprising number of likes. Some people congratulated me. Another dirty little secret of social media: many people aren't actually paying attention.
We change what we write based on what garners likes. We change who we are based on what garners likes. What are those likes really worth? Not much, apparently.
As a contrarian minimalist, pack rat tendencies interest me. In particular, I've been thinking about how much time some people spend parting with their possessions.
Getting rid of things is not hard. I could throw all of my belongings in garbage bags or call a company to clear out my apartment. However, it is challenging to decide which material things to keep. It's hard to figure out which items spark joy.
Getting rid of things is not hard. Keeping things is.