On Reading

I love reading. Especially informative articles. Lucky for me, we have been in the very fortunate position that the amount of freely accessible articles has also exploded in the last couple of decades. I can read about anything I like ad nauseum, and stop only when it is time for a snack.

[Re: Snacks, did you know that taking regular healthy snacks is really healthy for you? Especially nuts - eat them and live longer! Or wait, perhaps fasting is best - that's awkward… So what is a healthy snack anyways - low-fat, dairy-free, meat free, sugar free, gluten free? And does an apple a day keep el Doctor away anymore? Why do I feel so confused about this whole thing? O wait, I almost forgot to mention the whole foods plant based diet - it cures cancer apparently, but also apparently not… Let me drink some coffee and go through all the facts again before I decide what's what.]

So, returning to the topic of reading, it seems that I have learnt little about a lot. I have dabbled in all sorts of weird and wonderful things. I have read about how humans might have ancestral ties to pigs, what Paris looked like in the early 1900's, and about living in “tiny houses”. I have also had my fair share of rather mundane topics, most of them anchored in sensationalism (you know, like with that Paraplegic Olympian MURDERER). However, one thing is for certain: this internet thing does keep my brain busy. That is, until I force myself to do some exercise.

[Talking about exercise, you know that you should do cardio exercise regularly. But perhaps going to the gym and balancing the cardio is best. No, wait: most weight exercises isolate muscle groups and that’s bad. What to do - do bodyweight exercises; or Pilates and Yoga. Okay, I also read that running massively long distances might not be that bad? And talking about running, barefoot running is bad for you, no - it’s the best. Okay, running barefoot or not - your joints struggle over time when you run.

Once again - confused.]

Back in the real world, I marvel at the way that we can access a treasure trove of information at virtually any time. You can now, during a bathroom break, read about the correct way to tuck your shirt, or perhaps about Putin’s latest European adventure. Nothing can induce sweeter dreams, right?

[While we’re on the topic, just remember that you NEED at least eight hours of sleep. That’s, like, the oldest rule ever, right? But wait, you're allowed to sleep less? Or you can go full retard and sleep 3 hours per day? Then I am not even going into the mattress debate - soft or hard or no mattress? Really now, this has to end.]

You know what - I am over it. I cannot take it any longer. Reading used to be fun, relaxing, and somewhat informative. Nowadays it is sifting through the “treasure trove” of bullshit and trying to make sense of it all. It just gives me headache. Finding articles which are untainted by “reach for clicks” syndrome (where the website/author do everything to up the chances of you clicking on links to the website) is near impossible. And every day I feel more like a sheep being dictated to by people who want to modify my behaviour, rather than someone who is learning about new things.

Don’t get me wrong. I love debate, and difference of opinion is fantastic (usually because that gives me the opportunity to prove that my opinion is right!). But let’s be honest about this: this system is somewhat broken. Think about it - we all get sucked into reading the same articles/posts and then share the same articles/posts to others. We are reading shorter and shorter articles. And we end up being confused about what is right and what is wrong because of the massive PR battle happening on the internet. If ever I have been reminded that everybody has an agenda, it is now. EVERYBODY wants your attention, because your attention equals money. It’s like Time Square in your pocket, going wherever you go.

I feel torn about the world we live in. It feels like the open, free internet is a double edged sword.

On the one hand we do actually have access to some quality information on the internet. Wikipedia is a great example. It is information by the people for the people. And they get it right most of the time, and as a result, they need to beg for money regularly to keep the ship afloat (what - they don't really need it?).

On the other hand there are websites that have one purpose: let people spend as much time on this site as possible. That’s why the generic “30 most ridiculous facts you never expected about Miley Cyrus. Number 7 is especially good!”-formula is all over the internet nowadays. How can you not click on such a link? It feels human, and number 7 is going to be amazeballs!

It seems like I always come back to this single point when things are seemingly broken: the incentives are just not right. The only money these sites get is from clicks followed to their websites and time spent on them. Even if they honestly cared about what is best for the consumer, the incentive is there to pull you into their world for as long as possible. That’s why Facebook is inherently bad for you - they do everything they possibly can to make you spend more time there than anywhere else. All in the name of “connecting with friends”. LOL.

Where does that leave you and me, the sheeple of the world? Well, I guess there are a couple of surefire ways to still enjoy reading without the negative effects mentioned above (not restricted to confusion, anger, questioning the meaning of your life and death, etc.). Find a news source which produces thoughtful, balanced and thorough writing. This should satiate your requirements to stay up to date with the important things happening in the world.

Then, start reading again. But instead of starting with the newest things first, start with the old stuff. There is so much wisdom that has lasted the ultimate test of time from which we could all benefit. My limited experience has been that older reading material tends to show that modern problems need not be novel - history can be a very useful mentor. This ties in with my post on modernism - all new things need to pass through the filter of time before we know what is noise and what is actually useful. 

[PS Imagine, for example if we all knew about the Roman devaluation of their currency. Perhaps identifying the real reasons for our current international financial woes might be simpler.]

On sleepless nights

Questioning basic assumptions doesn't always need to be too formal. Especially when we do it in our personal lives. If the assumption is as simple as "I need to run with padded running shoes" or "I need a comfortable bed to sleep", testing could actually be insightful without requiring a dissertation.

In the light of this, in early January this year, I decided to see what would happen if I completely removed beds from my (sleeping) life. What's the worst that can happen?

[Note: I had already tested my first assumption mentioned above - I am already on my second pair of Vibram Fivefingers and don't see myself going back to "conventional running shoes" anytime soon]

After some research on bedless living (here, here, and here), I noticed that the idea might not be as silly as I initially thought. Many Japanese folk, given their general lack of space where they live, sleep on Japanese futons (not to be confused with the Americanised versions). The futon is set up every night before they go to sleep, and is packed away every morning. This very minimalistic set-up seems to have many benefits, some of which I will describe later.

I couldn't easily find a Japanese futon supplier in South Africa, so decided to wing it with the items I had handy. First off, I had a padded floor mat, initially bought for a home gym, which functions as a base layer. On top of this I needed another layer which would be more easily cleaned, and which has some extra padding. A yoga mat seemed perfect. Next up would be a washable sheet - a cheap throw from Mr Price looked like it would do the job.

Sounds good on paper, but how did it work out in practice? Well, take a look below:

Photo 1: Yoga mat on top of padded floor. 

Photo 2: Ready to sleep - just add blanket.

In fact, it worked out rather well. It has now been two months since I started sleeping on the floor, and I have a few observations to make:

1. It ain't all that bad. Sleeping on the floor will never be as comfortable as a Sealy Posturepedic with individual foam cells, but I didn't lose much sleep either.
2. The space I freed up in my room was amazing. In fact, that was one of the first things people noticed when they saw my setup. A smallish room now feels like a very spacious spot.
3. The ritual of setting up my bed at night and packing it away in the morning has turned out to be a fantastic. It allows me to "switch off" at night, and "switch on" in the mornings. (Also discussed here)
4. The relative lack of comfort is not an issue at night when I am resting, even though it took a couple of nights to adapt to the harder surface. And, surprisingly, it actually helps in the morning when I need to get out of bed!
5. I had some small issues with straining my back early on, but I'm not sure whether it was due to exercise or sleep. Adding a good back stretch to my daily stretch ritual sorted that out quickly though. I also had to play around with pillow configurations, since that made a big difference in my sleeping "posture".

So, on the whole, this has been a very positive experience! I don't know if this will be a permanent solution to my sleeping habits, or whether I will get bored with it 3 months down the line. The only thing I know is that I have been able to show in a very basic way that a "bed" as we know it is not really a "requirement" for getting good sleep.

With that settled, perhaps I will test a couple of more interesting assumptions next. I have already debunked the requirement of having a gym to exercise, and am steadily weaning myself from social media and non-essential technologies. Maybe a good next step will be going full vegan, and see whether my incessant need for meat is really warranted?

Okay, wait - there is a limit to this stuff.

Some assumptions are not to be messed with!



PS. A complete list of untouchable assumptions is given below:

1. Good steak always increases happiness. Steak-induced happiness increases health.
2. Bacon - ditto. I also don't care that eating pig flesh could be weird in some awkward pseudo cannibalistic way.
3. Bicep curls are the only worthwhile exercise (for men).
4. Prawn cocktail chips and speckled eggs contain all the vital nutrients needed for massive bicep growth - see point 3.
5. This assumption is not testable.
6. Hashtags are a direct link to the underworld. #askEurydice

#END

On ethics

As some you might recall from your tertiary education, the world is all "ethical" nowadays. The professional organisations and academic institutions of the world are all enforcing this wonderful new regimen of right and wrong upon all of the world's young (and sometimes not so young) population.
It is my opinion that the impact of all of these above efforts to inculcate ethics in young adults is trivial.

Why? Well, let's start with some anecdotal evidence: Almost nobody I have known has ever taken any ethics class seriously, whether it be for young accountants, engineers or, heaven forbid, lawyers. In fact, many people found the courses laughable. And it isn't that the lecturers didn't try to make the courses relevant. There are always a bunch of modern case studies accompanying every lecture, "proving" that conflict of interest is wrong, and protecting the rights of the community is good.

But the question still remains: why is this schedule of ethics failing? I guess it comes down to a few of things:

1. Teaching a person Ethics 101 does not an ethical person make (and it is dull).
   
2. The pay-off for being ethical in modern society is currently trumped by the pay-off of being unethical.
   

I don't want to go into each point in too much detail, but some comment is in order. From the first point it is evident that we need some other method of incorporating ethics into our lives and understanding the impact of collective ethical behaviour in our work and personal lives. The second point necessitates the shifting of the goalposts – making it profitable for us to be ethical as a collective, and shunning those who are unethical at the expense of others.

Now, for an interlude. I have always been a staunch believer learning through books is always bested by learning through experience. There might not be much debate about this, but I feel it very important to mention that by making a choice in real life, just to see it backfire, is the best way for anyone to learn. You learn by the whip of life – run like a maniac around the school yard, and you are bound to stub your toe, and cry. If you make a bad decision, there are bad outcomes for you. A good decision allows you to shoot ahead and is profitable. Interlude concluded.

What does this interlude have to do with anything related to ethics? I think it has everything to do with ethics. I believe that it is the answer to most of the problems we have to do with unethical behaviour. The reason is that modern society has managed to instil many disconnects between our decisions and the outcomes of those decisions. These disconnects fool our mind into making bad decisions more often without us knowing the negative outcome until it is too late.

The impact on our personal lives is evident. Example:
Our money is mostly held electronically, which means that there is a disconnect between spending money and intuitively knowing that there is now less to spend (not to mention that humans are hopeless at comprehending the value of numbers higher than 7). This leads to a collective increase in debt, which has the unfortunate long term outcome of people living for the bank. The other side of this coin is that banks actively encourage people to go into debt, since the repayments of debt are, generally-speaking, the main income stream for banks. I am not here to debate the economic value of debt, but the example seems to show that disconnects create situations where one party can benefit at the unfair expense of others.

I am not supposing that we should all move back to having cash under our beds or that we should banish EFT's and banks from society. I am also not saying that it is possible to remove all disconnects either. But what we need is a stronger link between the decisions people/companies/politicians (politicians aren't really people, are they?) make and the negative outcomes they have on others. When a banker makes decisions which harm us, that banker needs to feel the pain from stubbing his toe and cry. The same goes for all of us in positions where we could harm others.

This concept is often called having “skin in the game”. We need this to be a more integral feature of modern society in order for us to encourage ethical behaviour. No amount of teaching and lecturing and idealistic conferences on human rights will change the status quo, unless “skin in the game” is made part of everybody's lives (including politicians and bankers). If this concept is not assimilated into society, the pay-offs for being unethical will never change. And if the pay-offs won't change, simple game theory tells us that it is unlikely that the collective behaviour will change.

A purpose

It is in chance happenings that you can find proverbial "meaning" in life. You could have months and months of normalcy, and a single extraordinary event causes your life to pivot in ways you could never predict. We all know the feeling: you unexpectedly meet an old friend, or an introduction to a quirky person suddenly gives you a fresh perspective in life.

Nassim Taleb calls this type of event a Black Swan - an event which is fundamentally unpredictable, and causes the status quo to change. In his books (which have become very popular), he seems to focus a lot on Black Swans in the "macro" world more than how they impact your personal life. But if you think back on your life, it might now be obvious that it is not defined by little, predictable steps, but rather a series of very defined and unpredictable events.

A review of my life shows that there are a multitude of small events that have had a massive influence on where I am now. Most of these escape my memory but they remain important nonetheless. Had a friend not dragged me to a university dance, I would not have met Michela; had my parents not decided to move to the Western Cape, I would never started surfing... I could go on and on. The point is that each of these events could not have been predicted, and each had a vast impact on my life.

What many people (including younger Machiel) sometimes seem to miss, is that no matter how hard you try, it is not possible to predict much of the future, and that means it's usually futile to even try. We can make predictive judgements on risky behaviour, but most other prediction is fraught with difficulty. The inherent randomness in nature and complex collective behaviour of humans makes it unrealistic for us to plan our good and bad fortune.

What you can rather do, is to expose yourself to good fortune and protect yourself from bad luck. This is what Taleb calls being "antifragile". There are ways of being antifragile in most spheres of life, but is sometimes a counterintuitive way of approaching life. So far, finding ways of being antifragile is a little hit and miss as well, and I have seen how two people approach the same problem with an antifragile mindset and get two exact opposite answers. Luckily, it is quite easy to test which answer is really antifragile, since time should eliminate the weaker answer. (Spot the equivalencies here to gene mutation, social order, and investing strategy?)

So, how do you make your personal life more antifragile and susceptible to positive, unpredictable events? Here's a list of things I recommend every now and again:

• Travel to new places
• Force yourself to do new things
• Talk to strangers at social events
• Read history to learn from others
• Actively expose yourself to adversaries

This list is not extensive, but it is definitely a good start. It also leads to one of the main goals of the blog, which is to document how I practise what I preach, and the impact it has on my life.