Reflections on Aphorisms #21

I may have gone long-form on this one without meaning to, so we’re still at just two aphorisms for today.

If anyone’s reading, feel free to comment on this. I’m always torn on whether people want to read about the interpretation or my life more (not that I’m pushy; it may be that people don’t want to read either, but if people do I’d like to make it as good as I can).

Aphorism 34

Most people write so they can remember things; I write to forget.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, from The Bed of Procrustes

Interpretation

There’s something sublime in the act of writing. It’s the act of making permanent thoughts which are otherwise fleeting. As a result, it can be used for more than just what it appears to do on the surface.

In the field of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung and others write about the importance of words. By putting something into words, it becomes meaningful. Without words, things tend to just disintegrate; Jung describes what he calls a process of psychic disintegration in many of his patients which often stems from an inability to name and deal with problems.

Writing lets people produce meaning around phenomena in the same way that a conversation might. Actually trying to describe something, even if the attempt fails, is a good step in understanding it. It unburdens the mind.

Describing things in writing also provides permanence. Writing down something important allows it to be remembered even if it is forgotten, since whatever has been written can be recovered at a later point.

In an ironic sense, writing to forget makes sense, even though it’s the sort of active contemplation of an idea that tends to help it go from short term into long term memory with a lot of practice and repetition. Despite this, the brain is still a fickle thing, and any piece of information you encounter is more likely to be gone tomorrow as it is to last for the rest of your life.

If you accept the fact that you have limitations, it is best to plan on those limitations coming to fruition. Writing something means that the consequence for forgetting it is gone.

My Life

I am someone who has what could be described as a busy mind. This isn’t a boast about intelligence. Rather, I am always thinking about something. I actually consider this a personality flaw.

I’m often taken by reverie and fantasy. For whatever merits this may bring in terms of creativity and passion, I have felt stark consequences for letting stuff that is important to remember be abandoned for a passing fancy. One of the greatest things about writing is that it helps remove the entirely unnecessary urgency to remember things.

I also credit my increased writing with an ability to sleep better at night. When I was younger, I suffered serious insomnia. I would be awake for hours after I went to bed. After I left college, I never had these issues. I attribute this to the fact that I have written more consistently about the things that have been on my mind.

The last time I had problems sleeping other than due to sickness or outside interference was when I got offered a freelancing gig on one of my favorite games ever by the creator himself, and got cold called to do it, no less. That sort of favorable excitement I do not associate with any disorder.

I think this is because of how much writing I do. There are very few things that go on in my life which do not get analyzed and assessed. My childhood cat and faithful companion for the past decade and change suffered a stroke back in May, and while I miss her I haven’t shed a tear for her after the day she died, and then more so for her suffering than her loss (though there were a couple moments of self-pity, especially right after she had passed).

Likewise, when I left teaching I had a hard emotional time of it, but I was able to move beyond it. I still have a deep longing to return to it, but I also know that my path lies elsewhere for now.

That doesn’t mean that there’s no sorrow, but it never conquers me. There are a lot of factors in that: faith, perspective, stoicism. These are things I’ve consciously developed as a result of my writing and reflections, but the act of writing and reflecting itself is perhaps an even greater factor in overcoming the situations I find myself with. It’s something I didn’t have ten years ago or even five years ago. Just over a year ago I had let myself descend into a slump, and working my way out of it was hard.

Now I don’t enter that slump. I am vigilant against the chance of some new and great trauma coming along to shatter my psyche, but the work I’ve done has strengthened me and bolstered my discipline.

I have written on and off for the last decade or so on whatever catches my fancy. I don’t have a total amount of writing that I’ve done, but I’ve probably written at least five million words over the course of my adult life. A lot of that hasn’t been personal, but an ever-increasing share has been.

That’s been a great way to work through stuff. My paternal grandfather always wanted me to write journals when I was a kid (I mean, he still does), and I never really wrote about my life. I would try and put the things I considered to be the products of mind on paper, but I would never write about my self, because I didn’t have a good concept of the self.

Resolution

Write so that my mind can be free.

Create when it is possible to do so.

Become better at bringing thought to fruition.

Aphorism 35

The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites – day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.

Carl Jung, from Man and His Symbols

Interpretation

The notion of archetypal duality is one that is central to Jung’s work. I don’t think that Jung’s understanding and point is that the universe isexclusively dualistic (e.g. comprised of opposites), though I do not intend to disagree with it. I simply cannot support a notion which I’m not entirely certain of.

I will agree but there are some interesting ways that we perceive the world. I’ve read some of Joseph Campbell’s work in comparative mythology and literature. What I take away from it is that whether or not the universe is truly dualistic in essence, it is definitely comprised of extremes in our minds.

Things tend to fall into one extreme or another because we have a need to come with concrete judgments to any situation we encounter. I don’t know what is the origin of the human tendency. I’ve heard people say that it is survival mechanism and a biological limitation in turn, and truth be told I don’t think it’s significant to ask why this is the case. That is evident should be sufficient as a starting point.

One of the other reasons why we tend to form concrete perceptions rather than appreciating abstract nuance is that it is easier to communicate the simple than the complex.

Not only does our ability to put something into words have an influence in our ability to communicate and perceive it, but there’s also the simple fact that we don’t always have time or skill to deal with more complex topics.

My Life

I’m generally a devotee of Jung’s, and while I do not necessarily agree with everything he says I think he is correct more often than he is not correct. This is, I believe, generally a good measure of whether or not someone is worth listening to. I don’t expect perfection from people: rather, I would be surprised by it.

Looking back on the earlier years of my life, I can see a conflict within myself which I was unaware of at the time.

I don’t think I ever had anything quite as intense as humans internal conflict, which he details in his autobiographical work Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Amazon affiliate link; I am currently listening to the Audible audiobook, and I am as enraptured by it as I tend to get when reading or listening to a great book). However, I can now see in myself a great deal of confusion over the way that I had wanted to live.

I grew up religious. Unlike Jung, whose father had doubts about his faith despite being a member of the clergy, I felt that everyone else had stronger experiences than I had, while my own were relatively weak.

This was a sort of irrational fear, because I have always been deeply spiritual. However, while most people associate the spiritual feelings with a sense of chaos (in the sense that chaos is the great unknown), but I always had a sense of comfortable order from them. My early awareness of God was that of everything being in its place, something which was perhaps even not God but rather an idealized notion of God (insomuch as something great can be idealized as something good, because my more mature understanding of the sublime nature of God is much more meaningful to me).

It was only later as an adult that further experiences would shape me. When I was in college, I had a mentor teacher who was unsupportive and actively hostile to me. She filed complaints against me (which I maintain were mostly undeserved) which led to me nearly having to change my degree program and endangering my ability to go on to teach. I have written about this before in more detail, and the recollection is painful to me, only a little, so I will not give an account of it in great detail here.

At this point in my life, I had known relatively little chaos. There were some small family matters that caused me some minor distress, but the worst of these was nothing that would be considered unusual or traumatic. In fact, my family life was probably peculiarly stable, owing to the prudence and good judgment of both my parents. My father’s work was sometimes unsteady, mostly due to the companies he worked for, but we were never financially ruined due to his foresight and dedication; one of the greatest fears in my life is that I will not grow to appreciate my abilities in the same way he underestimates his own.

The experience with my first attempt student teaching changed the way that I viewed the world. I had already had the inklings of some notional chaos from the periods where my father was between jobs, but it was only with my own personal chaos behind me that I realized that there is going to always be part of the world that I cannot control.

I had failed previously in various things, but they were all relatively minor. None of them posed any threat to my future. And it so was that I had my first encounter with what Jung would describe as archetypal chaos.

It is difficult to explain exactly how the event changed my life. I wouldn’t use the term bitterness to describe how I felt, but cynicism sounds too mundane. For a while, I slipped into what one could call a depression. It is worth noting the difference between clinical depression and depression as an emotional state, just that the two are not aligned (namely, it is easier to exit the latter), despite their similarities. The state that I was in (with maladies consisting primarily of sleep and appetite disruptions) was entirely psychogenic, a consequence of entering a state of purposelessness.

I did not appreciate this for what it was, or grasp that I had entered into archetypal chaos unprepared, and it had very nearly destroyed me. Fortunately, I was surrounded by people who supported and cared for me, and with the help of friends, family, and members of my church I was able to get back on my feat.

I returned to school, got a part-time job as a game designer, and by the end of the year I was more or less entirely back to normal. I had a great mentor teacher in a great placement to finish my student teaching, and even had time to work independently on my own games–I had to leave the game designer gig in the fall because of my student teaching, but I could always write a few hundred words in the morning or evening.

When I graduated with my degree, I had found myself back in the realm of order. In this world, good and evil is clear. Everything is clearly defined, and you know your place. I was relieved.

Then the search for a teaching job came. Since I graduated in December, pickings were slim even with a teacher shortage. My experience has had made me more selective in the jobs that I was going to take, perhaps due to an aversion to dealing with uncertainty. I was not in a hurry to test my skills again.

I had also finished work on my first big solo game. I did not expect to make money off of it, so I was not disappointed when it made pretty much no money at all. It was a passion project. However, on the day that I announced its release to my family with some pride (it had exceeded my low expectations, though not by much), my father made a remark but I do not recall precisely, but which questioned whether I would ever move out of my parents’ home.

At this time, I had never planned to make any real money to sign in games. I didn’t care to work with studios, I think this was a hold-over from some of my prior experiences that year, both in terms of my newfound disdain for uncertainty and the fact that the games that I had worked on before going solo had fizzled out before publication or even testing, despite receiving good feedback.

I developed something of a complex about criticism–or perhaps about negative feedback in any sense.

During my first year teaching, we administered assessment tests which showed us real time progress for students. I was not aware that the preview of students levels assumed that they would miss everything they had not completed, and about halfway through testing I looked at the feedback on the computer.

All or most of my students were failing in every class. I have never had an experience quite as harrowing as that, if only because of the abrupt nature of the experience. These tests were used to assess us teachers as much as the students.

In the end, the students did fine, but this instance is typical of my responses during my first couple years teaching to any chance of failure.

I think this ties back into Jung’s point because the reason that this distress occurred to me was that I was met with uncertainty.

I did not yet have the confidence in myself to accept my own definition of success. This led to me being in the no man’s land between two concrete notions of success and failure. It’s worth noting that success and failure have never been truly divorced from the notion of good and evil. As much as we have made progress in assuming that those who suffer do not suffer because of wickedness and those who succeed do not succeed because of virtue, we do not accept randomness in our own lives.

The failure to see that these dichotomies have middle points and that they are constantly in motion was a cause of persistent angst for me. In that sense I think that the idea that Jung has left out of this statement is that the mutually exclusive dualism of many parts of life is not as mutually exclusive as the term “inexorable opposite” would imply.

Resolution

Pay attention to the dynamics of things.

Never forget that things are in motion and must be kept on top of.

Don’t be afraid of the unknown, harness it.

Reflections on Aphorisms #9

Today I’ve just got one aphorism to discuss, and it’s not one that I took from a book of aphorisms.

It’s Virgil’s old time-honored quote “Omnia vincit amor” (Love conquers all) that has been on my mind recently (the sixteenth aphorism, by my count, that I will give my treatment to).

Interpretation

I went back and read the context of this one, in part because it’s important to make sure that you get the feel for the right kind of love that’s being discussed when you’re translating from classical languages.

In this case, Virgil’s talking about love in sort of the common English sense: romantic entanglement, mostly.

Whenever I hear a lot of discussion of love, my thoughts go to Corinthians and its breakdown of love, but Virgil here is talking about something distinct from what the Apostle Paul was talking about.

In this case, it’s talking about romantic love, but also about passion, and making a rather bold statement.

Now, I think there’s two ways to interpret this:

  1. This is bluster of the sort that lovers engage in.
  2. This is a philosophical statement about the world.

From the context, it almost seems like this is more the former than the latter. However, in a sort of Chesterton-choosing-to-enjoy-the-fine-things-of-life manner I think it’s also philosophical.

Omnia vincit amor could be viewed almost in a way as a sort of carpe diem, the notion that passion should be respected and followed rather than just suppressed.

My Life

I’m a life-long bachelor. It’s not that I’ve never contemplated having a romantic relationship, it’s just that I’m not hugely invested in getting into one.

I’m getting older, though, and I’m being forced to realize that I’m not necessarily on the path I want to be on forever. Especially as I look within myself I realize that I’m somewhat of a self-absorbed person, not in the sense that I’m necessarily vain and petty, since I am quite conscientious in most ways, but that I like to sort of plan around me and not necessarily other people.

And I often feel quite bad about that and get self-conscious about it, which is a sort of natural consequence. I’m capable of empathy and whatnot, I’m just very introverted and if I weren’t sort of naturally sensitive I’m sure I’d be a huge pain in the butt to be around (as it stands I’m usually able to avoid harming anyone’s feelings because I’m so soft, unless I get riled up).

All absolutes suck.

It’s a rule.

They’ll never account for everything.

As such, I don’t think I agree with Virgil’s statement. People are powerful, and passion can lead them to great things, but love isn’t some metaphysical guiding force.

However, I long for the state of mind in which I could agree with Virgil.

Resolution

Don’t suppress passion.

Seek meaning outside myself.

Open my shell.

Reflections on Aphorisms #8

Just one today, but it’s one that I can write about a fair deal.

Aphorism 15

To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, from The Bed Of Procrustes

Interpretation

I don’t think this is meant to be taken in a strictly literal sense, though it might not be the end of the world to do so.

I think it has to do with understanding value.

If you value things that are related to activity, you will live a life of activity.

This is not bad. Actions prove ideals.

However, ideals cannot flow from actions (or, perhaps it is better to say: ideals that are good do not typically flow from action).

By pursuing action rather than ideal, you put the cart before the horse.

Philosophers devote intentional time and effort to deliberate thought, and they are willing to invest the time to do so. That’s time spent reading and reflecting, time spent ruminating on concepts.

If you want to become a philosopher, taking a more passive approach is good. You don’t observe when you are obsessed with the change you want to bring.

My Life

I was (briefly) nicknamed “The Terminator” in high school because I have a tendency to power-walk, a trait which, when combined with a trench coat, led to the nickname. I also tended to be fairly expressionless because I was lost in thought most of the time, but I don’t think that was the origin.

The fact that I am a mostly harmless nerdy kid probably contributed to the end of the nickname, since the only way that anyone was in danger because of my actions was myself on account of poor diet (I wasn’t fantastically overweight, but the only way my diet could have been considered balanced would have been if I held it funny).

In any case, I hope that this does not disqualify me from being a philosopher. I still have a tendency to be ruthlessly efficient, and I try to avoid navel-gazing over everyday events.

Of course, the reason why I do this is because I know that I have the counter-part to it in me. I have the Millenial fixation with losing sleep over something that happened over a decade ago (like basically anything I did in middle school which I can still remember; embarrassment seems to be a strong driver of memory, which I should know from reading so much psych), and I have to work hard to not spend too much time looking into an infinite void of potential and doubt.

In any case, I think I definitely need to consider slowing down a little, not necessarily in terms of work but in terms of other things. I’ve noticed that I’m afraid of being bored, and I’m not sure that’s a way I want to be.

Resolution

Be willing to commit to quiet.

If my cat were still around, I’d spend time cuddling her. As is, a quiet cup of tea may have to suffice.

Cut out noise, find signal.

Reflections on Aphorisms #3

Just one aphorism today, because one of the ones I looked over I couldn’t really come up with a good response to. Feel free to check out yesterday’s reflections.

Aphorism 4

“Self is the Gorgon. Vanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives. Pride studies it for itself and is turned to stone.”

G.K. Chesterton, from the Viking Book of Aphorisms

Interpretation

I don’t think it’s really necessary to bring my own thoughts to this matter. I’ve read a couple things by Chesterton; the one that I remember best is Heresy (Amazon affiliate link; free!), which is not actually a matter of Christian theology but rather what one could call reactionary social commentary, although that makes it out to be more negative than it is.

I think there’s actually something to be drawn from the context of Chesterton’s work here: the love of the self is the root of vanity, and if you really love yourself (in an improper fashion) you can wind up forgetting your flaws.

This is why people make poor, over-reaching decisions that wind up becoming regrets for them without considering the fact that their efforts could go to ruin.

My Life

I’m sort of in a fortunate middle ground here. I at least profess some moderate view of myself, and I think that I’m fairly good at seeing myself humbly, but I have also heard others say things to me about myself that seem more positive than might be accurate.

I’ve traded my safe, reliable life for one of risk, but one which also bears more chance for self-advancement and more chances at exceptional success. I believe the current level of risk to be quite low, but it depends on me pushing myself to be something more than average–perhaps even much more than average–so I’d better whip myself into shape and keep going toward that.

I think there’s also a call for humility here. You don’t want to elevate yourself above others. There’s a grounding in humanity that you need to remember. Because I manage to make my dreams come true and someone else lacks the drive, capacity, or fortune to do the same does not make me superior, except in the sense that I may be happier than they. Likewise, I may even be less happy than someone who appears less successful than I, because the way that I measure success is deeply personal.

Resolution

Keep my head out of the clouds (preferably under them, except when contemplating the divine).

Remember that even if I turn myself into someone who is uniquely exceptional, I may not be uniquely superior.

Never lose sight of my own weaknesses. Even as I strive for improvement, I am sure to always find new flaws in myself.

Reflections on Aphorisms #2

I’ve made a resolution to start examining aphorisms on a daily basis, and here’s the second day of that. You can read the first day’s reflections here, and I’ll keep them coming for at least a while.

As always, I like to have a format, as follows:

  1. Aphorism
  2. Interpretation
  3. My Life
  4. Resolution

In addition to Taleb’s work, I’m breaking out an old copy of the Viking Book of Aphorisms, edited by W.H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger that was published through Barnes and Noble in 1993. My best friend got it for me when we were both in college, and I’ve never really given it as much attention as I should have. As far as I can tell, this (affiliate link) is the closet offering on Amazon for a similar edition. In any case, I don’t think that most of the aphorisms contained within would be impossible to find elsewhere, but it’s a pretty decent volume.

I’m also continuing the numbering across sessions, so keep that in mind.

Aphorism 2

You cannot express the holy in terms made for the profane, but you can discuss the profane in terms made for the holy.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes (Amazon affiliate link)

Interpretation

I think that this is generally a pretty straightforward quote, but there’s something that I’ve heard that is interesting.

The term “holy” in its more traditional religious sense refers to something which is set apart and dedicated to God.

Profane, on the other hand, is sort of an antithesis of holiness. The Bible describes figures like Esau and Lot as profane. It isn’t even so much that they are wicked in their hearts (though that can be a consequence) as that they don’t take the necessary steps to set themselves apart from the world and can therefore be corrupted by it.

I think there’s something to be said for our society in this; I recall being in a college level class where in the course of a discussion the concept of sin came up, and there was actually at least one person who didn’t even know what the word meant.

If you don’t pursue the holy, you can’t find it. It’s not something that comes by accident: even if you are inspired to suddenly become holy, the inspiration requires following action to be brought to fruition.

My Life

I’m not sure how precisely this fits to my life. I don’t tend to swear very often; I don’t think there’s a single expletive in my entire published work, which because I write obsessively and without thought of reward has swollen to quite an amount. Some of that’s growing up in a Holiness tradition, where we simply weren’t allowed to cuss (though minced oaths were tolerated by some of the less strict families), and some of that’s just personal preference.

However, I think that there’s a deeper meaning to this than just spoken and written language. Language is a catch-all for consciousness. We might be able to have consciousness without language (I’m not enough of a brain scholar to make authoritative statements on the matter), but they are strongly correlated together where both exist simultaneously and are inextricable from each other.

If you don’t intentionally contemplate the holy, you will be stuck with just the profane.

Resolution

Consider my words carefully, choose things that build up the divine spirit in myself and others.

Spend time contemplating holiness, cultivating it deliberately within my life through thought, word, and deed.

Guard my mind against the influences of the world where they might corrupt my purpose and vision, and my relationship with God.

Aphorism 3

The essential matter of history is not what happened but what people thought or said about it.

Frederick William Maitland, from the Viking Book of Aphorisms

Interpretation

Maitland lived in the late 1800’s and very early 1900’s, but this saying seems like something out of the zeitgeist of more contemporary society.

While I’m interested in seeing the context, the point of analyzing an aphorism is to free-associate, so I’m going to hazard being wrong on Maitland’s intent and go on my own bent here.

There’s an expression that history is written by victors (which may be overrated in its own right), but I think that there is an defense to be made about the dissociation between history and fact.

I’m not any sort of conspiracy theorist who states that the fundamental outline of history books is incorrect, but I’m also enough of a historian myself to know that history is something which is made by filling in gaps. We live in a day and age when information is essentially free and unlimited, and so much is preserved that it seems unlikely that there will be many mysterious events in fifty years unless people want to keep them mysterious deliberately.

If you travel back five hundred years you find yourself in a place where it’s not possible to preserve and store information for posterity. How people fill in the dots is a key part of figuring out what really happened, but the truth of the matter is that there isn’t all that much that we can do.

Our histories are a reflection of our beliefs; both in a “we are driven into perceiving certain patterns by the very nature of our consciousness and experiences” sense and a “we see things the way we want to because we want to” sense.

History in this sense is a mixture between attempting to gather facts and figuring out the narrative you wish to create from them, and it makes for interesting events.

My Life

I have often thought about the persistence of memory and the way that my own self-concept has changed. This past week has been one of incredible change for me, and it’s one that has shook me to my foundations. I’ve made decisions about who I want to be, and I’ve cast my fate to the stars, to speak poetically (don’t worry, Mom, I’m not into astrology), and actually taken concrete steps toward them despite my historical risk aversion.

The point being that my own recognition of my own existence is driven by the current moment, not the facts of the past. Some big things are inescapable, or at least would have large consequences for ignoring them (see: bank accounts, rent checks), and they occupy a lot of my mental energy.

However, I’m sure there are thousands of little things that I’ve never thought of when making decisions. Today on my commute I thought of a game I made back in my freshman year of college (or maybe the summer before or after), and I realized that I’ve probably started two dozen independent game projects over the course of my life.

Even in this moment, as a historian of myself, there are things that escape me.

Part of me blogging like this is an effort to be that historian of myself, at least inasmuch as I feel comfortable doing so for the whole world (and I’m a believer in radical openness, so that’s most things that don’t influence the privacy of others).

Resolution

Consider my own life as something which I am witnessing from a subjective perspective.

Work to reduce the differences between my self-perception and my own past by taking stock of what I’ve done with my life.

Think about how I can move toward important events in my life.

Reflections on Aphorisms #1

A while back I picked up Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Bed of Procrustes (affiliate link), which is a collection of “political and practical aphorisms” that I intend to work through slowly.

I’ve been listening to the other books in the Incerto series in audiobook format, but I’ve opted to go for a more traditional Kindle read of the book, because aphorisms tend to be dense in information and I want to digest them slowly, not listen to them rapid-fire.

There’s also something to be said for this being a conversation. I’m not the only source of wisdom here, so if you have something to add feel free to leave a comment and I’ll check it out. Part of Taleb’s whole point is humility, and humility begins for me with accepting that I might miss or be in error during central parts of my interpretation.

Also, I’m not so naive and self-involved as to think that this is tremendously important, but it might be interesting. I’m treating this kind of like Marcus Aurelius’ reflections, though I am not necessarily a Marcus Aurelius myself. I merely publish them because part of living unafraid is leaving nothing of yourself secret.

I’m going to start with just a single aphorism today, but I’m going to establish a sort of simple formula for these: the aphorism itself, my own take on what it means, how I think it has or hasn’t been applying in my life, and an action to take.

So, without further ado, the first aphorism of the series:

Success is becoming in middle adulthood what you dreamed to be in late childhood. “The rest comes from loss of control.”

Interpretation

I think that one of the interesting things here is how it’s somewhat vague. We all seem to have a sense on what being “middle aged” is, but middle adulthood could mean other things. Likewise, late childhood reflects a sort of ambiguous state: if we consider people young adults once they’ve started steps toward their vocation, this could actually have quite an age range (14-26, or maybe even older), but I think here that Taleb’s sort of referring to the age in which one is not yet responsible for themselves but is beginning to be capable of looking out for themselves, the independent age when most people start to get jobs or take up serious hobbies and academic studies beyond what their parents or society require.

Middle adulthood is also an interesting concept, and I think that there’s a good definition of this as the age at which you’ve “settled down” and acquired responsibility. This could probably take the form of settling down with a family for most people. I’m sure that one could add additional criteria ad infinitum if they wanted to, so I won’t. I don’t think that this is necessarily a numerical age so much as a particular stage of life, and is therefore dependent on all sorts of things.

My Life

I’m honestly not sure where to put this in my life.

I’m a game-designer, but I’m not doing it with my all. I’m also writing books, which I should maybe eventually finish (Bad Kyle, bad! Get back to work!) but which are bringing me joy.

When I was a kid in 8th grade, I wanted to be a game designer. I think I even dressed up as Richard Garriott on career day, even though I don’t know that I’ve ever played any of his games seriously. I remember this because in the sort of thing that teachers write to their students, my teacher wrote that she couldn’t wait for her kids to play a game that I made.

Throughout high-school, I definitely wanted to become either a game designer or a writer (I remember sketching out designs for a game that became Orchestra that became Street Rats on the back of a senior-year math test), and although I was originally planning to go into pharmacy it was more of a financial decision than a life-goal decision.

Now, in practice, I think I’m decently successful as a game designer in the sense that I’ve been growing and pushing myself, but I haven’t made a living at it yet. I’m definitely not at a point where that’s financially feasible.

But there’s an interesting thing here with the final sentence: “The rest comes from lack of control.”

I think that there’s maybe some of that in my life. I’m something of a lay Stoic. I assume, based on my limited success which seems to exceed that of other amateur writers/game designers, that I have some ability and affinity for the practice, but I definitely can be held back by my wasting of time and my current difficulties with sticking to my projects.

Resolution

Spend more time, more consistently, moving toward my goals.

Consider what elements of my life are disordered and lack control: figure out if it is possible to bring them under control or if the chaos is something that can be excised entirely.

Engage in behavior that is in alignment with me making my goals something more feasible. If I cannot make a living as a game designer and writer, I need to figure out a profession that interferes with that as minimally as possible, or which offers me the same satisfaction of being able to create and bring to life.

Review and Reflection: Skin in the Game

I listened to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile: Things that Grow from Disorder a while back (you can find my write-up about it here) and found it to be tremendous, so I got Skin in the Game on Audible (it seemed to be the next-closest thing to my interests).

Continue reading “Review and Reflection: Skin in the Game”

Review and Reflection: Antifragile

I listened to the book Antifragile (affiliate link) last week, and it has some really interesting lessons. Although the author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, might be classified in some ways as an economist (though not in the traditional sense–he writes about the economy but he rejects the notion of it as a field to be studied–classifying him as simply a scholar is probably the best definition), he applies his theory of antifragility to more than just one discipline.

One of the big takeaways I got from the book is a very different way of viewing risk.

The antifragile approach is to identify things that thrive under change. Obviously, change may still cause problems for these if it is a large negative change, but such things tend to change for the better under the sorts of changes that are common and not generally catastrophic.

When combined with robust things, which can persevere through change, the antifragile becomes highly valuable.

I am afraid, however, that much of the greater wisdom of the book is lost on me. This is not to say that I learned nothing, but rather that there are depths that I have not been able to explore.

Part of the reason for this is simple: the book is complex and broad, and while it uses anecdotes and common sense to great effect it also is willing to move very quickly. It is challenging, and for this reason I intend to return to it again at a later date.

However, even with the partial knowledge that I have gained of Taleb’s ideas, there are still many great lessons to be drawn from the book. One of them is to consider carefully actions. Many of Taleb’s assertions are nothing particularly controversial, but when viewed in total, Antifragile becomes a sort of philosophical treatise against thinking that you are more clever than you are.

To use an example, Talib cites traders on the stock market who have no formal economic training, but who make incredibly good decisions. Of course, for every success there are failures, but Taleb notes that there are common trends in these successful traders that would cause economists to tear their hair out.

They overwhelmingly use heuristics, rather than more complicated methods of coming to decisions. This means that rather than using abstract theories, they make decisions based on gut instinct.

This is perhaps more important outside the field of stock trading.

Heuristics, going with available information but not seeking to over rationalize it. Taleb shows through various examples that heuristics can be as useful as complicated theories. For starters, they are much more easy to adjust.

When a theory is wrong, it is easy to rationalize the reason for its failure, to blame problems on unconsidered external factors. This allows the shifting of blame away from the people who make the decisions and toward abstract theories. A person can avoid responsibility, and the theory need not necessarily be abandoned, because it can still be dressed up in new clothes and given a new name. If they made a decision that will cause consequences for others, they only pay the price if they had put their money where their mouth is.

On the other hand, by going and blaming theories, someone who makes foolish decisions can they restore their credibility by attaching themselves to a different school of thought, often not even so much a different school of thought as a rebranded version of the same foolishness.

Taleb is brutally honest. He is also brave enough to make enemies, since he openly names people who he believes to be guilty of infractions against good ethics. Where his skepticism may initially be perceived to cloud his judgment, it quickly becomes clear that his skepticism is based off of experience.

I find it difficult to call Taleb’s work full of wisdom. This is not because of absence of good ideas, but rather because it seems to contain something almost different than wisdom itself. It would definitely warrant the title of philosophical. Rather than simply call the notion that Taleb’s work pursues wisdom, I would call it meta-wisdom. It looks at patterns to determine how wisdom can be found and applied in many different ways.

An example of this is Taleb’s distaste for intervention in fundamental affairs (for instance, using gym machines when more natural workouts are available). While some intervention is praised (vaccines, for instance, are great in Taleb’s eyes), others are derided (an unnecessary surgery carries risks beyond just financial cost).

The fundamental notion of antifragility is this: find things in which loss is limited, but potential gain is not.

Another key notion of determining fragility is to look for places where people gain antifragility at the expense of others: bureaucrats who keep their jobs even if the systems they control fail, and indeed go back to ask for more money to overcome the difficulties their idiocy caused are a major target of Taleb’s ire.

Of all the books I’ve gotten into so far this year, none has inspired me quite so much as Taleb in a sense that I think I can apply his teachings to daily life. He cites Montaigne, who is probably my other top writer I’ve read this year (go figure), and has a sort of similar wisdom and methodology.

I don’t have the time and experience to make a categorical statement about whether all of Taleb’s ideas work, but his work was recommended to me by someone whose intellect and savvy I respect, and the read or listen is itself enjoyable. The Audible audiobook I have is read by Joe Ochmann, and I’d say that it’s pretty well-done.

I’ve picked up his book Skin in the Game (affiliate link) on Audible as well, so expect to see a review and reflection on it once I’ve finished it in a few weeks.

My current listening material is Age of Ambition (affiliate link) by Evan Osnos, which I’m enjoying, and Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections (affiliate link). I’m reading through Montaigne’s essays, as well, though I’ve had less time to just read of late.

Reflections on Montaigne: Part 1

I have been loosely interested in the works of Montaigne for a while (i.e. I knew of his name), but I was not yet ready to read them for myself; I just hadn’t worked up the interest and have a lot of other stuff on my reading list.

Continue reading “Reflections on Montaigne: Part 1”

On Being Everything

Recently, I have been reading Montaigne.

The full ramifications of this have yet to be seen; he is an interesting figure, and his writings are even more so, full of anecdotes and ramblings. His works are deep and profound, but they’re also shallow and lighthearted. Simultaneously with contradicting himself, Montaigne seems to be right about everything, which is infuriating.

I have also been working on the aspirational identification of myself with the heroic individual; I feel that this is a necessary step for me to improve my own life and the world.

Undergoing this process is something that is painful, often difficult, and also requires equally painful and difficult soul-searching.

One thing that I will do is consider maxims and then decide whether they are true or not. I try to come up with these as creatively as possible, or use what I read as an inspiration.

Today, one of these maxims popped into my head, and it was rather troubling for me:

I am everything in the universe.

Now, I don’t know how much I trust the random thoughts that pop into my head. In fact, I actually trust them very little. My brain is very good at free association and wandering aimlessly and without purpose. Most of the maxims I try to apply to myself are true only in part, which is perhaps the fundamental element of the human condition.

In any case, to the extent that the above statement is true, I don’t believe that it is necessarily a positive. At least, I do not interpret it in a sort of heliocentric egoism.

Rather, I think there is something to be said for the human spirit as a tabula rasa. Not necessarily in Rousseau’s noble savage conception of it, but rather in the sense that a person undeveloped can turn into anything.

I grew up in a traditional Christian upbringing, though I was not really acquainted as closely with theological traditions until I became older.

Two important traditions within Christianity, or at least the sect of Christianity that I find myself within, are those of original sin and total depravity.

Pairing this with the seemingly blasphemous maxim that popped into my head, it becomes immediately apparent that there are limitations to this, but it holds some truth.

This gives birth to a truer maxim, one which is more measured:

I am capable of becoming everything within my limitations.

The problem with this is that it is not necessarily a positive statement.

I’ve read a fair deal of Jung, though not as much as I would like. One of Jung’s most influential concepts in my life is that of the Shadow, the darker inner side of the subconscious that is hidden from our waking life.

In my life, I have the luxury of being relatively moral. I have made, generally, decisions which I can look back upon with at least a veneer of respectability, though I would say that I have made decisions that have generally benefited the world. I might be barely breaking even, all things considered, but I am at least not dragging everything down.

But I could be.

When I was a young adult, I had my first experience with holding a gun. My mother had paid for my brother and I to go to a firing range (I do not remember the circumstances that led up to this), and we had a rental lined up.

I remember relatively few of the details; I was able to piece many of them together later from the benefit of reflection, but they are not as important as the general experience.

When holding that gun, I had the realization that the power of life and death was in my hands. Perhaps, it would be appropriate to point out, it was only the power of death in my hands.

Barring my initial anxiety–my knowledge of guns came only from the movies, and while we had gone through the basic safety guidelines my brother and I were left to our own devices on the range–the event passed without incident. I was not a good shot, and remain mediocre at best to this day despite a few more trips to the range, but the sensation was familiar.

A similar sensation washes over me when I drive a car, a knowledge that I have within my capacity a great deal of harm.

For a while, I lived in terror of this feeling. I could not put it in words, but my own danger, that is, the danger I posed to the world around me, scared me.

The result was internal conflict. In the Jungian sense, I had awoken a dragon within my Shadow, but I had not figured out how to confront it.

Later, when I was reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life (affiliate link), I would discover that this is a common ailment.

I had not considered the fact that everything resides inside me.

This is not to be interpreted as a manifestation of hubris, because the everything within is not manifest in a complex form. Rather, it is as if the elemental motives that make up reality, matter in the sense that the things that matter are matter, all exist within me. They are latent, but awaken in tune with my spirit.

To overcome the dissonance within my psyche, I had to reach the realization that I was not just a good person. The notion of a good person is so vague by definition that it is easy for us to categorize ourselves as such. I often witness children ask if they have been good or bad, as if seeking exculpation. The truth of the matter is that nobody can make that assessment on a reasoned basis. The complexities of reality are such that judgment to the point of condemnation (though not judgment to the point of discernment) is impossible.

The truth is more complex. As I mentioned earlier, I have begun to better envision what a “good person” is; I have begun a process of alignment with the heroic individual who embodies those virtues that I wish to embody.

The counterpart to that is recognizing that there is a fraud, a war criminal, a traitor in every heart. Each step taken toward virtue means a step taken away from blind convention. Peterson would describe this as going from order to chaos, and this is a good conceptualization of the process.

There’s a Nietzsche-like element to the process. Stepping away from habit and toward a place where one can develop virtue also leaves one prone to stepping into darkness. The pursuit of light does not come without a risk of hypocrisy, of bringing the wrong elements of the self into dominance.

This is the Jungian Shadow: you are sheltered from your weaknesses by sticking to the rut, but to move beyond you must confront the worst elements of yourself and risk disaster.

The dragon I had to fight–the adversary I am still facing–is that the potential for great disaster lies within my own self, within my best intentions and the potential for me to give into baser desires.

I am everything in the universe, in its basest form, and that’s not as good as it might seem. I strive to inflect myself in such a way that I develop into the ideal; to pick up my cross and follow the righteous path.