The Meaning of Life - Part 0 of a Series

I don't think there is one "Meaning of Life" or one "Right Way to Live Your Life".

But still... There is an order to life. It seems logical that there are a set of ways to live and choices to make that are more optimal than the rest. And for that, it's worth thinking about life and understanding the true import of your choices, their impact on your goals and happiness.

And so, I intend to figure out just what I think about life. I'm going to try to talk it out here.

I reserve the right to edit what I write if, as I go along, I realize that earlier bits don't make sense. Without further ado:

Scope: what will I explore?

1) What things do people commonly cite as sources of happiness and meaning? Why are they sources of happiness and meaning?
2) What are the underlying needs and desires people have?
3) The range of structures of life for people in the 21st century. Their benefits and drawbacks.
4) A review of several philosophers - comparison of their positions on leading a meaningful life. I am particularly interested in reading some Whitehead.
5) A comparison of different combinations of conditions - what will make me happy, what has meaning for me. What are a few feasible trajectories to aim for?

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I am extremely interested in reading this series of posts, and I think that your five questions are an extremely good approximation to the ultimate question, and it is certainly more useful than "what is the answer".

As far as the whole happiness thing is concerned, I think that a major element is just having a goal- any goal. Even if the real point is the path to that goal, a path with no point is nothing more than a labyrinth. But knowing that is not enough, because making up a false goal for yourself does not really work when you are the person that you are trying to fool. I think that the best way to go is to identify a goal- anything- that is worth pursuing, even if it seems hopeless. I kind of feel that way about the start-up that I have pitched to you and your "other". I feel kind of hopeless at this point about actually being able to accomplish it, but I am thoroughly convinced that it is worth accomplishing. It is that fact, that belief and conviction, that is making me a lot happier.

Anyway, this series looks totally fascinating, and I look forward to reading it.

"How to brainwash people into liking you and doing what you want"

So, I was talking to roommate #2 about books that we read for not-english-class. That is to say, books that are classics, that people keep referencing, but that we never read for school. However, in order to feel a part of the culture that surrounds us every day, we finally submitted to peer pressure and read the stupid books. Well, most of them are not stupid, which is why they are consistently referenced in popular culture. Among them: Catch-22, Catcher in the Rye, Crime and Punishment, Of Mice and Men, A Handmaid's Tale, How to make friends and influence people. It is the last one that is really catching my attention. You see, I had always associated that particular book with slimy marketers and wanna-be executives. However, it's predominance in society, and the fact that its declared topic IS, in fact, applicable to essentially every aspect of life, make me give it a shot. Well, a shot that I was originally not going to let anyone else know about for pure shame of actually exposing my brain to such filth, but a shot none-the-less. Speaking of which, I seem to remember someone promising me a reading list...

I have now read the first chapter, and I am convinced that this book is completely awesome, and that every college freshman should read it. Now, how to get them to do so? I suspect that a good number of them would have a similar aversion to what sounds like another useless self-help book telling people how to fix their lives in thirty seconds. Well, it was the original self-help book, and there is a reason the trend took off successfully. Anyway, that does not change the fact that I strongly suspect this book is not widely enough read. I therefore propose the following course of action. I will translate the book into something more entertaining to read the the flowery language it was originally written in. Correction: I will make a satirical companion (just in case I get in trouble for copyright later). I will call it "How to brainwash people into liking you and doing what you want". I will proceed to email this out to the freshmen in my dorm. I am not yet sure if I will email the everyone-else (including friends and alumni) list with it as well, or if I will try to get the school newspaper to syndicate it so that it goes beyond the dorm as well. I kind of like the idea of forcing people to get into contact with a frosh in order to get their hands on it. I also kind of like the idea of trying to get these emails to be a tradition, part of the yearly indoctrination of new frosh, which is unlikely to happen if it spreads too widely on its maiden voyage.

What do you think of this evil plan?

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I think it sounds like a great idea. I was told about that book just before some important interviews last year, and it was quite helpful. Hard to recommend to people though (at least around here) because of the aversion to self-help books, so a translation would be a really good idea.

Pieces of Home

Home is a comfortable place to be. I am feeling rather lazy right now, due to a weekend full of familiar streets, bright sunshine, and good friends.

I am planning to watch the final game of the World Cup tomorrow with more friends. I haven't watched any games yet (though I watched a play-by-play live-blog once) and am rather glad. On the outside, I can remain unattached and unmoved by the game, but if I started watching and rooting for a team, I would probably feel drawn to watch them for the rest of the tournament. I can say "it's just a game" and "why should your country's team win" on the outside, but trying to watch just one game of a tournament is probably similar to trying to watch just one episode of Lost. It's not that I don't have the time this summer, but I want to continue to have the option to spend it any way at all, untied to watching one team or one show. That said, I am looking forward to tomorrow. Chips, homemade salsa, beer, friends, entertainment. What else does one need?

Fitness, Michelle Obama would say. Which brings me to a related conversation I had with friends yesterday. Does the World Cup do anything to combat obesity and general lack-of-fitness in America? How can we leverage a love for inter-group (whether it be country, state, or other) competition into better health?

Some ideas:

Have country-wide games. Here's how it would work: in every country, every person has the opportunity to sign up for a chance to play on a national team. Countries get points for what percentage of their population signs up. Then, teams are randomly chosen. Given all the entrants of a certain age and gender, a team is picked for that contest (say 20-25 year old female soccer). Then, the countries' teams play and there are points for performance in the competition. This would encourage a constant state-of-readiness to play within the country.

Have several Junior Olympics. One for up to age 9, one for 9-12, one for older than that. This would give kids more role models and a more immediate goal to work toward if they thought it would be neat to be an Olympic athlete.

Make fun destinations (theme parks, movie theaters, etc.) which are only accessible via canoe (or other form of exercise). (It might be necessary to have alternate transportation available for those with verifiable physical disabilities). Make these into The Cool Place to hang out. No parents allowed in the movie theater, cheap, etc.

Make the ability to buy tickets to watch athletic contests dependent on scoring a certain number of points in community-level sporting competitions. Points awarded based on participation as well as skill so that you can work up to the necessary level even without natural aptitude or if you don't start out being very fit.

Your ideas?

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So, I have watched two world cup games. The US vrs Algeria (in which a very dramatic goal was scored very closely to the end) and the final. I won't comment so much on the final, because my emotional reaction to that was much more typical of my normal reaction to sports. That is to say there wasn't one. I tend to not-watch spectator sports in large part because I find them fantastically boring. I usually don't find any reason for sports to exist if not to play them. Watching a bunch of strangers play has never really struck a chord. However, I have come to some kind of understanding after watching the US v Algeria game and talking to one of the people in my apartment building whom I shall refer to as "sports guy".

I was persuaded out of my normal routine of ignoring everything to do with sports in order to watch US v Algeria by a guy from work who was trying to be social by inviting a couple of interns out to lunch, during which we would catch the last half of the game. He might have been motivated by the almost-legitimate method of watching a soccer game during the work day than by actually socializing with interns, but it still got me into the sports bar. We talked, we ate, we watched. I found myself genuinely wanting the United States to win. It would mean advancing, playing another game, having our guys be closer to the best in the world. When the Algerians came close to scoring a goal, I was genuinely scared. When we made a shot, I was genuinely excited. Throughout the game, there had been so many attempts that I had gotten used to essentially every shot being blocked by the goalie that when Landon Donovan kicked the ball in the direction of the goal, and it went in that direction, and continued going in that direction, and then went into the goal, I didn't realize the implications for a split second. It did not follow the pattern of the rest of the game, in which no goals were scored. But when it hit home, that the US had essentially won the game, I was thrilled. Take that Alergia! U. S. A! U. S. A! Yes, I used the pronoun "we" in that last sentence, even though I have essentially nothing to do with the success or failure of the US national soccer team. Still, I somehow felt a part of it. When someone tells you that your national pride is riding on something, and there is an entire bar that believes it, it is kind of hard not to get caught up in the moment.

Alright, we will now put that little experience in a little box and move onto another anecdote before I comment on your ideas for translating spectators into players. This anecdote is a case study in a genuine sports fanatic. He lives in the apartment next to my own and was outgoing in an effort to have a less lonely time in a new city in which he did not have any friends, a common situation for the interns living in this building. Anyway, in trying to direct conversation in a direction that would entertain us both, I found the prospect incredibly challenging. He seemed to be interested in nothing but spectator sports, notably the world cup, a topic which I have mentioned before I usually find fantastically boring. I found it next to impossible to direct him to a topic that was at all actually interesting. Instead, he tried to explain to me why anybody would ever enjoy sports. I understood the normal "camaraderie" and "national pride" arguments that have always seemed like extremely artificial arguments to me. You can find camaraderie and national pride in anything that a large group of people decide that they will find camaraderie and national pride in. But there is something about sports that seems to attract this attention, and therefore something about sports specifically that is particularly special. He revealed to me what this special attribute was: skill. He explained that he would never be as good at anything as these national soccer players are at soccer, and by watching his team play, he is a part of something excellent, something beautiful. Being a spectator is of course not as good as being a player, but then again, being "me" is not as good as being "Landon Donovan".

Now that we have these two insights, that it is in fact possible to feel a part of something that you have no right to feel a part of, and that it is particularly attractive to feel a part of something that is patently full of skill and beauty, I will comment on your plans to get spectators more active.

1) Country wide games with random selection. This will reduce the feeling of being a part of something world class. People will notice that the players are less good, and therefore be less interested.

2) Junior Olympics as an intermediate goal. I am not sure that having a Junior Olympics would really provide that much of an intermediate goal that is not already present in after-school sports. I think that a more realistic interpretation for this option would be to present role models for young people that feel alienated from the world of adults.

3) Fun Destinations only accessible through active methods. Sounds extremely awesome. Also extremely expensive. I am not really sure how to comment on this because it just seems really.... unrealistic. If they existed, I would definitely take advantage of them, though.

4) The cost of tickets including some exercise points. I think this is starting to get at the real goal. We want to include physical activity in whatever process that sports spectators participate in. I do think that it is a little formal, that for-profit sports leagues would never require this rule, and that if they did, they would lose a lot of spectators. I therefore propose the following:

A PR campaign. Are you familiar with the many many PR campaigns in which professional athletes go out and tell their fans that they are nothing without their support? That fans are an essential part of a team's success? While it might genuinely help with the psychological aspect of a player's performance, that campaign is really about making spectators feel like a part of the team that they are rooting for, and increasing revenue for the team and league. These PR campaigns consistently work, in large part because you are giving people the chance to eat good food, get drunk, have friends.... and win.... all at the same time and with very little work.

Now, they will probobly be less receptive to a course of action that involves sweat. However, if you are able to get some airtime during one of these commercial breaks during which you can somehow convey that by picking up a soccer ball and kicking it around with some friends, you are helping your team win, or increasing national pride, or SOMETHING Let them be proud of the fact that they are active. Note the requirements: it must be something that you succeed at by virtue of trying, and it must make them feel like they are actually helping their team.

What about a kickathon for soccer, in which a team asks its fans to kick as many balls-on-strings a possible in preparation for a particularly important game? It is a highly repetitive, easily quantifiable way of showing their support and increasing the mental strength of the players that will actually be in the game. Its quantifiability will also provide the statistics that sports fans seem to be so fond of. As long as the formerly couch-only spectators are able to make contact with the ball, they will be helping their team by contributing to that statistic. They will feel more like they have more in common with the world-class-ness of the people they are rooting for. AND they will be more active. If we could get programs like that to take off, if it were possible to watch a sport "well" by participating in a more easy aspect of playing it, then we might be able to motivate spectators to be more active.

-Lyla

It Begins

FIRST!

After almost a month of being "on my own again", i.e. in a city where I know only a few people, I have gotten really frustrated with my inability to walk outside of my sleeping chamber (which I like to call it. 'cause I can) and discover a lounge full of interesting people to talk to. I have been able to compensate for my pitiful lonely existence by integrating myself more heavily into the zephyrsphere, talking to the same people that I would normally be talking to in person in a new format. Well, not necessarily the same people. A different subset of the same superset, how's that? The thing is, even though the people are the same, the kind of connection that we are able to maintain is not.

One thing that causes this is the fact that you are generally limited by the length of a twitter post. Almost. It might not have the strict enforcement that twitter does, but in order to follow the conventional norms of zephyr, one or two sentences is your limit. This generally limits conversations to passing comments or the occasional witty banter, consisting primarily of one-liners. There are no stories. Political discussion is dramatically slowed down. The inflection in a voice, an important part of verbal communication, is lost to the dry formatting of text. Most importantly, the tightly coupled loop of words on the listener's ears and facial expressions on the speaker's eyes is cut off. The loss of these two large bodies of information which are both vital to determining the emotional content of every person involved in a discussion leads to dryer discussions that are more dominated by a person's ability to communicate that which they want other people know rather than a person's ability to read that which their conversational partner cannot or does not wish to hide.

Occasionally, I will talk to someone on the phone, which will at least allow me the information riding on someone's inflection, but that is much less common due to the level of importance that phone calls seem to bear. It is more scary than walking into a room and seeing who is there. A phone call is a very specific "I want to talk to X, and I want to talk to her now." The now is implied by the insistence of the ringer, that will give up after a mere 30 seconds, forcing X to decide between now or never. Moreover, because a phone call is almost always one-to-one, getting a phone call is like being pulled into a corner of a room and having someone whisper to you, excluding everyone else in the room from the intensity of their attention. Zephyr and email manage to get away from this intimidating, pointed formality by allowing people to talk to whomever is listening. Rather than telling Amy about the fact that Shawn's eyes have been dilated, as if she had some special reason to need to know, he can announce it to the world at large, and friends can comment if they can manage to think of some witty response. The inability to include vocal and facial inflection is generally considered a reasonable price to pay for the reduced formality in establishing communication in the first place.

An anomaly that seems to exist in this trend is gchat. Ostensibly, it has neither the benefit of public broadcast, nor the benefit of increased information. However, it manages to allow people to communicate one-to-one without being face-to-face or under very direct motivation for establishing contact. I recently had one such conversation with a a good friend of mine, Kim, and it soon escalated into a full blown... telephone conversation. We had gotten into an actually interesting conversation via text for which I wanted the benefit of verbal communication, and we switched. The topic of this fascinating conversation? Why... this blog, of course.

Rather than talking to the wide internet about our hopes, dreams, and eye examinations, we will talk to each other within hearing of everyone else. If they want to comment, then we would love more conversational partners. However, we decided to guarantee each other at least one. Also pictures. Because pictures are cool. That was Kim's idea.

Every post will come in two parts: body and comment. Lyla and I (Kim) will alternate roles as poster and commentator.

For the duration of this post, I am the commentator. I don't have a picture of a commentator, but this is a commutator.

I see two (non-business) reasons why people try to communicate with far-away friends using the various methods you mention. One is that you care about the people, and want to hear about the ups and downs of their life. The other is because you enjoy talking to them and want to have a good conversation.

For most old friends, I use Facebook to accomplish the first goal. I don’t usually update my own status or upload pictures, but I love to hear about how everyone else is doing. I was starting to feel guilty about enjoying learning about their lives without posting anything for them to read, so recently I’ve been posting more. The process for putting up pictures is much faster than it was when I uploaded albums a few years ago, so maybe I’ll be able to sustain this.

For a handful of close friends, I use the Random Phone Calls method of keeping in touch. This lets me know in more detail, and with the important inflectional cues you mention, how their life is. It also accomplishes the second goal of enjoyable conversation. The Random Phone Calls method is less awkward than you may think. My friends seem to have gotten used to it at any rate. Every 3-12 months I’ll randomly call them to see if it’s a good time to talk. We talk as comfortably as though there had never been any break in conversation and catch each other up on our lives. I challenge you to dig up the phone number of an old friend, say from high school, and call them by Tuesday. Chances are they will be surprised but glad to talk again.

I also recommend trying to meet people through Couchsurfing communities. Through Random Phone Calls, Couchsurfing, and blogging we can perhaps make your existence a little less lonely and your conversations more substantial. Let the blog begin!