Monthly Archives: September 2009

Why I Travel

Posted inTravel21 Comments on Why I Travel

I travel because traveling makes me less afraid of the world. Drop me anywhere in the world, and I’ll survive. (Cue Destiny’s Child, now.) I may not speak the language or know another soul, but I’ll survive. This drop-me-anywhere confidence confers meaningful psychic comfort.

I travel because it makes me less racist. Racism is something we have to un-learn.

I travel because it introduces randomness of the most intense degree.

I travel because I enjoy the cultural exchange. Sharing the best of American culture (peanut butter, hamburgers, individualism, and entrepreneurship) while appreciating the non-obvious intricacies of other milieus, such as pandas in China, drug dealers in Colombia, and beer in Czech Republic.

I travel because travel enriches my internal mental stream. I think more original thoughts when I’m traveling, I think more critically about where I am, what I’m doing. My memory comes alive in interesting ways. In Beijing the other day I stared out at a huge lake and mountains and the scene reminded me of standing at a cliff on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. I couldn’t quite recall the Alaskan memory, but the connection was felt, and a tremendous stream of thoughts followed. Alain de Bottom: “Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts requiring large views, news thoughts new places. Instrospective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape.”

I travel to force myself to live in the real world as opposed to in head-land. Familiar territory dulls my antenna to the world. When I go to my gym in San Francisco, I am unobservant. I’ve done the walk so many times, down the same street so many times, that I mostly stare at the sidewalk and live within myself. When I’m in a new place I have to pay attention to the street signs, and thus to everything else.

I travel abroad to remember why I love my country. I travel within my country to remember that while founded on perfect ideals it remains an imperfect place.

I travel to be anonymous. Abroad, I am not “Ben.” In China I am a foreign devil. In Latin America I am a gringo. In Europe I am, apparently, just another tall blond German. In Ukraine I am an unmarried American penis with the power to marry and immigrate my spouse. My individuality is subsumed by a group label and the associated stereotypes, and that is, in small doses, oddly liberating.

I travel not because it makes me happy in the moment — in fact, many moments are uncomfortable and stressful as they’re experienced — but because it makes me happy afterwards. I’m happy when recalling memories, embellishing and sharing stories, and reading articles in the newspaper and being able to say to myself, “I’ve been there.” Buying new experiences makes you happy; buying more things generally does not. (Why oh why do wealthy older people keep buying things instead of experiences?)

I travel so I don’t regret not traveling when I’m older. And this is one of the top regrets of well-to-do professionals over 50.

###

Here are all my posts on travel. Other random links: against Adderall, Justine Musk comments on “voice” in writing, Philip Tetlock reviews the latest crop of political-forecasting books, how to tell if you’re a douchebag, parsing the few differences between school and prison.

Comment

A Chat with Penelope Trunk: IM Transcript

Posted inFriends of Ben35 Comments on A Chat with Penelope Trunk: IM Transcript

My friend Penelope Trunk is the most influential careers blogger on the web, author of the hit book Brazen Careerist, and sought-after public speaker. She also runs a company called Brazen Careerist.

P16-080419-m1 While I don't always agree with her, she is provocative, perceptive, honest, and kind, so it's a pleasure. She also regularly surprises me, which I really value. I recently chatted with her on instant messenger and the transcript is below and continues below the fold. We cover all sorts of topics.

First some words from Penelope about her new product, a "LinkedIn for Gen Y":

Gen Y needs a place to be found online by employers. Facebook is not appropriate for employers.  For obvious reasons. And LinkedIn is great for employers. It's very professional. But the average age there is 40…. I think young professionals want to be known for their ideas. And there is not a way to be known for your ideas on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn you are known for what you have done in the past. On Brazen Careerist you can be known for your ideas. Brazen Careerist is a bunch of conversations about professional-related topics.

Ben: You blog about sex a lot. Why?

Penelope: I think about it all the time. So it comes into my head a lot when I'm writing blog posts. I sort of wonder why it doesn't come into more peoples' heads when they are writing blog posts.

Ben: People censor themselves.

Penelope: Yeah. Well. I censor myself too. I guess it's just we each have different types of self-censoring.

Ben: What do you censor? Like, what kinds of topics?

Penelope: I knew you were gonna ask that. And then I thought to myself: Be careful. Because this is not going to be a good post for my company if I write really a topic that I censor.

Ben: If you write about having abortions, being sexually abused, etc, it's hard to think of topics that you would NOT write about.

Penelope: I never say bad stuff about my ex-husband. I think it's trashy.

Ben: What are your theories on writing? What makes good writing?

Penelope: Being interesting. I know people think I write about sex, bulimia etc because it'll always be interesting. But you can find ten million blog posts about those topics that are painfully boring. Interesting isn't really about the topic. Any topic can be good or bad.

Ben: So being an interesting PERSON makes your writing more interesting.

Penelope: I think interesting sentences makes writing interesting. I think all people are interesting if you talk with them about the right stuff.

Ben: It doesn't mean they can write about things interestingly. All people are interesting to an extent; not all people are good writers

Penelope: Yes. Right. I think good writing takes tons and tons of practice. Also, I throw out a ton of blog posts. People think they just roll off my keyboard. They don't. Do you feel the same? that a good post takes tons of work?

Ben: Absolutely. For the quality that I aspire to, I am slow, and I often still don't meet that quality level.

Penelope: Sometimes I like reading your blog just because you make me feel good about craft. Because I can tell how much you care about craft and then I don't care so much that I spent two hours on the links to a post.

Ben: This is what I'm interested in. Craft. Having an interesting life is one thing. Being able to tell it interestingly requires some craftsmanship, or something.

Penelope: Oh. That's an important point. At some point in my life, I realized I could support myself just sitting at my kitchen table writing every day. But I worried that my life would not be complicated enough to be written about.

Ben: So your entrepreneurship gives you material?

Penelope: Yeah. I think that is true. Well, struggling to figure out how to do my life — in many aspects of life — gives me material. I couldn't be Dooce. At home with my family writing about being at home with my family. I need more drama….not that she doesn't have drama.

Ben: Alain de Botton has an interesting point on this. He says the professionalization of writing — novelists who write fiction full time — has made it so much fiction is disconnected from life as it's experienced by most people.

Penelope: Totally agree. And the French have this problem more than any other culture.

Ben: The "novelist on the side" — someone who's also holding down a day job, or did for most of his life — has more valuable insight.

Penelope: Yeah. I love Raymond Carver for this. His life was so hard, and he had no time to write. And he still did.

Ben: Does being a good writer help you in your entrepreneurship? Most people in business, I've found, are terrible writers. And they still do fine. Chris Yeh, of course, is an exception. Great writer. Great entrepreneur.

Penelope: I think I make more connections through being a good writer. Chris is a good example — I connect well with him, and often, through writing.

Ben: Yeah, in your case, your blog is so tied up in your business that I'm sure there are tons of benefits. Can I make an observation about what I think your favorite phrase is in blog posts?

Penelope: Yes.

Ben: "And you know what?" That rhetorical question.

Penelope: I love that. I love feeling like I'm talking with someone. You make me laugh. You are smart.

Ben: It makes your posts more conversational. "Conversation" gets thrown around a lot. You do it when talking about Brazen Careerist. “People are going to have conversations” etc etc. But it's not easy to have a good conversation in-person, let alone in writing.

Penelope: Yeah. That's true. I think you know from our lunches and dinners that I'm awkward to talk to. Which I think makes me really really want to connect through conversation online. And I think you can tell when someone really really wants to connect, and when it's BS conversation.

The conversation continues to cover therapy culture, elitism, blogging, obtaining advice, and dating.

Continue reading “A Chat with Penelope Trunk: IM Transcript”

Comment

The Substantive Bottom Line

Posted inRandom7 Comments on The Substantive Bottom Line

Tyler Cowen, in his special unpublished chapter sent to buyers of Create Your Own Economy, lays the groundwork for what he plans to do the rest of his book-in-progress:

I will focus on clashing arguments and the substantive bottom line. I do not devote much time to building consensus on familiar material, literature survey, or other niceties. I do not retread familiar ground, offering some “suggestive remarks” on the tough problems at the very end. I do not “argue by elimination” by focusing on the weaknesses in other views and downplaying the weaknesses of my own. Instead I seek to start with tough questions and spend the rest of the book trying to pick up the pieces. That is the kind of book I like to read and thus that is the sort of book I am trying to write.

…If you are the kind of reader I want, no matter how hard I push, you will feel I have not pushed hard enough on the tough questions.

In other words, he rejects timid, “on the one hand, on the other hand, on the third hand” argumentative narratives. He likes deliberate provocation. He wants to focus on the most contentious issues of an argument.

I like people who focus on the substantive bottom line. People like Marty Nemko.

I like people who think seriously without apologizing, and feel deeply without hedging. Add humility and a strong sense of humor, and you’ve got a winning combination for a stimulating, fun person or book.

###

I’m soon speaking in Sioux City, IA and Nicosia, Cyprus (the country). I’ll also be passing through Boston and D.C., among other places, so if we should be meeting up and breaking bread over a glass of tap water or pulp-heavy orange juice, email me!

Comment

Quote of the Day

Posted inQuotes2 Comments on Quote of the Day

"It was just a brief moment, and already it’s over.  Once more I see the furniture all around me, the pattern on the old wallpaper, and the sun through the dusty panes.  I saw the truth for a moment.  For a moment I was consciously what great men are their entire lives.  I recall their words and deeds and wonder if they were also successfully tempted by the Demon of Reality.  To know nothing about yourself is to live.  To know yourself badly is to think.  To know yourself in a flash, as I did in this moment, is to have a fleeting notion of the intimate monad, the soul’s magic word.  But that sudden light scorches everything, consumes everything.  It strips us naked of even ourselves."

— Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese novelist, in The Book of Disquiet. Here's the Google Book page.

The quote is via Scott Sumner who identifies as a personal identity skeptic. Paul Graham wrote an essential essay called Keeping Your Identity Small. Here are my other posts on identity.

Comment

Why is it Interesting to Write About Sex?

Posted inRelationships5 Comments on Why is it Interesting to Write About Sex?

In his collection of essays, Wallace Shawn pens one called "Writing About Sex" which has several outstanding nuggets.

Why writing about sex is interesting:

One reason is that sex is shocking. Yes, it's still shocking after all these years. At least, it's shocking to me. Even after all these years, most bourgeois people, including me, still walk around with an image of themselves in their heads that doesn't include — well — that. I'm vaguely aware that while I'm going about my daily round of behavior I'm making use of various mammalian processes, such as breathing, digesting and getting from place to place by hobbling about on the legs we have. But the fact is that when I form a picture of myself, I see myself doing the sorts of things that humans do and only humans do — things like hailing a taxi, going to a restaurant, voting for a candidate in an election, or placing receipts in various piles and adding them up. But if I'm unexpectedly reminded that my soul and body are capable of being swept up in an activity that pigs, flies, wolves, lions, and tigers also engage in, my normal picture of myself is violently disrupted. In other words, consciously, I'm aware that I'm a product of evolution and I'm part of nature. But my unconscious mind is still partially wandering in the early nineteenth century and doesn't know these things yet.

Why sex is both meaningful and meaningless:

Sex is of course an extraordinary meeting place of reality and dream, and it's also — what is not perhaps exactly the same thing — an extraordinary meeting place of the meaningful and the meaningless. The big toe, for example, is one part of the human body, human flesh shaped and constructed in a particular way. The penis is another part of the body, located not too far away from the big toe and built out of fundamentally the same materials. The act of sex, the particular shapes of the penis and the vagina, are the way they are because natural selection has made them that way. There may be an adaptive value to each particular choice that evolution made, but from our point of view as human beings living our lives, the various details present themselves to us as arbitrary. It can only be seen as funny that demagogues give speeches denouncing men who insert their penises into other men's anuses — and then go home to insert their own penises into their wives' vaginas! (One might have thought it obvious that either both of these acts are completely outrageous or neither of them is.) And yet the interplay and permutations of the apparently meaningless, the desire to penetrate anus or vagina, the glimpse of the naked breast, the hope of sexual intercourse or the failure of it, lead to joy, grief, happiness, or desperation for the human creature.

On the sex-less, faithful partnership:

A recent survey of married people in the United States found that when asked the question, "What is very important for a successful marriage?" the quality mentioned most frequently — by 93 percent — was "faithfulness" while "happy sexual relationship" came in with only 70 percent. In other words, to 23 percent of the respondents, it seemed more important that they and their partner should not have sex with others than that they themselves should enjoy sex.

On why nudity would disrupt the NYT's mission to present a world not ideal but still good enough:

My local newspaper, the New York Times, for example, does not include images of naked people. Many of its readers might enjoy it much more if it did, but those same readers still might not buy it if such images were in it, because it could no longer present the portrait of a normal, stable, adequate world — a world not ideal but still good enough — which it is the function of the Times to present every day. Nudity somehow implies that anything could happen, but the Times is committed to telling its readers that many things will not happen, because the world is under control, benevolent people are looking out for us, the situation is not as bad as we tend to think, and although problems do exist, they can be solved by wise rulers. The contemplation of nudity or sex could tend to bring up the alarming idea that at any moment human passions might rise up and topple the world as we know.

On the humanizing effect of being reminded of our leaders' sexuality:

Sex can be a humbling, equalizing force. It's often noted that naked people do not wear medals, and weapons are forbidden inside the pleasure garden. When the sexuality of the terrifying people we call "our leaders" is for some reason revealed, they lose some of their power — sometimes all of it — because we're reminded (and, strangely, we need reminding) that they are merely creatures like the ordinary worm or beetle that creeps along at the edge of the pond. Sex really is a nation of its own. Those whose allegiance is given to sex at a certain moment withdraw their loyalty temporarily from other powers. It's a symbol of the possibility that we might all defect for one reason or another from the obedient columns in which we march.

[via Harper's]

Comment