Assorted Musings

Posted inRandom11 Comments on Assorted Musings

Your occassional dispatch of quick thoughts, cheap shots, and bon mots.

1. Why do fans yell at players, referees, etc. at sports games, even though they sit far away from the action? A few possibilities. First, yelling and chanting is fun, independent of any actual effect on the game. Same reason people yell at their television sets: let off steam. Second, the fan believes the player or referee will actually hear the encouragement or chide. This is unlikely, as anyone who’s ever played a sport knows, and especially unlikely at the professional level where fans are seated far away from the field of play. Third possibility, the fan believes other fans will be inspired to yell out as well, creating a collective sound that the players and referees will hear. This is a rational strategy and does sometimes happen. Fourth, and most interesting to me, the fan is trying to signal to other fans that he is informed, passionate, and not afraid to be (literally) the lone voice at times. I believe it explains the phenomenon of one fan yelling in an otherwise quiet section that is not ripe for some type of collective cheer. The yeller thinks to himself, “Not only do I care more about the game’s outcome than you, but I am sufficiently self-confident and independent to be the only person yelling.”

2. Studies show that attractive men and women benefit a great deal from positive discrimination. Here’s Penelope Trunk’s comprehensive run-down about why attractive people win in business. While much of your personal appearance is fixed, to the extent that you can do some things on the margins which increase your attractiveness — hygiene, exercise / lift weights, basic fashion — this may be one of the important yet least talked about ways to invest in your career prospects.

3. You see more men than women crying at high school and college graduation ceremonies. Why is this? In school it seems men hang out in packs more than women, packs which will unravel as its members move to different cities and pursue different jobs. Women seem to have more one-on-one relationships which do not depend as much on the total group being together. This may be one reason why graduation is emotionally harder for men than women.

4. “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.” – Leo Tolstoy, 1897

5. How will we cite pages from a book if books appear in formats (Kindle, Nook, etc) with different page numbering systems? I know on the Kindle there is no way to see what the corresponding page number is in the printed edition. Dave Jilk tells me: “It turns out that it rarely takes more than three or four sequential words to identify a unique signature for a location in a written work – even a long work. You can try it out by going onto Gutenberg and using your browser search. The advantage of this is that it crosses media and format boundaries.” Perhaps this will be the new citation standard?

6. Why are some people more enjoyable over email than in-person? The most obvious case is when a person is introverted or unusually intimated or shy in-person. A less obvious case is when a person is an original but slow thinker. Their thoughts can develop and unfold over email at a pace that works for them. Finally, self-absorbed people are better dealt with over email. If a self-absorbed person falls into the habit in an email (harder to do than in-person, but still possible) you can quickly skim and delete!

7. “Where you allow your attention to go ultimately says more about you as a human being than anything that you put in your mission statement.” – Merlin Mann. Replace mission statement with resume. It reflects poorly on a modern employer when they request a conventional resume as opposed to a record of how you’ve allocated your attention online.

8. How many Americans understand that Christmas as a snow white holiday — as a time of the year in which chestnuts roast over an open fire in the cozy indoors — is only true in the northern hemisphere? In Chile, Christmas is summer time. For most of the southern hemisphere it’s summertime. In my experience unless you’ve actually been in a warm climate during Christmas you don’t quite realize how local the American conception of the holiday is.

9. After I expressed detailed disagreement with another person’s ideas, the guy I was talking to said, “Ah, I didn’t know you didn’t respect [Person X.]” In fact, my hierarchy of respect is that if I don’t respect a person I’ll rarely expend the energy to issue detailed disagreement. It’s a sign of respect to engage in thoughtful disagreement. I think about this when I find myself routinely disagreeing with certain bloggers I read. And yet, I’ve been reading them for years, so on some level I respect them more than other folks with whom I may agree but don’t bother to read.

10. Hypocrisy, according to Samuel Johnson, is not failing to practice what you preach:

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy (laura hetherington) him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself

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Book Review: Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile

Posted inBooks4 Comments on Book Review: Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile

I haven’t seen the movie, but the book (upon which the film is based) is outstanding. Riveting from start to finish — a real-life CIA thriller. Crile presents a detailed, blow-by-blow account of how the United States congress came to fund the biggest covert CIA campaign in history and the actual on-the-ground effort in the 80’s to help the mujahideen defeat the Soviets. I found much of the book infuriating: the shameless usurpation of democratic processes by congressman Charlie Wilson, the win-at-all-costs mentality that infects the minds of warmongers, and especially the tragic irony that we armed the very people who are now killing us in Afghanistan.

One of the most haunting paragraphs of the book:

…the more dangerous legacy of the Afghan war is found in the minds and convictions of Muslims around the world. To them the miracle victory over the Soviets was all the work of Allah — not the billions of dollars that America and Saudi Arabia poured into the battle, not then ten-year commitment of the CIA that turned an army of primitive tribesmen into techno-holy warriors.

In other words, as they attributed their improbable, U.S.-backed victory against the Soviets to greater religious forces, the present-day insurgents carry a sense of invincibility fighting the current American soldiers in Afghanistan. Their resilience the past nine years backs up this point.

A few other quotes from the book:

“They are a nations of tribes with an extreme ethnocentricity which makes them not only hate or suspect foreigners but Afghans living two valleys away.” [BC: America is currently trying to train a “national army” in Afghanistan.]

“If you asked, ‘Did Charlie do it with my approval?’ No. But he did it with my consent.” – Speaker O’Neill on Wilson’s Afghanistan efforts

“Operating in the black markets is like trying to get laid in a city you don’t know. In a strange city, if you have enough money, you’re bound to find something, but there might be a disease contracted, you might get rolled or arrested, and there’s not telling how much it will cost. With your wife, it’s predictable and in a steady quantity.”

“…an old tactic of Muslim warfare: to leave one man to tell the tale.”

“The dirty little secret of the Afghan war was that Zia has a extracted a concession early on from Reagan: Pakistan would work with the CIA against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and in return the United States would not only provide aid but would agree to look the other way on the question of the bomb.”

“In Pashtun, the word for cousin also means enemy.”

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A more detailed analysis of the history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan from 1979 until 2001 can be found in Steve Coll’s excellent book The Ghost Wars. I reviewed it here.

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Graciousness Here and Viciousness There: The Cordoba Mosque

Posted inReligion / Spirituality1 Comment on Graciousness Here and Viciousness There: The Cordoba Mosque

Leon Wieseltier has a moving piece in the New Republic on the Cordoba Mosque proposal. It's short. It's impeccably written. And it captures my attitudes exactly, albeit with more eloquence and rigor than I could ever muster. Read the whole thing.

This part stood out to me:

There are families of the victims who oppose Cordoba House and there are families of the victims who support it. Every side in this debate can invoke the authority of the pain. But how much authority should it have? I do not see that sentiment about the families should abrogate considerations of principle. It is odd to see conservatives suddenly espouse the moral superiority of victimhood, as it is odd to see them suddenly find an exception to their expansive view of religious freedom. Everybody has their preferred insensitivities.

His last graf:

A night at the J. At the JCC on Q Street a few weeks ago, there was a family night for “kibbutz camp.” As the children sang “Zum Gali Gali,” an old anthem of the Zionist pioneers, I noticed among the jolly parents a Muslim woman swaddled in black. Her child was among those children! Her presence had no bearing on the question of our security, but it was the image of what we are protecting. No American heart could be unmoved by it. So: Cordoba House in New York and a Predator war in Pakistan—graciousness here and viciousness there—this should be our position. For those who come in peace, peace; for those who come in war, war.

(hat tip: Sullivan)

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Here is 20 minutes of very clear thinking on religion — on especially the similarities of the three Abrahamic religions — from Robert Wright on Charlie Rose.

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What’s Remained Constant?

Posted inCareers6 Comments on What’s Remained Constant?

From a 1997 interview between Dan Pink and Richard Bolles of What Color Is Your Parachute? fame:

Pink: Despite all the things we've discussed so far, you're not totally sold on the idea that the world of work is awash in change, are you?

Bolles: No, I'm not. There is a basic truth about what a human needs in order to survive; our culture seems unable to understand that. Human nature survives and has survived through the ages by being able to hold on tenaciously to two concepts: What is there about my life or world that has remained constant? and What is there about my life or world that has changed or is changing? I have always argued that change becomes stressful or overwhelming only when you've lost any sense of the constancy in your life. You need firm ground to stand on. From there, you can deal with that change. Observing the constants in your life gives you that firm ground. The thing about the great faiths is that they talk about what's constant in the world: God, grace, prayer. But our culture, in general — and the profession of career counseling, in particular — gets absorbed with a single question: What's changing? Nobody remembers to ask the other question, What's remained constant?

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Is Being in a Relationship a Time Sink?

Posted inRelationships15 Comments on Is Being in a Relationship a Time Sink?

Many people focused on building their career view being in a romantic relationship as a time sink. Several entrepreneurs have told me that they don't have time for a relationship. To evaluate whether this is true, we need to look at the three possible relationship states pre-marriage.

1. In a Relationship. A relationship takes a lot of time. You may spend every weekend with your significant other and one or two days during the week. During much of that time you are 100% with the other person. Sometimes you are able to double book time by watching movies, buying groceries, washing dishes, etc. but mostly this is maybe 15-20 hours a week (sometimes much more) of time you'd otherwise have free. (Obviously the "maintenance level," as they say, of the significant other affects time commitment.)

2. Single and Looking. You're dating around, or sleeping around. You're going on first dates, trying to impress, and following up on leads. (Using your preferred CRM system, no doubt.) You'd like to be in a relationship so you spend a bunch of time thinking about your ideal mate, comparing and contrasting the various folks you're meeting, and pining wistfully for the relationship of old or idealizing the relationship you someday dream of having.

3. Single and Not Looking. If you're not trying to go on dates and you're content being single, you'll have tons of free time. Weeknights and weekends are yours, and you profit from the power of low expectations.

My thesis is that In a Relationship is just as much of a time and energy sink as Single and Looking. There are various reasons, but one big one. With Single and Looking there's a great deal of emotional energy spent contemplating your lack of dating success, there's stress around existing dates, and of course, wondering, "Is she interested? Am I interested? Do I play like I'm interested?" You spend a lot of cycles thinking about your dating life even when you're not going on dates. The energy spent for In a Relationship, by contrast, tends to be concentrated to the time you're actually spending with the person. There's more certainty, less general / random anxiety and wondering. Easier to focus on work when you are working. So even though the "scheduled time" for a boyfriend or girlfriend is greater, the total energy commitment is about equal to the single but looking person.

Single and Not Looking is the best for those who want as much as time as possible for professional projects. Emotional wonderings are minimal since you're expecting to be single anyway. This is sustainable for a few years or so, or for lots of smaller chunks, but ultimately not a realistic long-term option unless you cut off your penis.

Bottom Line: Being single and looking takes just as much time and energy as being in a relatively low-maintenance relationship.

(thanks to Andy McKenzie for helping brainstorm this.)

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