Monthly Archives: January 2013

On Habits: Why you do dat?

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One of my favorite stories comes from Jeff Benjamin.

A friend of his had just gotten a new job at a lube place somewhere in New York.  One morning a guy brings his car in, the friend drains the old oil and, for whatever reason, neglects to put new oil in.  (Mind you, that’s essentially his sole responsibility – to put new oil in cars).  Car owner happily pays, drives off, and a few minutes later returns with his car, gears grinding and engine frozen up.  The car has been ruined.

The Korean owner of the lube joint comes out, a look of anguish on his face.  He walks in circles around the car, tears welling up, gesticulating at his new employee.

Why you do dat? he implores.  Why you do dat?

A very good question indeed.  Why do we do dat?

—-

We’re all guilty of doing stupid things.  Some of them we write off as mental lapses (I left the stove on when I left for work.  Or, I snapped at my kid).  But often times those things we write off as temporary lapses also form patterns (I can never find my keys when I need to leave for work and I also leave the lights on.  Or ‘mom – why do you always yell at me?’).

And then there are the chronic things that we do that we consider part of our identity.  I’m a smoker.  Or, I’ve always been fat.  Or hey, that’s too early – I’m not a morning person.  And how often do we berate ourselves for not being smart enough, or punctual, or a good parent, or good at math or science?

Are these attributes really foundational parts of who we are?  And regardless, are they changeable?

In November I picked up a couple of books that cast some cool light on the questions.  The first, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg has been hovering at the top of the pop charts for a while now.  Duhigg explores the idea that our being, this thing that we consider “self” or “personality” is largely a collection of “habits”, patterns of behavior that have become hardwired in our neural pathways.  These habits are actually malleable and subject to change, and that the change isn’t so much about willpower, as about choosing the correct channels by which to exercise that change.

He also goes on to look at the patterns of behavior that are encoded in institutions (to work for Google feels different than working for AT&T, for example) and even culture (racism or patriarchy, lets say). These things, too, are open to change.

The second book, Rewire Your Brain by John Arden, works from some of the same premises, but from the perspective of a clinical psychologist. He’s director of Training in Mental Health for Kaiser Northern California.  Over dinner last year, I was asking him about personality disorders and different sociopathologies and his answers were striking.  A lot of it was about how experiences and trauma can influence our neurochemistry and contribute to the development (or underdevelopment) of different parts of the brain.  We essentially learn, or fail to learn, the control mechanisms, decision making abilities, resilience, and coping skills that allow us to function in perhaps a more healthy and productive manner.  These skills and abilities are, again, encoded in the pathways and transmitters within our brains.  If you approach the challenge in the right way, to an extent the pathways are changeable.

This is big.  It gets to the heart of addictions.  And also our fundamental behaviors.

It helps to explain why we do dat.

Why does my cousin have such a hard time getting off meth?  Why do you stay in an abusive relationship?  Why do my dad and I never get along? Why do some veterans or victims of child abuse have behavioral issues? Why can’t I seem to get my act together?

The answers to why and also to how we can change lead to a lot of diverse fields:  Insight meditation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, neurochemistry, EMDR among others.  It’s all interesting stuff.

And what would happen if a person, lets say in they year 2013, were to conduct an uncontrolled subjective experiment and consciously apply behavior changing strategies to one’s self?

What would that look like?  And how long would it last?

 

New Year’s Evolution

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On New Year’s Eve, I had the depressing Come to Jesus moment of looking at my 2012 Resolutions.  What were the big important things I wanted to do?    For the record, they were:

  1. Sell a script I had finished.
  2. Transcribe a letter I wrote to Mazie in the first year of her life
  3. Clear my office
  4. Build a Table

What a weird list.

And little surprise here.   Not a single item had been completed.  Not to say I didn’t do anything in the year.  I excavated our yard and built a rock wall (with a lot of help).  I cooked a lot of meals and pressed apples and made hard cider and ran regularly.  I published some editorial pieces around the election.  I submitted  a script to several places and got some good feedback.

But what about those Resolutions?  Why didn’t I fulfill any of them?  Some of the items were not the right ones (build a table).  Others were right, but not at the right time (clear office).  But there’s a deeper fault here, and it’s related, I believe, to discipline and execution.

So I’ve spent the first month of this year thinking about that 2012 list, and also thinking about what it means to make a Resolution. What have I discovered?

  1. I believe in Resolve.  But I don’t believe in Resolutions.  Resolve is the ability to commit.  Resolutions imply that a task has been brought to completion.  But are they are ever, really?  A resolution is an end.  But does the world ever end with an end?
  2. I believe in Revolving.  But I don’t believe in Revolutions. Revolving objects return to the place of beginning, except that time has passed.  You appear to be in the same place, but the world is in fact subtly different.  But a Revolution implies a large and sudden change.  It implies upheaval.   It also suggests “progress” or improvement.  But the world neither progresses nor improves (these things require criteria and criteria are subjective.)  Instead the world changes.  It fluxes.  But change is neither progressive nor regressive.  It’s simply change, and the direction of that change depends entirely on one’s vantage. (The eradication of polio is good, unless, of course, you’re polio.)  And Grand Revolutions in hindsight are sometimes not so grand.  Our own American Revolution was essentially a tax revolt (remember the Tea Party?) and assertion that we had the right to protect ourselves from overreaching power.  Which is why 2013 is shaping up to not just be about the pursuit of happiness, prosperity, and equality, but also about keeping guns and not paying taxes.True revolutions don’t result in great movement.  You just become a little older. And hopefully a little wiser.  And if you’re lucky you pass on a little of what you learned along the way.

Which ultimately explains why the one true thing I believe in is Evolution.  Evolution is not about progress (ditch that misleading image of the monkey slowly becoming erect until he is homo sapiens).  And forget that whole creationism god thing.  Evolution in the simplest terms is a model of how life adapts to occupy ever changing and ever emerging environmental niches and conditions.  Even more importantly, Evolution is a vast body of thought that explains the mechanisms of change and inheritance (more on this later) across both living and non-living things.

Perhaps we’re sowing the seeds of our own destruction if we strive to make Resolutions that are Grand, and Final, and are Revolutionary in Their Consequence.

Change (in most cases) is incremental, non-directional and without closure.  It’s closer to Evolution.  So this year I’m giving it a different approach.  This year I’m going to try and slowly jettison vestigal stuff that’s been bogging me down for years.  And I’d like to devote some attention this year to evolving some new habits.  And some of those new habits, as they take form, will hopefully have real world consequences.  In some ways it’s similar to making Resolutions.  But instead I want to slowly accrete these changes over the year.

The list should be short and finite.  One of my present habits, however, is overreaching ambition.   I sometimes try to do everything and succeed in doing nothing.  So for now, though the list is long, the underlying intent will be to accomplish just one of the things on the list.  Another intent will be to observe the process.

For the record then, here’s the abridged list of my 2013 New Years Evolutions:

Writing

  1. Revive Snowflakes Edge
    1. Boat Story – finish
    2. Creatures
    3. Habit
    4. Energy
  2. Get an Agent
  3. Dani Q – send out to folks
  4. Finish Family Photo Immigration Narrative
  5. Transcribe Mazie Letter
  6. Get Natwani funding
  7. Write Summary of Riemann’s Hypothesis that could be understood by a 14 year old.

Personal Stuff

  1. Develop new Organizational Habits
  2. Clear Office
  3. Organize computer files
  4. Organize Library
  5. Clear Room of Recapitulation

The Damn House

  1. New Electrical Panel
  2. Refinish Porches
  3. Convert Room of Requirement
  4. Plant fruit trees and olives

Well Being

  1. Wear fluoride trays every day
  2. Get fillings
  3. 2 teeth cleanings
  4. Run 1/2 marathon
  5. Learn to Swim.  Really.

A greater explanation of some of this stuff is forthcoming (Fluoride trays?  And why is teeth cleaning on my list and not on yours?)  Let’s see what change happens.  And what does not.

Wish me luck.

On your mark.

Get set.

Go.