Pop Philosophy

Getting Good at Going off the Grid

I just got back from going off the grid. No, I'm not a black ops agent like Jason Bourne, nor am I fulfilling a Matrix-inspired fantasy. I’m not trying to evade the NSA either. I actually was recently on holiday, like most of you. But these days, my vacations are increasingly about completely disconnecting.  I need a break from the constant grind of an always-buzzing smart phone, an endless email inbox and a fragmented attention span.  

Sound familiar? That’s because I just described the daily reality for a lot of knowledge workers - as well as almost everyone living in the Internet age. We live in a swirl of limitless distraction, but that is not a new story. The real insight I got from my holiday from hyperlinks is two fold: that we need digital down time more than ever, and that reaching that nirvana state takes skill, practice and planning. Simply put, we should force ourselves to disconnect regularly, but realize that it takes time to get good at it.

For 10 glorious days, I decamped to a cottage and left behind TV, txt messages and Twitter. I swapped car horns and cable news for loons and lakes.

It was peaceful and incredibly pleasant ... but not right away. It was hard to take it easy. I struggled to turn off the digital drug dealer that is my iPhone (and keep it off).

I had to consciously slow my heartbeat to synchronize with my simpler surroundings. It took almost a week for me to stop looking for WiFi in the woods, and what I learned is that having a restorative holiday requires both art and science. Actually, you might even consider it a skill.

What do you need to do? It involves 3 phases as I see it.

First, you have to recover. I dialed down my media intake gradually, first limiting and then swapping out activities like web and channel surfing for longer-form reading (ideally, print magazines and books, sans hyperlinks!) and even writing. Just as the body needs a cool down after a vigorous workout, your mind has to power down as well.

Next is the reset phase. My sense is that people want a Pattern Interrupt when they go on vacation; the whole point is to break away from the day to day. So since my life and work involves a lot of emailing (a recent study estimates that the average knowledge worker spends 28% of their work week on email alone), screen time and juggling other distractions, I tried to break that habit (if even for ‘just’ the holiday).

Finally, use this newfound focus and discretionary time to reflect. Why is it that most people don't get serious work done at “work”, and have to leave the office to do that kind of intellectual heavy lifting? Our lives have too many interruptions.

We can’t attend to 'the important but not urgent' when 'the urgent but not necessarily important' is always appearing in the form of a new email, txt message or tweet.

I used this opportunity to think BIG PICTURE. You might ask yourself the tough questions - the ones that you’ve been meaning too but haven’t yet. You know which ones I’m talking about.

I believe the future of leisure - if not luxury - is escape from ubiquitous connectivity.

People are going to pay big money to get out of mobile phone range in the near future. I predict that “No Signal” will be as common a sign of our generation’s vacations as “No Vacancy” was to our parents’.

Canadian author Michael Harris’ new book, The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection, makes an eloquent plea for people to take "Analog Augusts”. He argues that doing so will “break the spell” the web has on us. I couldn’t agree more.

So as the summer comes to an end and you contemplate future holidays, consider going off the grid next time. I guarantee that if you do, the break will be both restorative and, in the long run, more productive. 

Old Rules for a New Life in the New Year

 

People usually become contemplative as another year ends and a new one begins. For many, this is the season for reflection, resolutions and perhaps even re-invention. I’m no exception to this ritual.

The following thoughts came to me a few weeks ago in a feverish night of waking and writing, epigram by epigram. As the title suggests, none of these ideas are particularly new, and they’ve all been inspired by philosophers both ancient and modern. However, I believe that these perennial truths still provide guidance for 2013 by focusing us on what’s important to remember every year.

Someone once noted that “truth is not new; it’s old.” I couldn’t agree more. In that vein, let me propose some old rules for a new life in the New Year.

What you do is more important that what you say. This is true for everything from relationships to New Year’s resolutions.

However, you are not what you do. You are not a lawyer, or a doctor. Instead, you are what excites and inspires you – in my case, a reader, writer, thinker, and for others perhaps a Mom, mentor or motorcycle rider. The point is …

You are much more interesting than you realize; your work is much less interesting than you realize. So adjust what you say about yourself to others accordingly.

 

You are not what you earn. In fact, any dollar earned over $75,000 a year doesn't add a dime of happiness or self worth. (Believe it. It's true.) So quit buying into what magazines, Madison Avenue and Mad Men are selling you, and get out of their Matrix. Take the blue pill ... to bliss.

Similarly, you are not what you buy. You are not just a consumer – or at least you don’t have to be. Did you know that in North America, the storage industry (comprised of places to store the things for which we can’t find room) is bigger than the movie industry? There’s more to life than accumulating ‘stuff’ – or at least there should be.

You are not only as good as your last sale. But you are only as good as the last commitment that you’ve kept - to yourself or someone else. You are also being controlled by your unprocessed emotions. Deal with them both now, and they won't hold any more power over you in the future.

You are in a category of one, or at least you should aspire to be. Jerry Garcia (for some, the legendary leader of The Grateful Dead; for others, the inspiration for Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream) advised that you don’t want to be the best at what you do; “you want to be considered the only ones who do what you do." So be like Jerry … and be unlike anybody else.

Make time for “the important but not urgent.” Dwight Eisenhower once noted “the most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones.” Yet we tend devote so much of our mind space to the latest txt message or email, putting off the truly strategic decisions that don’t scream out for our attention. Ignore the day-to-day drudgery of “metro, boulot, dodo” and ask yourself: when will you deal with the matters that are important but not urgent?

In that vein, remember that not deciding is a decision. People assume that deferring a choice preserves all of your options, whereas the opposite is almost always true. Most people didn’t decide not to have children; they just never got around to having them. Is that the right way to make such a life-changing choice?

Getting Older … but not Old

You are not a number. And if you are, it's how many good books you've read (or written), how many lives you've touched, not how many winters you've seen.

If you were born 43 years ago, then you are 43 years YOUNG. Isn't it ironic that we live longer than ever, but we're also more obsessed than ever about our age? Was there ageism in the Middle Ages? I don't think so. You are as old as you look, act and feel.

 

In that light, you are going to feel old at 4-0 ... until an eighty-year old looks back wistfully at her forties in front of you. George Bernard Shaw famously remarked, “youth is wasted on the young”, but he was only half-right: adulthood is as well. However "old" you are now, you're young to someone - and younger than you will be tomorrow. So live like it.

Choosing … to be happy

You are more motivated by avoiding pain than by seeking pleasure. The sooner you grasp that, the sooner you'll step off the savannah, leave the Stone Age, and become modern.

You are where you are because of your choices, not because of chance or circumstance. The moment you accept that, the more control over life you will have.

Some of those choices are going to be mistakes. If so, make them magnificent by learning from them.

Moreover, your failures reflect more on you than your successes. Why? Because you are directly responsible for the former, but chances are the latter happened by chance. If, as Rudyard Kipling suggested, you can treat triumph and disaster as “two imposters just the same”, you can also take solace in the fact that failure is as temporary as success.

You probably keep your bank statements but throw out your old love letters. Stop.

You are worthy of love, but only if you love yourself. You will find love someday, but only when you give it out first. It’s a little like finding that pair of sunglasses you misplaced; you never find something when you’re looking too hard for it.

You aren't going to find happiness by looking for or chasing it, either. You are only going to be happy by forgetting about it.

You are being judged ... but mostly by yourself. We are all the lead characters in our own one-man (or one woman) Broadway show. Get over yourself, but also forgive yourself, too. People care less about you than you think, but they care more for you than you realize. Understand the difference.

You live life forward, but you understand life backwards (I wish that I had said that, but Søren Kierkegaard did). So flip the script and instead of looking for answers, start by asking the right questions. Questions like …

What is your ‘why’? Find out what actually motivates you, and whether it is more about hope or fear. Ask yourself three questions: what gets you up in the morning? What keeps you up at night? And what are you going to do about it?

How to Live

You are what you repeatedly do, as Aristotle said. You are your habits, routines and commitments. You aren't what you say you will do ... yet. But you can be.

You are, whether you realize it or not, what you eat, read, and watch ... in your media diet. So pay attention to what you're feeding your mind, and whether it’s healthy or just making other people wealthy.

You are also who you spend most of your time with. Did you know that you eat 40% more with another person and 60% more with 2 or more? Whether you want to or not, you become how they are. So choose your influences wisely.

You are not missing out on something amazing elsewhere; chances are, you are missing out on something very good right here … but you’re too busy txting, tweeting and instagramming about it to notice and pay attention. Be. Here. Now.

You are almost certainly letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't. The perfect is far from perfect if it never happens, and the good is more than good enough if it actually does.

You are probably doing the easier wrong rather than the harder right. Take my word for it: you're only hurting yourself more later by not being strong enough to hurt now.

You may very well be facing a dilemma right now. If you're honest with yourself, you know what to do. You just don't want to do it. Discipline is doing what we don't want to do when we don't want to do it. Be disciplined.

Experiences instead of Extra Toys

You aren't going to remember days, but you are going to remember moments. So begin living with that end in mind.

You need Wednesdays to enjoy Saturdays, and winters to find ecstasy in summers. Treat the tough times as mere appetizers for the good.

In life, you usually come to regret the things you didn't do more than you things than you did. Sometimes, you encounter choices that you will regret either way: you will regret having done them just as you would have regretted having not done them. That's part of life, too.

You are more likely to die in the drive to the airport than you are in an airplane crash. You are also more likely to be hit by lightning than win the lottery. So start pricing risk and reward more accurately, and start living with your head and not fearing with your heart.

You are going to have to lose most things in order to appreciate them. So don't - don't take them for granted, and you won't lose them.

If you ignore the advice above, you are going to lose everything - one step at a time. This is as true of relationships as it is riches. So pay attention to the signs: they're there. We just don't usually see them until it’s too late to change the outcome.

Invest in what matters most

Be a social capitalist. Invest in people and relationships instead of stocks and bonds.

You are parsimonious with praise (which is free) but free with your time (which is not). Compliments don't cost you anything, and they can mean everything to a person. On the other hand, time is the only truly non-renewable resource. A minute lost is gone - forever. So be profligate with encouraging words and prudent about wasting time.

Accept that you are replaceable - to your Friday night poker game, your hockey team and your company. You are irreplaceable to your friends, your family, and your community. So get your priorities right, and focus your time on the places where your presence is truly missed.

Plan your exits as carefully as you do your entrances. On that note, you are what you lead and what you seed. So use your gifts to create a legacy, and realize that you haven't succeeded until you are no longer needed.

Some people have doubts about their faith in themselves. That’s normal. But you should also have doubts about your doubt. Why are you so certain that you can’t do it? The first step always looks harder than it actually is.

You are a just a man ... But you could become a Mandela (or a Mother Teresa). Don't be limited by the walls of a prison you create. Free yourself so that you can lead others to freedom.

You are a good person, and you should be. You aren't a great person, but you could be.

Get used to the fact that life doesn’t unfold in a linear way. It’s all about streaks and sprints, setbacks and second efforts. Don’t confuse where you find yourself right now with where you’ll end up. The Chinese got it right when they said: the best time to have planted a tree is 25 years ago. The second-best time is today.

Right now, you are exactly one moment wiser. Act like it, and act on it.

Happy 2013 ~

Aphorisms - Advice and Antidote for an Attention-Deficit-Addled Age

I am an aspiring aphorist. No, that doesn't mean that I'm afraid of florists or want to become a wrist specialist. An aphorist is someone who writes aphorisms. 

What is an aphorism, you ask? Many people don't recognize the word, yet an aphorism is one of those rare concepts in the English language that everyone knows what it is but no one knows what it's called.  

Thoroughly confused? I thought so. Let me try to do for aphorisms what they do for us, namely make a complicated idea both beautiful and simple. An aphorism is a profound but pithy phrase of wisdom, often perfectly put in a memorable sentence or two. They embody the Jesuits' maxim, so perfectly summed up in the epigram 'Precision of Thought, Economy of Expression'.

They can be both poetic and prosaic. Some people know them as adages, others as sayings. The more derisive among us might dismiss them as cliches and fortune cookie messages, while Zen monks recite them as koans and mantras. However you feel about aphorisms, the one undeniable reality is that they've been around as long as man has been able to think and speak (in that order). 

Socrates gave us one of history's first aphorisms when he noted - almost as a coda for future aphorists - that "the unexamined life is not worth living." That's essentially what aphorists do: they examine a particular aspect of life and distill it into a pointed or poignant phrase that captures - and delivers - an enormous amount of wisdom in a wonderfully economical way. 

As you've probably gathered by now, I love aphorisms (just for the record, it's pronounced Ah-Four-ISM). They appeal to my penchant for (pop) philosophical analysis, but also to my love of language. Aphorisms are examples of style and substance, form and function; They deliver more punch in a phrase than most writers do in a page. Aphorisms are to life's observers what the japanese haiku is to an aspiring poet: they represent the most challenging medium through which to express one's art. 

Aphorisms are also, quite accidentally, perhaps the perfect antidote to our current attention-deficit-addled age. This is because they have the unique capability of passing on profound lessons in incredibly concise doses. In an era characterized (and cursed) by six-second attention spans, aphorisms deliver valuable advice in energy-efficient vehicles. Twitter, IM and SMS are the most important media to this generation, and even these limited text technologies can be used to deliver these concise nuggets of wisdom. 

  George Bernard Shaw memorably wrote that "Youth is wasted on the young." Oscar Wilde - one of history's great aphorists - added: "I am not young enough to know everything." I couldn't agree with them more. As the recent film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button artfully demonstrated, life would make a lot more sense if we 'aged' in the other direction and got younger as we advanced in years. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard understood this intuitively when he noted wryly that "you understand life backward but you live life forward." 

I believe that today's younger generations have a tremendous amount to gain from studying these 'Ancients' through their aphorisms. In fact, these proverbs represent almost perfect nano-philosophies for the ADD Generation. What college student, blithely bingeing on pizza and beer at 3 am, would not benefit from Wilde's advice that they shouldn't take the power of their youth for granted? What twenty-something young professional, about to embark on an uncertain career trajectory, would not take some solace in Lao-Tzu's immortal adage that even "a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step"? 

In fact, the journey analogy is quite apt. Aphorisms provide you with a road map to life, giving you turn-by-turn directions to navigate around almost any obstacle. 

Have you recently lost a job as a result of the global economic crisis? You would do well to remember Epicurus's words that "a man is wealthy in proportion to the things he can do without." 

Perhaps you are a recent college graduate, looking for your first 'real' job, or even a mid-career professional contemplating a radical change in vocation? Then this proverb from Confucius will provide some sound advice to you: "find a job that you love, and you'll never work a day in your life." 

Maybe you're an anxious boyfriend, wracked with worry about whether your girl will cheat on you? Then this observation from Mark Twain can soothe your soul: "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened." 

Aphorisms don't just help you with the challenges that life throws at you; they can also teach you how to enjoy life itself. They don't always come inscribed on stone tablets or in musty old tomes, either. One of the simplest - but paradoxically most profound - pieces of wisdom I've ever received came from a lyric in a Sheryl Crow song, namely that "happiness is wanting what you have, not getting what you want". 

I come from a long line of aphorists. My grandfather penned one of the better (but alas least well-known) epigrams of his time when he used to sign his philosophical pamphlets with the tag line "Wealth, like health, should be at the expense of nobody." Later, his son, my Dad, the original 'Pop' Philosopher, eloquently observed one day, when talking about the difference between academics and political leaders, that unfortunately "thinkers rarely get the opportunity to do, and doers rarely get the opportunity to think." 

Not one to break with family tradition, I have also tried my hand at coining the pithy, philosophical phrase. For instance, friends have often heard me remark that "you have to have a Wednesday to have a Saturday", meaning that we have to suffer the difficult first in order to enjoy the sublime. Others have agreed with my observation that "relationships are like snowflakes; they look alike, but no two are identical." One of my former bosses like to quote my saying (probably unconsciously cribbed from someone else, no doubt) that "people prefer to edit rather than write". I appear to like to do both ... 

Clearly, my best days in this field are in front of me. Luckily, as someone once poetically observed, I feel like I have 'more tomorrows than yesterdays' right now. I may be wrong on that front, but I don't think I am on the other, larger point that these phrases deliver trenchant - and sometimes transcendental - truths that are perfectly suited for this era of Twitter attention spans. 

I wish that I had discovered aphorisms earlier in life. Armed with their wisdom, I might have saved myself from some sadness and instead followed Eleanor Roosevelt's sound advice to "learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." After all, aphorisms are essentially attempts by their authors to pass on for free the hard-earned wisdom for which they paid dearly. Why not take them up on their generous offer? The price is right, and in the parlance of finance professionals - a group of people, if I ever met one, that would also benefit from studying aphorisms - the upside reward far outweighs the downside risk. 

I'm still only an aspiring aphorist. However, even if I never add my name to this most distinguished list, I'll have benefited from being in their company. As the French essayist (and extremely prolific aphorist in his own right) Montaigne eloquently once said, "I quote others only the better to express myself."

Being Alone Together

I'm not ashamed to say that I love Starbucks. Anti-globalization forces may hate me for it, but I find the sight of the familiar green sign a warm and welcoming invitation to pop in, order an Ice Mocha (even in winter!) and settle in for some serious reading or reflecting. 

It appears that I'm not alone in enjoying this activity. Have you been to a Starbucks lately? These days, it seems easier to get a lewd instant message from a Congressman than it is to find a spare seat - let alone a table! - at your local Starbucks. Why is that? 

It's not just for the coffee. Starbucks has shrewdly responded to one of our contemporary society's silent needs, which is to provide a venue for people to 'be alone together'. Look around the next time you're in such a place, and you will probably be struck, as I have been, by the number of people sitting alone at their tables sipping coffee. 

Some of them are students, as evidenced by their text books and laptops splayed across multiple tables (can you tell that this is a pet peeve of mine?). For high schoolers, Starbucks is the preferred place for "studying" (in quotation marks because I'm not so sure how much studiousness is on display). After all, many high schools don't have large libraries like universities do, so the local cafe is filling a void in the social and scholastic firmament. University students seem to like Starbucks as well, eschewing the campus library for reasons relating to their stodginess and sub-par coffee perhaps. 

Some of them are 'free agents', to use Dan Pink's term describing self-employed individuals who use such public spaces - especially ones with Wi-Fi Internet access - as their surrogate office. Still others are people who use the coffee and company as fuel for contemplative tasks, such as writing their great American novel or catching up on this week's Economist. 

I fall in the latter category. After noticing this habit, I began to wonder why I did some of my best reading or thinking there, and why Saturday afternoons at Starbucks became a sacrosanct part of my weekend schedule. It seems that such coffee shops offer the perfect combination of stimulation and silence for contemporary, attention-deficit-addled adolescents and adults. I've come to call this phenomenon the need for 'social solitude.' 

First, there's the coffee. The invigorating effects of caffeine are obvious to anyone who has had a cup of joe, but coffee has both a soothing and stimulating effect on its drinkers. The feel of the warm mug in your hands after a walk in the brisk autumn air is comforting, while the aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans is to many both fragrant and friendly. 

But that's only part of the story. Perhaps more significantly, Starbucks provides a semi-quiet place to read and reflect amid a whirl of social activity. Think about it: Starbucks are rarely empty spaces; in fact, they are often located at densely trafficked street corners to take advantage of significant urban footfall. If you're lucky enough to get a window seat at say, the Starbucks in Time Square in New York City, you can watch as literally the world walks by. Even if you don't happen to be in Midtown Manhattan or at the Coffee Bean on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, often the 'action' in the coffee house offers just enough stimulation to sate your thirst. 

If I'm representative of the average young adult 'being alone together' in Starbucks, the common experience goes something like this. One reads or writes a number of pages in a flurry of caffeine-induced focus, but seeing as though we've all become a bit attention-deficit-prone our concentration wanes a bit. When distraction strikes, you have a number of options to steer yourself back on track. You can look up and take in the scene around you. I sometimes try to figure out what that couple sitting across the room might be saying to each other, or what the back-story could be behind that young lady pecking away at her computer for the past few hours. 

If you're a curious type, you can tune in momentarily to a conversation close by, and listen to part of the back-and-forth between two mothers discussing - what else? - their kids. If you're within sight of the door, you can watch the incoming flow of traffic and see if you recognize any of the newest additions to the social menagerie. Still another option is to strain and peer outside, catching a glimpse of the cars, people and pets that whizz by the window. Finally, there's the obvious alternative (and perhaps the most sought-after activity, from Starbucks accountants' point of view) of getting up, stretching your legs and trekking over to the barista bar to order another Mocha Frappuchino. Once you have been sufficiently stimulated, you can then go back to the task at hand for another concentrated stretch - until the next 'study break' beckons. 

Starbucks has, it seems, become the adult university library for us all, providing a public place for an increasingly individualistic society. The iPod-wearing hordes who walk wordlessly down the urban arteries convene in venues like these to, in some sense, commune together over coffee and a curious yet contemporary form of company. In bygone days, people used to find community in parks, playgrounds and public squares. Today, that vision of civic society has been replaced by what Robert Putnam described so presciently in his 2000 essay as 'bowling alone.' The phenomenon I've described here of 'social solitude' is surely part of a larger societal shift from community to individuality, from 'we' to 'me', and it will almost certainly find corollaries in other popular personal | public behaviors from blogging to participating in social networks. I don't aspire to explain it all in this post, but merely to document one small aspect of it that I've discerned then open it up for consideration and debate. 

The next time you pop in to your local coffee shop, look up from your paper or laptop for a moment and take in the scene. You might be witnessing one of the more profound socio-cultural shifts of this young new century. You might notice that, in the immortal words of Sting and the Police's classic Message in a Bottle, "seems like I'm not alone at being alone" ...