psychology

The Divergence of Self

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

My friend Serdar was writing about the toxicity of nostalgia, choices, and the need to see what is in front of our nose. It’s easy to ask what could have been, to want to go back. It’s an urge I entirely understand, and one I think all humans has – as he notes, that’s just part of the planning section of our brain that’s taken us so far on Earth.

It will shock no one that the last few years I’ve wondered about what could have been – and still do. In fact, I probably do it too much, though perhaps that’s part of the human condition. Maybe that survival/planning part of our brain works best with a little unease, even moreso for a Project Manager like me. But I’d like to share an exercise I did once that puts some perspective on this desire to go back.

Once, years ago, while taking a walk, I thought about my desires to go back or start over, and turned it into an exercise – one that lengthened the walk to about an hour. I thought about the major choices in my life and asked “what if” about them and what would have happened. This was not an “if I knew then what I know now” exercise, such things are different and perhaps a little idealistic about our habits. This was “what if back then the me back them made a difference choice.”

Looking back a few years, I could easily see my decisions and likely outcomes. Many a decision in life is a knifes-edge change that could go one way or another, and the memories are fresh and merciless enough to evaluate with some level of accuracy. For instance, my current (and likely until-retirement) career in academia and medicine could have started years earlier but for some petty choices – a good reminder of my own flaws. The gap between “me” now and “me” a few years ago wasn’t so large I couldn’t relate.

As my mind traveled further back the results became colder, more distant, because the person then was not who I was now. What if I had started my consulting career earlier? What if I had not tried working at startups? What if I had moved to Seattle not California? As I rolled back the years in my head, the me of the past, even as he made different choices, became increasingly alien to the person I am now.

At some point in my replay, decades in my past when my IT career started, the me in the past diverged so much I didn’t know him. I could see the choices and possibilities in the past, but they led so far off the map in the present. At some point during this rewind I just stopped being anyone I could recognize or even guess.

Now this exercise was quite useful on many levels – perhaps I’ll write about it more in time. But also at some point you realize reliving the past and asking “what if” just doesn’t serve you. You’re different people than you were and are and could be, and at some point you have to return to what’s in front of your nose. If you’re mindful, such exercises on the past put you more in the present as you realize how you got here.

You can’t go back to who you were. Who you could have been is someone else, someone you wouldn’t recognize. But you can learn to a point about who you were to be better at who you are now.

I won’t lie – in these unsettled times the “if I could back and do it over knowing what I know now” is tempting. If such a magical opportunity arose, I’d like to think the current me is grounded enough in the present to make the right decision.

But for the people I was? I can’t speak for them. They’re not me. In some cases, they’re not anyone I even recognize.

Steven Savage

Nothing Means Anything Anymore

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

There’s a peculiar dissatisfaction in First World modern life. A racing, seeking need is prowling around, so many of us are trying to get something. Whatever we churn out in technologies and media doesn’t quite seem to be enough. Whatever new social media or communities or movies that pop up, people still seem disconnected.

I get that strange, unsettled, need – and that feeling things just “aren’t like they should be.” Even when you remove toxic nostalgia and the human condition, something seems wrong. Lately, contemplating everything from music to politics, a phrase bubbled up in my mind – “Nothing Means Anything Anymore.”

So much doesn’t seem to exist for itself or because it’s just good as it is or even it’s cool or fun. I think that’s part of the dissatisfaction.

The latest new social media product is just a mixture of contrarianism, MLM, and fad so someone makes money. The latest big media sensation is part of a series being milked for money and flattened to the most marketable format. Every book cover looks alike and sells the same stories that went before it – even for indie authors.

How much of our culture is just marketing anymore? Nothing exists for itself, everything is how to get more money into a bank account, so much is “number go up.” How many times have you reviewed a film or a book for friends and caught yourself sounding like a professional reviewer or marketer? We’re so used to nothing being what it its, but being some kind of product rollout or initiative or whatever we start to sound like that.

Or maybe there’s the meaninglessness in politics and the seeking of political power. Carefully-tested bullshit is spewed making claims everyone knows are lies, but people don’t want to admit it so their side “wins.” Pundits spit out catchphrases and newspaper people are just asking questions since they don’t want to do real work. Even the conspiracy theories are recycled and the conspiracy theorists seem to be trying not to meet each other’s gaze as they know they’re full of crap.

Such multi-level meaninglessness even infects supposedly sane politics. Political discussions among friends and enemies sound like any argument held by pundits as we’re all trying to be pundits instead of themselves. Local politics can be amplified by some online influence-seeker who posts about your local town and next thing you know your city council is getting screamed at by people in other states or even countries. Number goes up, votes go up, clicks goes up, but it’s all worse somehow.

We’ve somehow managed to build a complex, high-tech First World where we know a lot of it is bullshit.

Yet when I do things like read punk mags (hey, I’m not as dull as I seem) or go to local zine fests I see meaning. There’s some meaning in these handcrafted, not-market-tested, weird, personal things. There’s satisfaction to be had out there, from weird streaming services to someone’s photocopied jokes on cactuses (really, I have it). Meaning is there to have.

I’m not proposing a solution or a diagnosis of cause right now. I’m just recognizing this right now. I do suspect some of it is that we’ve built very complex, profit-driven societies and created a lot of technologies and media we’re promoting that we may not need or want. At some point everything became so abstract nothing means anything.

But now I can ask myself what does it mean when I look at a book, a movie, etc. I can ask why I do something and what really matters to me. I can also act less like a marketer . . . at least when I’m not marketing.

Steven Savage

Waiting to Be Stolen

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I’d like to discuss politics. I am going to take painful efforts to be nonpartisan, but let me say the issue I am going to discuss can happen to anyone, but is much more common in certain areas. I make no promises of sounding entirely neutral, but it is important I do so.

We all wonder “how can anyone believe this bullshit?” or “why do people follow someone obvious lying to them?” We’ve perhaps wondered it about ourselves at times. But how can it be in modern times, with all our knowledge of history and education, with the internet and all else, do we believe obvious lies?

Well there are many reasons, and this isn’t a discourse on propaganda. There are other experts for that. But one factor I think that’s missed is we’re more primed to be taken advantage of than we realize.

There’s an old Taoist saying I’ve heard in a few forms, but basically “You can lock your treasures in a chest until a thief strong enough to lift the chest comes by.” What you use for control can be taken from you.

Now think about the first time you saw people believe obvious lies. You wondered how they can believe such falsehoods. Consider that they may have been primed to believe by other people, who then got their marks snatched from them. Someone locked them in a chest of ideas and the right podcaster or politician just happened to pick it up

A lot of us are gathered together waiting to be stolen.

We’re primed to believe marketing. We’re awash in advertising, demographic targeting, and old fashioned techniques perfected by modern technology. People don’t just push your buttons, they’ve installed new ones. The right product or company can snatch you away if you’re not careful, and steal a swath of customers who think it was their idea.

We’re primed to believe politicians – at least our politicians, you know, the proper ones. We’ve got plenty of news organizations that are propaganda, intentionally or because it’s marketable, or both. Someone else who learns the right game can steal an electorate right out from under someone.

To add to all of this, we’re also in a time where everyone can be a propagandist and are encouraged to be. Reach out for your church! Get more hits to your blog! Get that meme circulating for likes! You, yes you might even get famous on social media and start a career as a grifting a-hole!

All of this is enabled by technologies we’ve never fully assessed – and I don’t just mean the internet. Have we really asked about what commercial television means for us? How we have to prepare for increasing information choices in the internet age? Just how disorienting is streaming?

We’re not just locked in treasure chests, we’re taught how to steal others using tools we had dropped in our laps. It also is so normal. We’ve become used to being marketed to, propagandaized, lied to, etc. that we accept it, miss it, and participate in it.

So no, it’s not surprising that someone you know or even you got deceived into following some awful person or cause. We’ve been primed by a lot of our culture and economy to be locked up, stolen away, and even help others steal the minds of others.

There, I managed to stay non-partisan enough. I hope enough not just to make you think, but maybe doubt yourself a little bit.

Steven Savage