Solitude is Golden

Too many career professionals are uncomfortable with solitude. Increasingly, this discomfort tolerates only shorter and shorter attention spans. To retreat into one's own mind, to pause, to reflect is now treated as if it were enemy territory, yet these skills are needed now more than ever!

Brave New World is Here

"People never are alone now... We make them hate solitude, and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it." --Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932

No Limits to our Social Pace

A paper titled "No Apparent Limits: Addressing Common Arguments Against Continuous Computational Acceleration states, "The closer we look, the more we discover the astonishing, surprising, and (for some at least) alarming irrelevancy of all currently proposed limits to
the ongoing acceleration of local computation....Ours is the generation that will no longer be able to ignore the phenomenon of continuing technological acceleration."

"We, and more particularly, our technological creations, are on a wild ride to an interesting destination-the technological singularity-a local rate of computational change so fast and powerful that it must have a profound and as-yet-unclarified universal effect."

"As a side effect of this hypergrowth, biological human beings will not be able to meaningfully understand the computer-driven world of the near future unless they are able to make some kind of transition to 'transhumanity,' an environment with greater-than-human computational capacity, and a new, as yet undetermined human-machine symbiosis. How this transition will and should occur, and how it is presently occurring, is a subject of spirited and insightful debate."

The upshot for each of us? Don't expect the pace of society to slow down in your lifetime, and employing Breathing Space techniques is more important than ever.

TV Isolates Us from Each Other

Robert Putnam, Ph.D. Harvard professor of public policy and author of "Bowling Alone," says, "For most of the 20th century, Americans were becoming more connected with family and friends, and there was more giving of blood and money, and all of those trend lines turn sharply in the middle '60s and have gone in the other direction ever since,"

Quoted in the Washington Post, he says, "Americans go on 60 percent fewer picnics today and families eat dinner together 40 percent less often compared with 1965, he said. They are less likely to meet at clubs or go bowling in groups. Putnam has estimated that every 10-minute increase in commutes makes it 10 percent less likely that people will establish and maintain close social ties."

"Television is a big part of the problem, he contends. Whereas 5 percent of U.S. households in 1950 owned television sets, 95 percent did a decade later."

The Need to Let Go

Speaker Joe Calloway says that we all need to let go of erroneous notions. Joe's mantra: "I need to let go of..."

* comparing myself to others
* trying to meet someone's expectations other than my own
* doing it all myself
* only telling my clients what they want to hear
* thinking it's all about getting spin-offs or more jobs
* playing small

* not trusting my own opinion
* working with people I can't stand
* pretending like I'm president of a big company
* stepping over dollars to pick up nickels
* not having fun

Social Isolation Growing in U.S.

"The number of people who say they have no one to confide in has risen." Washington Post staff journalist Shankar Vedantam recently wrote that "Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States."

"A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two."

"The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone."

Having Breathing Space is wonderful, but history has shown that social isolation is seldom beneficial

A Lessor Concept of Friendship

Today's students live in a hyper-accelerated communications culture and may actually have a diminished concept of friendship. This cheapening is typified by a type of cell phone banter that goes something like this: "Hey, what're you up to? ...I might catch up with you later."

The second phrase reveals quite a bit about the changing definition of friendship. The meaning translates to, "I'm not willing to commit my evening to you because I might end up with a better offer. However if I don't come up with anything else, I might be back in touch and you could become part of my evening."

How utterly dreadful.

Obesity Can Spread!

According to a recent New York Times article, "Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too."

Hmmm, does that mean staying thin requires only befriending thin people?

Amusing Ourselves to Death

The late Neil Postman was a man ahead of his time. Here is an excerpt from the foreword to his 1985 landmark book Amusing Ourselves to Death

"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares."

"But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think."

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture."

"Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

"This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."

China Flagrantly Overpopulates

From the BBC and the Xinhua news agency:
China's top family planning body has warned of a "population rebound" as couples flout one child policy rules. The widening wealth gap could lead to a rise in birth rates. Newly rich couples can afford to pay fines to have more than one child, while rural couples are marrying earlier.

China is keen to curb its population growth, and the controversial family planning policy, implemented in the late 1970s, is meant to limit urban couples to one child and rural families to two. But rising incomes mean that some newly rich couples in urban areas can easily afford to break the rules and pay the resulting fines. However, the number of rich people and celebrities having more than one child was on a rapid increase, and nearly 10% of people in this category had three children.

In the countryside, too, the rules are being flouted... because of the traditional preference for sons. Experts say this preference has led to the under-reporting of female births, as well as abortion of female fetuses and female infanticide. By the end of 2006, China's population stood at 1,314,480,000, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, with males accounting for 51.5% of the population.

Advantages for Deviance?

Here are some notes I took from a book with an interesting perspective:

Deviance Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets
by Mathews, Wenty and Wacker (Crown Books)

* Over the past 3 decades deviance, not reasoning, began to drive the social and commercial agenda. The result? Things that we found pungent only yesterday we lionize today.

* Deviance migrates from the fringe to the social convention, rapidly creating markets, and changing the rules of the social and commercial game.

* The pace of change has picked up to the point where the functional distance between the fringe and social convention is all but disappeared.

* Markets form and dissolve in unanticipated places and in record rates. Yesterday's pariah is tomorrow's market darling, and what was once beyond the social pale is suddenly a hot commodity.

* The pace of deviant change is so intense and so relentless that we are beginning to witness compound deviance. The rules of the game keep changing before we have a chance to write them down.

Jeff comments: It all seems kind of sad, doesn't it? Deviance rules, whereas goodness, purity, and wholesomeness are on the fringe. Gosh, I hope society, and the popular media in particular, wakes up soon.

Breathing Space for Kids

Something we all should know from the Fight for Kids Foundation website:

“Today, more than 17 million children worldwide have been prescribed psychiatric drugs so dangerous that medicine regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia and the United States have issued warnings that antidepressants, for example, can cause suicide and hostility in children and adolescents. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also issued a warning that stimulant drugs, such as Ritalin and Concerta can cause suicidal as well as violent, aggressive and psychotic behavior, and that these same drugs can cause heart attacks, stroke and sudden death.”

* Of these 17 million, more than 10 million children are in the United States, being prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for educational and behavioral problems.

* Today, children 5 years old and younger are the fastest-growing segment of the non-adult population prescribed antidepressants in the U.S. Children as young as 4 have attempted suicide while influenced by such drugs and 5 year olds have committed suicide. Between 1995 and 1999, antidepressant use increased 580% in the under 6 population and 151% in the 7-12 age group. In 2004, the FDA ordered that a “black box” label be placed on antidepressants warning that they can cause suicide in children and adolescents.

* Stimulants are mostly prescribed for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD) and other childhood “disorders” and are “Schedule II” drugs, meaning they have the same potential for abuse as morphine, opium and cocaine. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that studies show that Ritalin is more potent than cocaine and effects the brain in the same way as cocaine does.

* A recent U.S. report found that 10% of teens abuse Ritalin and another stimulant drug, Adderall. Eight out of 13 school shooters in the U.S. were taking antidepressants or stimulants at the time of the crime. Often children, affected by these drugs, have been institutionalized where they have been forcefully restrained—tragically, dozens have died during this violent procedure.

“Parents are not informed about all the potential risks to their child when they agree to a psychiatric drug prescription. They are not informed that the diagnoses for which they are prescribed are unlike medical diseases. There is no physical test—blood or urine test, “chemical imbalance” test or x-ray or brain scan—that can determine the physical existence or cause of the “mental disorder.” Millions of children are prescribed these drugs when they have simply never been taught to read or may be suffering from allergies, lead poisoning or other environmental toxic effects.”

Too Many Choices: A Curse?

For too many people, an abundance of choices has become a curse, not a blessing. In the 1984 movie Moscow on the Hudson, Robin Williams portrays a Russian defector who settles in New York. He goes to the supermarket to buy some coffee. The markets he knew in Moscow were small and poorly lit. The Manhattan supermarket is dazzling. The coffee display overwhelms him – there is instant, freeze dried, dark brew, etc., in boxes, cans, and jars of different sizes and colors.

Confronted with all these choices, he has an anxiety attack, faints, falls forward, and knocks over the whole display. That scene got a big laugh, but it makes a point about our lives – too many choices. I suggests that you avoid engaging in low level decisions. If a toothbrush is available in red or green, and it's all the same to you, just grab the closest one or take the one that the sales clerk hands you.

Whenever you catch yourself making a low level decision, consider: does this really make a difference? Get in the habit of making only a few choices a day – the ones that count.

More Affluence, Less Happiness

Researcher Barry Schwartz observes that "Assessments of well-being by various social scientists, among them David Myers of Hope College and Robert Lane of Yale University, reveal that increased choice and increased affluence have, in fact, been accompanied by
decreased well-being in the U.S. and most other affluent societies. It seems that as a society, at least in recent years, grows wealthier and people become freer to do whatever they want, they get less happy."

Mega-Realities of Life

The five mega-realities of life serve as a framework to understanding change and how we can adjust our thinking and activities to maintain some semblance of control.

Sitting right where you are, what you now know about population — the fact that the world gains more than a quarter million people per day enables you to safely predict the following:

1) Investing in real estate, more specifically a home, will continue to be a sound financial move almost independent of your economic station in life.

2) Adopting a somewhat contrarian mindset will prove to be advantageous. Attempting to head into the city or out of the city at the same time as everyone, or booking theater or restaurant reservations at the same time as everyone else will be problematic or increasingly so as time passes. Commutes in all directions will become more arduous. Hence, living closer to work, living closer to shopping and conveniences, telecommuting occasionally, and shopping online will only grow in attractiveness and utility.

3) Old friends become more valued friends. Anchors such as family, close business associates, former college roommates and those who have shared experiences with us become more important with the passing of time. This is not to downplay the role of new friends, for indeed they can become great friends and eventually even old friends!

Population Woes

On a daily basis, the ever-increasing world population seemingly has little impact on our lives. After all, even though the world gains a million people every four days, what impact does it have on us if 99% of them are in India, or Asia or Africa? Yet, more people every day, in every society, all the time, in our fast-paced, high-tech society predictably yields higher levels of isolation, alienation, loss of identity, and even abhorrent behavior.

Population growth in a fast-paced world translates into more of everything in every direction. Allow me to explain: more brilliant students in school, more utterly hopeless students. More books, more plays, more movies, more philosophy, newer religions, cult groups and those at war with society. More noble thoughts, more deviant thoughts, more channel noise. A smorgasbord of information and entertainment, unprecedented in the history of the earth. Yet we each have a harder time focusing on reliable, verifiable information, and on high quality, socially redeeming, socially rewarding entertainment amidst the bland, the low brow, or the utterly vulgar.

As the U.S. population climbs to 300 million, from a benchmark 160 million in 1960, with it comes more roads, more buildings, more housing development, new zoning, new restrictions, more government, new ways to tax, and more bureaucracy. Everywhere you look, predictably more regulations, witness more forms signed by school children in order to participate in class, sports, extracurricular activities, field trips, and even volunteer opportunities.

More people on less land means predictable appreciation in real estate values. More chasing after the same economic goods. A rise in collectibles from the historic and magnificent to the recent and absurd. Greater levels of materialism and among many, the quest for greater spirituality.

The mathematics of population growth is unknown to most, spectacular to a few, and in most respects, a mystery to everyone. The Indonesian tsunami of December 26, 2004 ultimately claimed 150,000 to 160,000 lives. World population growth (live births - deaths) adds 150,000 to 160,000 people every 16 hours, in a day a quarter million people, and in a month more than seven million to the earth.

In two decades, at least six of the seven million born this month will be clamoring for jobs, some for enough to eat, some for higher education, and many for some the illusive and fleeting notion of cosmic or social justice.

Urban Areas with Worst Traffic

The 10 urban areas with the heaviest traffic:

1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco
3. Seattle
4. Washington
5. Chicago
6. San Diego
7. Boston
8. Portland, Ore.
9. Atlanta
10. Las Vegas

When Deviance is an Advantage

Here are some notes and observations I've made based on the book "Deviance Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets," by Mathews, Wenty, and Wacker (Crown Books, 2002)
* Over the past 3 decades deviance, not reasoning, began to drive the social and commercial agenda. The result? Things that we found putrid only yesterday we lionize today.
* Deviance migrates from the fringe to the social convention, rapidly creating markets, and changing the rules of the social and commercial game.
* The pace of change has picked up to the point where the functional distance between the fringe and social convention is all but disappeared.
* Markets form and dissolve in unanticipated places and in record rates. Yesterday's pariah is tomorrow's market darling, and what was once beyond the social pale is suddenly a hot commodity, ie. NY executives marketing gangsta rap and convicted criminals for huge profits
* The pace of deviant change is so intense and so relentless that we are beginning to witness compound deviance. The rules of the game keep changing before we have a chance to write them down.