For a long time I have been using facebook as a storage space for the interesting articles I read. My friends seem to appreciate the links, and I enjoy having the opportunity to connect with old and new friends by sharing knowledge and remarkable happenings around the world. I will surely continue to do that, but there are two major problems with facebook sharing. (1) I don’t have control over my own data. I can’t sort it into categories. I can’t easily re-read old links in a given category. (2) Facebook uses everything I share in their own algorithms which they have designed for maximum ad revenue (how’s that working out for you, FB?) (3) There is no challenge involved in sharing a link. I only add my own comments when I’m burning to say something.
Surely, there are some subjects which do not merit deep thought or analysis, but nevertheless have meaning on their own. Everyone needs some levity in life. The healing power of pictures of kittens cannot be overstated. But one could go through life never thinking deeply about anything, flying like a moth to only the bright lights of celebrities and catchy phrases, talking only about the memes of the day and forgetting to piece them all together in a coherent understanding of history and human nature. I’m not saying I’m “above” all of the chaotic flightiness of human nature — I’m fascinated by it. I love the hive mind, and what it can create. So I will continue to take part in it one soundbite at a time.
But on the other side of the “hive mind” are the deep thinkers, the people who write books and make weighty, coherent contributions. I’ve never made a coherent contribution to the world, or attempted to take a snapshot of my entire brain. I haphazardly throw out sentences and hope that they will glom together somehow and add up to something. But I know that that doesn’t just happen. Especially for non-geniuses like myself. As Louis Pasteur, creator of the first vaccine for rabies, observed:
Dans les champs de l’observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés.
This is generally translated as “Fortune favors the prepared mind”. How do you prepare your mind to make novel observations about the world? You probably have to start by making ten thousand mediocre observations, and being very, very patient. So far, I’ve never accomplished anything useful in life without hard work, and I don’t expect it will ever happen. I find this fact of human nature not to be frustrating, but rather, astounding. The fact that I can simply “put my mind” to something, and come up with new insights merely by thinking, is exactly what makes me feel most human, most unlike a machine. A machine cannot try to do something — it can only do what it was built to do. And that I have this seemingly infinite potential to think thoughts that have never occurred to me, blows my mind.
We shall see whether I have what it takes to stick to blogging, and thinking deeply, regularly. I’m not going to start off very ambitiously, because I’d rather get into the habit than try to produce my magnum opus from day one and then give up from exhaustion on day two. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit. But that is anecdotal, and may only apply to routines where simple actions are required (like not lighting a cigarette first thing in the morning, or flossing your teeth after each meal). Even if thinking of ideas, and sitting down to write, and being in “research mode” is routine, the actual creative process itself is anything but routine.
There was an interesting interview of investigative reporter Charles Duhigg on NPR’s Fresh Air recently. Charles Duhigg is the author of “The Power of Habit“, which is now on my to-read list. Apparently habits form in the basal ganglia, the same area that generates emotions, and sees patterns. It’s a very primitive part of the brain. Psychologists define a “habit loop” as three elements of all habits. They are:
- The cue, or trigger. This can be a time of day, a person, a situation, or any one or combination of sensory inputs. The sound of a coffee grinder might trigger a coffee craving that is nearly impossible to ignore. If you always buy a cookie after attending a stressful meeting with your boss, you might find yourself craving cookies at the mere sight of him/her across the room!
- Routine. That is, the actual performance of the behavior.
- Reward. Without some feeling of reward, habits will almost certainly be impossible to maintain.
Perhaps the book offers some tricks about how to form (or break!) habits. In the interview, Duhigg mentions one of the most important aspects of creating new habits, and that is the belief in your ability to change. That’s all well and good, but generally my beliefs in my own abilities come from past success, so you have to start somewhere.
What I will try is to blog for 100 consecutive days. Most of these days will probably suck, and be embarrassing failures, but I am going to try to still enjoy (there’s the reward) the failures as well as the successes, as well as the process. Here goes nothing!
Day 1