Hidden in Plain Sight

We drive up the street and it's much like any other residential location. There are gardeners blowing leaves nearby. There are children playing on front lawns.

The monstrosity we are about to enter is hidden in plain sight. There are clues that one learns to eventually see in these situations. The front porch is strewn with junk mail and all kinds of miscellaneous and useless knick knacks.  A neighbor comes out and lets us know that the old man never let anyone inside his home. This is a dead giveaway. This is a hoarder situation.

As we get closer to the door, the smell of stale feces becomes more and more potent.  Our notes show that his sewage isn't working and his "solution" to the problem was to defecate and urinate in empty buckets. We were initially unsure if the waste was being continually cleaned. The ever-strengthening stench has answered our question.

The front door is locked. We check the back.  There are fallen branches and junk everywhere. Discarded cabinets. Old newspapers. Dried up cacti. Children's toys. 

The back door is open because the coroner had to break in to pick up his body. The stench was becoming unbearable and a neighbor reported the situation.

We enter. The mask I'm wearing does absolutely nothing. The stench is nauseating. I have to step out several times to stop my gag reflex. I take the mask off since it's useless. To my unfortunate surprise, I'm getting used to the smell and I no longer mind the shit stench going down my lungs.  There are buckets everywhere. I jokingly tell my colleague that there is chocolate milk in all of them. She calls me an idiot but still laughs because there is no other way to respond.

I check the bedroom. Used condoms on the floor. Homosexual and heterosexual pornography strewn all over the place. I browse through some books on the shelf to search for important documents. Nope, all the books are filled with explicit content used as bookmarks.  He has a stack of wind instruments in a chest near his bed. He used to run a music school and teach children. Seriously?

We enter what is supposedly the living room. Piles and piles of junk from every source imaginable. Lamps. Purses. Discarded violins. A cello. Old tools. An accordion. Framed pornographic photographs. Who frames porn? These are useless questions. You don't ask such things when you enter such a world.

Japanese prints of samurai line most of the walls. There are empty cases everywhere. Why would you keep so many empty receptacles? Silly question of course. I keep my feces nice and cozy next to my bed. You think I follow any coherent form of logic? Such a clueless little boy you are.

We get what we need. We collect the cash, jewelry, and important financial documents. We leave this disgusting world behind only to come back to another the following week. Once again, it most likely hides right in front of you, among the freshly cut grass and children playing.  

What's perhaps a bit unfortunate is that a certain part of me enjoyed entering this vile den that so few people will ever know exists.

Oh, it exists alright.

From the Highest Peaks to the Shadows of the Lowest Valleys

I don't claim to be an expert on love and relationships or even someone who is extensively experienced on the matter by any stretch of the imagination.  But, even with such restraints I do want to share the story of how my first true love and eventual heartbreak changed many aspects of me.

There is no logical place to begin. Perhaps the most important gift I have gained from the entire experience is that even though I can't define what Love means through words, I can confidently say I know how it actually feels.  The feelings manifest in many ways. Thinking of the person automatically puts a smile on your face, whether you are consciously aware of it or not. Making sacrifices for her no longer becomes a matter of whether you will pursue a particular course of action but how you will pursue it. The first thought is always the how and no longer whether. Your heart-rate rises and you're filled with excitement when there is an incoming message or a call from her.  You think she's beautiful even when she looks like a complete mess.  When she's sick, you want to drown her in hot tea and soup.  When speaking to her, all you can think about is how to bring out another beautiful smile. Her smell is intoxicating. The softness of her skin sends chills down your spine.  Her voice is melodic. You want to get lost in her hair. Her lips feel like clouds? What the FUCK is this absurdity?  You mistake her eyes for gems. Her mind is an endless book you crave to be lost in. A never-ending forest perhaps? Her jokes are so terrible that they break some weird threshold and actually become hilarious.  Her childishness and optimism are unashamedly infectious. This feels drug-like. This is unreal.

Of course, as beautiful and true as the above Disney-esque bullshit is, there comes a certain point when you start taking her for granted. You've never experienced the surreal level of happiness that genuine Love can bring and you become afraid of losing it.  This fear leads to paranoia. This paranoia leads to insecurity. This insecurity leads to needy and suffocating behavior.  The more you go down this path, the more you push her away. The farther away she gets, the more intense your fears become, causing her to fade even more.  The beast you've created relentlessly gorges on itself. It's indifferent to your suffering. You start second guessing all your thoughts, words, and actions.  You start questioning her behavior and words at every chance you get. Why is she calling less often? Why is she providing less and less details about her life? Why is she progressively becoming more and more closed off from you? Why does she keep fading away? You've become hopelessly obsessed.

You're now a burden. Regrettably, you haven't realized it yet.  You won't ever realize it until it's too late.  She's already gone but you're in denial. You don't consciously realize it but you are. You definitely are.  Her presence is a mere shell of her former self.  She's already made her decision. There are several close calls and half-hearted attempts at concluding the journey.  You keep hoping it will continue but you ultimately realize that the end is in sight.

Then, it finally happens. She's made her decision and there is no going back.  You are surprisingly calm and you're relieved that you don't feel worse.  But, you foolishly have absolutely no idea how big of a loss you have suffered. Your mind is taking pity on you and letting you swallow the pain one spoonful at a time instead of forcing you to deal with all of it at once.  Soon, the symptoms begin.  You can't sleep. You can't eat. You've lost motivation to do anything but the essentials.  It takes all your willpower to crawl out of bed. You force yourself to eat primarily liquid food because everything else makes you nauseous.  You read anything and everything about the pit you have found yourself in, hoping it will allow you to understand the pain and make it go away.  You even see her in your dreams and there is absolutely no escape.  You are reconstructing and replaying every relevant memory and conversation with her. You are stuck in the universe of What Ifs and you see no escape in sight.  You try to predict the milieu of realities that could have been possible if you hadn't said X or hadn't done Y or behaved in manner Z.  Every time you reconstruct a memory, the more warped and inaccurate it becomes, eventually transforming into a incomprehensible blur. As expected, none of it works. Mere distractions. Nothing more.  This quite literally feels like going through drug-induced withdrawals. Sooner or later you realize that you're experiencing similar physical and psychological states as someone who is dealing with the death of a loved one or an addict coming off of an addiction.  That realization finally allows you to understand just how deep of a hole you are currently in and how long it's going to take to climb out.

Time passes at an excruciatingly slow pace but it still passes. The random bursts of bawling become less and less frequent.  You find yourself getting busier and busier in hopes of distracting yourself.  To your pleasant surprise, these distractions are becoming permanent and you are becoming progressively more active and diverse.  You start to entertain the possibility that you are coming out stronger from this situation than when you entered it.  This thought is the first one in months that is truly making you happy on a more consistent and permanent basis.

The recovery continues and you finally have the spare mental and emotional resources to devote towards brutally honest introspection.  You own up to the mistakes you made and how you can better yourself as a person. You slowly but surely start to understand how wonderful she was and how absolutely foolish you were.  You were in the presence of a gift and you squandered it. Owning up to all the ugly things you have done is both painful yet liberating.  You almost start being... thankful for what you went through.  You finally ask yourself if knowing what you know now, if you would go through the whole experience all over again.  Without a second thought or hesitation, you admit to yourself that you in fact would.  You understand that through the process of being completely broken down, you reconstructed yourself into something more stable and powerful. More confident. More interesting. More passionate and emotionally honest.  More comfortable with accepting uncertainty and letting go of whatever isn't under your influence.  You realize that you are forever changed, for the better. For the first time in many months, it feels euphoric to see with such clarity. You understand that your journey From the Highest Peaks to the Shadows of the Lowest Valleys was not wasted and you became a better you in the process.

The assumptions we hold

On the surface, the new film "Her" by Spike Jonze seems to be a scifi-esque tale about a lonely and detached man (named Theodore) falling in love with an A.I. (an operating system named "Samantha"). However, much like many other thought-provoking films, there is much more to the story here. The director guides the viewer through a journey where he is prodded into questioning his core assumptions about love and relationships.

There are many themes covered in the film. One of the major ones deals with the physical connection between two individuals and whether such a connection is a prerequisite for true love.  By her very nature, Samantha is unable to satisfy Theodore's physical needs because she does not have a physical form other than being a small tablet that Theodore carries around with him wherever he goes.  All he can "feel" from her is a voice originating from the tablet and nothing more.  Given Samantha's lack of a physical form, Theodore still manages to fall in love with her and develop intense feelings.  At this point, we are forced to directly address our assumption about physical contact in the context of relationships.  In the modern age of communication technologies that allow us to essentially be in perennial long-distance relationships, where there is no physical contact or connection of any form, is it not possible to fall in and stay in love with someone?  Are the romantic feelings in such a context somehow less genuine or intense than in a "traditional" one where both people are in physical proximity? At the very core of a strong romantic connection is a strong mental bond between two individuals.  Without such a bond, the physical connection, no matter how intense, will eventually fade away.  Once the intensity of the physical attraction for someone wanes, there is nothing substantial left to keep the momentum going other than the person's mind.  If the mental attraction is not present, the connection between two individuals will most likely be shallow and short-lived.  Given this observation, it's not difficult to imagine how Theodore can develop such intense feelings for someone with no physical form.  The relationship that develops between Samantha and Theodore goes directly to the core of a strong romantic connection, a genuine and deep mental connection.  This point is exactly what the director is trying to get at. What ultimately constitutes a genuine and deep romantic bond between two individuals?

Assuming that true love can develop without a physical form, another theme the film covers is how love can eventually fade away for reasons not related to a lack of a physical connection.  The director uses the relationship between Samantha and Theodore to explore one of the ways that romantic feelings can weaken and eventually disappear.  Whenever two people enter into a relationship, there is often a period of growth for both individuals as they learn from each other.  This mutual growth provides novelty and intellectual stimulation, keeping both individuals interested.  This is exactly what happens between Theodore and Samantha. Samantha absorbs information at hyper speeds and learns extremely quickly. She learns about human emotions and relationships from Theodore because this is something unique he can offer that Samantha can't simply learn from the internet or other electronic sources of information that she has access to.  However, since Samantha learns so quickly, she eventually reaches a level of knowledge and experience that is far beyond what Theodore can keep up with or offer. She starts interacting and "speaking" with other operating systems that are like her and have learned as much as she has.  Much like in human relationships, this is where the decline begins. Samantha is growing and constantly becoming more complex while Theodore stays relatively stable. As a result, Samantha eventually outgrows Theodore because he has remained static while she has been dynamic and in a state of constant growth.  The director uses this decline to explore the death of relationships. Whether the connection is between two humans or a human and an A.I., if both sides are not in a constant state of growth and increasing complexity, the more dynamic individual will eventually lose interest and seek someone with similar attitudes about self improvement and growth.

The film goes on to explore many other themes dealing with happiness, the role of technology, emotions, and human behavior in general.  However, the emphasis of the film is on questioning our assumptions about love, relationships, and how intense romantic feelings can both develop and eventually fade away, even in non-human contexts.

A guide for dealing with humans

This is going to sound quite pessimistic and cynical but please read on if you have the patience.

When dealing with fellow human beings, expect disappointment, unpredictability, and irrationality.  Why?  For several reasons.  Keep these observations in mind:

1) When dealing with an individual in a "cold" and emotionally unaroused state, don't assume they are going to be the same way when they are under the influence of emotions of any kind, whether it be happiness, anger, sadness, stress, confusion, etc etc..  When we are unaroused, we assume that we will act in a logical and consistent manner while under emotional arousal or stress.  Often times, this is false and we have absolutely no idea how we will act or what we will do when we aren't in a cold rational state.

2) We come from different backgrounds and drastically different experiences.  This can lead different people to view the same situation in radically different ways.  We really have no idea why we hold the preferences that we do and why some things that frustrate us greatly seem to have no emotional effect on others.  There is no way to accurately identify the root cause for a majority of our predispositions.

3) Neurologically speaking, we do NOT know how decisions are actually made and what happens in the brain, at a molecular level, when an individual has to make a choice.  It's still a mystery.  So, when a person makes a decision, at the most basic level, we have no idea how that decision was made and what kind of biological influences and reactions were at play.  Why did you decide to cut that driver off today but restrained yourself yesterday?

4) We are unconsciously influenced by a plethora of contextual and environmental factors.  The sheer amount of ways that we can be emotionally/mentally primed without even realizing it is immense.  The power of roles, costumes, anonymity, authority, and an unpredictable/unfamiliar environment can have a powerful influence on who you think you are and how you think you will behave in different contexts.  Consider yourself living in a first-world country in an urban setting and then realizing how differently you might act if you were placed in a third-world rural village with contaminated food and water and no social support of any kind for miles.  Chances are that you will behave in ways that will surprise you.  Does this mean you aren't who you thought you were?

5) Our willpower and ability to practice self-restraint varies throughout the day and even depends on how well fed we are.  An individual who has been dealing with crying children all day is going to be much more on edge and "touchy" than someone who has been lounging at the beach.  Does this mean that the first individual has less self-control and is just a more frustrated person in general? Absolutely not, that person's willpower has simply been depleted and their emotional restraint has diminished.

This list isn't exhaustive and there are many more factors at play that can lead to an individual behaving in unpredictable and irrational ways.  Given these observations, is it worth actively seeking and fostering friendships?  Is it worth falling into perhaps the greatest emotional abyss of them all? I am referring to love and relationships of course.  The answer is YES to all of these situations.  But, before you set yourself up for failure and disappointment, realize that you are dealing with a creature that is operating under all of the above restraints (and then some).  Don't create high expectations and be more forgiving when shit (inevitably) hits the fan.  We're only human.

The mere thought of it..

Can simply asking about your intent to engage in a specific behavior increase your likelihood of engaging in that behavior?  What if you were asked if you plan on going on a bike ride or a hike in the coming month, do you think being asked such a question will make you more likely to do these things in the near future?  Most of us would consider such a question ridiculous because we believe that we are in conscious control of our actions and preferences.  However, when put to the test, studies by behavioral scientists often show that our intuitions, justifications, and reasoning for our actions and choices are often wrong because we aren't aware of numerous environmental factors that can influence our behavior.

An example of such an intuition-breaking study was carried out by Jonathan Levav of Columbia University and Gavan J. Fitzsimons of Duke University.  These scientists set out to investigate the "mere measurement effect," which states that when individuals are asked about a specific kind of behavior, they are more likely to engage in that behavior in the future.  Much like most other research in the field of Behavioral Economics, Levav and Fitzimons came back with intriguing results.

The authors discovered that merely asking a question about a specific behavior does in fact make it more likely that people might engage in that behavior.  Levav and Gavan asked survey participants whether they plan to floss or read for pleasure more frequently in the upcoming 2 weeks. For the control group, the authors asked participants how often they think their friends will engage in these behaviors.  The rationale being that the mere-measurement effect will be active in the experimental group and not the control group because the experimental group would be visualizing themselves, not others, engaging in these behaviors. After 2 weeks, the authors asked the same participants to report on the frequency at which they engaged in these 2 behaviors.  As they expected, Levav and Gavan found statistically significant results in the experimental group and not the control group.

 The authors continued with further experiments that I won't outline here. They concluded that the "simple act of stating one’s intent to engage in a behavior is associated with an increased likelihood of subsequently engaging in the behavior when it is easy to mentally represent or imagine. Participants asked their intention to engage in a behavior were more likely to enact the behavior when mentally simulating it was an easier task."

The findings here can be applied in a variety of settings. In the environmental context, questionnaires and surveys can be used to promote higher levels of environmentally-conscious behavior.  For instance, utility and waste collection companies can send out email surveys or paper surveys asking their ratepayers how much they plan to recycle in the coming month or how much water they plan to conserve. Merely asking these questions should have a positive effect on the incidence of these behaviors because the participants would mentally visualize and simulate ways on how they would go about in engaging in these actions. These visual representations should theoretically make it more likely that they will engage in the desired behaviors.  Such tactics can potentially be cost-effective ways of promoting behavioral change.

Source: http://www.mybiolumix.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Survey-excellentiStock.jpg

84 months vs. 7 years

Do you consider yourself as someone who cannot be manipulated without consciously being aware of it?  Can something as simple as changing the scale from 1-10 to 100-1000 have an effect on you?  A recent study shows that it certainly can (How to Make a 29% Increase Look Bigger: The Unit Effect in Option Comparisons. Author(s): Mario Pandelaere, Barbara Briers, Christophe Lembregts. Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 38, No. 2 (August 2011), pp. 308-322).  The choice of units when presenting quantitative information can have profound effects on your perceptions, choices, and preferences.

The authors of this study make several observations that they continue to support with experimental data.  The authors find that consumers tend to focus on the "the number rather than the type of units in which information is expressed."  In other words, if you present information on two choices using months and years, your average viewer is much more likely to notice the number of months and years instead of the fact that one choice is represented with months and the other choice is represented in years.  By focusing primarily on the number, rather than the unit, the viewer mistakenly believes that the difference between two choices is actually much larger than it actually is.  For instance, when judging the difference between 20 tons and 25 tons, and 40,000 pounds and 50,000 pounds, the viewer will mistakenly believes that the difference in the 40,000-50,000 case is greater than the difference in the 20-25 case, even though the difference is exactly the same.  The fact that one example uses bigger values tends to throw off mental calculations because viewers are looking at the numbers in absolute terms and ignoring the units involved.

In another example, "people incorrectly believe cancer is riskier when statistics report that it affects 1286 of every 10,000 persons than when they report that it causes the death of 24.1 per 100 persons." Consequently, as numbers get larger, quantity differences are perceived to be greater than they actually are.  When perceptions are affected, there are real consequences in people's behavior, perceptions, and choices.

To test their hypotheses, the authors conducted 4 different studies where they increased the scale of the units involved. For instance, in one of their studies, the authors presented the study participants with information on calories.  The two groups of participants were given the choice of an apple or a Twix bar.  With the first group of participants, the calorie information on both food items was presented in Kilojoules, which resulted in greater calorie quantities in absolute terms.  With the second group, information was presented in Kilocalories, which resulted in smaller quantities in absolute terms. The authors found that "participants were more likely to choose the apple in the kilojoules condition compared to the kilocalories condition" at statistically significant levels (p=.03).  The apple became a more popular choice because the participants believed it had a high energy content in absolute terms. Across all studies, the authors found statistically significant results that are consistent with initial hypotheses.

 The authors' findings can be applied in ways that promote consumers to engage in more environmentally sustainable behavior.  For instance, what if a local city council is trying to urge citizens to conserve and create less waste?  The local officials can apply this study's findings  when using statistics to show how much waste an average household in the city generates per year.  The waste amount can be listed in smaller units to make the problem seem bigger and more important.  For instance, when waste statistics at the city level are being presented, pounds can be used as the units of measurement instead of tons.  A resident seeing "500,000 pounds" might be more prone to being persuaded than seeing "250 tons."  Much like in the cancer statistic example, the waste problem can be perceived as more severe if the information is presented in units that make the problem seem bigger in absolute terms.  Once perceptions are affected, behavior will be easier to change.

Ultimately, the authors' findings can be used in many other contexts to promote beneficial behavior.

Source:  http://studenttrip.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/bg_twix.png%3Fw%3D279%26h%3D298

The secret to a better memory

Do you consider yourself as someone with a poor or strong memory? Well, your answer is irrelevant because there are strategies you can use to drastically improve your memory no matter how strong or weak your memory is.  The key lesson to remember is that humans excel at visual and spatial memory and we work better when we have context. We are terrible at remembering isolated facts and abstract ideas.  To create strong memories, we need to infuse them with clearly visual and concrete characteristics.  We need to imagine directly interacting with the memory in some form through touch or smell or any other non-abstract method of interaction.  By doing this, we are connecting the memory to our powerful senses such as sight and smell.  An additional tool to use is to connect the memory to something unexpected or emotional or humorous.  Our brains are wired to filter out the ordinary and the banal so we aren't overloaded with information.  As a result, a lot of important information that your brain deems ordinary or mundane can get filtered out and we become forgetful.  On the other hand, if something is unexpected, humorous, or emotional, you are much more likely to remember it.

All of this should seem familiar to previous blog entries about aiming for concreteness, eliciting emotions and using unexpectedness.  The best way to drive the point home is through using these strategies on one thorough example.

Imagine you are going to give a presentation and there are a list of items that you need to go through.  Unfortunately, you are having a difficult time trying to keep the list together in your head.  Let's assume this is the list with the topics you need to discuss:

• Profits are up due to a recent partnership with a firm in Japan.
• The company computer systems have been updated and run 30% more efficiently.
• A new competitor has risen and is providing similar products at cheaper prices.
• Your technical employees are unhappy and morale is down.
• There has been negative press coverage lately about the company's environmental track record.

As you can clearly see, these ideas are rather abstract and you might have a difficult time remembering all of them while you are giving the presentation.  Our brains aren't great at remembering the concepts in this list because they are abstract, they lack concreteness, they aren't visual, they aren't emotional, and they aren't unexpected or surprising or out of the ordinary.  The goal in this case is to take these kinds of memories and transform them into the types of memories that our brains excel at.

How can we convert these memories to something that is vivid, engaging, has spacial context, and is novel and marvelous? Your first step is to visualize a place in your mind where you can physically "store" these memories.  Think of a place that you know really well, like your childhood home.  For me, I am going to visualize my current home.

The first item on the list deals with profits due to a partnership with a firm in Japan.  To add a visual aspect to this image, I am going to imagine a Japanese man in a business suit standing in my driveway (I have physically "stored" him at a specific location now).  His suit is green and it has a giant dollar sign on it. He has his hand extended and is getting ready to shake mine.  I have taken this abstract idea and have made it concrete and placed him in a spacial context I am familiar with.

The next item deals with computer systems and efficiency.  I am now imagining walking into my house and into the living room.  There seems to be an enormous computer in the middle of the room with giant muscular arms coming out of its side.  It's flexing them and showing off about how quick it is.  I have now turned this boring and abstract item about computers and efficiency into this ridiculous and surreal visual image of a giant computer with big muscly arms.  This is an image I won't forget any time soon.

The next item of discussion is a new competitor.  For this, I am now walking into my kitchen and there seems to be a smooth-looking fellow in a black suit smoking a cigar.  He is arrogantly looking at me while he is surrounded with the products that he is selling at cheaper prices.  There is now an emotional attachment to this item on the list because this fellow's arrogance is making me angry.  I have turned the abstract idea of competition into a concrete and emotional image of an arrogant and annoying man in a black suit.

You continue with this strategy for the rest of the items on the list.  Once you are done with the list, you have created memories that are generally visual, concrete, emotional, humorous, and unexpected.  The next step is to mentally walk back through the scenario you have created. I am now once again approaching my home.  Why is there this Japanese fellow standing in my driveway with an obnoxious green suit?? OH! That's right, this is about the partnership with a firm in Japan.  

Upon entering my living room, I see this huge computer that resembles a muscular man.  Why is it flexing its giant arms and bragging? Was this something about computers and their speed? YES! The next item deals with computer efficiency.

I now enter the kitchen and this arrogant fellow with a cigar is staring at me and mockingly smirking.  He is surrounded by a bunch of products.  Why is he behaving like this? I hope by now you get the idea.  The goal during this whole exercise was to connect abstract and mundane concepts and memories to vivid images and examples that are much more easily remembered.  

I encourage you to try this method for yourself.  Try memorizing a list of ideas, items, or concepts without using the strategy outlined above. Now, try remembering a list by using the strategies discussed here. I can guarantee that the method discussed here will create much stronger memories that will be easier to recall and leave a lasting impression.

Source:  http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/stories/large/2008/08/29/memory36969112_crop.jpg 

References:

Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking With Einstein.