If you are searching for something real, something that is true, you probably won’t find it on the internet.
Most of the time, the way we use the internet, it is for entertainment. Not education or enlightenment.
There isn’t a noticeable piece of feedback if I switch from a chocolate bar to celery sticks. It’s only over time we receive the benefits.
And since so much of our feedback is instant, we have a hard time making decisions today that will improve our future.
There’s a reason why we still rely on fossil fuels even with the alternative technologies available. For too long, we invested in efficient, profitable systems rather than resilient ones.
Not all gratification is instant. We have to plant seeds.
What would the Egyptian Kings of old, with all the riches of the world, pay to fly on an airplane?
To have access to a smartphone or Google?
Novocain, anesthesia or antibiotics?
If I had to guess, almost all of them would trade their position for ours today. Life is just better by almost every measure.
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Of course not. We have so far to go. Yet, having access to the same tools (a laptop and an internet connection) as the richest people in the world today has opened so many doors of possibility. It’s a dramatic shift, one that has never been available before.
“What is the point in being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable? How very odd, to believe God gave you life, and yet, not think life asks more of you than watching TV.” – John Green
If you are shown a problem but have no idea how to start or solve it, it can become discouraging.
So much so, that many people will just decide to get used to the problem instead.
You need a story about our place in all of this.
What is my contribution? Tell me why the fight is worth it.
Usually, food tastes better the longer you take to prepare it. And it is a better experience when you share it with other people.
Packaging matters too. Because we can’t really taste the difference between expensive and cheap wine except by the price tag and bottle it’s in.
What kind of story do we tell ourselves about waiting in line at McDonalds? It’s really different from the story we tell about waiting in line for two hours to try the new restaurant downtown.
Settings matter too. Because something doesn’t ever feel right about eating sushi at a gas station.
Marketing and placebos work. They signal to us how we are supposed to behave. They trigger us. They create expectation. The story we tell about food changes the way it tastes.
Contrary to popular belief:
- We use more than 10% of our brains. If we only used 10%, brain damage would be perhaps impossible to recover from.
- Brain damage isn’t permanent. The brain can heal itself and even form new connections.
- People are not right or left brain dominant. We use both sides of our brains to solve different types of problems.
- We don’t have the biggest brains. Sperm whales have an 18 pound brain, humans, by contrast, have a 3 pound brain.
- Alcohol doesn’t kill your brain cells.
- Your brain has 85 million neurons. Not 100 million.
These are myths and urban legends that are quickly debunked with a simple Google search. There are lots of rules of thumb and heuristics we use that are false. Like pumping your breaks when you have ABS.
Let’s be clear, no one is immune to falling into the trap of fake news or misinformation. We hear something, take it to be fact and only sometimes go back and verify.
We can’t pretend that getting to the truth is impossible either. We have all the tools at our disposal to become truth seekers. We just need to learn to be skeptical of the incoming. Slow down and put in the effort to do a bit of research.
Each of us has a narrative in how we see the world. There is more than enough information to keep it in tact. The question is, are you willing to be incompetent for a while so you can learn to see the world through a new lens?
Today is the day. I’ve published one blog post every day for the last five years. What a journey it has been.
Here’s the secret:
Write every day. Put it in the queue. Publish it. Repeat.
That’s it. There is no magic trick or secret formula to follow. Only commitment.
Mathematics tell us that most of the posts are going to be average. Mistakes still occur even though I do my best to correct them. But it’s free. 260,000 words of mine. Enough to fill ten books. (There is definitely a book in here to be written here in the future.)
What’s popular isn’t always important. My favorites sometimes don’t get read.
When I first started, I didn’t feel like a writer. I felt like an imposter. But committing to this practice every day, I now have proof I am a writer. Am I New York Times Bestseller? Nope. Not even close. I haven’t even published a book yet. But even though I have never published a book, I can’t say I don’t write. These are metrics we choose to measure.
Here’s to five more years of sharing.
Thank you for being on this journey with me.
Back in the 90’s, Daniel Gilbert came up with an experiment to test our belief formations. It turns out that our default setting are to believe what we hear–not to question it. So much so that it may be “involuntary comprehension rather than rational assessment.”
With only the slightest pressure, we begin to assume statements as true.
That’s why suggestions are so powerful. We trust our senses.
What makes this so dangerous, however, is that anyone be can sold a lifestyle and hook a whole generation.
It seems silly to watch this kind of disinformation spread now. But if you like smoking, you don’t want it to be true that it is bad for you. The truth is, this isn’t the first time we have had to deal with this disinformation. But the question I have is this…
How can anyone fall for ads like this?
And yet today, we have to have publish information about how there are no microchips present in COVID vaccines.
Indeed, we hear or read something, believe it to be true and sometimes, down the road, we make the time to challenge that belief. Making it ever more difficult to change our mind when we have been living on incomplete or false information.
Ideas are sticky for a reason.
I had an opportunity to speak at the Summit Speaker Series for the Outdoor Recreation Department for the state. I spoke about the challenges our culture is facing and how if we can shift our mindset.
We can dare to fly higher than we ever imagined.
The problem with labels is that we almost always end up excluding someone.
Insiders and outsiders.
The Jazz and the Lakers.
Freshman and seniors.
The moment we have two sides, we equate it to right or wrong.
When Republicans and Democrats see one side is losing they assume their side must be winning.
The battle is not good versus evil either. There are a lot of ways we can govern. We don’t live in a zero sum world.
There is no us without them. We’re in this together.
Exclusivity is everywhere. But it is a choice who we are excluding. For too long, I am afraid, we have been excluding people because of superficial features over merit. Perhaps the challenge going forward is to let go of the labels our ancestors have built and figure out how we can be more inclusive for the people around us.
Communities over tribes.
