On being right

Being right is not that important.

Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

In order to discuss this subject, we’re going to have to make a distinction between two different sense of being right. In one sense, the term merely means that one has the right answer. That is to say, you are right about a subject if your ideas and knowledge about it accurately reflect reality.

It’s the other sense of the word, the one that means, in essence, “winning the argument” that gets us into trouble.

The problem stems from the fact that we human beings have a very strong instinct to merge our sense of reality with the commonly held one in our community. This way, what is know by one becomes known by all, and the tribe grows stronger.

That’s great when everyone is talking about their own separate experiences, but what happens when two people have mutually exclusive ideas about something?

Imagine our cavemen ancestors. Around the fire one night, Ock confidently states that the wildebeest will be returning to the upland meadows any day now and tomorrow, we should go there and set up our jumps.

But Teg says that the wildebeest will not be there for another moon, and it would be a waste of time and their precious stores of preserved meat to go there this early. They should stay here, and fish.

Clearly, an answer is needed. The tribe cannot do both. And a mistake in either direction could cost them dearly. Either Ock or Tek is right, and a mechanism is needed to resolve this dissonance.

Luckily, we have an instinct for that too, and that instinct is called argument.

Ock and Tek must argue and this argument must reach some sort of settled conclusion so the tribe knows what to do when the sun rises in the morning. They will argue with each other, but really, they will arguing their points for the benefit of the tribe. The tribe will ultimately decide who they believe.

Note that coming to the literally correct answer is not the highest priority. The highest priority is to resolve the conflict. The second highest is maintaining social order. Accuracy is, at best, a third.

And because we are human beings and thus very complicated creatures, lots of other instincts interfere with the process of getting the “right” answer. Social status is on the line when Ock and Teg argue. The winner will rise in status and the loser will fall. Thus, their verbal fight will be fought with great passion and ferocity. They are fighting for their social lives.

But both disputants enter the arena with social status as well. It might be that Ock is a respected leader and widely recognized as an excellent hunter and strong warrior, while Teg is thought of as weak and slow. The tribe will not only be more fearful of the wrath of Ock (who could cost THEM social status), but our instincts tell us to obey the socially dominant and to believe what they say, as it is more likely to be important to us within the human society.

In the case of Ock and Teg, something of vital importance is, indeed, on the line. But fast forward to modern life, and those same instincts get us into trouble, because the truth is that, in most cases, winning arguments does not matter.

Our instincts, both social and teleological, make it feel like winning arguments (being RIGHT) is terrible important, but for the most part, none of us are deciding the fate of our tribes, and winning an argument does not prove anything except that one person is better at arguing.

It might as well be trial by combat.

Now I will not say that nothing is on the line when we argue. There is that urge to merge pictures of reality to deal with. When someone says something with which we disagree, we become torn between the urge to merge and the urge to maintain our beliefs, and this causes a conflict within us. When we argue, it truly feels just as important as Ock and Teg, even when it isn’t, because our world view is clashing with another’s and one of them, so our instincts tell us, has to win.

So we square off against one another, in person or on the Internet or wherever, and fight battles over the most trivial of things, and act like our very lives are on the line.

But in truth, not even social status is truly on the line. If you have an audience, then the audience members who agree with each position will be rooting for their side, and there is virtually no chance that anyone’s mind will be changed in the slightest and social status will rise amongst the people who already agree with the winner, and fall with those who don’t.

Neither opponent will change the mind of the other either. That’s just not how it works. And there will be no clear victor either. Our instincts tell us that if we verbally dominate the other person, they will have to say uncle and admit we are right and they are wrong, and we will emerge the clear victor.

But that almost never happens. Nobody ever “has” to admit they lose, and why would they? To our instincts, you are never defeated unless you submit?

So that kind of arguing is more or less a sport, a game, and people would be better off simply saying “Why do I care if some random person is wrong about something?” and letting it slide.

Argument is still important in a broader social sense. Bad opinions are overcome by strong arguments from the people on the right side of history, and progress may well come from the millions of skirmishes of daily life.

But in your own life, you have to ask yourself : is it worth it to win an argument and lose a friend? Or someone else you love?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Oh mister sandman…

Oh mister sandman
Leave me alone!
I had big plans today
To get some things done

Instead I spent all day
Asleep in the clover
I hope these sleepy times
Will soon be over!

To the tune of this, of course.

So yeah, having one of those darned sleepy days today.

The first day of a sleepy period is usually okay. I sleep a lot, but it’s pleasant enough sleep. The dream density is high, but I am well enough inside that things dont’e get too dark or too surreal. The sleep is fairly relaxed and comes easily. It’s annoying to sleep all day when you had things you wanted to get done, but otherwise, it’s fine.

It’s when these periods linger on that it gets unpleasant. Sleep feels less like a Little Nemo picture and more like something by Hieronymous Bosch with the flu. I end up feeling sick through and through, and falling asleep seems like succumbing to a disease than wholesome rest.

So tomorrow, I am going to fight this thing. I will let it have today, but tomorrow I am going to make a point of getting up and moving around and getting fresh air and in general try to stimulate myself out of this state.

And it has to be physical stimulation, the kind you can get by moving. Mental stimulation won’t cut it, I stimulate my mind all day. I have developed a thick layer of resistance. I have to move. Get my circulation going. Get some cardio going.

Which means I really should go down to the second floor to check out the recreation area. We’ve lived here since last September and I still haven’t been down there. It’s not like it would take a huge effort to do it, either. It’s just an elevator trip away.

Plus they remodeled it recently, so there is a chance there is an actual gym there now instead of three consumer level exercise bikes and a lot of empty space.

I could even use my tablet like a Walkman (I am so old) and further socially insulate myself.

There is a wardrobe issue. I don’t have any gym clothes that fit. Well, pants, specifically. I have plenty of T-shirts, and my shoes would be adequate to the task.

But I have no gym pants that actually fit me. The two pairs I have won’t stay up without suspenders, and even if I was prepared to face the social embarrassment of being since in gym shorts and suspenders in public, it would make working out REALLY hard.

I mean, my suspenders spontaneously release just from brushing up against the back of a chair. They would not last a minute on an exercise bike or lifting weights with a Universal gym.

Plus I am out of excuses not to at least go a little ways from home. My bus pass has surely been activated by now and so I could go anywhere in the GVRD for free. There must be some free (or very cheap) stuff out there which I would enjoy. I could make a fun little trip of it.

My model for that sort of thing is my friend and roomie Julian. He is far more timid and shy than I am. And yet he regularly goes all over the place doing things which interest him. If he can do it, why can’t I?

No pressure, though. Pressure destroys. Desire inspires. The secret, for me, is to think about what I will enjoy about the thing I want to do, and let the desire for that enjoyment inspire me.

Thus, I concentrate on rewards, not obligations or the “smart” thing to do.

Motivation is a tricky thing, and it rarely acts in the simplistic way that an overdeveloped superego thinks it does. Motivation comes from the id, and a stifled and suppressed id doesn’t motivate anybody. You cannot punish yourself into action.

This is nto easy to learn. At least, not for me. I find myself envious of people who had to learn everything the hard way. Normally I pity those people, but in their own blind way, they know some things I don’t because they refused to accept any limitation excepts the ones that actually exist in the world, and even then, they keep looking for a shortcut.

That kind of unrelenting force of self seems quite foreign, even alien to me. My lifelong insistence on caution, sensibility, and thinking things through precludes that kind of exuberance of spirit. And while I might watch these people crashing into the same walls over and over again and shake my head in wonder at how anyone can be that stupid, well, stupid is as stupid does and I am the one who has spent the last twenty years housebound and they have gone on to have lives and jobs and spouses and such.

I’m working on it.

Of course, they have the advantage of being able to draw on the strength of the herd. They don’t have to invent an entire self for themselves before they can even function. They didn’t climb to the peak of Philosopher’s Mountain to enjoy the view then look down and realize they had no idea how they were going to get back down. By being ignorant of them, they let society mold them into something like a functional citizen whereas I, by being extremely aware of them, end up a very old tadpole.

At least I am not calling myself a hothouse flower any more. I have made peace with that. So what if I am a not exactly a rugged all-terrain drought proof specimen? I’m a little bit magic, and that’s all that counts.

It’s growing the fuck up that is the hard part. Maybe that is all that us depressives have to do, when it comes right down to it. Figure out that, despite out biological age and our flashy intellects, we are but children inside, and our salvation comes from growing up to be bigger and stronger than our sad little issues.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.