Human Intelligence

Every once in a while, I read something that knocks my socks off. This time it was Annie Murphy Paul’s piece on Intelligence in the New York Times, “How to Think Outside Your Brain.”

If I understood correctly, the rough idea is that the human brain has developed as much intelligence as it can, so intelligence is going backwards now. WOW.

Just when I thought I was getting smarter, I find out we’re all pretty much getting dumber. I.Q. scores have stopped rising or are dropping in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France and Britain. Interestingly, not in the United States. Yet.

What blew me away about this article, though, is how well researched it was. I also love when authors set things in evolutionary context, which she does, as she explains how human activities of daily living became more and more mental over the course of our development.

She also tells us that The Flynn Effect, named after the philosopher who discovered it, is the 100-year climb in I.Q. and that The Reverse Flynn Effect refers to the dropping off of I.Q. scores that is happening now.

I.Q. Test Pros and Cons

Anticipating objections, I did a little digging and found another piece that does a good job of addressing the objections about the meaning and usefulness of I.Q. tests altogether, e.g., that poverty and cultural differences are not taken into account. Evan Horowitz raises the objections and the research that refutes them. He also says:

People are getting dumber. That’s not a judgment; it’s a global fact. In a host of leading nations, IQ scores have started to decline…. current IQ tests are designed to measure core skills such as short-term memory, problem-solving speed and visual processing.

It’s a problem for humanity if, as our problems grow, our ability to solve them does not keep up. So why then is I.Q. falling anyway? And here’s where it really got interesting for me.

Is the Brain Working Too Hard or Not Hard Enough?

Both authors went into much greater detail on the whys and wherefores of falling intelligence than I will here. That said, Horowitz seemed to think we’d gotten lazy given our reliance on technology and weren’t working the brain muscle hard enough—while Paul seemed to be saying we are working the brain muscle much harder than it was built for and need to rely on technology and other resources outside of the brain more.

Maybe it’s a bit of both. But I just had an experience of my own that got me really excited about this idea that the brain has had enough.

A Solution That Created The Problem

I just finished a project, just about every aspect of which I had never done before. All day long  for weeks I lived in “I have no idea what I am doing.” It felt largely awful. But I mustered my grit, told myself the learning was great for my brain, got it done, felt proud of myself for doing it—and decided that for the agony of it all I deserved a reward.

The brain likes rewards. Yeah, not this one, not this fancy piece of technology with a learning curve—read demands on the brain, mine and the brains of the set up providers—almost as steep as the project that preceded it.

So, even though Paul recommends that we let technology do more for the brain, this little adventure, had I known it would be such an adventure, could have and probably should have waited. All muscles need a rest, including, and maybe especially, the brain.

Breaks for the Brain

In addition to technology, Paul includes the body, physical space, and social interaction as “extraneural resources…mental extensions” to give the brain a break and help the brain accomplish more than it could by itself. She unpacks these in the article, so if you are interested do have a look.

Regarding social interaction, click here for a Science Daily piece on social interruptions, while we are working, being better for health, happiness, and productivity than we may think. And reading fiction, if you’d like to do that, is supposed to be good for the social aspect of human intelligence, as I’ve written before here.

And, one more thing. I noticed that the longer the set-up of the new technology took (2 full days on the phone), the crankier I started to feel, which I decided to chalk up to a very tired brain.

So, whenever I began to feel impatient, and at risk for saying something not good to the people on the phone who were trying their best, I converted mindfully to gratitude instead. Gratitude to them for trying. Gratitude to the people who asked me to do the initial project in the first place. Gratitude to me for getting it done. Gratitude to the people who believed in me enough to convince me that I could do this project no matter how new, awkward, scary, and exhausting it was. I could go on…

In other words, just because we may feel bad, doesn’t necessarily mean anyone or anything is bad. May just mean the brain is overworked and needs a break. And, by the way, now that my new toy is all set up and my brain has recovered, the brain loves novelty in proper doses and really loves the new thing.

Now see what happens for you the next time you may have worked your brain too hard, and let us know.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

Meeting Attacks

Maybe you are the one who gets attacked at meetings? Or maybe you are the one doing the attacking? Or the ignoring, which is one of the most powerful forms of attack. Why does this even happen? What is this even about?

In the Naked Ape, Desmond Morris talked about how aspiring apes go after the alpha ape, not only because they wanted to be the alpha someday — but to sharpen their own skills and abilities for the day when that might come, even if that is not now.

I read this a long time ago but, in reading about how elephants play in a more recent Scientific American article, it all of a sudden came crashing in on me how flattering it can be to be the one they pick to mess with.

Here is an excerpt from that article on elephants:

Animals learn the rules of engagement for play at a very young age. Among dogs, the bow is a universal invitation to engage in silliness that triggers the same bowing down and splaying of the front legs in the receiver of the signal—inevitably followed by chasing and pretend biting. Chimpanzees and gorillas motivate others to romp by showing their upper and lower teeth in what primatologists refer to as a play face, which is comparable to human laughter.

Play sharpens survival skills: Elephant calves extend an invitation to play by placing their trunk over another’s head (bottom). Sparring is an important play behavior that helps build strength and test new defense maneuvers in a safe zone (top). An older elephant may kneel down to provide an opportunity for a young male relative to spar.

Is It Play?

So is it aggression? Or is it play? From something I posted earlier on play:

…Harvard researchers have found that play not only relieves stress but improves brain function, stimulates the mind, boosts creativity, improves relationships, builds energy and resistance to disease….(and) there are so many kinds of play:

• • Object play (basketball)
  • Locomotor play (running)
  • Social play (pretending)

The one we are talking about here, attacks at meetings, could be social play. But it feels bad when it happens to you. Is play supposed to feel bad? Or maybe it’s more how we are interpreting it that makes the recipient feel bad.

Feeling bad doesn’t necessarily make it — nor you — nor maybe even the perp — bad. Maybe it is something about you; definitely worth considering. But It could also be about what is good about you, and how much they admire you (ok fine, maybe envy you), that makes you the person of choice to go up against.

Reacting Versus Responding

So maybe your amygdala, the part of your brain reacting to threats, is getting it wrong. Maybe it doesn’t have to throw you mindlessly into flight, flight, or freeze.

You don’t have to fight back in kind with some snitty remark or behavior of your own that strips you of the authority and dignity you otherwise had, why they picked you in the first place perhaps. Why would you want to lose that?

Or you freeze or flee. No way you are going to any more of those meetings or, if you do go, then you are just going to sit there and not say a thing. Come on. You are better than that. Don’t let them do that to you.

And none of it, no matter how much it stings, is really going to kill you, the way your amygdala thinks it might.

So why not take control of things right there inside your own head where you actually can.

Why not just take a deep breath, or 3 luxurious belly breaths, kicking it upstairs to the higher brain — and reminding yourself that it could be because of all you are that makes you so much fun to poke!

Why not flip from fight, flight, freeze — to flattered instead. Try this and let us know what happens.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Bruce thought his problem was that he didn’t have enough money until I got a hold of him, and then got a hold of himself. In no time at all, he realized 1) no amount of money would get rid of the negativity that had a life of its own inside his head, and 2) that the negativity was exactly what was making it hard for him to grow and enjoy anything, including the love and the money in his life.

Scarcity v Abundance Mentality

In 1989, Steven Covey, in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, introduced us to the idea of Scarcity versus Abundance Mindsets. Simply put, scarcity thinking sees life as a pie. If I take a piece there is that much less for you. And vice versa. Win-lose all the way around. Abundance mentality sees plenty out there for everyone, unlimited possibilities to grow the pie.

I was able to find research that positivity is associated with better health and 7.5 years longer lives, but had trouble finding any stats on the actual relationship between abundance thinking and wealth. Maybe it’s in Think and Grow Rich but that wouldn’t be all that current, so If anyone has a stat on this please let me know.

Meanwhile, it is a widely held belief these days that the link is there. Thus, the assertions of so many business development gurus that business success is 80%, if not 100%, mindset. “Life is what our thoughts make it,” as the great Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, has said.

What’s even more interesting, however, at least to me, is all the many people who are actually living in abundance and don’t even know it, can’t even feel it, so what’s even the point.

Living in abundance with a scarcity mindset is a real thing. And it hurts. Just this week I had a conversation with a financial services business owner who told me she thinks this abundance wrapped in scarcity is rampant with her clients. Why, why, why should this even be?

Origins of Scarcity Mentality

To help with this question, here is an excerpt from Getting to G.R.E.A.T.: 5-Step Strategy for Work and Life:

Sibling Rivalry at work? You bet. In the mammalian world, since procreation is the thing, a mother nurses her offspring until it begins to appear that the offspring has become better able to find its own food. At that point, it becomes a better parental investment for her to be spending herself and her calories suckling a newer younger sibling. Since she cannot even make a new baby until she has stopped nursing, at some point mothers wean their young to prepare for bearing a subsequent offspring, even if they do not exactly have one. “The young mammal puts up a holy stink, hounding the mother for access to the teat for weeks or months before acquiescing.” Bottle-fed babies put up a holy stink too. And this could well be the holy stink you see at work. Bear with me here.

By this account, we all wanted to take more than our parents wanted to give, the implication of which is staggering. Could it be that somewhere within each and every one of us lives a deep seated and too easily triggered experience of having wanted more than we got, that and a keen eye for who else might be getting some or more of whatever it is we want. No matter if you were an only child, you got weaned too, left wanting something you couldn’t have because of some other kid who may never even have materialized. You got weaned out anyway. And far be it for you to just sit there and watch someone else at work getting more recognition, a better title, better pay, an office with a window, a hug from the alpha male, or the alpha female, or whatever. Not without your feeling at least a twinge on some occasion of something you wish you didn’t feel, and more than likely wouldn’t tell anyone that you did.

You were not asking for that much. All we ever really wanted was to be the center of the universe forever more and, when that doesn’t happen, someone can throw a fit, a fit with legs. Take baboons:

…50% of aggression is displacement aggression onto an innocent bystander. A male loses a fight, chases a sub adult male, who bites a juvenile, who chases an adult female,            who slaps an infant—and almost everyone feels better afterwards.

So we are hardwired for this scarcity mentality. But what a shame for the people who suffer it most, not just for the individuals suffering needlessly, but for everyone else in their lives too. They tend to be worried, worrying, stingy, essentially no fun to be around, and not the best people to help others grow into their own happier, healthier, productive lives.

3 Simple Steps to Turn Scarcity Around

But, of course, it doesn’t have to be like this. It may be natural, but we can dial it down. So how can people who suffer and inflict a scarcity amid abundance mentality turn this around?

1. Focus  on What You HAVE. Not just your money, your property, your career, your business if you have some of that. Not just the sun and the stars. The art, architecture, music, nature…freely available all around you. Personal achievements, experiences, relationships. The list is endless, you will see. Practice living in “I have.” Oh wait, that makes your feel guilty? Because not everyone else has what you do. Fine, that’s #2.
2. Manage Your Guilt. Remember that your unhappiness helps no one. In fact, it hurts people, including you, but definitely not just you. Your happiness is not your guilty pleasure. It makes you a better spouse, parent, employer, coworker, neighbor, citizen of the world…something you owe to everyone else. See if that helps.
3. Choose Good Company. We are the average of the people we hang out with. Mindsets are contagious. Surround yourself with people who live with an abundance mindset. Create the world you want to live in—a place where people live in a mindset of abundance—with abundant gratitude and generosity—a mindset of plenty for all.

See if this works, and let us know what you think.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

Working the Brain So the Brain Works for You ~

Struggling comes from what we call the suffering state. We have compassion for our suffering state but do not want that part of us in charge of the major decisions and direction of our lives. 

So unless it’s something like “car coming get out of the way,” before we ask ourselves any questions or take any action, we first want to thank the emotional brain for the signal to pay attention, and then take the project out of the emotional brain and kick it upstairs to the executive brain instead.

There is a 30-second mindset reset for this that I call “Power Breathing.” A simple instruction for “Power Breathing” can be found in “Complimentary…” box pulldown at https://madelaineweiss.com/

Essentially, it is 3 luxurious breaths: in through the nose, out through the nose, belly out on the in-breath, belly in on the out breath…

How are we then? Well, despite everything going on around us, if we remain open, we can notice that, in that very moment, everything is just fine—fine enough that we can now let the higher brain take care of our business for us, with these 3 questions below.

3 Questions to Ask Your Higher Brain ~

1. Is There Something to Be Done Here? If the answer is No because we’ve already done it, or there simply is nothing to be done, then we may want to power breathe a little more and move on. 

2. What, By When, By Whom? If the answer is Yes there is something to be done, the next question is What, By When, By Whom? Sometimes it is by you, sometimes not. Or sometimes it is by you but not today, so when? This is called an Action Plan.

3. Whose Help Would Help? If, despite your best planning and efforts on your own behalf, you find you are still struggling, it may well be time to ask whose help would help get you unstuck.

Again the 30 second “Power Breathing” exercise can be found at https://madelaineweiss.com/ and would love to hear from you with any comments or questions you may have.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

Epistemic Hunger

Probably because I asked too many questions, a professor once told me I had epistemic hunger. If you don’t know what that means, look it up. That’s what people with epistemic hunger do. We, the hungry, look everything up. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. More, More, More…like a psychoactive drug.

People say that knowledge is power. I’m saying knowledge is fun, my kind of fun anyway. So I’m always looking into something, mostly about ‘why we are the way we are and how it matters in everyday life’. And I always want to get it out there in case it matters to you too.

Learning harnesses my attention. So, for example, when I’m reading about “Attention” in “The Discourses of Epictetus,” I’m not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future. No, my mind is completely captivated by what I’m learning…in this case about attention.

So What is Attention?

Attention is the brain’s ability to pick what it wants to concentrate on. This ability can not only keep us from falling off a cliff, and greatly improve our productivity, but bring us incredible pleasure as well. Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihály called it a flow state, which is a state of full absorption and full enjoyment to go with it.

Same thing said differently, philosophers tell us to focus on the working surface because that’s where the bliss is. The idea here is to put the attention exactly where the dishrag hits the dish, the paint brush hits the woodwork, the speaker’s voice hits your ear… Why?

Why We Should Pay Attention

Here’s what we know. The mind wanders about 70% of the time. But when we take control of the mind and the placement of our attention, it makes sense that everything that plagues or distracts us takes a back seat. Then we can do a good job at whatever it is and enjoy it a whole lot more too.

As Epictetus points out, would the carpenter’s work be any better with inattention? Would the helmsman steer the ship any better? Would anything really be made any better doing it with our minds somewhere else?

Probably not, but you can try this for yourself. Pick something: food, sex, reading, whatever you like. Then see for yourself if it’s more fun when you are into it than when you are not, and let us know in the comments below.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

High Stress Situation

Not even counting all of the other pandemic stress, we have this unbelievably testy election coming up. A lot of people are really cranky with anyone who sees anything different from what they see and believe themselves. 

How did we get so incredibly polarized, so intolerant of the “Other.” For sure, this didn’t start with the current president but, I agree, whoa, it’s gotten really bad. And I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

What’s Going On?

For one thing, back in the day when our modern human brains were being formed, it is likely that those who stuck with their own, and were wary of others who were different, had better chances of survival. And those who survived got their genes into the next generation and the next and so on ‘til here we are. So the idea that we are hardwired with radar for “Other” makes sense.

Then again, we have a higher cortex now that allows us to override our primitive nature, and where is that when we need it, like now.

I, for one, do not expect the polarization to weaken no matter who wins. It might even get worse when the election is over, if it is ever over.

Take a look at this Duke University study that crossed my desk, “Desire to Be in a Group Leads to Harsher Judgment of Others.” It’s only one study, but what they found was that it was not the strength of one’s political views—but the desire to be ‘groupy’ itself—that made people more likely to discriminate against people outside of their group.

Out, Out damned two party system. But what is the alternative to the tribal ‘I’m good; you’re bad. I’m right; you’re wrong’ that we are so locked into now?

What Would Help?

I actually do not know what would be a better alternative. The Danish multi-party Parliament, as depicted in Season 1 of Borgen on Netflix, does not appear to be it. But I do believe that when we find it — when we are able to transcend party in some constructive way — the extremes of each party will weaken. Then we can all start to live in a world that feels a little more sane than the one in which we live now.

And wouldn’t that be nice. Keep on doin’ what we are doin’, keep on getting what we get. So please let us know what you think could work better than the way we are doing things now.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

A Whole Different Vibe

It’s not always like this but it could be: A committee in my community put together a resident speaker series. One resident not on that committee just this week wrote out of the blue how grateful she was for the impact to the community: “A Whole Different Vibe.”  

The Buddhists teach doing right things right, without undue fretting about results. Fair to say we met this test because, honestly, her email caught me by delightful surprise.

One member joined the speaker series subcommittee just because he felt like it, but not without saying to those spearheading the effort that he hoped it was okay. Especially because he was so respectful with his entry, it was. People don’t always realize that’s it’s polite to knock first but he, an HR professional, did.

What’s more, without even realizing it, this little band of buddies did exactly what they taught me in business school, “Rotating Leadership.” Everyone reached out to potential speakers, who were then funneled through one of us for topic refinement, then off to the graphic artist among us for the announcement, back to project leaders for review, and off to Committee Chair for interface with management to make the thing real. Everyone doing exactly what the enjoyed and did well.

Seamless, really. Like a Ouija board, everyone’s fingers on the thing, hard to even tell who was doing what and, best of all, no one much cared.

Maybe it was because we’re all busy with other things. Maybe it was because we were not trying to get recognition for a promotion, raise, or bonus. Maybe it was because we just love the idea of the series. Or maybe it was because we love each other.

Whatever it was, it was easy peasy. We knew the talks had gone well, but “Whole Different Vibe”? Who knew. Now we do, and I suspect and submit that whole different vibe was as much in our process as in its outcome—and that precisely because it was in our process it glistened in our outcome.

Moral of This Story

The moral of this story is that humans are competitive and cooperative. There is controversy these days on how much of each is the more natural to us, which you can read about in Steve Taylor’s, “Humans aren’t inherently selfish.” 

Now if you ask me: Do I like putting this kind of intellectual shine on our community, which is embedded in a whole slew of neighboring communities competing in the real estate market? I will tell you: You bet I do!

But I already had that, and only went over the moon about this after the outside appreciation, when I took a moment to reflect on what awesome teamwork we had done. For everyone involved, I have to say there was as little ego involvement as I have seen in some time. A little pocket of intelligent goodness that we can grow.

We can do this. Yes we can. One by one. Everyone doing what they love, and passing on what someone else can do better. Steve Taylor, author of The Fall, believes that this kind of awesome teamwork is what we are really wired for.

Practice, practice, practice…and do let us know what you think, find, feel in the comments below. 

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

Some more than others for sure—but humans do lie. At a conference on Lying, everyone was asked to raise their hands if they had lied in the past 2 weeks. I did not raise my hand. Almost everyone else did. Then they asked how many had lied that day, same thing. Horrified, I wanted to run out of the room.

Now, I might be lying to myself that I don’t lie. What is more likely is that, because I was tucked in at night, let’s say indoctrinated, with “honesty is the best policy,” it upsets me more than most, so I try harder not ever to do it.

Or this could mean that I have more “Unethical Amnesia” than most. Hope not. Doesn’t sound good. So what is it? Why is it there, what harm can it do, and what can we do about it?

What Is It?

From Harvard Business School’s Gino and Kouchaki, who cite recent studies indicating that cheaters not only forget the details of what they did bad, but are also, therefore, more like to do it again: 

“UNETHICAL AMNESIA IS A SELF-DEFENSE MECHANISM THAT PEOPLE USE TO ALLEVIATE THE DISSONANCE THEY EXPERIENCE AFTER THEY ACT DISHONESTLY.”

In plainer English, this means that we tend to forget the details of things we did bad, like lying. We are trying to match up who we are and who we think we should be. One way to do that is to forget the gory details and convince ourselves that our behavior was good, even if it was bad.

As Robert Wright explains in The Moral Animal, we are all designed to think we’re good, until and unless we get exposed and then we get defensive. Again, some more than others, but still. 

And we do this because, back in the day when our modern brains were being formed, reputation mattered. Those in good standing were more likely to have greater access to resources and to be taken care of when need be. So, at work, at home, wherever we may roam…we have reasons to want to look good, too often to a fault—because trust matters too. Too much lying to look good also makes us look bad.

So What Can We Do?

One thing that has been recommended by Gino and Kouchaki is that we reflect at the end of each day on how we did with our behavior that day. Holding ourselves responsible in this way will make the forgetting harder, potentially upping the odds that we will do better next time. 

I, for one, am going to keep a better eye on things to make sure I’m not deluding myself about what a good girl I am. And You? If you care to, please join me, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine

It doesn’t have to be like this—that so many people are unhappy with work. We know that 83% of US workers are suffering from work stress and that there are 120,000 deaths each year related to it.

Sometimes working people think they are in the wrong career. Or, they are in the right career at the wrong company. Sometimes it’s the right career and the right company, but the people are all wrong. Their boss is unskilled. Their reports are unmotivated. Or there is back stabbing laterally, everyone trying to ‘get ahead’ instead of ‘get along’.

They are depressed and anxious about living like this with no end in sight, and begin to think that if only they had meaning and purpose everything would be alright.

What Meaning and Purpose Is Not

What does that even mean? Meaning and Purpose. And how do we know when we have it? I actually believe I have it, and will address that in a moment. But for some, it seems meaning and purpose has gotten all balled up with ‘I’m the best thing since sliced bread and everyone knows it’.

That kind of recognition actually can be a by-product of living with meaning and purpose but is not meaning and purpose itself. When we go after recognition directly, we are likely to come out feeling we have nothing worth having or doing at all. And we would be right. Hence, the work unhappiness that so many feel now.

What Meaning and Purpose Is

Let’s hear it from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

 “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

Two words come to mind. Alignment and Service. There is nothing better than alignment between our own values and a work context that supports the fullest possible expression of them.

So, for example, when Amy took her spirit of adventure to a start-up, things really improved, even though she still had work to do with her relentless ego, always telling her she’s not good enough.

In my case, my father died of a cerebral hemorrhage when I was 15 years old. Spirited as I was, I always thought he died of me, until the day my mother said tenderly, “No honey, it wasn’t you, it was work.” So now, the opportunity, through my work, to help others find their way to happier, healthier, productive lives—is plenty enough meaning and purpose for me.

And service. When my clients are able to flip their perspectives from ‘what the company can do for me’ to ‘what can I do for others’, just like magic, genuine satisfaction can naturally appear.

One special case of this is when people say with resentment, “I’m just in it for the money.” No, they are not just in it for the money, I tell them, because that money happens to be nourishing them and their loved ones. So they’re in it for the nourishment, not just the money.

All of a sudden, taking care of one’s own through contribution to others becomes plenty enough meaning and purpose after all. They tell me that this reminder comes and goes, but that they can invoke it when they need to and it helps.

Bottom Line

Some men and women I work with do find better aligned companies or careers for themselves. But just as many get better aligned inside their own heads and, in so doing, fall in love with exactly where they are.

For those who can step over the ego’s idea that we are never good enough and that we should, therefore, keep trying to get other people to tell us that we are—deep satisfaction can come from contributing to others and being compensated for it so we can contribute to others some more.

Sometimes, if we let it, Emerson’s life well lived can be as simple as that.

The original purpose of work had to have been something as simple as creating and providing goods and services, tools and techniques necessary for survival for ourselves and our kin—food, clothing, shelter, and so on.

Remembering this, that work began more as something we gave than something we got, should free leadership to be more skilled, teams to be more motivated, and all of us to both ‘get ahead’ and ‘get along’. So that’s my take. Please let us know yours in the comments below.

Last week I was in a Zoom mtg breakout group that was supposed to discuss the disadvantages of meeting by Zoom—but all that 2 of us could talk about was how much we loved it! 

For one thing, I used to have to get up at 5am for this monthly meeting, early enough to walk the puppy, get ready to get out the door and make it to this meeting on time. As I live in the city without a car it was more complicated than it sounds.

Honestly, I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Plus, now I actually get to see everyone’s faces responding to what is being said when before, as we sat next to or behind the others in the room, I could never see who was rolling their eyes or nodding off.

So when some of the other people in our group, and McSchraefel’s article on “Why Our Hungry Screens Leave Us Hungry for More Nutritious Forms of Social Interaction,” go on about how you can’t get the personal vibe on Zoom, I just have to say I am sorry, I don’t agree. 

For work I use VSEE, the same HIPAA compliant video platform that NASA uses, and can absolutely still feel the energy shift for my clients when one of us says something that nails it for them. And there are those precious moments when we tear up together at the sheer joy or poignancy of it all. 

Probably it has more to do with what kind of attention we are paying to the other person in the first place. We all know how easy it is for the mind to wander away from the other person, in-person too.

One of the other participants in our group insisted sadly, head hung low sadly, that his business had fallen off because his sales depended on human connection that he considered impossible by Zoom. And yet, I happen to know someone else in the same business who told me recently that he is having the best year of his career by Zoom.

In the words of Marcus Aurelius, “Life is what our thoughts make it.” But thoughts are not facts, and we all have to watch out for our own self-limiting thoughts. So for now, I am enjoying the thing. I am enjoying videoconferencing with family, friends, clients, colleagues, and lovely people I have never met before. My hope is that the monthly group, and others like it, can go on forever in some hybrid format that suits us all when things let up, an idea I already pitched.

But there is more to social media than Zoom meetings, and some of the rest of it really is scary. If you haven’t already, check out “Social Dilemma” on Netflix. Here you will get a better education than you may want on how the rest of social media is contributing to, if not causing,  terrible things. These include mental illness and suicide rates among our children, increased polarization and breakdown of democracy in our culture—at least in part by way of what the virtually unregulated internet knows about what to put in our individual newsfeeds.

I’m pretty good at resisting extreme polarization, but I realize I could use some work with the phone. Way too often I check my phone for no good reason whatsoever, just for the fun of it, as if it is an addiction, which studies suggest that it is. I am going to fix that. And I know how. Just put it over there where I can’t reach it when I am watching the news, meditating, cooking, eating, exercising, sleeping, zooming, reading, writing… All there is to it. Boom. Done. I. AM. IN. CHARGE.

Once I attended an interfaith meeting at Harvard. The Hindu Swami gave a fantastic talk about how sometimes we have to show ourselves that we are in charge. So, for example, if you can’t imagine starting your day without coffee, take a week off, just to show the body or the coffee who’s in charge.

The “Social Dilemma” movie talked about how technology can bring us closer to utopia or dystopia, depending on who’s in charge, the human or the machines. I’m going to show myself and my phone who is in charge. You can too, if you care to. You can pick something for yourself, practice, practice, practice, and let us know what you find.

Warm wishes,

Madelaine