Is it optimal to do the right thing all the time

I have been struggling with this thought, it is often hard or very hard to do the optimal thing ALL the time. I am not saying I am giving up, but I am saying that I am aware of the "desire" to give up. But here is the rub - if it's actually mentally more taxing to always be striving for an ideal that's not attainable - is that ideal worth striving for?

In the morning when I am half awake, I am aware of all the things that I "should" be doing and painfully aware of my failings, limitations, and bad habits. And part of this exercise has been to find ways to deal with these and be a better person. I still stretch and work out and meditate - but not as often as I should. And in the down time when I should be writing the script or working on the TV show or the other myriad of optimal tasks, I often fail and maintain the credo that I espouse on these pages.

How does one refocus their energies into the right path?

Of late I have been trying to project manage my spirituality, and what I mean by that is I am trying to put my heart where it will do the most good. And that happens to be with my son Oscar at the moment. There is nothing I can think of that I could do, that will bring more joy to mine and everyone's life other than raising a happy healthy boy.

I know that a lot of what I write seems pretentious and/or convoluted; but it isn't. It's just the way I think out loud. My sole aim of writing this blog, is to bring some joy and clarity to the tumultuous days that we all travel through.

Is confirmation bias the spear in cupids heart?

Photo: The amazing Mimi Wolfe


This very insightful article came to me via my mate Dish on facebook, and he said it was a must read - and it was.

The crux of the article is that the more we think about something rationally, the less we have a clear upsight on what it means, rather we try to put constraints on it so it fits a point of view.

-------------------- BEGINS --------------------------------

Their hypothosis was this:

"That the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade."

This is further expanded below:

Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given human exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology or reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. Poor performance in standard reasoning tasks is explained by the lack of argumentative context. When the same problems are placed in a proper argumentative setting, people turn out to be skilled arguers. Skilled arguers, however, are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing but also when they are reasoning proactively with the perspective of having to defend their opinions. Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow the persistence of erroneous beliefs. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all of these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device: look for arguments that support a given conclusion, and favor conclusions in support of which arguments can be found.

-------------------- ENDS ----------------------

Having been through what I have recently I found the whole article and the attached paper very telling - as I really believe that a lot of relationships are broken up by confirmation bias and that these studys show what poets and mystics have know for thousands of years:

Follow your heart - respect your emotions

I know how hard it is to not let the self get in the way and knowing there are forces like this in play only helps me to be more resolute.

Sorry for the lack of posting

I am currently on holidays in Amsterdam and have been putting all my energies into relaxing and drinking beer!

Been posting on my other blog feel free to have a look:

http://geoffreyemerson.posterous.com/

Next post on momentus will be my plan on how to become bountiful in commerce, body and mind.

The death of anger - a poem

Through straights of twisted bone and water made of bile, a ship sails...

The captain takes the sextant out of the eye of the last good man and sighs, "This is no sacred land - it's a nest of broken dreams and lies".

Then the sirens songs begins anew and the heart floods with want and desire, but alas it's only a chimera burning in loves fire.

The sirens eyes only see what her soul wants - she covets that which is on her lips grasp - the seed of man, which he'll pay with cloying taunts.

Through the straights of despair a ship sails upon a child's tears...

The crew are not but empty rotting husks - and the captain sits upon a throne of bones - a shimmer of sound, trickles a bloody tone.

He looks for the sound - but only see the sirens bare breasts heaving with pleasure - again he looks and she is entwined with rancor.

The captain stares at the water, and his gasping mouth - the moan is just his soul that has come about - the cold realization that the death of anger signals the death of it all - that last inch is the furthest to fall

The death of anger - is the death of it all

Skirting the edge of velvet memories

So many cool connections tonight, reconnected with a bunch of old friends. One album in particular reminded me what a great life I have had - so many good people, hanging out with hot people in hot spots - not what you can sustain but it's great to have that perspective in your life. I was so full of life I even deluded my self ponytails where cool, as evidenced by the photo above.

Everyday is a blessing and even more so as I have my beautiful son and network of "real connections" that mean something to me - not just people that fill a void or pander to some pathological need to be wanted. They are real connections for a real heart that beats the momentus moment - and I grow in depth and strength whith each beat - the view is amazing from the edge of velvet memories

I love this video as there is nothing more pure than a child's heart and watching this makes me realise why I am here and why I am doing so well - I exist within and without myself in the most demonstrable and powerful way.

I love you beautiful little man - you make me proud with every breath.

Light and shade in the maelstrom

The revolution won't be televised
In all things that happen in the mind the subconscious plays a huge part, I often tried to acknowledge what part my "private mythology" plays in my day to day actions. I feel the tug of fear or my insecurities biting at the heels of success, even though there is no rational reason for it.

There needs to be a revolution in my brain, I have to shake of the shackles of learned behaviors that I am only superficially aware of. I found an interesting post that showed that the subconscious can make more accurate decisions then the conscious mind, here is an abstract:

"If the unconscious has the innate ability to make right decisions while the conscious is more likely to make the wrong one, what does is imply about human understanding of the world and truth? In my observations of human nature, it is “natural” for us to rationalize situations. Is seems that the two levels of mind of our bipartite brains are at constant odds. Though the contributions of the unconscious may be the right answers, they can be overruled by the over rationalization of the conscious. I suppose it is the human tragedy not to know reality as it is, but rather we “know” through subjective interpretations."

Full text found here

As I keep evolving this thought regime I realise there are so many factors that effect what is an optimal outcome and not least of these is the subconscious. I know there are a LOT of techniques for dealing with the subconscious - but the whole point of this exercise is to find things that work for more me on my own - so for now I am going to factor all this in, i'm not going to try an alter it for now. Rather I am going to acknowledge it's influence and find a way to identify behaviors that can't be explained otherwise.

Ultimately the goal is to live in the moment, pick the optimal path and therefore bring joy to your loved ones - living the momentus moment.

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lapolab/2403693037/

Coda

A new meditation

The last few days Cynthia has been in the hospital, and I didn't feel right about breaking off contact while she was there. As a mater of fact I was on my way out for Friday drinks when I stopped into see her - she had just gotten the shunt put in and was in incredible pain. It was good to be there for her and be supportive, but the aftermath was that I couldn't stop thinking about her and for the next couple days our timelines again were intertwined.

I was doing really well and all of a sudden I had a lot of work to do again, we resolved to have a clean break and this morning I awoke with a new meditation:

While breathing with my hands a centimeter off my body I moved them down from my eyes across my chest and abdomen down to my pelvis and then flicking out the energy from my body. When inhaling "this pain and joy" and while exhaling say these words "doesn't belong to me anymore"

So the whole thing in one movement was "This pain and joy, doesn't belong to me anymore"

The exercise is to acknowledge the dichotomy of pain, that with this intense joy comes it's shadow and that without light to counter act the pain you are suffer unnecessarily. Interacting with Cynthia was bringing pain to me and my family, I don't blame her for this as I forgiven myself - however to hang onto the the joyous memories and suffer their loss without replacing them with new memories is toxic.

Out of all the exercises I have written about this one is the only one that I feel working as you do it, I feel demonstrably better after having meditated. This is obviously a very aggressive meditation designed to pull out negative thoughts and can't be used in every situation. But one could try changing the phrases around to reflect other negative issues in the timeline.

For example, shithead co-worker could = "His insecurities and anger , don't belong here anymore" and push his garbage out of your head. I could see this working for a lot of things that pop up in life from time to time.

I think this is the last time that Cynthia is going to feature on this blog, I have to Thank her for being the catalyst that has started me thinking more about my place in the world. I still plan to write about how hard it is to stay focused in the maelstrom of day to day life, but not about how it started.

I hope that whomever reads this that you get some insight, no matter how small will make me happy. I mainly write this blog as a discipline to keep me honest and to keep my mind focused on momentousness, but if it helps someone along the way all the better.


Photo attribution: Geoffrey Emerson