Tag: Psychology

On Art, pART 2

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The more that art affects lives, the better it is. (Assuming it affects lives in a positive way).

This can be broken down into two dimensions:

  1. How many people it affects.
  2. How much it affects them.

You could define “expected impact” as (Total number of people) x (Average amount of impact).

A few methods for creating art with a high expected impact:

  • Create a valuable message
.
  • Make the message easily digestible (more memetic).
  • Create a message that lasts a long time
.
  • Widen the audience it appeals to (target more demographics).
  • Focus your art on the influencers (powerful/social people, good promoters). 
(Creating art that impacts other artists would fall into this category)
  • Make your art have less of a negative impact (be harmful to fewer people/less sizably harmful to those it harms).

 

Other musings:

  1. People often make the art they would want because:
    • It’s relatively easy to do it well (easier than doing market research on an audience)
    • Their own taste is an approximate proxy for “people who are like them”.
  2. If someone had every trait in the world, they’d make the most popular art because it’d be the most relatable (which increases digestibility of messages)
  3. Good art should add value to people’s lives. Value is important to note as distinct from perceived value (which is what money measures).
    1. Children produce great value for a few people. Cat videos produce little value for many people.
  4. Historically, creating evergreen content has been a stronger strategy than creating one-time impact, as that includes future generations in potential audience.
  5. Assuming its impact is good, the art you choose to do should be the one with the greatest expected impact. That is often similar to what you want to do most*, but not always.**
  6. I’m starting my career doing what I want to do most because I currently have the strongest ego (as you get older, your drive decreases) and may end up more on the intellectually-driven side later. (Editor’s note: a conversation earlier today redefined the word “ego” for me. I have more musing to do on this topic.
  7. Another approach is changing what you’re passionate about.
  8. Famous philosopher/author Nick Bostrom wrote a book that convinced many, many people to worry about AI as an existential risk. This prompted many people to start researching friendly AI, which may save the species and therefore have a HUGE impact on the world. (the hugest from here on out, perchance, because it’s necessary for all other future positive impacts.)
    1. This would suggest that a solid course of action for me—if there are any existential threats to humans—is to use art to fight them. (If it’s a thing that I could impact significantly. It’s not the only choice—my talents may be better used elsewhere—but it’s certainly a reasonable choice.)

*: You’ll want to do the thing that matters the most to you, and it mattering a lot to you is a good prediction that it’ll also matter to others. It mattering to others is a good predictor of how much it affects them.

**: That math has two spots of “good predictor”, so it’ll be exponentially removed from truth.

We used to make plans.

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As a kid, I’d schedule a play date weeks in advance. These days, even when after confirming a reptile festival the day before, I still assume a 50-50 chance my friend bails. When he does, 8am day-of, I’m annoyed. I’m confused. How much is him and how much is changing culture?

I’m not here to tell you, “Something is lost.” It is, but that’s not the point. Instead, it’s simply that some things have changed:

  • We’ve lost certainty and confidence.
  • We’ve gained flexibility and opportunism.
  • We’ve lost reliability and comfort.
  • We’ve gained the more frequent upgrades.
  • We’ve lost security in friendships.
  • We’ve gained the freedom to follow our whims.

If people still lock down plans, I don’t know them. My friends might be outliers, or perhaps the Bay Area’s incessant climbing keeps everyone on the lookout for upgrades. Or maybe this experience is a worldwide phenomenon. Faster communication means more rapidly changing circumstances.

No matter the reason, I must adjust. It’s a tough lesson to learn. Negative punishment can easily become mis-associated. In this case, to self-blame:

  • “What did I do that made him cancel?”

or, worse,

  • “What’s wrong with me that made him cancel?”

I try not to see it in those ways. I try to see it as the new world order. I think that’s accurate, but I’m not sure. Are you? 

#LoveCrunchTime

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Why do I consistently wait until the last minute to complete work? (I recently completed my largest project of all time. I had over a month to complete what amounted to 44 hours of work, yet I still crunched through 38 hours in the final two days, staying up until 5:30 am and evolving into a giddy, manic machine).

  1. Being in time-crunch is thrilling and I enjoy a good rush.
  2. It makes work take less time, and I don’t like work. (Since I don’t have time to lollygag or double-back, I don’t lollygag or double back).
  3. “That’s a problem for future-Julian, and what has that guy ever done for me?”
  4. I’m a lazy fuck… who does what he promises. (I would never do it, but that’s not an option so I come as close as possible.)
  5. The system works so I have no incentive to change it.
  6. You never know when the teacher will change the assignment last minute. Did I say “teacher”? I meant “customer”. They’re shockingly similar.

An Ex texts, “Marry me?”

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An Ex texts, “Marry me?”

I say “You must be reading my blog.” She says no. She says she’s serious. Phrases include, “Clearly soul mates”, “White picket fence”, and “Multiracial adopted kids”.

How the hell does someone respond to that? After sufficient bewilderment, I settle on: “No thanks. Not really interested”. Later, I add, “But I suppose I appreciate the sentiment”.

After an hour of confusion, including texting a mutual friend to ask if Ex is okay, Ex tells me it was a joke. She has, in fact, been reading my blog. A joke, you say? Ha…

Ha…

I guess.

I suppose I deserve this. And I did ask for more pranks. It’s also eye-opening: this must be what friendship with me is like.

When is it okay to avoid the world?

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At 9:11am, the morning’s not-funniest time, I slipped 50mg of caffeine past the tape on my mouth before crawling back into the safety of my dreams. Another hour-and-a-quarter passed before my bunkmate awoke, only after which did I first leave my bed. How much of this time was spent avoiding the world?

I’m coming off a cold. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been sleeping so much. I’ve also been emotionally exhausted, overcoming a childhood trauma and rebuilding after a breakup.

My bed is warm. My bed feels safe. In it, the world feels far away. My mind moseys, wisting aimlessly from place to place. I like that safety. I like that oblivion. I live for that vacuum between conscious and gone.

I understand hypochondriacs.

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I struggled through five doctors over ten years before one correctly diagnosed me with obstructive sleep apnea.

It’s subjectively difficult to tell if something’s wrong with you because corroboration requires a doctor’s agreement. If they don’t see a problem, perhaps nothing’s wrong. Then again, perhaps they’re incompetent, or perhaps you didn’t communicate it clearly. Most doctors see a lot of patients, and communicating a subjective experience to a second party is very difficult. And even if you can’t get second-party confirmation, it’s still really your experience.

I pee frequently. Frequently enough that my friends comment on it. This causes me concern. I don’t know that there’s a problem, but I suspect something’s up. I could see a urologist, but that’s a minimum of two visits at inconvenient times to someone who I’ll probably conclude is incompetent.

Some doctors are great. Most are god-awful. It’s hard to know before seeing them. I’m delaying, which isn’t the logical choice, but it’s easier than calling medical offices. I’m solving my sleep now—one issue at a time. I hope I don’t come to regret waiting.

Fasting isn’t difficult, but it is trying. 

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(Context: I haven’t eaten food in the last 72 hours.)

Fasting isn’t difficult, but it is trying:

  • It’s trying to get something to eat and then not.
  • It’s trying and failing to fill the void inside you that food usually patches over.
  • It’s trying to slow down and succeeding and enjoying that success.
  • It’s trying to speak French with the Uber driver from Ethiopia and not minding the embarrassment when he sticks to English.
  • It’s dancing with the devil and winning for a step or two.
  • It’s trying to wrench up gunk from within your soul but, digging deep, not even finding a soul.
  • It’s trying to find God in the man with the megaphone and instead just achieving an intense, god-like focus.
  • It’s molding yourself like a wet ball of clay.
  • It’s trying to define a self while also trying to change it.
  • It’s trying—and succeeding—to sleep peacefully, because nothing else matters when you’re hungry.

I don’t believe in “Character Alignment.”

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After five years of wanting, I played my first D&D game today. Upon creating my character—Pimbleton the Great and Powerful and Mighty and Strong, a three-foot-tall gnome who rode into the world on a lightning bolt thrown by Zeus and spent twenty years enslaved by a cereal company who forced him to be their mascot before rising to monarch of a race of undersea people—I was asked what his “alignment” is. This refers to a 3×3 grid, with axes of “Lawful vs Chaotic?” and “Good vs Evil?”

  • Is he lawful-good, like Superman?
  • Chaotic-good, like Robin Hood?
  • Lawful-evil, like Senator Joseph McCarthy?
  • Chaotic-evil, like The Joker?

DD-Alignment-Chart-2.jpg

I disliked this question. It feels wrong-directional. We can describe an action as one of these, but they don’t describe the whole person.

  • What about a lawful-good character whose father was killed by an orc and therefore has developed deep-seated racism against them? If she’s lawful-good in every other instance, must she also be lawful-good toward orcs?
  • Or a chaotic-evil character with a soft spot for small, furry animals? Must he suffocate every bunny he meets, simply because he beheads every human in his way?

Actions should come from who someone is, not the easiest way to classify them. There’s no such thing as acting “out of alignment.” There’s only acting in character or not.

It never mattered why

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The chicken crossed the road. The road’s mom called the chicken’s mom.

“You can’t go crossing other people,” the chicken’s mom told her daughter.

A week later, the road crossed the chicken.

“No need to cause a fuss,” the chicken’s mom told her daughter.

“But she’s an asphalt!”

“Don’t use that language! And be the bigger person.”

While the road continued walking all over other people, the chicken never again crossed a road.

The road became a successful hedge fund manager. The chicken never amounted to much. She was too… chicken.

It never mattered why.