How to Be a Human Animal. Chapter 3: The Most Important Fork in the Road: Approach versus Avoidance

Chapter 3: The Most Important Fork in the Road: Approach versus Avoidance

Is the world something to be feared or something to be enjoyed? That is the most important decision you will need to make, day after day. Does the world seem like a scary haunted house or like a big playroom? The stance you take, avoidance versus approach, will have a profound effect, not only on what you accomplish, but on who you turn out to be.

I'll admit that Planet Earth is filled with many dangers, including spiders and snakes, but also automobiles and addictions to dangerous drugs. There are innumerable ways to ruin or lose a life and we are wired to see many of these dangers much more saliently than we see the safe and happy things. Daniel Kahneman teased out this deep instinct with his Prospect Theory. We see risks twice as big as we see benefits.

We have been wired to assume the worst. A snapped twig in the darkness of the forest might be a puppy, but the body’s operating assumption is to run because the joy of finding a puppy whereas the danger of a grizzly bear can kill you. We are wired to run at all of Life’s snapped twigs and metaphorical snapped twigs. Those twigs are everywhere, leading many people to curl up in a fetal position, afraid to leave their houses.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt characterizes this choice of Approach versus Avoidance as “the fundamental question of life.” This attitude affects almost everything we do, including how we approach education.

As soon as life began moving, as soon as you get little tails on bacteria, you have to have some mechanism for deciding this way or that? Approach or avoid? And all of the rest of the billion years of brain evolution is just commentary on that question.And so the human brain has these gigantic tracts of neurons on the front left cortex, specialized for approach. And then a frontal cortex specialized for avoid. And so all sorts of things go with this. So when we’re in explorer mode, some features of it are, we’re more, we’re curious. We take risks. You might feel like a kid in a candy shop with all these different things to explore. You think for yourself. And the model of a student in this mindset would be whoever grows the most by graduation, or whoever learns the most by graduation wins. If that’s your attitude, boy, are you going to profit from being in college for four years.

Conversely, if you spent most of your college years with your front, right cortex activated, because you’re told everyone’s against you, everyone hates you, you’ll never get ahead. It’s always been this way. Then it always will be this way. If that’s what you believe, you’re in defend mode, threat mode, and then you don’t trust people. Your goal is not to be curious. It’s to be safe. You’re afraid of things. And you think about books in terms of certain speakers in terms of danger versus safety. You see threats everywhere and you will cling to your team. And your motto is: If we defeat them, then we win. And that’s the incoherence that has been with us since 2015. We had an influx of students who were playing a very different game where everything was danger and conflict. And no, that’s not what a university [is]. You’ve misunderstood what we’re about and why you’re here. And so it’s been a tragic waste.

So what is your decision this moment and every other moment yet to come? Are you going to be an explorer, seeking out new worlds with uncertainty and risk? Or are you going to obsessively try to be “safe,” meaning that you will hide away and tremble as life passes you by?

Explorers often fail, they know it and they still explore. They know that failure usually doesn’t hurt you or kill you. They know that failure is a teaching tool and a way to build strong character. Long before Carol Dweck wrote about “growth mindsets,” the famous explorers felt it in their bones. They knew that human animals are antifragile, even though they didn’t know that word: they knew that they would thrive in the world because it is filled with stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. They understood Nietzsche’s point that “what doesn’t destroy you often makes you stronger.” They fe;t the wisdom of the Stoics in their bones: “The Obstacle is the way.” They would agree with Woody Allen’s observation that showing up is 80 percent of life.

There is one thing that does makes Explorers tremble: The thought that after they die, someone would carve this epitaph on their tombstone: “Here lies _____ ______ , who was afraid to leave the house.”

But what if you are afraid? What if you worry that you will get laughed at or humiliated, or criticized or called a name, much less that you might get hurt or even die? Heroes feel all of these things. There is nothing incompatible about being afraid and simultaneously being a hero. Heroes and explorers make themselves move forward even when they are scared. One of my favorite illustrations of this was noted by Nietzsche:

Sometimes during a battle he could not help trembling. Then he talked to his body as one talks to a servant. He said to it: “You tremble, carcass; but if you knew where I am taking you right now, you would tremble a lot more.”
Nietzsche cited (in The Gay Science, Intro Book V) this quote as an illustration of his own conception of fearlessness (attributed to Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne (1611-75) a great French general).

So go hither and explore the world! Try new things. Plan to get knocked down, criticized and ridiculed. And then get up again and again. Channel Cool Hand Luke. Never ever give up.

Continue ReadingHow to Be a Human Animal. Chapter 3: The Most Important Fork in the Road: Approach versus Avoidance

Peter Boghossian Diagnoses the Problem with Modern College Administrators

Peter Boghossian writes:

To understand the intolerant, anti-intellectual attitudes held by many college administrators, it helps to know that most of the ones who worked directly with students got their graduate training from education schools, or “ed schools” as they're called. These are the schools that have been training and licensing teachers and administrators in the K through 12 school system for the better part of a century.

Unfortunately, ed schools are notorious for their low academic standards and woke politics. Among their many dysfunctional programs, the ones that train school administrators are the very worst. They're so bad that in 1987, a report by the National Commission on Excellent and Educational Administration recommended that out of the 500 programs in administration 300 of them should be closed—not reformed, but closed . . .

It's an understatement to say that ed schools ignored this recommendation. Instead of closing programs during the next 20 years, they opened over 100 more and they did absolutely nothing to fix their low quality. Why not? Low-quality programs bring in tuition dollars and they don't require much in the way of investment.

Here is the mission statement of Boghossian's Substack, Beyond Woke:

This Substack gives you a front row seat in the culture war. I’m executing a blueprint to push back illiberalism and I'd like you to be directly involved. The blueprint has a two-fold aim: first, reveal the implications of far-left ideological takeover; and second, restore free speech and open inquiry as non-partisan values.

Continue ReadingPeter Boghossian Diagnoses the Problem with Modern College Administrators

How the Far Left Sees Masculine Men

Andrew Sullivan discusses men like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson who don't shy away from being masculine. They are commonly derided by the political Left, including the Woke Left. The title to his article: "Between The World And Men Truckers, Rogan, Peterson and the revolt of masculinity." Here's an excerpt:

No, the left is not calling all masculinity toxic. But they get pretty quiet when you ask for a definition of non-toxic masculinity that doesn’t end up sounding like being a woman. And, no, they’re not explicitly denying that there are biological differences between men and women — they just speak and act on the premise that there aren’t, that boys do not need a different kind of education than girls, that all-male groups are problematic, and that finding a way to direct masculinity to noble ends is somehow enabling the oppression of women, or gay people. The result is that men are subject to left derision, right machismo, and complete cultural derailment.

And that’s where Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson come in. They too, of course, are mocked constantly, demeaned as chauvinists or white supremacists, etc. But what Rogan does is speak and talk the way men do with each other in private, which, in this media era, is a revelation. He doesn’t entertain the woke bromides of gender theory because he’s lived a life, clearly loves being a man as much as Adele says she loves being a woman, and believes, as he once put it, that “bad men are just bad human beings who happen to be men.”

Continue ReadingHow the Far Left Sees Masculine Men

Chris Hedges: Our One-Party State

Chris Hedges:

We live in a one-party state. The ideology of national security is sacrosanct. The cult of secrecy, justified in the name of protecting us from our enemies, is a smoke screen to hide from the public the inner workings of power and manipulate public perceptions. The Democratic courtiers and advisers that surround any Democratic presidential candidate – the retired generals and diplomats, the former national security advisers, the Wall Street economists, the lobbyists, and the apparatchiks from past administrations – do not want to curb the power of the imperial presidency. They do not want to restore the system of checks and balances. They do not want to challenge the military or the national security state. They are the system. They want to move back into the White House to wield its awful force. And now, with Joe Biden, that is where they are.

Continue ReadingChris Hedges: Our One-Party State

How to be a Human Animal: Suggested Reading for Every Newborn Baby.

I'm beginning a new creative project called the 100 Days Project. I've been invited into a group of about a dozen people who encourage each other to do something creative. I decided to write a rough draft book over the 100 days. Because the internet platform used by the group has only rudimentary editing tools, I'm going to post my 100 chapters here at Dangerous Intersection. I will title each chapter "How to Be a Human Animal: Chapter X." We'll see how this comes out. In this post, I'm including the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2.

It's not really a book for babies, of course. It is my existential lament that I wish I had learned a lot of these things earlier in my life. And I wish I didn't need to learn so many of these lessons the hard way. Here are my first few installments:

How to be a Human Animal: Suggested Reading for Every Newborn Baby.

Introduction

Welcome to the world, Baby! This Baby Book will offer you 100 insights on how to be a human animal. Other people will give you lots of good advice, of course, most of it boiling down to this: eat healthy food, sleep enough and don’t be a jerk. Absolutely. Those things are definitely important, but this book other important things that you don’t hear about as much.Being young is such a difficult way to grow up! You have no experience or training when you are young. You need to figure out everything. I hope that the insights in these 100 chapters will serve as a virtual mentor, to help you avoid some hazards and time drains.

If successful, this book will offer you a bit more quality time to enjoy some of the many awesome things happening on this big crazy sphere! Things like hiking trails, peanut butter sandwiches, miracle medical cures for many painful ailments, laughing, long-term friendships, creating and enjoying art, sunsets, sex, grapes, putting band aids on your child’s ouchies, campfires, Tetris, Bob’s Burgers, jazz, mentoring, puppies, late night conversations, good poops, Hubble photos, and looking into your lover’s eyes.

Enjoy your stay on Earth!

Chapter 1: You Are Lucky to Be Here

Hi, Baby. I have some good news and some bad news.

First, some good news. You are extremely lucky to be here. The odds were very much against you every being born. In order for you to be here, your 256 great great great great great great great grandparents each had to have sex at exactly the right day and hour. That would be impossible to coordinate, but it somehow happened. So congratulations!

We’ll talk about sex in more detail in a later chapter, but for now, please note that you benefitted from the fact that sex is such an incredibly strong instinct in our species and in all animal ancestors, extending all the way back to your proto-primate ancestors, the shrew-like critters that co-existed with the dinosaurs, the ancient shore-exploring fish such as Tiktaalik, and every other life form in your family tree. You are lucky that all of your ancestors were horny. This presumably goes all the way back to the first randy primordial bacterium in your family tree who, in fairness, you should think of as your grandparent. This immense journey from earliest life form to your primate body didn’t happen instantly, but neither did it take an eternity. Here is a thought experiment, a way to visualize your evolution rapidly as you drive past your maternal lineage at highway speed.

Chapter 2: You Get Only One Thousand Months

Here’s more good news. Those who keep statistics say that since you were born in the U.S., it's realistic to think you will live almost 80 years. From your infant eyes, that must seem like an eternity. Here’s some bad news: 80 years is only 960 months, which I’m going to round up to 1,000 because I don’t want existential anxiety to mess with your tiny bowel movements. Here are 1,000 dots.

Take away one dot each month and that’s all the time you get if you live 80 years.

Here is more not-so-good news. You won’t be fully self-actualized at birth. Evolution had to work a crazy compromise. The social and intellectual gymnastics characteristic of your species requires a bigger brain than your non-human primate cousins, too big to allow you to emerge from your mother’s womb fully functional at birth. A baby with a big functional human brain would endanger or kill the baby’s mom at birth. You are born severely underdeveloped. You will be mostly helpless for a couple years after birth and that’s just the beginning. You’ll need about 20 years to function fully as an adult. That’s leaves only 750 months for you to live as an adult (and that’s only if you take good care of your body). This thought terrifies most people, but if you are wise, you will bravely take note of your limited time and strive to make the best of it.

Eventually your body will completely break down and your body will completely stop working. You will not think any more thoughts you won’t feel anything at all and you’ll be dead. My operating assumption is that death is nothing to worry about. It will be a lot like it was before you were born. Again, that’s only my assumption.

Again, you’ll only get to live about 750 months. About half of the people I know consider this number of 750 months to be a curse and the other half use that number as an incentive to live a life they can be proud of. Will you celebrate this gift of 750 months by living a life that is well-informed, socially-interactive, creative and kind-hearted? Or will you waste it in the glow of TV and computer screens and obsessing about consumer goods and money? It’s your choice.

Keep in mind that little things eat up big swaths of time over a year. Should I keep my beard, which takes almost no upkeep? Or should I be clean-shaven, which takes 3 min/day = 12 hours per year.  I know this sounds like a silly illustration, but you can't argue with these numbers. Here's another example: If you watch a junk TV show for one hour per day for a year, that adds up to 365 hours = 45 full time work days down the drain per year. That's more than two months of full-time work!

The lesson: Your months will go by quickly, so spend them mindfully. Time is a non-replenishable resource, but most people don’t seem to understand this until it’s too late. When you are a young child, a day can seem like an eternity. As an active adult, time will dramatically speed up. Months will eventually start whizzing by as if they were days that are punctuated by 30 little naps. Think carefully about time management strategies, including daily to-do lists. If you don't your precious gift of life will swiftly slip away.

 

I wish I could make this post light-hearted, but it’s just too damned existentially important. You have been given a great gift by being born. In the end, hopefully 80 well-lived years from now, you will find yourself in one of two deathbed scenarios: A) I could have done some really cool things in my life if I had actually gotten off my butt to work hard at them, but I squandered my opportunity, or B) I worked hard to do some really cool things. Some of them succeeded, and others failed, but I learned a lot in the process, met lots of wonderful people and I’m now dying in good conscience. Epilogue: Here is a video featuring a watch that runs backwards. I'm not including this video to promote the product, but rather because this product pitch relates to the above post:

Continue ReadingHow to be a Human Animal: Suggested Reading for Every Newborn Baby.