The Empirical Manifesto

I was living here at the assisted living facility with him, and my wife and kids. He was working on his bicycle in the common garage. Where I was riding my son's unsteady bike with the tiny wheels and the super-high "chopper" style handlebars that I was ill-equipped to pilot given my size and weight comparatively.

At some point I left the garage and came back where my grandfather-in-law was underneath a precariously elevated red 4x4 Jeep, changing out what appeared to be overly complicated CV-joints. Not only changing them out, but disassembling them and machining internal parts for reassembly before reattaching them. Quite complicated work. So there he was shaking/tremors with his damaged spine, laying under a wobbly vehicle lifted dangerously by four different jack mechanisms. I was scared for his life.

And there were so many resident's bicycles in the common garage that other families coming in and out of the facility had to walk around a veritable obstacle course of them (the garage seemed to be the only ingress/egress point of the facility). So I put both my kids on one of those self-propelled scooters, disappointed that we had a battery-powered one rather than a gas-powered one, because with all three of us standing on it, it was very slow going up the asphalt grade and I was sure we were soon going to topple without adequate power.

We all know Big-D "Difficult" when it saunters into a room. Difficult people are the bullies and whimperers who must be spoon-fed feedback that's been purged of negative content, so explosive or "sensitive" are they. Then there are those who generally get along well with everyone, save one or two people in whose presence they behave badly, or, more often, people on whom they negatively fixate; the "occasional offender." I'm thinking of the grown-up who devolves into a petulant toddler in the company of Mom, or the person who is uncharacteristically curt with certain people. If you’re consistently annoyed by (and annoying to) a select few — congratulations, you’re human. Knowing the person or situation that sets you off is half the battle and you are capable of dialing-down problematic interactions.

Family: A realist might say that seeing someone at their worst is the price of intimacy. But when little effort is made to control "the worst," the family member you theoretically cherish has been rezoned as an emotional dumping ground. Once the parameters of a relationship are set, expectations emerge and you start to feel like the person exists to meet your needs. This erodes your love and their patience. You can back off by taking responsibility for your own well-being and actually thinking about someone else's.

Friends: If you have just one or two friends who are never sufficiently attentive or somehow let you down, question why they’re coming in for this special treatment. Sure, it could be them. But it could also be that you are placing demands on them that reflect your desires for the friendship, rather than its realities. By privately and unilaterally setting the terms, you may create conditions for a relationship that almost by definition cannot be met. People unconsciously place demands on friends who enhance their own self-image or social identity; it is these friends who are likely to "disappoint" in a friendship.

Everyone else: The default style between two people who have little in common is neutrality. But if you find yourself irritated or negative in minor exchanges with someone you barely know, you may believe that person is wasting your time, and you don’t know how to extricate yourself. The result is a rude or avoidant exchange, rather than an assertive one.

How to know whether you’re the "occasional offender" or Big-D "Difficult" here's the classic folk psychology test: If you’re concerned enough to ponder this question, you probably don’t have much to worry about.

HOW TO KILL A GOD

Deny him his nature.

• People who "believe" only the former to be true, but not the latter.


• People who don't "believe" facts.

• OVERGENEALIZATION – Extrapolating limited experiences and evidence to broad generalizations


• WISHFUL THINKING - Expectation of certain outcomes based on performance of unrelated acts or utterances


• DISQUALIFICATION OF POSITIVE - Discounting positive experiences for arbitrary, ad hoc reasons.


• JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS - Reaching (usually negative) conclusions from little (if any) evidence.


• MIND READING - Sense of access to special knowledge of the intentions or thoughts of others.


• FORTUNE TELLING – Inflexible expectations for how things will turn out before they happen.




• CATASTROPHIZING -Inability to foresee anything other than the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or experiencing a situation as unbearable or impossible when it is just uncomfortable.


• EMOTIONAL REASONING – Experiencing reality as a reflection of emotions, e.g. "I feel it, therefore it must be true."


• SHOULD STATEMENTS – Patterns of thought which imply the way things "should" or "ought" to be rather than the actual situation the person is faced with, or having rigid rules which the person believes will "always apply" no matter what the circumstances are.


• PERSONALIZATION - Attribution of personal responsibility (or causal role or blame) for events over which a person has no control.

• FALSE DICHOTOMY - All-or-nothing thinking; conception in absolute terms, like "always", "every", "never", and "there is no alternative"

Its interesting to inspect that which unearths from a process of critical thinking. One of my weaknesses (strengths) is my inability to apply logic to only a single instance without further applying it across the board. I was once told by a professional psychologist who awkwardly suffered from confirmation bias that the scientific method cannot be applied to everything. Naturally, I disagreed with him.

While I was a young man attending an environmental science academy I was taught many liberal things - things I believed to be true because my instructors were articulate, world-weary adventurous adults. By the time I left home, moved overseas and started experiencing the world firsthand, I found that what I saw and what I was taught were two very different things. It was a very confusing couple of years for me as I worked to reconcile, and unlearn certain truths which had been ingrained in me.

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.” ~ Freya Stark

[Frustration is] perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. Internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies.

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife.

1. Slow down. Insist on multiple problem definitions before moving towards a choice, especially when the issue is new or complex.
   
   
   
   • The Open-Mindedness Dilemma



2. Actively work to buck conventional wisdom when facing new challenges or slowly deteriorating situations. Don’t settle for incremental thinking. Design ways to test deep held assumptions about your market. Of course, different is not always better so seek to understand the wisdom inherent in conventional wisdom as well as its blind spots.
   
   
   
   • Seducing Fate



3. Encourage disagreement. Debate can foster insight, provided the conflict is among ideas and not among people. Increasingly, we live in a world where people can choose to interact only with those who agree with them. To escape from these cocoons and echo chambers, approach alternative views with an open mind. Don’t become a prisoner of your own myopic mental model.
   
   
   
   • The Zen of Living 禪



4. Engage with mavericks. It is not enough to simply be comfortable with disagreement when it happens to occur. Critical thinkers seek out those who truly see the world differently and try hard to understand why. Often you will still disagree with these mavericks, but at times they will reframe your own thinking for the better.
   
   
   
   • Trust Deconstructed

Farmer GBZ has been busy planting. Not for sustainability, but for peppers. The boy like peppers. So he planted bell peppers, jalapenos and habeneros. And not for Earth Day either - for eating. It just so happens I took this picture on Earth Day and it reminded me of my Life School Mage on Wizard101. He sure is growing up.

He's planted a variety of edible vegetables in the assorted container garden in our back yard - and surprisingly not only puts forth the effort to maintain them, but often reminds his mother. But container gardening apparently wasn't enough. This is his garden at his grandmother's house on their property which he also maintains. She waters it daily, but he does the weeding and the work. He's very proud of his garden, but I think he'll be even moreso once he's able to reap the fruits - or in this case the vegetables - of his labor.

PIERCE TRAIN: Will occasionally, out-of-turn cast "pierce" spell against opposing side's shields.
PIP O'PLENTY: (Currently) sitting at 4% chance for Power Pip (it appears to increase over time).
SPRITELY: Will occasionally, out-of-turn cast "sprite" healing spell on me.

And for Epic he gained

LIFE-GIVER: Increasing my Life School combat spells by 6% (assume this one increases over time as well).