Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

How is free will related to the meaning of life? Most people consider free will (or at least agency) to be necessary for meaning in their life (although interestingly, not always necessary for meaning in the overall existence of the universe). But why is this the case? If we lived in a world in which free will was clearly absent, would we then accept that our lives had no meaning, or would we redefine meaning to have some other source? Also, agency is clearly spectral, in that no one has complete freedom to make choices entirely unconstrained and uncoerced. Does it follow that a life’s meaning is (all other things being equal) in proportion to the decision-making freedom that that entity has?

This post comes with a warning label: it's intended to make you grateful, but it might also make you sad. (It does both to me.) Proceed at your own discretion.
From On Not Knowing How to Live by Allen Wheelis: "One day, a day lying in wait up ahead, you will lie abed in a hospital, writhe in nausea from chemotherapy, feel the metastases spreading out in your bones, hair falling in bunches from the radiation - and what then will seem to you to have been the way to live? Does the dark-haired beauty still beckon? Do you strain to follow, to reach out, to touch? Or do you yearn rather but to walk on the beach in the sun, to sit down to dinner with a friend, or perhaps just to be free of pain - all those riches which are now right at hand and ignored?"

What is a human being capable of? For example, how far can a person travel by foot in 24 hours? You might be surprised to hear that the records are 188 miles (!) for a man, Yiannis Kouros, and 155 miles (!) for a woman, Edit Berces. This works out to about a 7.6 minute mile and a 9.3 minute mile, respectively, mile after mile, for 24 hours. Six or seven marathons, one right after the other. When I heard this I was amazed. And although these are the world records, experts say that most able-bodied people are, with adequate training, capable of completing a marathon and much, much more. What are you capable of? The answer is, probably a lot more than you realize. And you can't know for sure unless you try. I'm not suggesting that you become an ultramarathoner (it's actually pretty rough on the body, as you might imagine). I'm just using this as one example of how a human being, and indeed every human being, is capable of incredible things.

Robert Wright crystallizes the essence of the hedonic treadmill theory in this quote from The Moral Animal: "The idea that one more dollar, one more dalliance, one more rung on the ladder will make us feel sated reflects a misunderstanding about human nature - a misunderstanding which is built into human nature; that we are designed to feel that the next great goal will bring bliss, and the bliss is designed to evaporate shortly after we get there."

I think that most conflicts between desires that a person is aware of are between a desire which is conscious (e.g. what Harry Frankfurt would call internal, one the person identifies with and wishes to be volitional and decisive) and one which isn't (e.g. determined unconsciously by genes, memes, etc). There are also conflicts between desires each of which is on the same side of this dichotomy, but in those cases the conflict probably isn't felt emotionally, it's resolved through some decision-making algorithm or heuristic, such as by consciously or unconsciously assigning weights to each. Maybe true freedom can be achieved by finding a way to always have your conscious desires, not your unconscious desires, determine your behavior.

The cheapest, easiest, fastest way to make yourself more beautiful is to smile.

A new course at Harvard about positive psychology has become the school's most popular course in just its second year. Here are six tips from the professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, about achieving happiness. All six are recurring themes on this blog. I encourage you to print them out, carry the list with you and read it once a day.
1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.
2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.
3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?
4. Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.
5. Remember the mind-body connection. What we do -- or don't do -- with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.
6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.
Want more? Check out Ben-Shahar's lecture videos.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I seek out opportunities to see the world from different perspectives. One such technique is to change the scale. Here are some great microphotography sites, which show some of the beautiful things we don't usually see.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/bia/
http://education.denniskunkel.com
http://www.nikonsmallworld.com
http://www.princeton.edu/~artofsci/gallery/
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/micro/gallery.html

Perceptual biases are everywhere, and you can find them if you know where to look. I went for a walk on a trail this morning and saw more bikers than joggers and more joggers than walkers. Does this mean there were more bikers than joggers and more joggers than walkers? No. Even if there were the same number of each, I'd see mostly bikers, because they're covering more ground in a given amount of time and therefore are more likely to pass me than walkers, who are moving at about the same speed as me. (This is especially true for people moving in the same direction as me.) Admittedly, this specific perceptual bias probably isn't harmful, but many others are, such as stereotypes perpetuated by mainstream media that create a distorted view of reality. More about those in future posts. Until then, pay attention! As Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot just by watching.

People don't seem to be very good at philosophy. (For evidence, compare the progress that's been made in science since Aristotle's time with the progress that's been made in philosophy.) Is this because philosophy is intrinsically hard, or the human mind just isn’t equipped to understand philosophy, or that humans tend to focus on challenges (such as science and technology) whose solutions offer economic benefits? The human mind certainly wasn't designed to be good at philosophy, but there are plenty of things the human mind wasn't designed to do that it nevertheless finds a way to excel at. Could a hypothetical alien race master philosophy but be unable to progress technologically? More generally, is there any way to establish the difficulty of a given problem objectively and free from human biases?

More unintentional humor... Excerpts from classified advertisements, collected from a variety of sources, all supposedly true.

Christmas tag-sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.

Lost: small apricot poodle. Reward. Neutered. Like one of the family.

For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.

Tired of cleaning yourself? Let me do it.

Dinner Special -- Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.

If you think you've seen everything in Paris, visit the Pere Lachasis Cemetery. It boasts such immortals as Moliere, Jean de la Fontain, and Chopin.

Wanted: Hair-cutter. Excellent growth potential.

The hotel has bowling alleys, tennis courts, comfortable beds, and other athletic facilities.

3-year-old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred.

Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.

Our experienced Mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included.

Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.

Wanted. Widower with school-age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family.

Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale.

Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you'll never go anywhere again.

One important part of "how to live" is "where to live". To help you with this decision, Money Magazine publishes an annual list of the best places to live, and the newest list was just released. They look only at U.S. cities, but it's a big planet, so don't limit your search to just one country. Also, since everyone has different criteria for where to live (just as everyone has different criteria for how to live), don't rely too much on their data. (They do offer some ability to customize the list based on your criteria, but this functionality is extremely rudimentary.) Of course, quantitative data only tells you part of what a city is really like, but can be used to make a short list of places you plan to visit in the next few years to see if you'd like to spend more time.
http://biz.yahoo.com/special/besttowns06.html

At lunch yesterday I was telling my friend Tom about happiness set point theory, which (backed by substantial evidence) claims that each person has a genetically determined set point for happiness, and when good or bad things happen to them their happiness temporarily deviates from that set point but returns to it very quickly. My friend made a very good analogy between this set point and a person's body weight. There may be a default set point, but with the appropriate lifestyle choices a person can remain permanently on one side or the other of that set point. Although these studies indicate that it's very difficult for people to stay above their happiness set points for very long, this analogy resonated with me because I think it's exactly what I've done. By making the appropriate choices (not about what I put in my body but what I put in my mind) I have been able to make myself substantially happier than I was ten or even five years ago. So I think there's hope even for people with negative set points.

What is the relationship between meaning and purpose? I think purpose is necessary but not sufficient for meaning. For example, in The Matrix, the people had a purpose but their existence lacked meaning. One possible approach would be to argue that if the person accepts the purpose, then his/her existence has meaning, otherwise it doesn't. However, with most traditional religions, the purpose is supposedly determined by the creator, not by the follower, but most followers accept that purpose unquestioningly. (Admittedly, those adherents who chose their religion, as opposed to accepting whichever one was most prevalent in their country or community or family, may have factored what each religion says about their life's purpose when choosing a religion, and so this statement might not apply to them.) If that's the case, then if those people discovered they were in Matrix-like enslavement, would they unquestioningly accept that their creator had a justifiable purpose in doing this to them? You might assume the answer is no, but consider that most adherents of traditional religions find a way to accept that their creators don't intervene to stop atrocities like billions starving and babies being murdered, and they also accept that they might not be able to comprehend their creator's means and ends, so they might be able to rationalize a meaningful existence based on a purpose they don't agree with or understand.

I believe that creativity is an important part of a well-lived life. But for many people, creativity does not come naturally. This is especially true in adulthood, when people tend to stick with what's worked before, play by the rules, and become set in their ways. And it's true that some people are naturally more creative than others. But everyone is capable of creativity. Below are some characteristics that most highly creative people have. If you cultivate these same characteristics, you'll find yourself becoming more creative as well.
- retaining a childlike sense of wonder
- being intellectually honest
- being willing to question assumptions
- finding relationships between seemingly unrelated things
- tolerating ambiguity
- being willing to take risks
- seeing things differently
- paying attention to details
- liking challenges
- being passionate
I encourage you to make a point of doing something creative today (and everyday).

The current issue of New York magazine has an excellent article about positive psychology, a self-help movement built on a scientific foundation (and an effort that I fully support).
http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/17573/

Paul Graham is an extremely successful entrepreneur and all-around interesting guy. On his site he publishes essays he's written about business and entrepreneurship, and they're always lucid, informative and even fun to read. I especially recommend his articles "How to do what you love" and "What you'll wish you'd known". Great advice.
http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

In 2004 Keith Stanovich wrote a book called The Robot's Rebellion. For years I've been thinking about the ways in which we are enslaved by our genes and what we can do to break free, and when I read this book it reinforced and clarified a lot of my thinking. An excerpt has been posted online at the URL below. This is not for the faint of heart or the fragile of ego, but if you want to gain some control over your life and are prepared to accept the fact that you probably don't have as much control now as you think you do, you might want to check it out.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/770893.html

Yesterday the journal Psychopharmacology published the results of a study on the effects of the psychedelic drug psilocybin, one of the first such studies in the last 40 years. Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions researchers conducted the study following carefully controlled, scientifically rigorous procedures. Most participants (all but one of whom were college graduates) cited feelings of intense joy, peace and harmony after taking the drug, and in many cases these effects had a long-term effect, as evidenced by subsequent surveys taken months later. Even more notably, a third of the participants said taking the psilocybin was the single most significant experience of their lives. Accompanying editorial and commentary from prominent neuroscientists praised the study and recommended additional research. I certainly won't advocate the use of illegal drugs on this blog, especially drugs whose effects are so strong and so unpredictable. (Almost a third of the participants experienced fear, paranoia and/or other nasty emotions.) But I do support (nearly) any study that helps us unlock the secrets of consciousness and the mind. Whether psychedelics really do "cleanse the doors of perception" as Aldous Huxley claimed, or instead create "false" emotions not worth having, can be determined only through systematic study.

Link to Google news coverage

A couple weeks ago I posted some excerpts from Mary Louise Gilman's "Humor in the Court" (here), a compilation of unintentionally funny things found on courtroom transcripts. Here's a second batch. I hope you enjoy them.

Q: Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No. This is how I dress when I go to work.

Q: Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A: No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.

THE COURT: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any.

Q: And lastly, Gary, all your responses must be oral. O.K.? What school do you go to?
A: Oral.
Q: How old are you?
A: Oral.

Q: Are you sexually active?
A: No, I just lie there.

It has become increasingly clear in recent decades that technological progress advances exponentially, and taken to its logical conclusion this may imply that anything that is theoretically possible will eventually be possible in practice. Also, it seems probable that there is some possible action (or more likely, many such actions) which would lead to the elimination of all life in our known universe. Given these two assumptions, a sufficiently intelligent life form elsewhere in our universe might rationally decide that the best way to reduce this existential risk is to concentrate power into as few entities as possible. The situation seems analogous to the cold war arms race following World War II, during which some prominent U.S. scientists wanted to use the hydrogen bomb on Russia pre-emptively, not out of a sense of jingoism but out of a belief that a planet was safer if only one entity had the ability to destroy it. This seems to me a genuine risk at the galaxy or universe level, although there's probably not much we can do to mitigate the risk... we've been transmitting signals into outer space since the middle of the last century, so any sufficiently advanced intelligence in our neighborhood who wanted us eliminated probably already knows we're here.

Writing a list of things you're grateful for may sound like a suggestion from a self-help book, but I think it's a great exercise, because of our natural tendency to take things for granted, and because optimism (within reason) is beneficial in many ways. To get things started, here's my list, in roughly descending order of importance. The purpose of this exercise isn't to compare your list to mine. (Our genes encourage us to ceaselessly compare ourselves to others, but this is usually counterproductive. If you must compare, compare yourself to someone who lived a thousand years ago, or a bird, or a rock.) The purpose is to give yourself a gentle reminder of all the good things you have that are too easily taken for granted.
I'm grateful that:
1. I exist.
2. I can think.
3. I can feel.
4. I'm healthy.
5. I am happy most of the time, and am rarely in pain.
6. I like myself.
7. I have (a small number of) people in my life whom I care about and who care about me.
8. I am (somewhat) conscious.
9. I have the ability to (partially) define myself.
10. I have enough money to not have to worry about money.
11. I live with a lot of freedom (of thought, speech, action, etc).
12. I have (a small number of) people in my life who understand me.
13. I get to spend most of my time with people I like.
14. I am (cautiously) optimistic about my future and the world's.
15. I don't hate anyone, and (as far as I know) no one hates me.
16. I have enough free time for projects like this site.
... etc. ...
Further down the list, I'm also grateful for...
742. XM channel 84
743. people who smile all the time
744. pineapple
745. billiards
746. serendipity
747. lucid dreams
748. Norman Borlaug
749. cool breezes on warm summer days
750. raspberry dacquiris
... etc. ...
Now it's your turn...

Paul's Tips is a site very much in same spirit as HowtoLive.org. Paul offers practical, real-world advice for living the life you want, and his ideas and writing style are somewhat more accessible than mine. Best of all, he manages to be realistic and optimistic at the same time, which makes the articles not just educational but enjoyable as well.
http://www.paulstips.com

If you were inspired by Warren Buffett's recent 31 billion dollar donation to the Gates Foundation, but aren't sure which charity can do the most good with your donation, check out Charity Navigator. The site offers detailed data for thousands of charitable organizations, including their mission statements, executive compensation, and efficiency in resource allocation. This is a great resource, especially considering that the charities you hear the most about tend to be the ones whose budgets focus disproportionately on marketing rather than on helping people.
http://www.charitynavigator.org

What is the relationship between emotions and how to live? Are emotions an evolutionary relic that interfere with rational behavior, or are they what separate us from machines and make life worth living? To what extent can (and should) one choose one's emotions? For example, should we try to minimize negative emotions and maximize positive emotions? Should we systematically seek to make our emotions rationality-based, or are emotions and rationality often in opposition not just by default but by necessity? I have some tentative answers to these questions but would like to hear what others think.

One of my heroes is David Pearce. He is off-the-charts on three qualities I greatly admire: he's frighteningly smart, he genuinely wants to make the world a better place, and he thinks big. How big? One of his missions is to eradicate suffering in all sentient life. You can read his manifesto, the Hedonistic Imperative, at the link below. He also provides detailed responses to a variety of objections to the mission, including one that I offered. Before getting started, I recommend finding a comfortable chair in a quiet room and clearing your schedule for five to ten hours. Guaranteed to make you think.
http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/tabconhi.htm

An extremely attractive woman recently asked me for my thoughts on physical beauty vs. inner beauty. Here's what I told her. (Telling people what they want to hear is not one of my strengths.) If you define yourself in terms of your physical appearance, you might want to skip to the next post.

Beauty is usually defined as ‘being pleasing to the senses or the mind’. I think it causes confusion when people use the same word to describe a person they find physically attractive and things in nature that they find amazing or inspiring. I often use ‘pretty’ for physical looks and ‘beautiful’ for personality, although both labels can still be misleading.

In the case of physical attraction, I think it is highly cultural (i.e. ‘beauty is in the eye of the culture the beholder happens to be born into’). Throughout history, most men considered women who were somewhat overweight more attractive than women who were underweight (where food isn’t plentiful, thin often means malnourished while slightly overweight means having stored enough body fat to survive a poor harvest). But some things are considered physically attractive across cultures and over time and are therefore probably genetic - physical features that indicate a person’s health and absence of defects or damage (for example, I would guess that all cultures prefer roughly symmetric faces).

I don’t know if there’s a correlation between beauty on the outside and beauty on the inside. It’s certainly possible; I’m not sure if any systematic studies have been done. But poets, suitors, and Hollywood often confuse the two, knowingly or unknowingly. And I admit that I sometimes do too. I’ve heard this tendency to judge people based on physical appearance be called ‘lookism’, to compare it with sexism or racism. I guess it’s more accepted because it’s so prevalent. And like most heterosexual guys, I have an instinctive weakness for attractive women, so I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a challenge to remember not to judge people based on how they look. Although women do become more physically attractive to me as I get to know them better (if I like what I discover), this only goes so far. This is one battle with my genes that I doubt I will ever fully win.

I don't think there's anything wrong with caring about your appearance or feeling good about how you look, but I do think that things have gotten a little out of control. Cosmetics companies collectively spend 2-3% of their revenue on research and development (i.e. making their products better) and 20-30% on advertising and marketing (persuading people that their products are better than they are). These corporations manufacture a need and then fulfill it. If we could encourage people to shift some of the time and money they spend on outprettying each other (both the women for doing it and the men for being superficial and encouraging it) and redirect those efforts to finding the other, more meaningful type of beauty all around us, I think everyone would feel better about themselves and about the world as well.

Note: I'll be on the road and off the grid tomorrow, so I won't be able to post again until Wednesday. Have a great 4th of July.

I recently came across an interesting video I thought I'd share. Autistic savant Stephen Wiltshire has been called a human camera. This 5-minute video documents a trip he took to Rome in which he flew over the city in a helicopter and then, over the following three days, drew an incredibly detailed panoramic view of what he saw entirely from memory. I'm always fascinated by people with exceptional, unique talents, and Stephen definitely fits this description. Remarkable.
http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/wiltshire_highres.wmv

I love opportunities to look at the world from different perspectives. My interest in geography began in elementary school when I unsuccessfully tried to explain to a teacher that having north rather than south be the up direction was arbitrary. I become even more interested when I learned that the popular map formats (e.g. Mercator) were designed by Europeans to make Africa look smaller than it really is (check out the Winkel-Tripel projection for a more accurate representation of the globe). In that same spirit, WorldMapper is a collection of maps on which countries are resized on each map according to various facts. Very cool.
http://www.worldmapper.org/