redirection

I started listening to Scarcity again.  I've got it on audio book, so I can go back through the thing whenever I feel like it.

I think I'm beginning to understand something.  I was going to call this post the Kansas City shuffle, but I wasn't sure if that was correct.  So I decided to call it redirection.  I don't know if that makes it a lot different, but it seems more accurate.  Going back to to what I was actually going to talk about.

The thing I noticed was something Scarcity pointed out, but didn't provide an answer to.  It makes me realize how Alcoholics Anonymous works as well.  All major projects and adjustment schemes operate on the same principle.

Scarcity (the book) points out that being focused on something causes us to ignore other things.  The social and mental problems generally are caused by an incorrect focus.  So the answer to solve the scarcity problem is redirection.  And that's why everyone suggests exercise.

But I just made a jump there.  To get that jump, you have to go to a different book.  For that, it's over to Mastermind.   Mastermind points out that in order to think of something, you have to redirect your mind and let the unconscious processes work on the problem.

So, the answer to solving those stuck in a rut problems seems to be redirection by causing a mental separation.  The task needs to be sufficiently tedious to take the mental process away, or grind it down.  Exercise and manual labor seemed linked to the process.  Shoveling dirt for an hour or two or running both result in the brain not thinking about what it had been thinking.

So the answer to the rut problem seems to be exercise.  Or at least one answer to the problem.  I'm sure there are others.

Which makes me also wonder if the authors of scarcity ever went back to look at scarcity mindset on people who practice meditation or mindfulness exercises on a regular basis.  Meditation could easily cause that same mental separation seen by exercise and manual labor.

Though it makes me think that whatever the mental separation exercise is, it should be different than the day to day task.  A manual laborer couldn't use manual labor to create separation.  I say that, but I'm mostly guessing at this with no background in psychology.  I guess it's just what I've grown to understand.

Maybe I'm crazy.  But then again, exercise is considered a habit dominated by the rich over the poor.

things in control

Seems strange to me that people are obsessed with things completely out of their control.  I can understand a little worry when it comes to something in your teams control.  That's normal.  But completely out of your control and your realm of influence?   That's just humorous.

How can someone obsess over the treatment of another person while sitting on their couch, stuck to a phone?  What gives phone monkey the right to dictate anything?  The person that's not even capable of real action is completely obsessed with other peoples action.

My wife asked me about the weather.  She wanted to turn her phone off for the night, but there was a vague rambling of a storm.

I do not live in a ramshackle hut.  It has survived every thunderstorm thrown at it so far, with only the loss of a few shingles.

I told her to turn it off.

And what if the storm hits?

We have two tornado sirens in close range.  They test them on the last Friday of the month.

We have three kids.  All sleep with sound machines.  Which means as long as the power runs they will sleep through anything.  Should the power go out, they will go into full panic.

Our kids are also relatively afraid of thunder and lightning.  They often need comforting, or possibly  daddy shirt if the weather gets too bad.

I guess you could say I'm not terribly worried about the weather.  It's either going to rain or it isn't.  I'm not terribly worried about politics.

When you think about presidential politics, you have to think of it as a foot ball season.  No matter who you root for in the regular season, it always comes down to AFC versus NFC.  And other than a few pictures, there's not a lot of difference between the two.

There is no radically different candidate.  All those have been wiped out, and will always be wiped out prior to general election.

So what you get is a generic amalgamation that's pretty much what the last guy was.  George W Bush wasn't Satan, and neither was Barrack Obama.  Neither "destroyed the fabric of our nation" like they were declared to have done if they were elected in the first place.

The only things I worry about are the things I can control.  And I seek to understand so I can attempt to bring things that were previously out of control in to control.  Simple.

I was watching an interview with James Mattis.  He was asked if he still carried a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.  He answer that was true.  And his reason was thus...

There is nothing new under the sun.  Everything you are experiencing has been experienced before.  This situation is not unique.

I'm expounding on a short comment there, but the truth holds.