Darius' Thoughts

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“You know how they say we only use 10% of our brains? I think we only use 10% of our hearts.” -Wedding Crashers

I agree.  Here are some tips on using the rest.

Doing actions with no effort

Sometimes when I’m driving somewhere and thinking deeply about something, I find I arrive at my destination without remembering how I got there.  It feels as if I did it without even thinking about it consciously.  This only seems to happen with place I’ve been regularly, like home or work.

We do other things automatically as well, like brush our teeth, take a shower, prepare common foods, etc.  The interesting thing I’ve discovered is that we can put our minds in this “automatic” mode without the usual distraction of being lost in thought.  It’s quite handy as it greatly lowers the perceived exertion of the action.  And it’s kind of a kick

Let’s try it out!

1. Pick a physical task that you do often.  Food prep, hygiene or just walking somewhere.
2. Set a deep intention by saying to yourself “I want to [do the task]“
3. Relax your mind as if you are a spectator at a game.
4. Let your body act of its own accord.

Did it work?  Sweet.  I know it’s a bit goofy.  Here is where it gets helpful though!

Now repeat with a common physical task you dislike.  Say, washing the dishes, folding laundry, making the bed, etc.  Set the intention, relax and let your body move.

Personally, I’ve found this is a handy way to get minor annoying tasks done when I’m low on energy.  With practice it can be expanded to more complex tasks and used to more easily enter flow states.

Answering questions

A similar technique can be used to very quickly, mostly accurately answer questions.  In <2 seconds answer:

How many lights are in the room you’re in currently?

And:

How many lights in your bedroom growing up?

Did you feel the number come up before the specific thoughts about each light?  If so, you’re doing it: sending your unconscious a question and quickly getting just the final answer.

These gut-feel responses aren’t always exact.  But if you take something that is difficult to know in the first place (“How many houses on my block?”) or personal (“Which piece of furniture do I like most in this room and why?”) they can be helpful and are, at minimum, quick.

Getting people’s advice without them there

Have you ever gone up to someone to ask a question, only to realize the answer just before they started speaking?

I believe this happens because, as we approach the person, we activate the parts of our brain that knows how that person will likely respond.  The same effect can be created by imagining walking up to the person and guessing their response. This is particularly handy if the person isn’t available right now.

The CEO & the Workers

I like to think of the conscious mind as a CEO and the unconscious as the workers.  Delegate, trust-but-verify, and connect regularly and you’ll be amazed what you can do and learn.

This post has some of my deepest/wackiest thinking so far.  I would very much appreciate your feedback.

Fear is the focus on the possible loss of something dear.  The loss could be of life and limb, the respect of friends or simply a treasured possession.  Usually, a fearing person currently has the dear thing.  In other words, someone scared of dying must be alive and someone fearing losing respect must have some.

These dear and treasured things are usually sources of joy and engender love.  We love basking in our friends’ respect or having our possessions reflect back our care and attention.

So if each fear has a possible loss and the loss would be of something we currently have and love, then each fear is connected to a love.  A fear of death can be a reminder of the enjoyment of life’s moments.  A fear of loss of respect can remind us of earning and enjoying that respect.

Focusing on the love behind the fear can make daily life more fun.

When I have an appointment, I often fear being late:

1. “I don’t want to be late”
2. “Being late makes me look incompetent in front of my friends”
3. “Looking incompetent makes me feel terrible”
4. “I don’t want to feel terrible”
5. “Daaah, better not be late…!”

But instead, I could love being on time:

1. “I don’t want to be late”
2. “I love being on time”
3. “I’m usually on time”
4. “I can be on time today and that will be awesome.”

So the technique is to “expand the thing you love” rather than “avoid the thing you fear”.  I’ve had a lot of fun applying this technique and I hope you do too.

Bonus: Loving From Zero

Now, let’s take this deeper.

Why do we fear in the first place?  I think it is to help us mentally explore what actions we could take on something important.

Normally, our love of things doesn’t create deep thinking the way fear does.  But I think we can create a more powerful love that would help us think deeply.  The way to do that is something I call “Loving from Zero”.  Let me explain.

Fear is usually focused on abject loss.

• “If I come home late, my dad will kill me.”
• “If I don’t get the project done, I won’t get the raise… I might even get fired.”

Thus fear is often done “to zero”, ie comparing the current situation to having nothing. This is quite motivating.

Love is often focused on more minor differences in the moment:

• “I really like the way my room puts me at ease.”
• “It felt so nice to go somewhere for Valentine’s Day.”
• “I like getting stuff done at work.”

I think the trick to powerful love is comparing having nothing to the current situation.  In essence, reversing the fear comparison above. Happy people I know do this all the time.

• “I hope we land the contract, but even if not, this is better than being in my home country.”
• “Spare some change?  Thanks.  How am I doing?  I’m just happy to be breathing, man.”

This “Loving from Zero” makes the mind just as insightful as fear would, but with added benefits.  Focusing on “what I have loved” rather than “what I stand to lose” lets people be more relaxed and flexible and thus keep perspective.  Also, I find it’s often easier to see others’ needs which allows for a more balanced solution.

I’ve found starting with fear, seeking what’s loved and exploring the depth of that love is a powerful thought chain.   Thanks for your time and comments.

Sometimes I want to sell people their own best life, for free. But this idea is hard to fund ads for. Advertisements commonly are designed and paid for to drive product purchase. How might campaigns change if advertising agencies switched from selling products to promoting great choices?

Drink Tasty Soda ⇒ Drink Tap Water

Tastes great, no calories, and nearly-free!
#1 Weight loss supplement for over 1,000 years!
Hot or cold, it heals headaches and fevers!
Goes great with any food!
The idea that the default beverage should have nearly half the calories of the meal itself without any nutrients doesn’t make much sense from a health perspective. Water doesn’t give you the taste and sugar rush of soda but I find it results in more happiness after the first hour.

Watch the Season Premier ⇒ Look at Old Photos

Going through memories gives one a sense of place, reminders of positive emotions and distracts from current problems and issues. Maybe they’d even inspire you to call and reconnect with friends and relatives, gaining you the close connections that happy people have. Note: Facebook actually does this, filling some ad space with old friends’ photos.

Buy Clothes ⇒ Exercise

Makes you feel great and look better whatever you wear. Also prolongs life and costs less than a monthly shopping trip.

Be Connected Anywhere/Anytime ⇒ Limit Checking Email to a Few Times a Day

An electronic fast can have similar benefits to a food one: a sense of distance and control, more time/focus for other things, better planning, and more thoughtful action.

Drive in Style ⇒ Bike Exhilarated, Relax on Public Transportation

If your commute route permits, either pedaling a bike or sitting back on public transportation can be a better option than driving an expensive car to an elusive parking spot.

Buy This to Be Cool ⇒ Don’t Give a Fig to Be Cool

No matter how many cool gadgets someone has, if they don’t have an iNewest they are behind. However, somehow magically, if you just don’t care to begin with, you devalue all the possessions and appear cooler! Who knew. This approach is quite scalable as indifference can be applied to everything except fundamental, physical needs.

Sometimes I imagine a world where most of advertising is done by Consumer Reports http://www.consumerreports.org/, a non-proft that provides scientific, unbiased reviews of many products. I think their aggressive pursuit of truth, to the degree that they don’t accept gifts or advertisements to maintain impartiality, is something unique and special and deserving of replication.

I’ve realized a centralizing theme of my dissents is this: All these ads try to exchange money for feelings. But the tough reality is that you often have to exchange effort for feelings if you want them to last.

Ah, there’s the rub.

Or some of it. What am I missing?

My most recent blog post was co-authored with Brian Yeung and is posted to his blog here:

Should I have the Conversation?

I’ve always wondered how to split my resources between my own happiness and others’ happiness. One tangible metric for this is donation percentage.

Let’s start with some benchmarks:

• 10% tithe, standard with Mormons and expected of some Christians groups
• 2.2% average American in 2008
• 2.5% zakat for Muslim’s (on total wealth, not yearly income)
• 10% recommendation, 20% max for tzedakah in Judaism
• 10% of income over $100,000 from 10over100.org by founder of HotOrNot
• 50% for billionaires as per Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge
• “whatever can be given freely and without resentment, through a feeling of sympathy for those who are in need” from Buddist teachings
• 1% under $105,000, 5% over from The Life You Can Save
• $150-750 estimated cost to save 1 life from TB
• 1,157 – lives I could save if I gave 10% for the rest of my life
• 50% of US donation goes to religious institutions
• 95% more – the amount over the average that the poor donate in the US

In my brief research, the “give until equal” approach, the most stringent, is philosophically backed by two Peters, Singer and Unger. The thought experiment they use to support this perspective is contrasting an immediate, personal need with a global, impersonal need. For instance, if there was a man drowning in a lake and you had to destroy your $500 shoes to save him, would you be morally obligated to? Yes, most say. However, if you get an envelope from Oxfam asking for $500 to save a life in a foreign country, are you obligated to? No, most agree. At the end of the day, these philosophers seem to practically encourage 10-20% themselves.

There is an enjoyment of giving communicated by large percentage givers I find interesting. This may be simply the surface words of a deep moral commitment, however I feel there is a real way in which they somehow derive more pleasure from the gift than they might if they spent the money on themselves.

This small amount of research has led me to this advice for those interested in aggressively achieving a generous donation percentage:

• Donate what you feel
• Start at 2.2%, if possible
• Aim for 10% (esp of income over $100k)
• Focus on enjoyment of your donation. The more you understand the process and appreciate the result, the more you will naturally give.

Myself, I started donating 10% of income when Bebo sold in 2008. It’s large enough to keep me from drowning in guilt and small enough I can relax and work on giving in greater ways. I put the money in a donor-advised fund because I wanted the tax benefit without distributing it immediately. So now the value slowly grows at AEF Online and gets sent out in regularly yearly donations to charities I believe in.

To be honest, I find it quite heartening that most people advocate 10% donation and very, very few advocate >20% donation for anything but the estates of the super-rich. Perhaps there is space to both give and enjoy in this crazy world.

Thoughts?

—
Note: This post examines common donation percentages. Later, I may more deeply explore justifications.
PS. I found my inner debate echo’d here: How can I justify having luxuries while others lack necessities?
Also, I now plan to read: The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer

We all try to convince.  But some people use techniques that later make the listener feel like “I was told one thing, but the reality is something else.”  These aren’t lies, per say.  Lies are outright false statements, known to be untrue by the speaker and, often, verifiably untrue with some research.  The type of manipulations I’m talking about are “true” in the strict legal definition, a fact which hides their deeper miscommunication.

“You could make millions!”
“Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!”

Some of the most common lies are by percentage chance.  Lotteries, casinos, CEO’s, and anyone selling you on upside will tell that there is amazing potential and a good-enough chance of getting it.  The excitement for the result often overwhelms the consideration of likelihood.  To avoid this trap: determine the past success ratio, ie how many people started the process vs got the advertised result and assume your fate will be statistically similar.

“Payday loans help poor people get needed credit.”
“My proposal creates jobs”

One powerful way to convince people is to focus only on the parts of reality that support your argument.  For instance, there are a small number of people who responsibly use payday loans and pay them off before they accumulate high interest fees.  The defenders of payday loans highlight this case yet, in reality, payday loans have proven so destructive that the military has banned them < http://usmilitary.about.com/od/millegislation/a/paydayloans.htm>.  To avoid: Write down the opposite of the given statement, separately attempt to prove each is true, and examine the balance of believability.

“This is what most people in your job make”
“Our recon indicated the attack was justified.”

Saying something that the person can’t verify (or would have to risk the entire relationship to verify) forces people to accept the statement because it’s too much psychological energy to distrust someone without a solid reason. To avoid: investigate claims and doubt unverifiable statements.

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
“We’re a leading company.”

Redefining terms is a way to say something defensible while giving someone else a very different idea.  Bill Clinton later said that “sexual relations” meant intercourse however most people would think of it as “any sexual contact” which he had been denying.  To avoid: know the speakers’ and the laws’ definitions and replace words with accurate terms before you judge a statement.

“You won’t have to worry about free time once this company goes public!”
“This injustice will be solved as part of the Glorious Revolution”

Making personal goals dependent on a shared goal puts the drive usually reserved for personal goals into the shared goal. This can be a powerful force for good and ill.  Most revolutions and companies are powered by these dependent goals.  However, sometimes an authority figure encourages this behavior when it isn’t in the persons’ interest.   To avoid: consider whether doing this increases or decreases the chance of your personal goal getting fulfilled.  Handy trick: when you’re tired in bed in the morning, think of everything in your day depending on putting two feet on the floor now.

“I agree it’s not perfect, but we’re running a company/country/etc here and it’s the best we can do.”
“If we made the change you suggest, it would actually make things worse.”

An insidious manipulation is the idea that something better cannot be achieved, or even hoped for.  There are constraints and compromises in the world but removing someone’s hope for something better is a common way of quashing dissent. To avoid: watch similar companies/countries; if others do it, it’s possible.

Thoughts?  Comments?

Hi, I’m Darius Contractor, this is my blog, and this is my post attempting to tell you why I am blogging.

First, a little history.  I’m 29, graduated Stanford with a Computer Science degree in 2002, and worked for two websites, Tickle.com and Bebo.com.  I learned a bunch about social networking, how to run a web business and how to get people to click on things.  At Bebo, I became a manager and earned enough to take a break.

My last day was Dec 31st, 2009. I took a 3-month world trip to see friends, did a 1-week Buddhist retreat and now I’m home in San Francisco thinking about the future.

I’ve had so many thoughts about what I need, what the world needs, and what’s newly possible at this time.  If I had to give a few high-level bullets they might be:

• At this point in my career, I don’t need to focus on making money; I’d like to focus on making meaning.
• The best way to make meaning is to bring people happiness.  The deeper and longer-lasting the happiness and the more people you bring it to, the better.
• My past job was understanding complex systems and making simple solutions that work.  I’ve done this in technology and in management.
• I think the biggest block to happiness in the developed world is ourselves.  People not knowing how to focus their energy for the long term happiness of themselves and the people around them.
• I think the world is ripe for change.  More than ever you find:
  • Books looking into how people really work
  • Fresh focus on happiness over productivity
  • Expanding consciousness of other peoples and the environment
  • Growing disillusionment with simplistic and traditional systems of us-vs-them thinking
  • I’ve thought about these issues for years.  I feel that now is the time to really delve into them and see what I can learn and, perhaps, create.

This is some high-level stuff, but that’s the purpose of this blog.  It will help me to clearly lay out my ideas and I hope very much to get your feedback.  I think the resulting understanding and inspiration will be worth the work.

As I write this blog, I will be continuing to research these topics, improve my technology skills and rejuvenate myself.  My hope is that the ideas in this blog and my own abilities will come together within 2010 and result in worthwhile mental architecture, companies and systems for human interaction.

So, dear reader, tell me your thoughts on this post and what you’d like us to talk about next. Comment below or, if you like, email me at blog at-symbol darius . com.