We Cover For Each Other

I'm booked to leave for Denver in couple of hours. Most of my closest colleagues have already departed for the most important conference of the year. This morning, a graduate student e-mailed in a panic to say that she had forgotten a needed video file when she got on the airplane. I was happy to reply that I could swing by the Department and pick up the file before going to the airport. In such small ways, I'm able to cover for the lapses of colleagues, friends, and especially family. Likewise, they can cover for me when I err. For all our great abilities and potential, we still make silly mistakes. Fallibility is as essential to the human soul and intellect as is the potential for love or great achievement. I was never a great fan of letting my children "suffer the consequences" of their errors--particularly if those were expressions of human frailty rather than willful defiance. All of us, children and adults, need cover--which is to say that we need each other.

Cheers for the Artificial

Today I ran rather than jogged and felt pleased as a result. But where is the line between running and jogging? The categories we construct and label, including success and failure, are arbitrary to a great degree. People sometimes scoff at the notion of running on a treadmill, but running for no reason other than to gain the abstraction we call health--or running particular distances such as a marathon or 10K--seem only slightly less arbitrary. We romanticize the authentic, even though it's hard to pin down what it is. Authenticity is elusive because the substance of human intelligence and culture is so often artificial. In fact, we form great academic disciplines--psychology, history, anthropology, and even engineering--to study the constructed worlds of the mind, as Herbert Simon argued in "The Sciences of the Artificial." More significant is that if much of what we think and do is artificial, then the artificial is not to be shunned. Among the lofty air castles of the human mind there is much that is beautiful, powerful, and good. Bring on the artificial.

The Baby Step Shuffle

One impediment to reaching any significant goal is that progress is often marked not by breakthroughs or steep learning curves, but by progress so incrementally small that it is nearly undetectable. I feel more fit this morning by a tiny amount, but I had to pay attention to really be confident (or fairly confident) that my perception was true. In dance, too, I know in my head that over a period of several months I have improved significantly. In fact, it's pretty obvious; perceptually, though, the conclusion seems different: On any given day it's hard to sense improvement. Indeed, we might feel slippage from previous progress and conclude that we're actually getting worse! These two factors--fine-grained progress and frequent slippage--are demotivators, mental demons that lie about our true progress over time.

Local Art

Last night I attended the Newport Beach Film Festival. Among the screenings was a documentary about an Indian woman named Sonabai Rajawar, who became a bride through an arranged marriage around 1960. During the next 15 years, her husband inexplicably kept her isolated in their remote home--a confinement that was very unusual because Indian women are typically well-connected socially to other families, especially women. But during those 15 years Sonabai created an entirely new form of art in which she used mud, straw, and bright paint to sculpt beautiful images of people and animals--often happy and whimsical depictions--to decorate her home. Sonabai's way of coping with her severely limited circumstances was to work the material available within the confines of her living space, time, and skill. What's amazing is that she worked this restricted medium to create many beautiful things, and spawned a new movement in Indian art. Like Sonabai, we are set in personal worlds bound by specific times, locations, resources, and skills. For us, too, the creation of something beautiful and uniquely our own are within the bounds of possibility.

Work Your Plan

In the midst of pursuing an ambitious goal, we sometimes question whether that goal was really feasible or whether instead we should revise our plans and settle for a partial achievement. I have gone both ways--stayed true to the original goal or downgraded to something less. In some cases, downgrading to a less ambitious achievement is the way to go. We can underestimate how big or difficult a task really is. If so, then adhering to the original goal is an instance of what psychologists call perseverance--an unhealthy insistence on continuing an activity even when it becomes counterproductive or even harmful. In such cases, changing our plans becomes the wise thing to do. But at other times we may waver even if our original goal is achievable, just more difficult than we first predicted. At times like these, when we can either downgrade or stay true, the best path is to adhere to the vision. Over time, such small victories can accumulate to something really significant.

Judge Not

This morning I woke up with judgment on my mind. I was thinking of others who made decisions I would not have made, or had done things in ways I would have done differently. Certainly, I reasoned, my way was right--or at least better--or at least I think it would have been better. But as I ran along this morning, I realized (not for the first time) that I, too, had made many decisions over the course of my life that others would question. For better or worse--but I think for better--I was given considerable freedom to pursue my goals, even whims, with passion. I could choose my profession, where I lived, my beliefs, how I raised my children, and how I spent my time and resources. Because others withheld judgment, I was free to do things according to my own signature pattern--a combination of personal and professional choices that looked different. To me, that combination has been good and satisfying. All this was possible because others judged rarely and loved liberally. Herein is a lesson to learn and then relearn.

Maybe It Takes Two

The social psychologist Kurt Lewin conducted experiments on how the presence of other people affects individual performance. He found a general pattern: Whenever people perform in the presence of others, their performance tends to improve. Today I ran with Stephanie. On her suggestion, we ran farther than I have so far--nearly two miles on a cool and overcast April morning. The social dimension is worth considering for its many effects on human behavior, pushing us farther and faster that what we do alone. Public performance in whatever venue--gearing up for a road race or triathlon, or broadly to many others sorts of achievement--lends advantages to those who seek higher ground. We need deep individual commitments to our goals, as well as to appreciate that other people can help us to reach them.