TGIF

• David Brooks: "Tuners and Spinners"

The Other Brooks

Last week was a rundown of David Brooks insights; today shall be that of Arthur C. Brooks. 

First: "Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier." It was printed Thanksgiving time, as he attempts to explain Thanksgiving to his Spanish in-laws (who live in Spain). One of the questions they asked was “Should you celebrate this holiday even if you don’t feel grateful?”

I stumbled over this last question. At the time, I believed one should feel grateful in order to give thanks. To do anything else seemed somehow dishonest or fake — a kind of bourgeois, saccharine insincerity that one should reject. It’s best to be emotionally authentic, right? Wrong. Building the best life does not require fealty to feelings in the name of authenticity, but rather rebelling against negative impulses and acting right even when we don’t feel like it. In a nutshell, acting grateful can actually make you grateful.

For many people, gratitude is difficult, because life is difficult. Even beyond deprivation and depression, there are many ordinary circumstances in which gratitude doesn’t come easily.

For many of us, the default is to kvetch, not to kvell. But if forced to do so for, say, a study—yup, happier people. 

In addition to building our own happiness, choosing gratitude can also bring out the best in those around us. Researchers at the University of Southern California showed this in a 2011 study of people with high power but low emotional security (think of the worst boss you’ve ever had). The research demonstrated that when their competence was questioned, the subjects tended to lash out with aggression and personal denigration. When shown gratitude, however, they reduced the bad behavior. That is, the best way to disarm an angry interlocutor is with a warm “thank you.”

(Same applies with misguided shadchanim: Just keep saying "thank you." They can't argue with that.)  

He provides strategies, like "interior" gratitude, "exterior" gratitude, being grateful for "useless" things. 

Second: "To be Happier, Start Thinking More About Your Death." This one came out around New Years, so it discussed resolutions. While people feel happier after delving into spiritual activities, they did not spend much of their time thusly.

Some might say that this reveals our true preferences for TV and clickbait over loved ones and God. But I believe it is an error in decision making. Our days tend to be an exercise in distraction. We think about the past and future more than the present; we are mentally in one place and physically in another. Without consciousness, we mindlessly blow the present moment on low-value activities.

The secret is not simply a resolution to stop wasting time, however. It is to find a systematic way to raise the scarcity of time to our consciousness.

That which is precious and valued is that which is rare, like diamonds. Meaning, the only way to spend time well is to acknowledge it as being finite. 

Third: "Narcissism is Increasing. So You're Not Special." In Brooks' youth, the child-raising concern was low self-esteem; now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. 

But narcissism isn’t an either-or characteristic. It’s more of a set of progressive symptoms (like alcoholism) than an identifiable state (like diabetes). Millions of Americans exhibit symptoms, but still have a conscience and a hunger for moral improvement. At the very least, they really don’t want to be terrible people.

I believe that too. Somewhat. 

Indeed, in the Greek myth, Narcissus falls in love not with himself, but with his reflection. In the modern version, Narcissus would fall in love with his own Instagram feed, and starve himself to death while compulsively counting his followers.   

True dat. 

A healthy self-love that leads to true happiness is what Rousseau called “amour de soi.” It builds up one’s intrinsic well-being, as opposed to feeding shallow cravings to be admired. Cultivating amour de soi requires being fully alive at this moment, as opposed to being virtually alive while wondering what others think. The soulful connection with another person, the enjoyment of a beautiful hike alone (not shared on Facebook) or a prayer of thanks over your sleeping child (absent a #blessed tweet) could be considered expressions of amour de soi.   

Belated Brooks

Time for some David Brooks! 

First: "Lady Gaga and the Life of Passion." What does it mean to live with passion? 

It begins with a desire for self-completion, Brooks writes, which can stem from a number of motivations. Yet what is similar amongst these passionate individuals is to find a cause they can wholeheartedly devote themselves. 

They become by doing—not an unfamiliar concept to Judaism. To do often requires a willingness to be courageously vulnerable. Not only does that mean taking risks, it means acknowledging and battling one's personal demons, as well as being oneself. 

That means marching through fear first. Once past it, all is possible. 

Second: "Tales of Super Survivors." While we love using terms like "trauma" and "PTSD," the rates are actually far lower than believed. For those who have been traumatized and have gone through PTSD, recovery is very much possible. Humans are more resilient than we realize. 

But resilience is based, according to Dr. Philip Fischer, on a childhood foundation of unconditional love. Once that concrete has been poured, it sets for life. 

Being real about one's circumstances is necessary, too. When paired with a Pollyanna's optimism in self-ability, a person will work through the situation. Work fixes more than we know. 

Looking forward, as opposed to backward, is vital. Yes, this happened. But the future can be, will be, different. 

Third: "The Shame Culture." The inherent difference between guilt and shame is that the former wags a finger at actions, the latter at the individuals themselves. (That's why the guilt-inducing Jewish mother is the best way to go.) 

Because of social media and the accompanying wish to be "liked," right and wrong is no longer about ethics or morals, but about acceptance or rejection. Online, pretty much everyone is the geeky high schooler yearning to be ushered into the Mean Girls clique.

And like other aspects of teenage whimsy, the standards "right" and "wrong" changes constantly.

On the other hand, everybody is perpetually insecure in a moral system based on inclusion and exclusion. There are no permanent standards, just the shifting judgment of the crowd. It is a culture of oversensitivity, overreaction and frequent moral panics, during which everybody feels compelled to go along. . . 

The guilt culture could be harsh, but at least you could hate the sin and still love the sinner. The modern shame culture allegedly values inclusion and tolerance, but it can be strangely unmerciful to those who disagree and to those who don’t fit in.   

TGIF

• "Playing the Confidence Game"—Who is truly the confident one?;

• Four-Minute Makeup;

• David Brooks on Charlie Rose; and   

• Nice guys finish first. If you don't know that, then you don't know where the finish line is.— Garry Shandling

Brooks' Inspiration

Yom Kippur may be over, the war isn't done. "The Moral Bucket List" by David Brooks:

I came to the conclusion that wonderful people are made, not born — that the people I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner virtue, built slowly from specific moral and spiritual accomplishments.

Sticks and Stones

I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts—men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. —Psalm 57

Today, those words are less often spoken, more often typed. Texts, tweets, posts, updates, statuses, and so forth, can be a roiling, teeming hotbed of fury and shame. With the help of technology, a thoughtless comment can be elevated and escalated to the point where people's lives are ruined. 

"How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life" by Jon Ronson lists anecdotes of individuals who, without sufficient thought, spoke, tweeted, or posted a statement or photo that was more offensive than they realized. The backlash and consequences insanely exceeded the severity of the crime. 

 

In some cases, the "muckrakers" that "outed" mindless words with the help of social media were attacked in turn, after these mild offensives were returned with firings and virulent online persecution. 

Public shaming is not a new concept. But it now extends beyond one's own small social circle to the entire freakin' world, who don't know the culprit and have no idea what they are talking about. Satire is often taken at face value; humor out of context.

Ronson's conclusion: 

When I first met her, [Justine Sacco] was desperate to tell the tens of thousands of people who tore her apart how they had wronged her and to repair what remained of her public persona. But perhaps she had now come to understand that her shaming wasn’t really about her at all. Social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval, and that is what led to her undoing. Her tormentors were instantly congratulated as they took Sacco down, bit by bit, and so they continued to do so. Their motivation was much the same as Sacco’s own — a bid for the attention of strangers — as she milled about Heathrow, hoping to amuse people she couldn’t see.

Why did Sacco tweet so stupidly in the first place? Probably the same reason why I used to constantly post statuses on FB—waiting for the "like" feedback, hoping someone would find me witty and worthy. 

Because Sacco tweeted under her real identity, the whiz-bang lash of ostracism was able to destroy her life. But anonymous commenters, subject to no such retribution, can write absolutely anything, snug in their invisibility: "The Epidemic of Facelessness" by Stephen Marche. 

When the police come to the doors of the young men and women who send notes telling strangers that they want to rape them, they and their parents are almost always shocked, genuinely surprised that anyone would take what they said seriously, that anyone would take anything said online seriously. There is a vast dissonance between virtual communication and an actual police officer at the door. It is a dissonance we are all running up against more and more, the dissonance between the world of faces and the world without faces. And the world without faces is coming to dominate.

I know, when I am distant to an issue, the "obvious" right and wrong side seems all too clear. It is when one comes closer that one sees that matters are not so simple. I try not to take whatever new "outrage" I see online seriously. 

 

Especially since being faceless removes compassion. 

Inability to see a face is, in the most direct way, inability to recognize shared humanity with another. In a metastudy of antisocial populations, the inability to sense the emotions on other people’s faces was a key correlation. There is “a consistent, robust link between antisocial behavior and impaired recognition of fearful facial affect. Relative to comparison groups, antisocial populations showed significant impairments in recognizing fearful, sad and surprised expressions.”

. . . Without a face, the self can form only with the rejection of all otherness, with a generalized, all-purpose contempt — a contempt that is so vacuous because it is so vague, and so ferocious because it is so vacuous. A world stripped of faces is a world stripped, not merely of ethics, but of the biological and cultural foundations of ethics.

I find it interesting that those who spew horrible opinions while anonymous "of course" wouldn't say such things in the real world. Being unknown supposedly breeds "honesty." Does that mean that most of humanity, with their actual faces and true names, really don't qualify for that label?  

"What Your Online Comments Say About You" by Anna North reports on expert opinion saying that nasty comments don't necessarily come from a place of "truth"; the anonymous trolls could have simply had a "bad day." Nor do they realize that their petty frustrations can be seen by so many. 

And as they get more attention, some commenters might become more self-aware. When media outlets covered Dr. Brossard’s 2013 study, she took a look at the comments. One reader, she recalled, had indicated that “now I’m going to think twice because I realize that what I’m saying, the way I react, and my words potentially can affect other people.

One reader, she recalled, had indicated that “now I’m going to think twice because I realize that what I’m saying, the way I react, and my words potentially can affect other people.”

“There is research showing that people underestimate who’s going to see what they say” in comments sections, said Dr. Kiesler. “Unless they’ve been burned in the past, they are just not as aware that they’re being observed.”

But if research on comments continues, maybe that will change. Maybe commenters will become more conscious of each other and more bound by social norms — for better and, perhaps, for worse.

In short, think very, very hard before writing or posting pictures. And if in doubt . . . do without.  

TGIF

• David Brooks, "The Problem With Meaning";
  
  
• For some comic relief, I've been sitting on this too long: