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Games People Play

March 24, 2022 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

Since I began rereading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, I’ve noticed coincidences of birds and of John Updike. (That’s two, and I’m barely into the book, so I’m starting a mental list.)

Birds haven’t featured prominently in my life or lexicon, other than their presence in the big tree outside my bedroom, which they’re attracted to in part due to my upstairs neighbors’ feeders. That and sometimes they remind me of The Producers.

John Updike features even less prominently, although that was not the case a few decades back. I devoured most of the Rabbit books, the Bech books, Marry Me, The Centaur, and lots of collected short stories (Too Far to Go, The Music School, etc.), among others.

Some of us have a tendency to perceive meaning in coincidences. As for me, I’ve been there, done that, and thankfully survived reading way too much Carl Jung during my formative years. Now I understand that the conscious part of my brain can only process about 40 bits of information at a time, and what it gets to chew on depends on what the unconscious part of my brain thinks might be useful—or will at least keep the conscious part occupied and hopefully out of trouble.

So the unconscious sifts through the 11 million bits it’s taking in at any given moment and … on the fly, so to speak … funnels a minuscule amount to consciousness, which operates as if it has a … bird’s eye view … of what is going on—and, more importantly, knows what it all means.

Of course, the meaning comes from us, not from what is outside of us. So things mean whatever we believe them to mean, based on our brain’s interpretations. We are, as David DiSalvo says in What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, meaning makers.

Everything Is an Interpretation

Our experience of reality is a result of our interpretations, and the vast majority of those interpretations come from the unconscious, which is only concerned about meaning insofar as it affects the next action we’re about to take.

However, we treat all of our interpretations as if they are reality, which leads to a very static, literal, and concrete view of the world. And that worldview is affected much less than we might think by looking for and perceiving meaning in symbols, coincidences, objects, and occurrences. Because when we find meaning in those things, we’re operating as if the meaning is fixed within the objects or the occurrences: static, literal, concrete.

It is the unconscious that processes associatively rather than linearly. So it’s the unconscious that links bird with the notion of freedom or hope or anything else. But only if our mental model contains a belief that the appearance of birds means something other than what is apparent. If you’re tempted to consider that the unconscious has some specialized or secret info that it’s accessing, remember that this is the same unconscious that is addicted to pattern recognition (one result of which is stereotyping) and is riddled with cognitive biases (including our all-time favorite, confirmation bias) for the express purpose of being able to quickly jump to conclusions.

Delusional and Disempowering

Ray Grasse wrote a book titled The Waking Dream, which is subtitled Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our Lives. He quotes Nikos Kazantzakis from Zorba the Greek:

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning. Men, animals, trees, stars, they are hieroglyphics. …When you see them, you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars.

On the surface, this might be appealing. But there’s so much to unpack in those three sentences, so many assumptions underlying them. At the foundation is the belief that there are specific meanings one can ultimately deduce—again, meanings that are fixed and located within the things of the world. They are there for us to uncover or not.

I take the idea of unlocking the symbolic language of our lives to be another version of the game of finding our life-purpose cheese. There’s no there there.

As it is, life is empty and meaningless and it’s empty and meaningless that life is empty and meaningless. And, hey, we’re making meaning, anyway. We can’t do otherwise. It seems the height (or one height, anyway) of idiocy to fail to recognize that we are the source of the meaning we’re making. It’s somewhat delusional and seriously disempowering.

Neuroscientist Anil Seth reminds us that the color green exists neither in the object we’re viewing, nor in our brain, but in the interaction between the two. In other words, it’s not fixed; it’s an interpretation.

We’re in ongoing interaction with all of the world we inhabit. Both we and the world are in constant motion at all times. Reality is anything but static, literal, or concrete. We’re making it up as we go, and we’re never in the same place twice. A far more interesting series of question to ask is what is my brain bringing to my attention, what meaning am I making of it, and what does this say about who my brain thinks I am?

So what to do with two broken wrists, a bird in my bedroom and the sound of two doors closing? I am a writer, and I keep thinking there must be a connection to make, that these are pieces of a puzzle, that there is some way everything fits together. I’m damned if I know what it is. The more I squirrel around for a meaning, the more reluctant I am to consider the obvious. But the significance of a closing door is not lost on me, and I’ve never felt quite this mortal. It’s a beautiful word, “mortal,” rhyming with “portal,” which sounds optimistic. And really, who wants to live forever? How tedious life would become. Mortality makes everything matter, keeps life interesting. And that’s all I ask. —Abigail Thomas, memoirist

The Best Mindset for a Fresh Start

December 27, 2021 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

The so-called Fresh Start Effect is based on the idea that we use temporal landmarks—dates that hold significance for us—as motivators for behavior change.* Such temporal landmarks run the gamut from the beginning of a week, a month, or a school semester to the beginning of a new year or a birthday. The brain does appear to take note of temporal landmarks; it’s easier to recall your last birthday than another random day of the month.

As temporal landmarks go, the beginning of a new year is famous for generating resolutions for self-improvement. The fact that most of these resolutions will probably fall by the wayside doesn’t deter us. Nor should it. We can take advantage of the fact that the brain is more open to change at some times than at others, as long as we approach the process from the right mindset.

Wrong Way: Production Mindset

A majority of New Year’s resolutions tend to consist of habits we want to start or stop: things we believe we ought to do or not do—or do more or less of—because they’re good for us. They’re a reflection of what I call the production mindset, which is focused on:

Being right
Being good
Relieving psychological tension
Interpreting feedback as judgment
Determining objectives
Following rules
Performing

It’s no accident that being resolute is also an aspect of production mindset. This is the mindset of whipping oneself into shape. It’s easy and automatic to operate from this mindset, but it’s a mindset that is not at all conducive to change. Production mindset is a stern taskmistress.

Right Way: Experiment Mindset

Experiment mindset operates from both a more committed and a more detached perspective. The commitment is to a desired outcome—and to mastering the change process—rather than to achieving a specific objective. The detachment allows for curiosity and learning. Characteristics of this mindset include:

Willingness to be wrong
Focusing on getting better
Developing creative tension
Evaluating feedback to adjust course
Identifying desired outcomes
Using guidelines
Discovering

In place of resoluteness, experiment mindset leads to resilience, which is a great asset on the rocky road to behavior change.

Running Experiments

Instead of creating a list of habits to start or change, evidence suggests we’ll get better results by running an experiment or two instead. And less really is more in this case. We’ll get better short- and long-term benefits when we focus on a single habit and successfully start or change it. We can build on that success with another habit. When we give ourselves too many things to work on at the same time—all of which require limited System 2 (conscious) resources—we create multiple opportunities to fail.

Here are some guidelines for running experiments.

Identify your desired outcome (the change you want to create; the experience you want to have).
Determine a minimum of three different objectives that could possibly get you your desired outcome.
Consider how you would structure or conduct an experiment to test each one.
Select one.
Set up the parameters:
> What will you test?
> What data will you track and how will you record or track it?
> How and how often will you evaluate feedback?
> What is the timeframe (beginning and ending dates)?
> How will you measure success or failure?
> How will you reward yourself for following through
Run the experiment.
If you have comparative data available, check it against the results of your experiment.
Decide on your next course of action:
> Continue the experiment.
> Implement the new behavior.
> Run a different experiment.

I find the IAP (Intention/Attention/Perseverance) process useful when conducting experiments. A combination of the eight steps above and the four IAP steps below has led to significantly greater success than I’ve ever had in maintaining a strength training program—and that’s saying a lot considering my numerous attempts and multiple heart conditions.

Intention: Describe in writing exactly what you intend to do, as well as when, where, and how you intend to do it. Be specific.
Attention: Identify how you will keep your attention focused on your intention (post-it notes, phone reminders, calendar notations, etc.).
Perseverance: Decide what you will do when things don’t go according to plan (regardless of the reason). What step(s) will you take to get back on track?
Reward: Identify how you will reward yourself when you follow through. Make it something you know you will enjoy—and then follow through with giving yourself the reward!

A note on rewards: Rewarding yourself when you follow through with an intention activates memory and learning circuits in the brain, which makes it more likely you will follow through the next time. Experiment with rewards, too, to discover what works for you.

Remember that you can use any temporal landmark as a boost to start a new habit or change an existing one. I started my strength training experiment on a random Monday in April 36 weeks ago. I set up a series of 10 three-week experiments, all of which I completed, and I’m still going strong.

*The idea was espoused by Katy Milkman, a behavioral economist, and presented in a 2014 article co-authored by Dai Hengchen and Jason Riis.

She Changes:
Janet Echelman’s Lacenet

November 8, 2021 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Janet Echelman spent seven years as an Artist-in-Residence at Harvard. She left Harvard to go to India on a Fulbright lectureship with the intention of giving painting exhibitions around the country.

Although she arrived in Mahabalipuram, a fishing village in India, her paints did not. Well, you can’t very well give a painting exhibition without your paints. Rather than focusing on her inability to complete her objective as planned, she remained committed to her desired outcome. She just needed to find another medium.

First she tried working with bronze casters, but that was expensive and unwieldy. Then one night, she notice the fishnet the fishermen were bundling on the beaches, and that sparked her imagination. She wondered…

if nets could be a new approach to sculpture: a way to create volumetric form without heavy, solid material.

The works she’s created since then are ethereal and stunning, unlike anything I’ve seen before.

But What If Her Paints HAD Shown Up?

Echelman was probably dismayed, to say the least, that her paints hadn’t made it to India. But she didn’t give up and go home. It didn’t stop her from doing what she’d come to India to do. She took the materials at hand and used them in a way they’d never been used before. Although she didn’t have her paints, she still had her imagination and her creative spirit.

Things hadn’t gone according to her plan. And it was a very good thing they hadn’t because if they had, we wouldn’t have these gorgeous lacy sculptures to look at. It’s important to have a plan that’s based on an objective. But it’s equally important to be clear about your desired outcome—to not be so committed to the specifics of the plan that when things begin to fall apart, you fall apart, too. Because it’s when things come undone that you have the opportunity—the possibility—to create something new: to transform.

She Changes

Change. Adapt. Be flexible. Look around. Create from the pieces, the non-obvious, the broken shards, the impossible.

More views of the piece She Changes (above) can be seen on Echelman’s website, which also describes the materials used in this and other sculptures and their method of construction.

And you can listen to Echelman—and see slides of her work—in this TED talk called “Taking Imagination Seriously.”

Note: Based on an original article posted to my creativity website in 2012.

Only Trouble Is Interesting

April 21, 2021 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

If you write fiction, read fiction, or read books about how to write fiction, you know the one thing a story absolutely, positively must include is trouble and plenty of it. If you don’t have trouble—otherwise known as conflict—you don’t have a story. But why is conflict essential for capturing our attention?

This seems like a worthy question to ask given the fact that conflict isn’t something we actively seek out in our daily lives. As Janet Burroway says in Writing Fiction:

In life, conflict often carries a negative connotation, yet in fiction, be it comic or tragic, dramatic conflict is fundamental because in literature only trouble is interesting.

There’s no denying that trouble interests us. We start looking for it at a very young age—specifically at about one year. Much of children’s play is organized around big trouble, including homicide, kidnapping, and getting lost or trapped. And children’s nursery rhymes are riddled with violence. Many child psychology experts believe children’s play helps them develop social and emotional intelligence. In a sense, children are rehearsing for adult life. (Hopefully their actual adult lives will be a bit sunnier than the danger-filled lives they appear to be rehearsing for.)

That doesn’t exactly explain adults’ continued interest in looking for vicarious trouble, but it does jibe with research indicating that people who read fiction have better social skills than people who read mostly nonfiction.

Looking for Trouble

We humans are, to a great extent, operating with the same brain we had back when we were traversing the savannah—a brain which, as John Medina explains in Brain Rules, “appears to be designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment while in nearly constant motion.” Doesn’t that sound like the plot of any number of books, movies, TV shows, and even video games?

It should be noted that many of us aren’t fighting for our survival, don’t spend much time in unstable outdoor environments, and are rarely in nearly constant motion. Of course, we still get into trouble, in spite of or because of our best efforts, but our troubles are of a vastly different nature from the troubles of our distant ancestors. Could it be that we’re so intent on “entertaining” ourselves by stirring up all this harrowing pretend trouble because it simulates the kind—or at least degree—of trouble our brain is used to dealing with?

Everything that Happens Happens to Us

Based on neuroscience advances over the past 20-30 years, we now know that our brain doesn’t distinguish very well between actual experience and vicarious experience. It reacts the same whether we read about or watch something awful happen to a fictional character or actually see that same thing happen to a person in real life. Watching a fictional disaster unfold on the screen or the page elicits the same response in our brain that it would if it were happening to us—even though we know it isn’t actually happening. (First, of course, we have to suspend disbelief, but that isn’t difficult for us to do primarily because we’re prepared to find stories compelling.)

We anticipate how certain types of books or movies will make us feel. That’s why we select particular books to read or movies to watch. We know how we’re likely to react to a story described as a “tearjerker,” for example. Some genres, such as suspense, thriller, action, science fiction, and mystery, make us feel anxious, frightened, uneasy, sometimes even terrified. Yet we keep going back for more.

This is pretty fascinating in light of the fact that the prime directive of the brain is our survival. Why would a brain that is intent on our survival create all these fictional worlds filled with trouble, disaster, loss, horror, and even death—clear threats to survival—for us to experience as if they were actually happening to us?

We All Lived Happily Ever After

Stories are notable for how they help us learn and remember. One reason is that stories include emotion, and we’re more likely to remember something that has a strong emotional impact. The greater the conflict or trouble in a story, the more emotion we feel, and the more emotion we feel, the likelier we are to remember.

But remember what exactly? The ending! All stories have beginnings, middles, and endings, but we don’t remember beginnings and middles nearly as much as we remember endings. If a story has a happy—meaning emotionally satisfying—ending, we experience a burst of feel-good neurochemicals the gives us a rush of pleasure and also ensures that we will remember how things worked out: the dragon was slain, the day was won, the quest was completed, the boy got the girl, the challenges were overcome.

In the end, a problem related to some aspect of survival was solved. Something was learned about the way the world works and how the people in it function. And we survived to get into trouble another day, just like (some of) our distant ancestors.

So one possible answer to the question of what’s so interesting about conflict is that it isn’t the conflict per se that interests us—or interests our brain. It’s the resolution of the conflict. When the hero or heroine of a story faces big trouble and not only survives but even triumphs, we feel as if we did, too. And that feeling is definitely worth the roller-coaster ride it takes to get it.

Guidelines for a Growth Mindset

February 25, 2021 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Even if you recognize the considerable benefits of developing a growth (or get better) mindset, you may not be sure what steps to take or what to focus your attention on to shift your mindset.

My recommendations are:

(1) Understand the differences between the growth and fixed mindsets. You can read this article, find information on the internet or from Carol Dweck’s book Mindset, or get a quick take from this infographic.

(2) Try to identify where in your life you operate primarily from a growth mindset and where you operate from a fixed mindset, so you can get a sense of the difference in perspective and outcome. You can use this handout for that.

(3) Incorporate the Guidelines for a Growth Mindset:

Develop your curiosity.

Curiosity keeps us engaged in exploring our inner and outer worlds. Curiosity causes us to ask questions, not necessarily to get answers, but to arrive at even bigger or deeper questions. It opens our minds and expands our perspective, which is what a growth mindset is all about.

Identify and pursue juicy desired outcomes.

If you want to expand your world, you need to choose worthy targets to aim for. The brain is an insatiable wanting machine, and dopamine is the wanting neurochemical. The bigger and juicier the desired outcomes you give your brain to pursue, the more dopamine it will release, and the more creative tension it will generate.

Run toward challenges instead of away from them.

Challenges can be expansive, too, if we are not afraid of them. Anything we haven’t done before or that requires effort or deliberate practice to accomplish takes us out of our comfort zone. But continually seeking out challenges ultimately expands our comfort zone, and trains our brain to assist us in mastering the unfamiliar.

Recognize that failure and success are equally transitory, but you only learn from failure.

Richard Saul Wurman is an architect and the founder of TED Talks. He said it better than I could: “I have failure every day. I know that I will not grow at all except by understanding my failures. Success tells you nothing; you learn nothing from success.”

Follow the path of the trickster.

Trickster is at home in liminal space, the space of possibility and uncertainty. In fact, trickster represents the opposite of a fixed mindset, avoiding staying in one place too long and preferring to be on the road, out and about, engaging with the world. Trickster keeps it light, but always has a juicy desired outcome to pursue. If he or she fails today, well there’s always tomorrow to try again.

Click here to print or download the guidelines.