Dogs are smart

Human exceptionalism is real. We think we’re special because, well, we are. No other living thing on earth can code a computer or build a business. We are smart hominids. We evolved especially large brains because that’s what helped our ancestors survive. Every member of our human species has this special form of intelligence that uses high cognitive processing to engineer solutions to complex problems.

But IQ and EQ measure very different spectrums of intelligence, so why can’t there be another form? There is: it’s called extra-olfactory intelligence (“olfactory” means “smell”). Think about it–dogs sniff the urine of other dogs. Why? Because that urine holds signals, messages from one dog to another. These pheromonal messages indicate who’s ready to have puppies and who isn’t.

That’s right, dogs don’t need Tinder. They don’t swipe, they just sniff.

Other mammals do this, too. They’ve evolved to do this. Evolution is the process in which “nature” chooses traits that will help a particular population survive in a given environment. It acts by selecting genes in a population that increase reproductive fitness, that is, the ability for an individual to pass their genes on to offspring. Evolution is about selecting the traits that help that species survive continuously over thousands and millions of years.

As we learned in high school biology class, evolution is not optimization. Were you paying attention?

Homo sapiens are alive. We’ve gotten here through millions of years of evolutionary pressures, all in an effort to make the most reproductively successful species. Homo sapiens became their own species about 250,000 years ago.

But you know who else is here? Jellyfish. Jellyfish first arose 500,000,000 years ago. They’ve been on earth for 2,000 times as long as we have. And they’ve hardly changed. They are as reproductively successful, if not more, than human beings.

Evolution is not optimization. Evolutions is about survival of the reproductively fittest organisms.

Dogs and jellyfish are smart, just in a different way than we are smart. Evolutionarily speaking, they’re both tremendously successful. And they don’t worry about paying bills or saving for retirement.

75 Clichés that are true

  1. Keep it simple stupid
  2. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
  3. We’re all in this together
  4. There’s no such thing as a free lunch
  5. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with
  6. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover
  7. Never say never
  8. Waste not, want not
  9. There’s no time like the present
  10. The early bird gets the worm
  11. Take the road less traveled
  12. Time is money
  13. Actions speak louder than words
  14. Every rose has it’s thorn
  15. Love your neighbor as yourself
  16. Don’t hold your breath
  17. Good things come to those who wait
  18. Two wrongs don’t make a right
  19. Variety is the spice of life
  20. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
  21. Where there’s a will there’s a way
  22. The grass is always greener on the other side
  23. All that glitters isn’t gold
  24. Everything is not as it seems
  25. Time flies when you’re having fun
  26. Laughter is the best medicine
  27. You can’t see the forest through the trees
  28. What goes around comes around
  29. The road to hell is paved with good intentions
  30. Time heals all wounds
  31. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
  32. Quit while you’re ahead
  33. Eat more vegetables
  34. You can’t pour from an empty cup
  35. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
  36. Some things are better left unsaid
  37. A penny saved is a penny earned
  38. Practice what you preach
  39. Slow but steady wins the race
  40. Loose lips sink ships
  41. Easier said than done
  42. Hope springs eternal
  43. To err is human; to forgive, divine
  44. An idle mind is the devil’s playground
  45. There’s more than one way to skin a cat
  46. When it rains, it pours
  47. Honesty is the best policy
  48. Behind every great man is a great woman
  49. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink
  50. You win some and you lose some
  51. Don’t burn your bridges
  52. March to the beat of your own drum
  53. There’s a first time for everything
  54. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise
  55. Go the extra mile
  56. It is in giving that we receive
  57. Don’t cry over spilled milk
  58. You’re never too old to learn something new
  59. It’s what’s on the inside that counts
  60. Mind over matter
  61. Know which way the wind blows
  62. Necessity is the mother of invention
  63. There’s plenty of fish in the sea
  64. Absolute power corrupts absolutely
  65. Sleep on it
  66. Wear your heart on your sleeve
  67. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
  68. Snitches get stitches
  69. Not with that attitude
  70. The best things in life are free
  71. Night is darkest just before the dawn
  72. The sky’s the limit
  73. You only hurt the ones you love
  74. Run like the wind
  75. Love is all we need

It’s really not complicated.

Bad days

Today was one of those days where it felt like everything was crumbling before my eyes. My daily tasks and responsibilities were markedly harder and it was painful to put on a smile. I was irritable, angry, and sad.

My birthday is usually my least favorite day of the year. Today was my half birthday. I suppose these days happen now and then.

Maybe it’s a Virgo thing.

Bad advice

Stop listening to bad advice
from other people

You’d be better off listening
to your own bad advice

At least you might know
what you’re going through

You might even learn something
new, worth sharing

But then you’d be giving
bad advice to others

What’s true for them
isn’t true for you

Follow your own bad advice–
everybody else talks too loud

Including me, the poet
who gives bad advice

The first day of spring

Sixty-five degrees
and sunny
after a winter
of bitter isolation,
friends walking
in shorts
and t-shirts, some
without masks.
We are all survivors,
everyday champions.
Freedom our new
currency and time
our greatest gift.
We look at each other
and know–not even
a nod is necessary.

We made it.
Now let’s act like it.

Mosaics

Philadelphia is studded with mystifying mosaics. There’s history behind these famous displays of public art but I’m not that familiar with it. What I do know that one of the most prominent mosaicists in the city lives in my neighborhood. You can tell because his house is covered in…well, what would your house be covered in if you were a talented mosaicist?

The house is practically a museum. When the weather breaks, the bay doors of his garage open up to show the world a half-warehouse workshop– every square inch covered in colored glass.

I want to get to know him.

Did you ever wonder how the glass got there? What about before it was made into art? The glass probably served a purpose before being broken into pieces. Maybe it was a bottle, or a vase. Stained-glass window. And what about before that? Have you ever seen how glass is made?

We watched a documentary about glass making in Related Arts class freshman year of high school. It’s made by melting sand–imagine that, melting sand. How does sand even melt? Imagine being the first man to discover glass. Did they think they made diamonds? Anyways, in this documentary A William Shatner-esque character (or maybe it was him) inspired me to go find some glass in my neighborhood. I walked by a stream like he told me to (he said they would definitely be there) and one day I found about two dozen pieces of glass, just sitting in the stream, semi-smoothed but mostly still sharp. Probably Coors Light bottles, but still enthralling.

Okay, glass comes from sand. Where does sand come from? Broken down rocks and sea shells, you know, from mollusks. Rocks. And shells. Where do those rocks and shells come from? Well, the rocks are made of–what even are rocks? I know they come from the earth. They’re basically molten lava that mineralized in a specific form depending on the concentration of minerals present. And shells–well they grow from living things. They’re made of cells, the building blocks of all life. So sand is actually very complex, and different sands obviously contain different mineral contents.

So that’s what a mosaic is: melted sand, made into something useful that was once either purposefully or accidentally broken, pieced together with cement which is…sticky sand. Circle of life, I guess?

I used to think a human being couldn’t be “broken” per se. A chair can be broken. A broken chair can’t put itself back together. But broken bones heal. And broken hearts heal, too. What does it even mean to be a human? What part of you classifies you as being “broken?”

Mosaics are made of various pieces of intentionally, thoughtfully, artistically assorted broken glass, glass which was forged in a furnace, made into something beautiful or useful, then shattered into millions of pieces. Not to mention all the breaking and breaking down that rocks and shells had to undergo to make such minuscule grains of sand. Broken is the name of the game.

Maybe it isn’t so bad to think of humans as being broken. Maybe broken is actually more beautiful than whole–or maybe it’s all beautiful, or maybe it’s all broken, or maybe it’s all whole. Maybe we’re all a part of the same hole. Maybe those bits of glass that couldn’t look any more different contain pieces of the same minerals from the same shell, somewhere deep within them. Or maybe that’s never happened, not in any mosaic ever created ever.

I don’t know if there’s a message here. If there is, maybe it’s that you’re beautiful even if you’re broken. It’s just helpful to pick up the pieces of whatever part of you broke and make something out of it. If not, you might step on a shard of glass. Then you can’t walk anywhere or appreciate anything except the pain of the glass piercing your dermis, blood starting to drip out.

Or maybe that can be beautiful, too.

Unearned Wisdom

The following quote is from a recent episode of the Tim Ferriss show with Jordan Peterson titled: Jordan Peterson on Rules for Life, Psychedelics, The Bible, and Much More (#502)

Jordan Peterson: We need social institutions, but they become corrupt. And so we need creative revolution, but it can get out of hand. And so there’s this constant war between the structures of tradition and the transformation of creativity. And you can’t say who’s right, you can just talk it out. But the psilocybin, you take one dose and have a mystical experience, and you move from 50th percentile openness to 85th percentile with one dose. It’s a major neurological rewiring. It’s stunning. It’s stunning. And you could say, well that I’m sure there are things about that that are good. But Jung said, “Beware of unearned wisdom.”

Tim Ferriss: It’s a good quote. It’s a good quote. I mean, yeah.

Jordan Peterson: It is a good quote. Jung really puzzles me because it’s never clear to me how he knew the things he knew, and that’s one really good example of that.

Episode 502

There’s a lot of faux experts out there in the world today. Social media is littered with them. Don’t believe somebody whose only credential is a degree, a certification, a receipt for an online course, or worse–RAS (Recent Article Syndrome).

There’s also a lot of people looking for God, but instead of committing to a spiritual discipline for even a minimal length of time they head straight to psychoactive substances. That sounds like taking steroids instead of lifting weights. You ever see one of those guys with Popeye arms and no pecs?

“Beware of unearned wisdom.”

If you know anything about Jung, you know he earned his wisdom. He’s somebody worth listening to.

I think Mother Earth would agree with him, too.

Life is hard

My freshmen were complaining the other day about the perils of learning online, having to do homework, and how tough it is being student athletes. I heard them out then looked at them intently for what felt like 30 seconds.

“Life is hard,” I said.

They were silent. They got it.

My grammy said that once and it makes more sense every day. “Life is hard.” Things don’t go as planned. You’ll always be reacting to the plot twists of life, never fully ahead of the curve. You will embark on ventures that don’t go well and lost friends along the way. There will be things you don’t want to do, like school and pay taxes. Sometimes you will feel so worn down by the evil in the world and the stress of your circumstances that you will be overwhelmingly anxious, depressed, and ready to leave town. There are tradeoffs everywhere and injustice is rampant. Then people die.

Life is hard.

By my estimation, there are three realistic responses to this:

The first option is to reject the fact that life is hard and try to make things as comfortable and easy as possible. When challenges or risky opportunities arise, avoid them. Living is better when it’s safe, easy, predictable. Ignorance is bliss, so you ignore the suffering of your life and others’ hoping it will fade away. To numb unwanted negative emotions, perhaps you take up drinking, promiscuous sex, drugs, or fantasy football. Your sole purpose in life is seeking a self-indulgent, pelasurable life, not a contribution.

The second option is to accept that life is hard, then choose what might be worth suffering for. This will require giving up material comfort in the present in order to move towards something meaningful future. Once you choose something, you set your life up so you can honestly pursue it. Along the way you learn to cope with the hard realities of existence by devoting yourself to something bigger than yourself, be it your mission, your family, or your God. You recognize that living to better your circumstances while disregarding others leads to more suffering for everyone, so you avoid that path.

The last option is to give up. This can look like many things, but giving up is always a shirking of responsibilities. Perhaps, after attaining your degree from your parent-funded education, you drop off the grid and live in the woods by yourself with no intent of being generous to those who supported your life to this point. Or maybe you recognize that you’re angry and bitter at the world but do nothing to change your emotional or physical state. Maybe you are so convinced that you’re right and there is nobody that can teach you anything about how to live a better life despite its inherent, abysmal, and devastatingly hard challenges.

Or perhaps you’re so depressed that you’re contemplating giving up in a more drastic way. If this is the case, please read this 2016 article by Tim Ferriss: Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide. You owe it to yourself.

I don’t think there’s any real option besides the second: accept that life is hard, then move from there. In the first you’ll end up like Ivan Illich. In the last you’ll end up depriving the world of your unique and important contribution, the potential of what you could create if you stayed with us, with the hard realities that are so real but so possible to overcome with enough support, be in cognitive or physical or spiritual.

These are the hardest realities to face and the hardest questions to ask. I’m not foolishly saying you should stay where you are and be miserable, but I am suggesting you find something worth suffering for.

Life is hard, but it’s harder if you don’t accept that.

Franciscan Leadership

Saint Francis was a good leader because he was humble. To learn about the world and what others went through, he gave up all his possessions and lived as a vagrant in his hometown. Nobody understood what he was doing. Honestly, I don’t know if he totally knew. But he had a deep faith that God was working something special in his heart.

The best principals were once teachers and the best chefs started as dishwashers. Good leaders know what it’s like to work. They understand everybody in their organization, from the executives to the line workers folding boxes. They get it because they’ve done it. Francis went out of his way to “do” the way of the poor, and because of that he was humiliated.

Good luck seeking humility without humiliation.

Francis was called by God to “rebuild the Church.” The only way forward for him was to go down the social ladder and into the dirty of humanity. It’s hard to lead from the top down–Francis saw Church leaders fail at that time and again. If he wanted to rebuild the Church so the honest message of Christ could be perpetuated throughout the world, he’d have to become a worker. A craftsman, like Jesus. Someone who can work with their hands, someone who understands how most people live.

Good leaders are humble. Good leaders envision the change they want to make. And good leaders don’t listen to the unwelcome, unwarranted, and unfounded criticism of others. They stand their ground in humble service, loving those they lead, turning their minds and hearts towards the ultimate goal: God. Good leaders bring out the best in people, just as Christ brings out the best in us (because he is the best in us).

There’s a lot of rebuilding still to be done, but it won’t be the work of weary hearts or soft hands. We need more people who understand genuine humility making the decisions about how to move our businesses, our Churches, and our world forward. We more Francises if we want things to get better.

Set and setting

“I can’t do work at home. I only get work done at school.”

“Why’s that?”

“School is just so boring. I’d rather just play The Game–it’s way more exciting.”

“Right. But at this point in your life you have to do school, and when you’re at home it’s actually not that long. 3 hours, an hour break for lunch, then 3 more hours. That’s all it really takes to be decent at school, just pay attention for 6 hours a day, then spend 1 or 2 on homework. Then you can play all the games you want.”

“But The Game is right there on my desk. It’s hard to sit through a boring Zoom class when I could play League of Legends.”

“Wait, why are you working on the same desk your Game is on?”

“Where else am I going to work?”

We’ve been “learning” in a pandemic for a year, but nobody’s suggested to parents or students that studying in the same chair you game–with your controllers and console two clicks away–might not be a good idea. Perhaps a simple “online learning hygiene” conversation at the beginning of each quarter might boost scores more than three tests a quarter. Maybe even a later start time–no, that would be too much of a change for these kids.

Too much of a change. For these kids. Do you hear yourself?

Most of our pandemic adjustments have been illogical. Scolding kids for high-fiving friends they only get to see for an hour in school, where they mostly sit in silence on their computers, is inhumane. Treating them like cattle is inhumane, too. But that’s easier than hearing them out (they might just know something).

Teenagers are more depressed than ever before, but don’t talk to them about that. All you have to do is make sure they’re working and staying on task, course material only. And follow the standards. This pandemic will be over soon.

That’s what they said last year.