The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Author: Alexander

  • Book review: Non zero

    About half a year ago I posted some really big questions. Questions that may too big for an answer, but which must never the less lie at the foundation of any world view. Non zero by Robert Wright (bearing the somewhat grandiose subtitle “The logic of human destiny”) is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read, AND it tackles two of those questions in a thorough and readable way.

    The question it examines is this: Is the evolution we see all around inevitable or just a random development?

    The book is in three parts, with part one examining the evolution of human culture. Is it safe to say, that humankind has evolved in the direction of higher complexity? Clearly, Wright finds this notion obvious, but he still presents many detailed arguments for why this is so.

    Good reasons are necessary, because it’s long been unacceptable in academia to argue that one culture or society is better or more highly developed than any other. This is mostly beacause similar arguments were abused by fascism and imperialism (among other -isms) to argue that it’s OK for an advanced culture to conquer a less advanced one.

    Wright patiently and elaborately (and wittily) argues his case, and left no doubt in my mind that there’s been an overall continued development towards cultures of higher complexity throughout most of human history. And what’s more, societies are getting better. We may not believe that we have the perfect society today, but when we conquer other nations, we at least don’t cut of the enemy soldiers’ genitals like the ancient greeks did.

    And this is cause for great hope. A common view these days seems to be, that the world is getting worse. Crime, poverty, war, global warming, pollution, technology and much more all threaten us, and make the world unsafe and unstable.

    But looking back at human history, Wright argues that it is precisely these kind of influences that have driven the evolution towards higher complexity. The main factor has been non zero cooperation. This is taken from the notion of zero sum versus non zero sum games. A zero sum game is one in which I have to loose in order for you to win. Tennis and chess are zero sum games. A non zero sum game can have many winners (or many losers). Business is a non zero sum game since if we do business we can both gain.

    Wright argues that “non zero sumness” can be found everywhere even in situations that look decicededly zero sum. An example is war. War is very much a zero sum game, but it sparks lot of non zero sum situations around ir. When threatened by war, a nation might choose to band together with it’s neighbours, so that they can defend themselves together. Thus these nations become closely linked in a non zero relation, creating a higher level of complexity and development. Not only war but any external threat may cause non zero sum cooperation among groups of people.

    Technology is maybe the most powerful driver of human culture. Every time we gain a new technology, we gain new ways of playing non zero sum games. Wright examines some of these technologies in detail, and I found the discussion of how money as a technology has enabled many new kinds of cooperation especially interesting. Interestingly, the internet is shaping up to be the ultimate medium of non zero interaction.

    The really interesting consequence here is that Wright sees hope even in the extreme pace of technological progress and in war and other external threats. Not that war is a good thing, but war inevitably sparks new non zero relations.

    The second part of the book looks at the evolution of life, and once again seeks to establish that there is a constant, overall development towards life of a higher and higher complexity. One again, non zero cooperation can be seen as the driving force, and can be the explanation for many of symbiotic relations we see. Even on cellular level, it looks as if cells are actually a collective of several different life forms, who are working together for mutual gain. Non zero sumness built into every single cell of every single life form.

    The third part of the book is short, and is dedicated to the question of “now that we’ve established that there IS a direction to both the development of human culture and of life itself, can we say anything about the purpose of this development?”

    Wright has no answer, except to point out, that the notion that there might be a purpose can not be ruled out scientifically. It’s not a ridiculous notion.

    The ideas put forth in this book are crucial for all of us and are examined in a way that is both extremely well researched and thorough AND extremely entertaining. And the conlusion is that cooperation pays. That it is better to work together than against each other. That in the end, the person or culture that understands the best how to play non zero sum games will win. And that is a message of great hope. I can’t recommend this book highly enough!!

    Interestingly, another book, The fifth miracle by Paul Davies, also examines evolution and arrives at the conclusion that there is no fixed direction to evolution. The issue is till very much open, and I recognize that it’s completely a matter of belief when I say that I’m with Robert Wright on this one. It feels to me as if the world is developing towards a higher level of complexity and beauty.

  • Art and fear

    Chris Corrigan links to a review of the book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, from which comes the following quote:

    The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

    Hehehe, I looooove that. And here’s another thought: I think art and work are approaching each other, or rather, I think that the way we work is coming more and more to resemble the way we produce art. Work used to be about producing something, and of course it still is, but increasingly work is also about self-expression and creating meaning for yourself and others, as in art.

    This book is going in my shopping basket.

  • TABLET PC

    I got e tablet PC today and I’m fooling around with it. This entry is written using the handwriting recognition-but without fixing any mistakes – works remarkably well , in my opinion.

    Iron the geeks: I got a Fujitsu-Siemens T 3010

    Update: i meant to write for the geeks…

  • Lord of the rings

    As you may have figured out from some previous posts, I’m a huge fan of the LOTR movies, and now I’ve found a treasure trove of info from people involved in the filming here.

    My favourite quote:

    On a day when it was mostly Elves, it was slightly an attention-seeking day – all the Elves needed a haircut, or their costumes had to be spotless. When it was a scene with a whole lot of hobbits, you just realized lunch got eaten a lot quicker, and there was a lot of joking going on!

    – Dominic Monaghan (Merry)

  • Quote

    I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness…

    – The Dalai Lama, quoted in The art of happiness

    I could not agree more. Our nature is to be happy and peaceful and to work together for mutual benefit.

  • Social entrepreneurship

    Thomas found this excellent article on social entrepreneurship, ie. the pursuit of a social mission using business-like methods.

    According to the article, the characteristics of social entrepreneurs are:
    * Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value),
    * Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,
    * Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning,
    * Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
    * Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.

    Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. This is exactly the territory I find myself exploring with the happy at work project. Yes, we operate as a business, charging companies for our services, but we’re not in it for the money, wa want to make people happy at work. It’s nice to see that someone has put some thought into this area, and I certainly recognize much of the thinking in the article.

  • Book review: The web of life

    The web of life by Fritjof Capra is an important book. In a well structured and readable manner, he takes on some of the largest questions related to life, and manages to do so in a clear and understandable way, that removes none of the majesty of the topic under discussion: Life.

    From systems theory, the Gaia hypothesis and complexity theory to evolution, autopoiesis and the strange phenomenon we call a mind (which in his thinking is a process, not a thing), Capra describes the main theories needed for a totally new understanding of life. This is heady reading, and it has certainly influenced my thinking in the area.

    Here’s one of my favourite quotes from the book:
    The recognition of symbiosis as a major evolutionary force has profound philosophical implications. All larger organisms, including ourselves, are living testimonies to the fact that destructive practices do not work in the long run. In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.

    Brilliant. Capra is talking about the creation and evolution of life, but the same theme occurs in many of the books I’ve been reading lately, namely that the world is not a struggle for survival and that the strategy that will get you the farthest is one of cooperation and co-creation. As Piet Hein put it:
    Co-existence
    or no existence.

    I belive that totally and deeply. Another property that I’m thinking about more and more is robustness – the fact that complex systems can withstand extreme external influences and yet retain their essential structures. This stands in sharp contrast to some human-manufactured systems, which fail if just one little thing goes wrong- as when a space shuttle blows up because of a faulty O-ring.

    This book has many lessons to teach us, and will stand up to many re-readings. Parts of it are complex and not easily accessible, but it is well worth the effort. I recommend it highly!

  • On blog swapping

    I just discovered a bit of a poem, that makes the perfect conclusion to the blog swap experiment:

    We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.
    – T.S. Elliot, Four Quarters

  • Book review: The story factor

    I believe, that the ability to tell a good story is one of the most important tools available to leaders (and remember: We’re all leaders). Stories have the ability to bring a point across without forcing the issue. Where rational arguments fail, stories can contain boths sides of a dilemma and can illuminate an interesting paradox without having to solve it. You might argue that stories open, where facts close.

    “The story factor” by Annette Simmons is the best book on storytelling that I’ve read. It contains all the reasons why stories are good tools as well as a list of situations where you can use stories effectively (and how). Finally there’s a lot of info on how to find the good stories and how to tell them. And of course the book itself contains loads of stories, most of which are highly entertaining, and useful for many situations.

    As an example, here’s a story that I heard recently, and immediately incorporated into the “happy at work” workshops. It’s the story of the ostrich who learned to fly. Normally ostriches can’t, and this ostrich wanted to share his new knowledge with all the other ostriches, so he arranged a flying conference in Africa. Other ostriches walked in from all over Africa, and over the course of a couple of days, he taught all of them to fly. Then on the last day, he stood and watched, as all the ostriches walked home.

    I use this story to illustrate the gap between learning and action, and it illustrates the point in a funny and interesting way, without browbeating people about how difficult it is to translate learning into doing. It sets the stage perfectly for the “planning the future” part of the workshop.

    Compared to one of the seminal works on storytelling, Stephen Denning’s “The Springboard”, Annette Simmons’ book is much more useful and contains more tips that will get you started as a storyteller. If you’re at all interested in the potential and practice of storytelling, this is the book for you.

  • Book review: Gesundheit!

    I just finished reading Gesundheit! by Patch Adams, and it left me totally high. I saw the movie Patch Adams starring Robin Williams a while ago, but I never realized that there was a real doctor by that name, striving to create a totally revolutionary hospital – the Gesundheit Institute.

    Patch Adams is mostly known for introducing humour in the treatment of his patients, but this book reveals that his philosophy goes way beyond that. It is about the whole person. This is hardly a new notion, but it is certainly waaaay different from how medicine is practiced in most places today. For example, when a new patient arrived, rather than conducting an interview in an office, Patch would take that person fishing or for a walk in the woods, depending on what that patient enjoys doing. The interview would cover symptoms and medical history but would also include talking about the persons hopes and dreams, spirituality, upbringing and much more.

    Some parts of the book that really stuck in my mind are:
    * Fun death. Why does dying need to be an unpleasant experience? Sure you want to postpone it as long as possible, but is it impossible to create an environment in which dying is as much a part of life as everything else, and is appreciated as such? Patch writes at one point that “Dying is that process a few minutes before death when the brain is deprived of oxygen; everything else is living”.

    * A description of a hypothetical patient og the Gesundheit Institute, a 37 year old man with an ulcer. The treatment would consist of he and his family staying at the institute for a week or ten days. While he gets treated, the family can enjoy the nature and generally have fun.

    * Patch on greed: “Greed is one of society’s worst malignancies, and it appears to have metastasized to every corner of the earth… Certainly one of greeds most devastating symptoms is cynicism… We believe that a society must care for its population enough to take care of its need.”

    * On loneliness: “I remember an eleven-year old girl who had a huge bony tumor of the face with one eye floating out in the mass. Most people found it difficult to be with her because of her appearance. Her pain was not in the dying but in the loneliness of being a person others could not bear to see. She and I played an joked and enjoyed her life away.”

    Patch is still working to raise the funds that will allow him to build the institute, and I’m simply flabbergasted that he hasn’t yet succeeded. Having read the book, it is obvious to me that his way of practicing medicine is not only better for the patient, it is also better for the medical staff (who suffer hard from burnout today) and (incredibly) more efficient and cheaper than todays bloated health care system. If I ever get sick, I certainly want to be treated the Gesundheit way!