The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Philosophy

Warning: Deep thoughts ahead.

  • Book review: Tao Te Ching

    I’m not really sure that it makes sense to review this book. I’ve read it and enjoyed it, but there is absolutely no way I can convey what it’s about or why you should read this book. It is wise, poetic, enigmatic and enlightening. It is also vague, frustrating, weird and confusing.

    Tao means the way. Te means power. Ching means classic. The title Tao Te Ching is usually translated as The Classic Book About The Way And The Power Of The Way. But as the very first chapter says:
    The way you can go
    isn’t the real way
    The Name you can name
    isn’t the real name

    In our western culture ideas should be communicated clearly and efficiently. And here’s a book that teems with paradox and poetry. A book where the central theme is not-doing; a concept that is certainly not practiced often in our up-and-at-them culture.

    Little is known about the Tao Te Ching, except that it’s around 2500 years old, chinese and was probably written by Lao Tzu who may have been a contemporary of Confucius. The translation I’ve read is by Ursula K Le Guin, who knows no chinese, but who has brought her life-long appreciation of the work and her background as a succesful author into the translation. She acknowledges, that her version is anything but a literal translation. Since the original work is poetic, a literal translation may capture the words but not the power of the original work. A poetic translation such as the one she’s attempted, will not match word-for-word but may come closer to the spirit of the original. I think she has done a fine job, and whenever I’ve been able to compare her version to others, hers is more to my taste.

    Tao Te Ching has been translated lots of times, and many of the translations are available on the net.

  • Quote

    This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

    – George Bernard Shaw

  • quote

    There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.

    – George Bernard Shaw

  • Quote

    If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

    – Ray Bradbury

  • Rule #1

    What would the world look like, if we all didn’t do stuff we didn’t want to do? Let’s say you’re a college student and you don’t feel like going to classes today and you simply stay home or do something else. Or let’s say you don’t want to go to work today and instead stay home and play with your kids? What would that do to society in general?

    Common wisdom has it that nothing would get done, or at least only the stuff that everybody likes to do. We’d be knee-deep in garbage because nobody wants to be a garbage man, and we’d all have to walk or drive ourselves cause nobody would want to drive the busses.

    In short, society would collapse according to common wisdom. Once again, common wisdom is dead wrong.

    If we all do more stuff we enjoy, we’ll end up liking more things. Going back to the college student who doesn’t want to go to classes today, let’s say he forces himself and goes anyway. He might have a great time, but odds are that he doesn’t. This probably also means that he feels even less like going the next day and the next. If he’d given himself a day off, his desire to go would return faster than if he forces himself.

    Doing stuff you like to do increases your energy and makes you more open to new experiences. “Pulling yourself together” to force yourself to do something you hate saps your strength and makes you less willing to try new experiences. So if we all avoided doing stuff we don’t want to, we’d all want to do more different things. Of course, the enthusiasm you put into a job you really want to do, and the resulting quality of your work is usually much higher – giving you even more energy.

    There are a few things to consider: First of all lots of people have a hard time knowing what they want to do. They’ve become used to doing things whether or not they like them that they’ve lost the sense of what they enjoy. This sense probably returns with a little practice. Secondly, we’ve all been raised with the idea, that when faced with an unenjoyable task, the right and honorable thing to do is to clench your teeth, put your nose to the grindstone, pull yourself together and get it done. The idea that “if it’s not enjoyable, don’t do it”, can cause some guilt. Obviously feeling guilty is not enjoyable either, which ruins the whole point. This probably takes some practice also.

    Furthermore, some things need to get done, and if I don’t do them who will? This requires organizations to build up diversity to such a level that almost any task will find a person somewhere in the organization who will actually enjoy doing it. Or at least not totally loathe it.

    Remember, every time you force yourself to take on a task that you really hate, you’re stealing that task away from another person who would enjoy it – and who would consequently do a much better job of it. Remember, there are people who enjoy collecting garbage and driving busses. If you have any doubt that almost any job can be enjoyed by someone, read this article.

    Notice also, that I’m not saying that people should do whatever they want. I’m simply saying:
    Rule #1: “Don’t do stuff you don’t like doing”.

    Once in a while it’s good to challenge yourself, so as an addendum to the above rule, I’d add:
    Rule #2: “Once in a while, do something you don’t know if you’ll like. If you don’t like it, see rule #1”

    Just imagine the kind of world that would build!

  • Take five

    At the “happy at work” workshops, we always talk about the value of breaks. Of having five minutes a day, where you’re not working, talking, mailing or phoning. A non-time where you can become centered and grounded and aware of yourself and your surroundings. At the last workshop, a participant told me about the norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen who has written a book called The tyranny of the moment, in which he argues that we are loosing our pauses. He says, that it is in the silent spaces between doing things that we can take on new ideas and contemplate change.

    A quote:

    Thomas Eriksen argues that slow time – private periods where we are able to think and correspond coherently without interruption – is now one of the most precious resources we have, and it is becoming a major political issue. Since we are now theoretically “online” 24 hours a day, we must fight for the right to be unavailable – the right to live and think more slowly. It is not only that working hours have become longer – Eriksen also shows how the logic of this new information technology has, in the space of just a few years, permeated every area of our lives. This is equally true for those living in poorer parts of the globe usually depicted as outside the reaches of the information age, as well as those in the West.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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!

  • Book review: The answer to how is yes

    The title of Peter Blocks latest book reads a little strange at first: “The answer to how is yes“, but in it he makes a very important point, one that every decision maker, project worker, consultant, change agent or just plain anybody who works for anything that matters should know: That sometimes “how?” isn’t the important question, and that asking “How?” can actually be a defense against getting an effort started, a defense against change.

    What every important project needs is less focus on “How?” and more focus on “Yes!”, on the affirmation that this (whatever “this” is) is a worthwhile pursuit. That affirmation strengthens the will to do it, whereas continually asking “how?” saps your strength. Saying yes focuses on the goal you want to achieve, asking how focuses on all the obstacles.
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