I’m currently reading a book titled Everyday Irrationality : How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally on the recommendation of a friend. The author Robyn M. Dawes is a professor at Carnegie Mellon. As I would hope and expected, the book makes one question the basic assumptions of human behavior to identify the places where we are being irrational. Right up my alley. Somewhat academic (understandably so!) but still very interesting stuff nonetheless.

So as a result of reading this book and another one of my daily experiences, I started thinking this evening about how ego plays a role in irrational decisions. This is specifically in reference to a previous blog (okay, this sucks, the way my archives are setup using frames right now, I cannot link directly to a blog entry. That is unacceptable and so I’ll have to change that soon, till then, you’ll just have to find it in the archives yourself) titled Fear, Regret and Hope. In that blog I wrote about how IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) fear of the consequences often prevents us from taking an action and if we succumb to that fear, what we land up with is regret. Today’s hypothesis based on my own experience is that the fear is primarily that of getting a bruised ego. The fear of rejection. The fear of failure. The fear of looking like a complete idiot — what’s that saying… It’s better to keep you mouth shut and have people think you are a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt!.

So ego plays a huge role. Often to the extent that because of it… or better yet, because of the fear of getting a bruised ego, we choose to not take a chance, which if analyzed could be an irrational decision. Well, I’m not sure about that.. because does a bruised ego count as a possible negative outcome? How do you quantify the effect of that?

Anyhow, the bottomline is that I feel a little hypocritical, because though I can sit here and write about this stuff and analyze my own actions, it is definitely a lot harder to embody the ideas everytime, all the time, in all situations. I guess I’m still too self-conscious in some cases and still need to train myself better 🙂 There is always room for improvement. It’s the largest room in the house.

:note to self. sbux aim

First, it’s late. It’s hot. It’s really muggy and sticky. So sticky that my arms are sticking to the table and the notebook. I’d much rather be sitting in bed with the AC on, but had to get this one out.

I’ve found that I take a very problem oriented approach to everything… to the extent that it often makes me do things which I may not really want to do. I guess this derives from my belief that I am a Human Doing not a Human Being. To me every situation, every circumstance must have a goal. Why I do not know, but that is how it seems to be. Whenever I am presented with a situation, I always seem to try and figure out what I am supposed to do about it. And I find it incredibly frustrating to be presented wit or faced with a situation where I cannot effect a change. Where I cannot do something to make it better or make it go away.

For some things it works well. Bring me a problem and I will try and find a solution. So great, bring me a business problem, bring me a technical problem and chances are that we can together brainstorm some approach that may have the possibility of leading to better situation. Not necessarily the perfect answer each time, but an answer. An action. A strategy. A plan. A goal. A means. But all in all an attempt to try and make the situation better, even though it may be a feeble attempt.

But then there are some problems for which there are no simple answers. Sometimes it’s the little things, the personal things, the things which I do not have any immediate control over. If someone is sick or if someone dies, there is very litle I can say or do in order to rectify such a situation. And in any such circumstances where no direct action on my part can help to improve the situation, the only recourse I seem to have is one of inaction. If someone has cancer, it is beyond my current ability to help solve that problemfor them. However, it is within my ability to listen. But I find it difficult to listen, because when I listen, my instant reaction is to try and think of something that can be done to alleviate the situation. (The examples chosen here are not real. But they get the point across. What I really have in mind is other problems for which I do not have simple answers…)

My desire to always “find an answer” is so strong that I find it frustrates me to the point of making me angry, apathetic and withdrawn — to try and prevent myself from being exposed to the questions and the problems for which I do not have the answers. It is perfectly okay, if I know that I can put in extra effort, work harder, work longer and essentially do something in order to find the answer, but it is those which seem too far out of my reach which are the cause of this intense frustration. Some times, the “if you ignore it long enough, it will go away” syndrome creeps in. I know it when it happens. I can see it, but I can’t get myself to do anything about it… so far.

There are problems and questions which have perplexed the brightest minds, the greatest thinkers for years on end. Not only years, but generations and centuries. So I by no means garner any false perceptions that I am in any way, shape or form going to be able to find answers to some of the problems which have eluded some of the brightest minds. I am not smarter than them.

I guess at some level all of these are choices. Choices, because if I really feel strongly about a cause, an issue, a problem, there is nothing preventing me from going gung-ho over it to try and find a solution or help alleviate the cause. But the single most important factor in making that choice is my level of confidence of whether or not I will be able to make a difference. And just how many things an I make a difference for? Would be cool if I could fork (sorry, geeky term from OS days…) of a clone to go off and devote all it’s energy to the task at hand. But unfortunately, even if human cloning does get to become reality, the sciece fiction concept of cloning is very far from the reality of cloning. The truth is that there is just one me. And my time is limited like everyone elses. And so, I need to make choices. Choices which allow me to maximize what I want to achieve. And in that process the low hanging fruit gets plucked first right? The one at the zenith of the tree, may still be attractive, but if the likelihood is that I would need to spend the rest of my life to get to it, maybe it make more sense to attack only those things that are within your reach so as not to disappoint yourself too much? Does that make any sense at all (not sure, will have to read that again tomorrow to see if it even makes sense to me.)

Oh well. I guess one other thing I’ll mention — completely unrelated though, is that I’m still not completely comfortable posting a daily entry based on the days events and what I’m really thinking. It’s just not that easy to do. Trust is hard to build — and like a good German Shepherd, I can only be friends once the trust is established.

I’ve been thinking about what to write in this entry for several hours now. Essentially last night, a friend of mine who was in town was too hammered to go home and so he crashed in my living room. We landed up talking for a long time. and when I say talking, we weren’t just bulshitting, we were in serious deep discussion about everything from life, work, personal lives, psychology, philosophy and all that kind of stuff which you may not expect too many inebriated individuals to be discussing.

The topics ran the gamut and our tangents often became whole discussions in themselves making it increasingly taxing on our minds to unravel the stack to figure out how we got somewhere in the first place. Now, the details of what we talked about are “out-of-bounds” for this entry or any entry on a public blog for that matter. (the vagueness creeps back…), but I will write a little about some of the realizations.

Perception is reality. What you percieve is real for you. You cannot know any other reality than what you percieve (have I said the same thing over enough times yet? … did it hit home?). But what I’ve realized and what I hope others can realize is that things may not always be what they seem. In one of the many books I read recently (I did a great job of remembering the things I liked from the readings, but a pathetic job of keeping a bibliography or any references, sorry… in future, I’ll be more careful and probably post a list of my readings… well at least the non-sensitive ones!) it talked about how the exact same circumstance/environment creates a completely different experience for each person. It is your own personal experience, which need not be the same as what anybody else felt under the same circumstances.

So the point I’m trying to make and not doing a good job of being succint about it, is that the same circumstances may be a completely different effect on different people. And Assumption is the mother of all f…ups… so to assume that your experience is universally applicable is probably not going to work to your advantage in the long run. Of couse, all the experiences are subjective, but it would behoove one to at least attempt to try and validate the assumptions before jumping to any conclusions. Give the benefit of the doubt. You may see things differently.

Another quote which keeps coming back a lot is the one about expectation is the first step to disappointment. This is a hard one. In fact, all of this stuff is because there are very few absolutes… that coming from a person who is most comfortable in dealing with zeros and ones, means a lot. It is easier to talk about this than to practice it. And I myself am probably guilty of not being able to practice what I preach 100% of the time.

Expectations surround us. Whether they are from friends, family, parents, work, school and most of all from ourselves…. or better said, as our perceptions of what is expected of us by others. Again, that is a perceived result which very often hasn’t been validated at all and so we land up subjecting ourselves to a mental torture of trying to live up to perceived expectations. Both internal and external. This reminded me of a quote I had in the old quotes file (available in quote archives)…

…and no taskmaster is harsher than one’s own self-expectations.

…Tom Clancy in the Red Storm Rising

Now, I do not mean to sounds solipsistic or selfish, but isn’t that just a recipe for making yourself miserable? Living based on what you perceive others to expect of you!? Wouldn’t it be more pragmatic to at some point realize that you are the only person who can do anything about how you feel and the only person you need to be accountable to is yourself. (that implicitly covers doing things for other people since if you didn’t you wouldn’t be happy with yourself right!?)

But what can someone who is caught in the expectation rut do? What happens when it runs so deep that it starts becoming a borderline phobia undermining your own self-esteem? That’s a dangerous state to be in.

New thread. I also believe that I have been very fortunate in being raised the way I was. Hats of to my grandmother, my mother and my father for doing the job they did with me, because I’m quite pleased with it. (I hope they are too!) I nearly always got whatever I asked for, but I always tried not to ask for too much. I still do. I prefer it that way. I like being self-sufficient and independent. I don’t need much. And since I’ve never had the guts to thank them for it in person, I’ll do it here.

New thread. The previous blog on regret ties in here as well. I’m slowly and steadily developing a policy of no regrets – again easier said than done. But the way I rationalize it; at every step, we have to make a decision on the basis of the best information available to us. And that’s what we do… we make the best decision we can based on the whatever information is available to us. We consider the outcomes (Tangent — contrary to what is the common interpretation of the Gita, a friend who responded privately via email to a previous blog entry, helped me figure out a new interpretation which I like better… the Gita doesn’t say not to consider the outcomes. What it says is don’t let the fear of the outcomes prevent action or result in inaction. I agree with that interpretation. It makes more sense), we evaluate our options and then we make a decision. And once that decision is made, there is no looking back. Because unless you believe in time-travel, there is no way you can change that decision. Yes, you may take steps which will eventually get you to the same “state”, but you cannot reverse a decision that has been made. What is done is done. So accept it under all circumstances and keep plugging along. (This is one of the many lessons I learnt while negotiating the deal for my first company and I have to thank one of my board members and personal advisors for helping din this into me and helping me internalize it. He knows who he is and so his name does not need to be mentioned here.)

So if we make our most educated and rational decision, then we’ve done our best. And if you’ve done your best, then there is nothing to regret is there? You just keep plugging along because there are some variables that you cannot control. For the ones you could… you gave it your best shot. But you have to give it a shot. Again, one from the old quotes file… You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

New thread. When I was in school and college, booksmarts meant a lot to me. I always had, do have and will always have a high regard for people who are intelligent in the traditional sense of the word. And I’ve definitely been exposed to a fair share of them at Carnegie Mellon. But I now believe that I was naive. I didn’t realize then that booksmarts isn’t all that matters. It also matters as to what type of person you are and what your values are. And I have a new respect for people who were not academic overachievers, but excelled at other things.

Don’t take me wrong though coz. I still respect those who are traditionally inelligent and a MIT, CMU, Stanford or Berkely grad (at least for CS/EE… replace with the top 3-4 schools in your own field) would definitely make it faster to the top of my list – but not only for their level of intellgence, but for the work ethic that most of the graduates from the top schools exemplify.

But realizing that that isn’t all that matters is important. What matters to me is that you pick what you want to be good at and you go after it. The drive matters. The perseverance matters. The will and the desire to be successful at whatever you choose matters. Rationality matters.

I’ll end with a note on rationality (because I think blogger is already going to barf at me when it sees the lenght of this post. This may land up being a two part post as well! 🙁 ) Pragmatism is my friend. I like it. It helps make things more objective. It takes all the things from the grey-area of subjectivity which laces the diatribe above and lends to them something that my zeros and ones oriented head can wrap itself around. If there is anything I fear losing the most, it is the power to analyze and think rationally…

So last night I spent over an hour (I was multi-tasking, waiting for a remote CD install to finish…) writing and editing a blog on this topic. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough (I should really know better by now!) to try and do it directly in Blogger (i.e. in IE). Generally that works okay since I write for a couple of minutes and hit post just to make sure it’s saved.

But I had no idea how long this one was going to become when I started it and I had written way too much without posting it. So when it was all done I hit post but it probably went directly to /dev/null since I lost all of it. Anyhow, so this is an attempt to try and recall from memory what I wrote last night and recreate it. Always an uneasy task since you’re never really sure if it’s quite exactly the same. Who knows, it may just be better. Of course this time I am being more intelligent about it and writing it in a real editor (if you must know, my weapon of choice for HTML is HomeSite or plain old GNU Emacs).

So anyhow, I think the entry from yesterday went something like this…

Earlier this week, I had dinner with a friend and somehow we got to talking about the affect of the Internet on people. The hypothesis we were discussing was that the Internet makes people narrowminded — since it makes it too easy to filter the information we receive via the Internet. Now I agree with that to some extent since I do filter what information I consume and am probably especially guilty of it since for the past 6 or more years, my only “reading” was stuff that came into my email inbox. But granted, I was spending between 2-4 hours a day keeping up with the information that would be coming into my mailbox. It’s just easier that carting around newspapers and magazines.

So, I can — at a superficial level — agree that the Internet may have a contributing hand in making it too easy for us to choose what information we want to get access to. My friend mentioned a book which talked about this called republic.com by Cass A. Sunstein. So yesterday, I just happened to go across to Amazon to check out the book and that got me thinking some more about it. The review on amazon states that, the author, a University of Chicago law professor (oh oh… maybe I should be afraid, be very afraid…) who argues that in the Internet age letting people “consume” only the news they want actually imperils the republic.

Now, before I go any further, I should make it very clear that I have not read this book. Honestly, I’m not sure if it is worth my time to read this book yet. But that’s a decision for which I’ll reserve my final answer for a future time. I did peruse the Editorial Reviews for this book and would highly recommend that you do the same before reading further. Also, since I have not read this book, I am not responding to what may or may not be in the book or directly to the author’s opinions. Having recently read a few books which did a good job of supporting only one point of view and not addressing the other at all made me think that there may be a faction of people who truly believe that the Internet makes us more narrowminded. And it is that which I am responding to.

However, in order for you to know what got me down this path in the first place it is important for you to get some idea of what the book desription said, so I’m going to take the liberty of quoting it in here (To Amazon and the author, I’ve given you more than enough links to your site already, so chill 😉 )…

Book Description

See only what you want to see, hear only what you want to hear, read only what you want to read. In cyberspace, we already have the ability to filter out everything but what we wish to see, hear, and read. Tomorrow, our power to filter promises to increase exponentially. With the advent of the Daily Me, you see only the sports highlights that concern your teams, read about only the issues that interest you, encounter in the op-ed pages only the opinions with which you agree. In all of the applause for this remarkable ascendance of personalized information, Cass Sunstein asks the questions, Is it good for democracy? Is it healthy for the republic? What does this mean for freedom of speech?

In evaluating the consequences of new communications technologies for democracy and free speech, Sunstein argues the question is not whether to regulate the Net (it’s already regulated), but how; proves that freedom of speech is not an absolute; and underscores the enormous potential of the Internet to promote freedom as well as its potential to promote “cybercascades” of like-minded opinions that foster and enflame hate groups. The book ends by suggesting a range of potential reforms to correct current misconceptions and to improve deliberative democracy and the health of the American republic.

Okay, so here is where I stand on this…

The Internet is a medium. That’s all it is. We have always had the means to chose what information we expose ourselves to and assimilate. That how you have people with different points of view and different belief systems. Some of which are so far out there that makes others wonder, what are these people smoking! The Internet is purely a more efficient medium.

I do filter what information I receive and it isn’t because I’m narrowminded (well, at least I’d like to think so… opinionated maybe…) but it is because of what Herb Simon called Information Overload. There is simply too much information out there for our feeble minds to be able to asssimilate and so we need to filter the information we receive.