Happiness Hypothesis

Happiness is a misunderstood thing. The very expression "pursuit of happiness" is misleading because it implies that happiness is out there and needs to be chased. People seeking happiness in the external world are giving shape to a shapeless thing. They equate happiness with external goals. I know people who have ended relationships, moved to new cities, gone to college, established respectable careers, lost weight, purchased  houses, and had babies, all in search of that elusive treasure.

At best, these people found temporary happiness, a brief little spike of joy followed by the empty feeling of "what's next?" At worst, their actions had the opposite effect and sank them deeper into misery. 

No matter how much money you make or fame you acquire, no matter how high you've risen through the ranks or what kind of car you drive, you will always see what you don't have.  

I’m not advocating a monastic lifestyle devoid of material possession and achievement, only stating that the pursuit and attainment of such things does not guarantee happiness. If you're the type of person whose life consists of a long list of problems; who never accepts responsibility for these problems; who denies all suggested solutions; and who, when one problem is solved, moves on to the next without appreciating or acknowledging the resolution of the previous; then no amount of material wealth or achievement will ever make you happy.

How can something as seemingly simple as happiness beguile so many people? How come so many of us have the wrong idea about what happiness truly is?

I believe that happiness is a state of mind which can be cultivated, not a hidden treasure to be rooted out. Changing your external world wont make you happy but changing your internal world--the way you think--will. 

(Disclaimer: I'm not a guru, Buddhist monk, neurologist, psychologist, life-coach, counsellor, or any other such thing. I work in insurance, a field that produces more alcoholism and stress-leave than any other industry on the planet. Insurance will ruin your faith in humanity and leave you jaded, withered, and hunched over your desk. You should probably take anything I say on the topic of happiness with a grain of salt.) 

But before we get to that we must first define happiness.

Imagine your emotions displayed on a chart. When you're feeling neither happy nor unhappy, you are at baseline. Dips below baseline signify moments of unhappiness while spikes reflect moments of joy. Now happiness itself isn't an emotion; it's more like the sum of all your positive emotions. Happiness is the amount of time you spend above baseline.

If you agree with the above then you'll agree that the key to happiness is controlling one's emotional state, or more precisely, avoiding negative emotions like jealousy, haughtiness (not to be confused with naughtiness, you dirty rascals!), anger, sadness, etc. while trying to produce as many positive emotions as possible. You'll know these to be love, affection, appreciation, hope, etc. 

If emotions could be easily controlled I wouldn't be writing this post because everyone on the planet would be living in bliss! Unfortunately emotions are wild and unpredictable. They're like drugs peddled by your scumbag brain. When you feel elation or rage, that's your brain dumping neurotransmitters into your system and creating a chemical reaction. You experience a physiological change. Your perception is twisted, your judgment clouded. The rational part of your mind is muted. 

The aim is to prevent the initial chemical dump that sets off the entire chain-reaction. Easier said than done. We can't predict everything that will come our way. What if some guy cuts you off on the highway? What if your nemesis at work beats you to a promotion? Our emotions are triggered by external stimuli. Without controlling your environment and everything in it, how can you hope to master your emotions?

For me, the key was mindfulness.

Don't let Buddha scare you off. I have yet to sit cross-legged, hands on knees, while chanting my mantra. Mindfulness does not require meditation. Simply put, mindfulness is an objective awareness of one's body, feelings, surroundings, and thoughts. It helps you maintain realistic expectations of yourself, others, and future events.

You have to be in a constant state of readiness. You have to expect negative things to happen and be prepared to accept them so that you aren't caught off-guard when they do. By doing this you can avoid the chemical dump and explore the situation calmly and rationally instead of blowing a gasket. 

Mindfulness takes practice. You have to work at it until it becomes second-nature and even then you'll get caught off-guard on a bad day. It's worth the practice though. Nothing beats being confronted by an infuriating situation--walking into the living room to find your toddler coloring on the hardwood floor, for example--and feeling a cool calm wash over you. Many of us--myself chief among them--spent the better part of our lives at the mercy of our emotions. Our jealousies and bad tempers dictated much of who and what we were. 

Emotions dictate whether we are happy or miserable. In order to cultivate happiness, we must learn to master our emotions. Mindfulness is the first step toward this goal. 

Give it a shot. Keep track of your thoughts and emotions throughout the day. Expect to encounter shitty situations and accept that you can do nothing to control those situations. The only thing you have a hope of controlling is yourself--your thoughts, emotions, and actions--so get to practicing! 

/rant over

(PS. For those of you too lazy to click on the link:

Mindfulness is a spiritual or psychological faculty that, according to the teaching of the Buddha, is considered to be of great importance in the path to enlightenment.

The Buddha advocated that one should establish mindfulness in one's day-to-day life maintaining as much as possible a calm awareness of one's body, feelings, and mind. The practice of mindfulness supports analysis resulting in the arising of wisdom. 

Mindfulness practice, inherited from the Buddhist tradition, is being employed in psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, including obsessive-compulisve disorder, anxiety, and in the prevention of relapse in depression and drug addiction.

Thanks Wikipedia!)

Göbekli Tepe and the Mystery of History

In my homage to Edwin Hubble I spoke of world-shattering discoveries that force us to rewrite previously established notions we have about reality. Hubble’s discovery—that nebulae were actually other galaxies far beyond our own Milky Way--persuaded astronomers to scrap the “island-universe” model we previously employed in favor of the “big fuckin’ universe” model we currently hold.

Recent archeological findings in Turkey could do to our model of human history what Hubble’s discovery did to the “island-universe” theory back in 1934. The idea that the oldest civilizations on earth date back to no later than 6,000 BCE could be seriously damaged by these new discoveries, opening the door to a variety of fringe theories which have, until now, been treated with scorn or dismissed out of hand by mainstream academics.

The consensus is that humans came on the scene around 2 million years ago in Africa. They eventually wandered out of the Olduvai Gorge in small groups of hunter-gatherers and spread out across Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia before crossing the Bering Strait to the Americas.

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle isn't conducive to technological advancement so for the bulk of our 2 million year existence human innovation consisted of mastering fire and simple tool-making. Then, around 12,000 years ago, people discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, kicking off the Neolithic Revolution and the dawn of sedentary life.

This is how human civilisation was born.

According to this narrative the first cities arose in the Fertile Crescent around 6,000 BCE. The Bronze Age started around 4,000 BCE, bringing with it knowledge of metallurgy and writing as well as the establishment of trade routes in the Near East. Phase one of Stonehenge was finished around 3,100 BCE, the Great Pyramid was completed on 2,560 BCE, and work on the Great Wall of China was underway in 700 BCE.

This narrative implies that the appearance and advancement of civilisation is only possible after agriculture arrives on the scene. Before the Neolithic Revolution, people were too busy chasing their next meal and surviving the elements to start experimenting with metallurgy, masonry, or large-scale construction.  Being scattered across the globe in small groups, humans could never mobilise a workforce large enough to build the megaliths of ancient times.

Enter Göbekli Tepe.

Sitting atop a mountain ridge in Turkey, the site was discovered in the 1960's and left untouched until 1994 when a team of German archaeologists led by Klaus Schmidt started digging down into the hill. According to one Stanford professor, what these archaeologists found "changes everything."

The oldest part of Gobekli Tepe consists of T-shaped stone pillars arranged in a circle. Each pillar measures twenty feet in height and weighs 20 tons. There are more than 200 pillars arranged in about 20 circles and each pillar is fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. The second and newest phase consists of smaller pillars set in rectangular rooms furbished with polished lime floors.

Now Gobekli Tepe isn't unique or unrivalled in terms of size, scope, or engineering. In fact it is comparable to Stonehenge, whose outer circle uses stones which are slightly larger than those used in Gobekli Tepe's first phase.

The thing that makes Gobekli Tepe stand out is its age. According to radiocarbon dating, the oldest portion is in the neighbourhood of 12,000 years old.

That's roughly 4,000 years before the first human settlements appear on the scene. That's before metal tools or wheels or domesticated horses. How Göbekli Tepe's builders amassed a workforce, cut the stones in the nearby quarry, hauled them uphill, and arranged them in a circle, is a mystery. 

Göbekli Tepe's purpose is also a mystery, though slightly less so.

Excavations have revealed little proof of permanent habitation. A variety of animals, some local, some exotic, were carved onto the pillars. The workmanship is impressive too, especially considering they lacked experience in stone working and possessed only flint tools.

Another clue is the presence of butchered animal bones, present in large numbers at the site.

Schmidt believes Göbekli Tepe was a stone-age mountain sanctuary, a site of ritualistic, spiritual, or maybe even religious importance. It may have served as an annual meeting place for local groups of hunter-gatherers, a place for them to celebrate some forgotten holiday.

In order to make sense of Göbekli Tepe scholars will have to review the accepted chronology of human existence. In doing so, I hope they take a second-look at some of the other theories they rejected on the basis of the Neolithic Revolution. The notion that humans were incapable of advanced construction before the appearance of sedentary civilisations is clearly wrong; Göbekli Tepe proves that.

Either our prehistoric ancestors were more advanced and resourceful than we thought, or else we must look for alternate means of explaining Göbekli Tepe. No, I don't subscribe to the ancient astronaut theory but I think the idea of a lost civilisation merits further inquiry.

The concept may sound fantastical but it actually isn't that far-fetched.

Look at the current state of our species. Smartphones, solar power, jets, space-flight, hydrogen bombs, the Large Haldron Collider: we achieved this level of technology in a mere 12,000 year period. How many times might we have achieved similar levels sophistication in the past 200,000 years?

All it takes is a well-placed asteroid or global catastrophe, the near-extinction of our species, and 30,000 years for Mother Earth to bury the evidence. The lucky survivors would revert back to primitive life in a few generations, carrying with them tales of this prehistoric doomsday in the form of myths and legends.

I won't plead my case for the "False Start Hypothesis" here as it merits its own post. Consider this a primer. Like Hubble's discovery, Gobleki Tepe forces us to question notions we accepted as truth. There's more to prehistory than we know, just like there's more to the universe than our Milky Way.

The more we learn, the more we realise we don't know a whole lot. We've got records going back 6,000 years but we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Think of human history as a puzzle. Gobekli Tepe is the missing piece we didn't know existed. Fitting it into the puzzle will require us to take other pieces out, rearranging them if we can, discarding them if we can't.

How many more such pieces are scattered across the globe, waiting to be discovered? And what will human history look like once we find more of them?

I get excited just thinking about!

Internetiquette

It's not unfathomable to think that, in a few short years, the majority of our social interactions will take place online. More and more we use things like Facebook to keep in touch; Twitter to share links and witticisms; and Reddit to connect with strangers and share ideas.

I for one am not opposed to this trend. I think it behooves us to fight it. We should make the best use of the tools at our disposal and if that means cutting down on our face-to-face interactions, I'm okay with that

The only problem with online interaction is that people on the net don't know how to act. Browse the comments section of virtually any site and you'll see what I mean. Profanity, ignorance, racism, bigotry, misogyny, sexism, and homophobia are all standard fare; in fact, on many websites they compose the majority of comments.

People need to learn proper internetiquette.

We know it's polite to say please and thank you. We know it's rude to interrupt or talk over people or chew food with our mouth open. We're told to have firm handshakes and always make eye contact when speaking to others. Our parents and peers drilled these things into our head until it became second nature.

I don't think internetiquette will ever become as prevalent as the good manners listed above. Still, it's a conversation worth having. Maybe some of the people making rude, inflammatory, and offensive comments on the web haven't thought things through. Maybe someone will read this post and say, "By Odin, you're right Oscar: I am a fucktard!" and decide to change for the better.

Here's my summary of internetiquette. Feel free to add anything I missed.

1) Don't say something to a stranger online that you wouldn't say to a stranger in person

This is the most important rule, in my opinion. What you do behind the shroud of anonymity is a reflection of the person you are deep down inside. If you're kind and respectful in real life but attack people online, you are a coward and a troll. Next time you sit down in front of the computer to type out some hateful, toxic, misinformed bullshit, ask yourself: would I say this to a perfect stranger in a public setting? If the answer is no, then shut the fuck up. Next!


2) Don't get offended when someone deletes you from their friend-list

Chances are you did something to deserve it. Most likely you're the type of person who uses social media to voice loud, uninformed opinions as fact, without context, for all to behold. And that's okay because social media allows you to do this. Just don't get upset if people cut you off. If you lack tact or the ability to predict how your friends will react to your nonsense, maybe you should keep your crazy opinions to yourself. Otherwise, expect to lost some "friends."


3) Don't "friend" people you don't know

This is the equivalent of "don't talk to strangers." This applies to Facebook and any other application that displays personal details about you. In fact…


4) Use an alias

I call it an internet name. Here's how you do it: take your real name, tweak it slightly, and that's your internet name. Take Oscar Bellevue, for example. I could go with Olaf Beaumont or Oliviero Belmonte. You get the idea. This won't protect you from the NSA or Anonymous but it's enough to keep run-of-the-mill weirdos and stalkers away.


5) Don't down-vote statements because you disagree with them

This one applies to sites like Quora and Reddit where you can up-vote posts and comments you feel are relevant or deserve visibility and down-vote irrelevant posts that do not contribute to the overall discussion. If you disagree with someone, engage them in civil debate instead of down-voting and running. Liberal use of the down-vote button is troll behaviour. Speaking of trolls...

6) Don't feed them

A wise man once said, "Don’t argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." If you encounter a troll online--and you most likely will if you haven't already--do not engage. You can't reason with trolls. They are toxic little cockroaches who feed off the negative energy of others. The best thing to do with trolls is to ignore them entirely and deprive them of what they so desperately crave.

Conclusion

Anonymity doesn't give you the right to be a cunt (pardon my French). If you're thinking to yourself, "I'm a good person: I volunteer at the soup kitchen and help little old ladies cross the road and all my co-workers think I'm a sweetie; so what if I like to mess with people online?" read this post again. Who you are behind closed doors, when nobody's watching, that's who you really are.

Monday Vow

It's time to put your distaste of Monday to rest. It's time to stop dreading the work week. You can't prevent Monday's arrival but you can decide how you react to it and the challenges laid out before you.

Instead of anticipating Monday with trepidation, you ought to celebrate its inevitable return. Challenges are opportunities for self-improvement. How you deal with them is a direct reflection of your character.

This Monday I propose we make a vow.

Repeat after me:

"With Odin as my witness, I hereby solemnly swear to crush this week."

Crushing doesn't mean you'll overcome every obstacle in your path. It simply means you will greet challenges with optimism and resolve. It means you'll approach each hardship as an opportunity to learn, adapt, and become a better version of yourself.

Failure is a good tutor but his lessons tend to sting. If you're too busy nursing your wounded pride, you'll likely to miss the lesson altogether.

Let's talk about the two most common challenges you'll face this week.

Challenge #1: Work

Why do so many people dread going to work? It's not like we're working in Dickensian factories here. Even the least glamorous jobs are considerably better than the jobs held by our recent ancestors.

Because most of us view our jobs are a means to an end, not an end unto itself. We work to pay the bills and put food on the table--in other words, because we have to. Very few people are fortunate enough to be working in a field they are passionate about, so that even those who truly enjoy their jobs would rather be doing something else.

Until you find a way to leverage your passion into a paying job, you're going to have to settle for the next best thing. If you absolutely hate every aspect of your job, look for something better. If you've got a decent gig, take steps to maximize your enjoyment of it.

Engage with your job. Treat it like a game. Develop tricks and shortcuts to improve efficiency. Experiment with new ideas, tweaks, and improvements. Set goals for yourself daily so that you can measure your progress and feel like a champ when you crush them.

More importantly, don't let your job stress you out. Do your absolute best when you're there but don't bring it home with you. Don't get caught up in office gossip or politics, either. Don't put undue pressure on yourself and don't let someone in a position of authority put undue pressure on you, either. If a deadline is unreasonable, don't be shy: say so.

Which brings me to challenge #2.

Challenge #2: People 

Your roommate; the guy taking up three seats on the bus and emitting a strange odor; your spouse; the head of your department: remember that each one is an opportunity for you to learn, adapt, and improve.

Because people are so complex and nuanced, it's highly unlikely you will get along with everyone you meet. You might have difficulty connecting with some people and you might butt heads with others. Don't let difficult people wear you down; instead, treat them like puzzles to be solved. Find a way to smooth things over and make your interactions with such people as painless as possible.


We humans are biological machines. We act and react in the face of external stimuli according to our circuitry and programming. Human interaction can rightfully be seen as the pushing and pulling of various levers: when I say this, you react this way; when I do that, you react that way. Behavior triggers reaction, which triggers behavior, which triggers reaction, so on and so forth.

The best way to figure out a person then is to study the underlying mechanisms that dictate their actions. Keep track of how they behave after you say this or do that and amend your actions in order to avoid unpleasant interactions.

And when someone angers, saddens, or annoys you, remember that they are simply pushing your buttons and pulling your levers, nothing more. Don't take it personally. Ultimately, the only one liable for how you feeling is you.

As Marcus Aurelius said, "If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, by thy judgment of about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now."

So when your co-worker says something offensive or a messy project gets dropped on your desk or your supervisor critiques your work harshly, remember our vow. Write it down and read it over and over again. Repeat it to yourself as needed. It's easy. Just say it.

I swear to crush this week.

Bome.

(PS. If it sounds like I'm advising you to manipulate people in your life, it's because I am. We're all manipulators whether we know it or not. The world is composed of levers and buttons. Manipulating a person for selfish gain is different from manipulating a person in order to improve your relationship with them and minimize the number of unpleasant interactions. /rant over)

Bipolar Apes

Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.

- Frans de Waal

Like bonobos we humans are capable of empathy, cooperation, love, generosity, and kindness. We feel great sorrow at the suffering of others and when confronted by disaster we put our differences aside and make great sacrifices, often for complete strangers.

The same conditions that made empathy and cooperation hot commodities also gave rise to our inner-chimpanzee. We spent the majority of our existence poised between survival and extinction. Doom in prehistoric times came in many forms but was most often represented by starvation, the elements, predators, and rival groups of people competing for limited resources. Only our inner-chimpanzee—aggressive, intolerant, territorial, greedy, and violent—could ward off these external threats.

For those of us fortunate enough to have been born in the developed world, the threat of extinction is a distant thing. We have plenty of food and drink, houses that shelter us from the elements, medicine to ward off sickness, and law enforcement to protect us from dangerous individuals. Our inner-chimp is becoming obsolete.

Our species is still at risk but the threats are different now. They are too big and complex to face with primitive, unrefined tools. Whereas tribalism and greed were once per-requisites to survival, they are now impediments. If we wish to overcome these new challenges we must silence our inner-chimp and embrace our inner-bonobo.

Easier said than done, right?

Our brains are wired to perceive the world in dualities. Everywhere we look the world is divided into opposing pairs: safety and danger, life and death, night and day, good and evil. Combine this with our aggressive tendencies toward rival groups and you start to see why it’s so difficult to perceive others realistically.

This tendency toward duality persists in all human constructs. Ideals of liberty and equality contend with slavery and exceptionalism. Socialists face off against capitalists, liberals against conservatives, atheists against theists. Even in our leisure we create systems of competition and duality. One need only look at team sports for a prime example, where even the fans engage in rivalries on behalf of their chosen teams!

Once tricked into choosing a side we're incapable of thinking rationally. We become trapped in the matrix of dualities. We stop seeing fellow humans and start seeing allies and opponents. We see those who oppose us as a threat, somehow different, not deserving of our love, respect, or attention. The inner-chimp takes over. We do not seek to understand our opponents; we are only concerned with achieving victory. We believe that our survival depends on it and rightfully so. For roughly 2 million years, it did.

We want to believe that the world is simple despite all evidence to the contrary. We want to believe that we are good, smart, and that our beliefs are Truth. By default, anyone opposing our views or championing a rival ideology is bad, stupid, and believes in dirty lies. They become less than human and thus easier to mistreat. We've seen this time and time again.

The future of our race lies not in conflict but in cooperation. Opposing sides must come together and learn from each other. Our survival and prosperity depend on it. If we want to keep living on this beautiful planet and remain free of oppression and suffering, we must all work together and we must do so quickly.

Events were set into motion long before we were born. We inherited a world furbished with complex economic and political systems, religions, ideologies, and cultures. Whatever you think of your opponent, know that he too is an unwitting product of his environment. Put yourself in his shoes. Strive to understand where his beliefs come from and you may be shocked to find he is little different from you

We must break free of the duality matrix and regard the world from an outsider's perspective. We cannot allow falsehoods and illusions to lead us down the path of destruction. There's no reason we can't all happily coexist regardless of our views and beliefs. Anyone who tells you otherwise, who claims one side must vanquish the other in order to survive, is lying. The world is big enough to accommodate every ideology and belief system. And if in the distant future it becomes too cramped, surely we can find a solution to that problem as well.

But first we must tackle the problems which assail us today. Even if we ignore humanity’s struggle against oppressive regimes, corrupt political systems, and corporations bent on pillaging every last natural resource on the planet, we must still contend with climate change, super-pandemics, and the ever-present threat of an asteroid wiping us out like it did the dinosaurs.

In the face of such conditions we should stifle our inner-chimpanzee in favour of bonobo behaviour. Let's resolve our issues amicably, come together and ensure the survival and prosperity of our entire species.

Our differences are illusory. They are enforced by our scumbag brains and reinforced by those who would rather see us divided than united. I don’t want to say that time is running out but there is plenty of evidence that it might be. At the very least we are entering turbulent times marked by social unrest, overreaching governments, rapid changes in technology and society, and extreme weather.

We can face these changes alone or surrounded by our fellow bipolar apes. The choice is up to us all.

(PS. Here's a good piece on bonobos for anyone who doesn't know what they are or who want to learn more about them. /rant over)

Brony Wisdom

My wife and I stumbled on a documentary about Bronies on Netflix the other night. For those who don't know, Bronies are to My Little Pony what Trekkies are to Star Trek. The only difference is that My Little Pony's intended audience is little girls and the majority of Bronies are males ranging from early teens to full-grown adults. The public's knee-jerk reaction to Bronies ranges from confusion to disgust. Bronies are routinely called creeps, pedophiles, or homosexuals. They are bullied and ostracized and distrusted.

Who doesn't love Raindow Dash?

The world is full of wisdom. The experiences of others are lessons that teach us how to better navigate life. If you watch people carefully and pay attention to the decisions they make and the consequences of their actions, you can avoid many pitfalls and find shortcuts to happiness, well-being, and success.

Some people are to be imitated while others are cautionary tales, models of what not to do.

So what can we learn from Bronies? What hidden wisdom can we obtain from this misunderstood group?

In light of the accusations I listed above, you probably think Bronies are into some strange stuff. Judging from the documentary and my conversations with a dozen Bronies online, I have surmised that the typical Brony watches My Little Pony (MLP) religiously, discusses the show online in message boards, collects MLP merchandise, and attends MLP conventions (think Comic Con only with way more ponies). The creative Brony makes fan-art, writes fan-fiction, or remixes songs from the show.

Did I mention Bronies are into cosplay too?

So far, Bronies are indistinguishable from the fans of Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pokemon, etc. So what's with the name-calling? Why do Bronies receive so much flack? 

The "logic" behind the negative reaction goes a little something like this:

1. My Little Pony is a show for females aged 3-11.
2. Bronies are males aged 13-50.
3. The show isn't made for males aged 13-50.
4. Therefore there must be something wrong with them.

The leap from "there must be something wrong with them" to "creepy gay pedophiles," while completely unjustified, isn't hard to make.  The show is for girls, therefore any man who enjoys it must be gay. The show is for children, therefore any adult who enjoys it must be a pedophile.

How does liking a girl's TV show make one gay, exactly? I've watched my share of shows and movies geared toward girls of all ages and I think I'm still straight. And the fact that it's a children's show, how does that imply pedophilia exactly?  Do you think maybe Bronies are just cultivating knowledge of the show so they can lure our daughters off the playground with MLP trivia? 

Give me a break.

When we put our misguided assumptions aside and ask Bronies what they like about the show, we get answers that make actual sense. That's the awesome thing about these guys. It would be easy for them to hide their love of the show and avoid ridicule but they don't. They own up to it, like champions. They are more than happy to tell you why they love the show, and guess what? It has nothing to do with sex.

It turns out Bronies like MLP for the same reason anyone likes any TV show. They like aesthetic of show. They relate to the characters. They enjoy the writing. Some even say that the show's morals helped them become better people.

There's a few lessons to be learned from the Bronies. The first and most important, in my opinion, is that people cannot help what they like. Your personal preferences were forged by genetics and environmental pressures. You had no hand in deciding your biology, nor did you handpick your parents or the way they brought you up. Much of who and what you are was decided for you before you were born; yet more of your personality was assembled during the formative years of your childhood through social interaction with a bunch of other kids who likewise had no say in their biology or upbringing. You cannot predict nor control what music, TV show, food, book, or movie will appeal to you.

Your likes and dislikes are a key part of your individuality so you'd think that, in a society like ours that supposedly values individualism, the Brony phenomenon would be encouraged, celebrated even. Don't teachers and parents tell kids to "be themselves," that people should "like them for who they are?" I think it might be best for future generations if we add a caveat to this cliche: "Be yourself unless it crosses some vague social norm, in which case too bad for you, be like everyone else."

You may be asking yourself, "Is Oscar Bellevue a Brony? Is that why he's getting so worked up about this? Has he been mocked for his love of Rainbow Dash?"

The reason this topic gets me fired up is because it applies to everyone. If you've ever had to hide some aspect of yourself simply because it contravened social norms; if you were or still are "in the closet;" if you've ever been mocked or ridiculed for liking something that isn't mainstream; if you've had to mask your opinion on a topic because it was novel or unique; then you understand the plight of the Bronies.

Rather than ostracize people who break harmless social norms we should be celebrating their willingness to do what parents and teachers have been telling us to do for years: be themselves.

You were forged by a unique cocktail of genetics and environmental pressures. Your likes and dislikes are a byproduct of this. If something speaks to you, brings joy to your heart, and harms no one else in the process, then I say put your back into it, my friend. Go hard. I support you and am your ally. Call on me whenever you need help and I will stand up for you and defend your right to watch My Little Pony or listen to One Direction or whatever it is that puts you on the outskirts of the mainstream.

Don't hide what you are from the world. Don't be afraid of ridicule or mockery or losing a few fair-weather friends. If they can't get over the fact that you're into Hello Kitty or enjoy cross-dressing on weekends or whatever your thing happens to be, then forget those friends. You don't need them and I daresay they were never really your friends to begin with.

Bronies found each other. Whatever your preference, I can guarantee you're not alone.

/rant over

Edwin Hubble

Circling earth's orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope is humanity's unblinking eye to the cosmos. It allows us to peer deep into the universe to the very dawn of time and helps us resolve long-standing problems in astronomy. It also helped confirm several theories put forth by the man after whom the telescope is named, Edwin P. Hubble.

Every once in a while a person puts forth a theory that requires us to rewrite our accepted model of the cosmos. Edwin Hubble was such a person. He made several important discoveries during his career but one in particular stands out to me as the most mind-blowing of all. It's this discovery which forced astronomers to rethink their view of the universe in a radical way.

Allow me to set the scene.

"You lookin' to party tonight, honey?"

The year is 1922. The place is Mount Wilson, California, site of the poorly-named Hooker Telescope, the world's most powerful device of its kind. At the helm of this sits Edwin Powell Hubble, a 33 year-old astronomer only five years removed from college.

Edwin wanted to be a professional astronomer since boyhood but, being a dutiful son, he fulfilled his father’s wishes and studied law instead. He was at Oxford University doing just that when he received word that his father had passed away. Upon returning home to take care of his mother, Edwin, then 25, decided to abandon law and pursue his dream. He received his PhD in 1917 after publishing his dissertation, “Photographic Investigation of Faint Nebulae,” and became an astronomer. 

In order to fully appreciate Hubble’s discovery we must first talk about the model of the universe at the time. You see back then, astronomers believed that the Milky Way galaxy was a so-called "island universe,” an island of matter surrounded by the infinite void of space.

With their pre-Hooker telescopes, astronomers observed two different types of celestial bodies: stars and faint, nebulous shapes which they called nebulae. No one knew exactly what nebulae were. The prevailing theory was that they were oddly-shaped clouds of gas or diffuse stars. They named them according to shape. The Spiral Nebula, the Eagle Nebula, and so on. It was assumed that both stars and nebulae were part of the Milky Way.

Equipped with the state-of-the-art Hooker telescope, Edwin got an unprecedented view of the heavens. As you probably guessed from the title of his dissertation, nebulae were of particular interest to him. What he discovered about them was world-shattering. According to Hubble’s calculations, the nebulae were hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of light-years away. 

In other words, nebulae could not be located within the Milky Way. 

But where else? If the Milky Way formed the entire universe, how could nebulae exist beyond its borders? Imagine Hubble's reaction as it dawned on him. Nebulae were not clouds of gas or diffuse stars as had been previously thought: they were other galaxies, like the Milky Way, only millions of light years removed, scattered across the heavens, and too numerous to count.

Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. Edwin Hubble’s universe went from being the size of the Milky Way—200 billion stars deep and nothing to scoff at—to the size of billions of Milky Ways separated by countless light-years of empty space.

It’s no surprise that Hubble’s conclusion was met with scorn or dismissed out of hand; even today people have a tough time wrapping their heads around the size and scope of the universe. If our puny minds can barely handle the scope of the universe now, imagine what people in the 1930’s thought! 

Our understanding of the universe has come a long way. We started out on a flat-earth located at the centre of all creation, then progressed to a round earth. A while later Copernicus had the gall to propose that the sun—not the earth—was at the center of the universe, which was only partially right. Finally we thought the Milky Way formed the entire universe; now we know it’s just a grain of sand, a speck of galactic dust among billions.

Whenever we think we have a handle on things someone like Edwin Hubble comes along and blows our understanding out of the water. For every difficult question we answer, we expose more questions. Hubble expanded the borders of our universe beyond the Milky Way; could future discoveries expand the universe even further? Could ours be one of many universes? 

If we learn anything from Hubble and all the other radical thinkers who dared disrupt the prevailing theories of their time, it’s that we don’t know much and what we do know is subject to change drastically and with little warning. 

We may never fully understand the nature of the universe, reality, human consciousness, etc. All we can ever hope for, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, is an ever-improving understanding, not a perfect one. 

Edwin Hubble’s contributions helped advance human understanding one huge step forward.

Thanks Ed!

Answer Every Question

The skeptic says we should question everything and take nothing for granted but that isn't a practical way to live life, now is it? One can't go on questioning everything. One must accept some ideas as fact. If one rejects all knowledge as potentially false then one has no foundation on which to stand.

The pure skeptic is lost at sea. He knows not whether ship or shore is nearby, nor whether sharks lurk just beneath his toes. For that matter, he knows not whether such things even exist. All he knows is  the sea, an endless expanse of grey waves. 

This isn't to say we shouldn't approach certain ideas skeptically. It's not to say we should accept all knowledge as accurate without scrutiny. But if you have approached an idea critically and it has not given you any reason to question, why pursue the issue any further?

Instead of questioning everything, I propose we answer every question. Anytime you get asked a question for which you do not know the answer, or anytime a question pops into your head randomly, I say: go forth my disciple, and seek the answer. 

No matter how mundane the question, there is no disadvantage to finding an answer. Remember my epic three-part expose on intellectual commodities? Ideas are valuable in and of themselves. They are the ethereal foundation of our physical existence. Every human-made item and structure you see was born in the human mind as an idea. 

And since everything has to do with everything--since the universe is a complex network of interdependent parts--even trivial knowledge can prove useful. The more data you collect, the easier it is for you to draw parallels and connect seemingly different ideas and concepts together. This kind of mental networking is extremely useful. It can give you insight on otherwise foreign concepts. It helps you think on your toes. 

Plus there's no harm in cramming more information into your brain. There's no expiry date on data. Worst case scenario you misplace some of it in your subconscious with the rest of the stuff you learned and forgot over the years. It's not lost. Your subconscious is constantly combing through the archives in search of useful data. Inspiration, sudden insight, and vague memories all come from Great Library of You buried deep in your subconscious. The more stuff you put into the Great Library of You, the more information you can draw upon in your everyday life. 

Answering every question is a good example of a micro-transaction: It's easy to incorporate into one's life and requires little effort to maintain. 30 years ago, answering every question would've been an ordeal. You'd have to walk around with a notepad and pen, writing down all the questions you come across in your day. Then you'd have to go to the library and find some books on the topic. Then you'd have to read those books or at the very least the part of those books pertaining to your question.

Today we have the internet, an artificial super-brain accessible by millions of people instantly. The answers are at our fingertips. There is no excuse for ignorance anymore.

Give it a shot. Indulge your curiosity for it is the enemy of ignorance, and ignorance is the enemy of all.


(PS. My wife inspired me to start answering every question. She is by far the most inquisitive person I have ever met. Her steady stream of questions used to drive me crazy but then I started wondering how I could leverage her natural curiosity into something positive. If it wasn't for her and my mission to answer every question, I wouldn't know that Venus--not Mercury--is the hottest planet in our solar system, or that chickens have sex. Thanks babe!  /rant over) 

Self-improvement and Micro-transactions

Have you ever tried to improve yourself? Maybe it was a New Year’s resolution or maybe you discovered an aspect of your life that needed fixing. Either way, you decided it was time for a change.

How did it go? Were you able to stick to it and better yourself or did your commitment waver?

If you gave up, don't worry: you’re in good company. Turns out, most people suck at sticking to their resolutions. Which begs the question: why is self-improvement such a struggle? Why do distractions and excuses inevitably steer us away from the path leading to our better self? Do we lack discipline? Are we lazy? Is it true that people simply cannot change?

In The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield describes a force which "obstructs movement from a lower sphere to a higher." According to Pressfield, this force "kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a high station morally, ethically, or spiritually."

A nice overview of Pressfield's book, for anyone interested

Pressfield calls this force Resistance and while his book is aimed largely at the plight of the artist, its principles apply equally to the pursuit of self-improvement. When we try to evolve, to grow, to become better people, Resistance rises to meet us. But where does it come from?

"Resistance is not a peripheral opponent," Pressfield says. "Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within."

Resistance employs many tricks when derailing our plans for self-improvement but there is one in particular which I find fascinating: "Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion.”

By pushing us to go overboard, to go from nothing to everything at a moment's notice, Resistance is setting us up to fail. It knows that abrupt and radical changes are unsustainable so it convinces us that there is no other way to change. It scoffs at moderation, tells us we need to do more, faster, and harder,  or else. 

Don’t listen to Resistance. Change can't be enacted in broad strokes; it must be assimilated piecemeal, little by little.

Self-improvement is a transaction: you invest time, resources, and effort in order to enact change. The bigger the change, the bigger the investment required; the bigger the investment, the harder it is to sustain over a long period of time. 

Instead of setting lofty goals for yourself, start small. 

Think micro-transactions.

Whatever your goal—to lose 20 pounds, quit cigarettes, learn to control your temper—break it down into a series of small, manageable goals and spread them out over a long period of time.

Be patient. You don't have to lose 20 pounds or quit smoking or master your temper right away; in fact, if you try to rush it, you’ll probably fail.

Enacting positive changes in oneself requires planning, effort, and repetition. It requires time and patience. It also requires a rational mind.

For example: don't start a new diet after a month of holiday gluttony; instead, start by improving one facet of your diet. Don't buy a gym membership if you haven't worked out for a year: instead, start with brisk walks or light jogging. 

Ease yourself into change.

By setting realistic goals, you increase your likelihood of success. By making small changes to your life, you trick yourself into thinking you're not changing anything at all. Self-improvement stops feeling like work. Focus on one simple goal at a time; once you crush it, set another goal in your sights and crush that one too.

Self-improvement feeds on itself. The more you improve yourself, the easier it becomes to improve yourself. The little changes add up. They creep up on you. You go months without noticing any change at all; then you step on the scale and can't believe the number. You realize you haven’t lost your temper in weeks. You can't remember the last time you felt stressed or down in the dumps.

Warning: micro-transactions are slow to yield results initially so it's crucial that you acknowledge your progress, not matter how minor. You have to pay attention and give yourself props anytime you notice a change, no matter how small. Otherwise you'll get discouraged and Resistance will start whispering in your ear again. 

Lost a pound? Be proud of yourself.  Smoking one pack a week instead of two? Celebrate. Seriously. Acknowledging success fuels your motivation. These little victories are a preview of things to come. They're street signs pointing you in the right direction. 

And remember: if you fail, don't dwell on it or let it get you down. The only true failure in life is not learning from your failures. Find the lesson hidden in your setback, adjust, and get back on that horse.

/rant over