Celebration

One of my New Year's Resolutions from 2013 was to go to a Moth event and tell a story. When I finally prepared and went to one in December, I didn't get picked! I'm going to another Moth event tonight in Santa Monica, and the topic is "Celebration."

Here is my story:

It was my 33rd birthday. Not a landmark birthday by any means--no real reason to celebrate. Actually, I hate celebrating my birthday. I don't even like asking my friends for favors.  Asking a friend to celebrate my birthday is like asking for a particularly burdensome, lame favor.

"Hey, could you please do me a favor? Could you set aside a night to come out and celebrate me for an entire night? Just keep buying me drinks, singing songs to me out loud..."

It just feels wrong. But for whatever reason, that year a lot of my friends were asking me, "What are you doing for your birthday? Where should we go? You haven't celebrated your birthday in a few years." I almost felt guilty for not wanting to celebrate my birthday. I felt like I needed to celebrate my birthday, not for myself, but for my friends. To do them a favor.

But I couldn't think of anything. So I did what I normally do when I have a really hard problem I can't solve. I watched TV...played games...surfed the internet...took my mind off of my problem until I had procrastinated so much that I had no choice but to deal with it. One day when I was surfing online, I saw this link labeled "3D Dodgeball." It turned out to be an advertisement for Trampoline Dodgeball.

Trampoline Dodgeball is just like it sounds. Fill a room with trampolines, replace the walls with angled trampolines, and you've got a bouncy dodgeball court. In the video, I saw one guy catch a ball thrown at him, fall back into an angled wall, and ricochet up and forward so that he could throw the ball at his opponents in mid-air! I have never seen anything like it, yet I feel like I've been waiting all my life to go.

So it was decided. On my 33rd birthday I went to Jump SkyHigh with 27 of my friends. I was so pumped. We walk in and I see a huge arena filled with trampolines. To my left was a gigantic pit filled with foam, with trampolines set next to it so people could sail through the air in any orientation they want, and land in a pit of soft foam blocks. And, of course, there was the trampoline dodgeball court. Everything was just like I'd imagined it. Except for one thing.

It was filled with kids...like, 8-year olds...maybe 10.

Certainly not 33.

But we weren't going to leave. We just paid admission, darn-it! So we slowly step forward to the line for the dodgeball court. Every game, they let the first 20 people in line play. When we get in line, I hear this kid in front of me ask his friend, "Why are there so many grown-ups?!"

But we play, and it was fun...just awkward with all the kids. It's like, when you're playing football, or basketball, or soccer, unless you're a parent you don't want half of your team to be kids and half adults! It was made even more awkward because we were on trampolines. I had to make sure I didn't jump on a trampoline while a kid was on it, because when my 200-pound body hits a trampoline at one velocity, a child's 70-pound body leaves the trampoline at a much higher velocity.

So we play for a bit, and take a break and talk about how we're having fun, but it's not as fun as it could be...and we all come to a similar conclusion. First, we need to aim for the kids. Don't aim for each other, take out the kids. Once the kids are out of the way, we can shout, "clear!" and can have our real game...adults vs. adults. I'm a bit ashamed to say, that was the MOST fun. So fun. Actually, I had much more fun aiming for and taking out 8 year old children than I did later, when all the kids stopped playing on the dodgeball court and we played against each other until we were too tired to play anymore.

Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom

   One of my favorite quotes is the Serenity Prayer. Here it is in its simplest form:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

   Like many great quotes, I feel like its simplicity is deceiving.

1. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

Oh no, irreversibly on?!  I guess I can't do anything about that....

   When I think of the serenity that comes from accepting that some things are out of my control, I'm reminded of Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk in 2009. She discussed how nervous and fearful she felt to write a book after she had written Eat, Pray, Love. She said, "Everywhere I go now, people treat me like I'm doomed.  Seriously, doomed. They come up to me all worried, and say, 'Aren't you afraid ... aren't you afraid you'll never be able to top that? Aren't you afraid that you'll keep writing for your whole life, and you're never again going to create a book that anybody in the world cares about? ...at all? ...ever? ...again?!'"

   Gilbert goes on to describe many great authors and artists throughout history who, after creating great masterpieces, let the depression and pain of creating lesser works of art drag them down into dark places--sometimes even resulting in suicides. How would I live your life if I was certain that the greatest masterpiece of my entire life was behind me?  Heck, how do I live my life if I feel like I will never create a masterpiece of any sort at all?!

  Gilbert didn't turn to God. But she did turn to an intangible force. She described this force as being akin to the ancient Greek muses, who would gift man with genius or stupidity at their own whim. If she did well, she happened to be gifted with a wonderful muse during that time of her life. If she did poorly, she happened to be cursed with a really awful and untalented muse during that time of her life. She would sometimes spend her time talking to, and attempting to reason with this intangible force. Gilbert credited this belief system with restoring her sanity and curing her anxiety when she did not feel "gifted" enough. She also seemed to credit this belief system with preventing arrogance and narcissism when a person feels miraculously gifted.

   Accepting that I never had control, and maybe never will have control, over something I desperately want to change is hard. It's especially hard if that thing I want to change is under control of a person that I don't respect that much. It's also hard when I used to have more control over the thing I want to change than I do now (like my weight!). But hey, that's life. It's a waste of time and energy to worry and stress out about things that I can't influence in any way.

2. The courage to change the things I can

Oh BMO, you have never lacked courage

   Last weekend I went to an Al-Anon meeting for the first (and probably last) time. Al-Anon is an organization that is a corollary to Alcoholics Anonymous...it's essentially a support group for spouses and loved ones of alcoholics. I wanted to see if any of the members had any useful or interesting techniques to reduce anxiety when a person feels like there is a good chance that something bad will happen and also feels powerless to prevent it from happening. As I talked to various Al-Anon members, I realized that, while many of them had accepted that they didn't have the omnipotent power to change their alcoholic spouse (or father, or wife), it seemed like everyone's only mission was to accept their own powerlessness. There was this weird feeling of powerless contentment in hovering in the air that both saddened and frustrated me.

   I left the meeting frustrated. It seemed like the entire membership thought that there were only two options: try to change the alcoholic and try to change themselves. Since all the members thought they couldn't change the alcoholic, they only worked on changing themselves in a way where they would accept anything and everything that life dealt them.

   This was especially frustrating since the Al-Anon meeting started with all of the members reciting the serenity prayer. I thought to myself, "Why would a room full of people who recite and try to live by the serenity prayer embrace only the first line, and almost completely ignore the second?!" I feel like, for some people, the serenity prayer has become this mantra that they chant so that they can feel better about giving up. "That didn't work, so I need to stop trying to change things and need to just accept the cards that life has dealt me. God, grant me serenity so that I can feel better about giving up."

   I suppose it's easier to simplify things to that extent, but I think life is more complex, and I feel like a weekly meeting of frustrated peers should deal with and attack those complexities. Let's say you've learned that you can't change the alcoholic by yelling at the alcoholic or by crying in front of the alcoholic. Maybe there's a different way to talk to the alcoholic. Maybe there's a different way to look at the problem. Maybe there are some behaviors you could accept while still finding other behaviors unacceptable. Maybe a therapist get involved in a beneficial way. Maybe another loved one could get involved in a beneficial way. Maybe you help the alcoholic become more interested in non-alcoholic activities. Maybe you could walk away from a relationship with the alcoholic. Sure, there are plenty of things that you can try that won't work, but there are also plenty of things that you can try that might work. Some of those ways might even change the alcoholic for the better.

   Which is where courage comes into play. One of the reasons why it's so hard to summon courage to change the things I can change, is because there is a chance that I may fail. Heck, of course I'm going to fail most of the time if I'm trying something new! I'm doing it for the first time ever. Many times, I try over, and over, and over again until I either succeed, or I realize that, no matter how hard I try, I don't have much control over the thing I'm trying to change.

True story

  Mustering up the courage to try anything new, knowing that there's a good chance that I will fail, is pretty hard. Mustering up the courage to try something new that's important and life-changing is especially hard, because if I fail, chances are that many people that I know and care about will see me fail. And that will hurt. But if I don't muster up that courage, not only will I not succeed. I also won't gain wisdom.

3. And wisdom to know the difference

   The only way I know to gain true wisdom is to try new things, and either fail or succeed. Some people gain wisdom by reading things in books or by watching educational shows or youtube channels. I can't. I can't really learn how to do math by only watching other people do math; I learn math by doing math. I can't really learn how to spell by only reading books; I learn how to spell by writing. I only learn whether I can change something by changing it, not by studying how somebody else might have changed that same thing.

Do or Do Not.  Don't just sit on your a$$ and think about it all day.

   Regarding this issue specifically, I've gained wisdom to know the difference between the things I can change and the things I can't change by trying to change everything I can think of for the better in different ways, and then failing at changing some of those things. When I fail, I know that chances are high that I can't change that thing I was trying to change in that way. When I succeed, I know that the chances are high that I can change that thing I was trying to change in that way.

   For me, the serenity prayer is this frustrating, yet rewarding, balancing act that causes me to both try new things and also to give up on those same things. I try out new things to figure out what works so that I can maybe become a better or more effective person. I learn from my failures to figure out what doesn't work so I don't waste my time and effort. I'll sometimes gain some serenity when I realize that there are some things that just don't work. Other times I'll gain some wisdom when I learn that some farfetched idea of mine actually panned out.

   Then it all starts again, and I'll need to work up my courage in order to try something new, when I know I might fail...

A thought experiment in informal homeopathic "studies"

I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but I went on a bit of a Facebook commenting rant today on an acquaintance's post.  The post started off innocently enough:

An old classmate of mine posted a link to an article from The Daily Beast. The article was an opinion piece ranting about how frustrating it is to know that certain preventable diseases, which were on the verge of being eradicated, are now reappearing in the United States and United Kingdom because of the decrease in child vaccinations.  The author blamed the decrease in child vaccinations on the prevalent cultural fears that vaccinations are somehow more dangerous than the diseases that they help to eradicate.

I read a comment that spoke against the opinion piece, so responded by posting a comment supporting the opinion piece.  This rapidly escalated into long posts filled with multiple paragraphs arguing for and against each of our respective positions.  =/

At any rate, I found myself rehashing a common argument that I seem to repeatedly have with people who question conclusions made by prominent liberal scientists.  I'll break this argument down into its basic form here.

- I learn by repeating something over and over again until I get a predictable result.
   - That is the basis of the scientific method
- When other people double-check my work to make sure I didn't make any mistakes, my conclusions are more reliable
   - That is the basis of peer-reviewed research
- I trust peer-reviewed research more than I trust anecdotes.

Anecdotes aren't repeated in controlled environments like scientific experiments are.  Anecdotes aren't peer-reviewed for mistakes like peer-reviewed papers are.  Anecdotes are a single story told from a single point of view in an environment where a multitude of unknown factors could have influenced the result.

(on a side note, treatments like chiropractor treatments tend to lay in the middle, where practitioners learn and grow by applying the scientific method through repetition, but do not allow their work to be peer-reviewed in tightly controlled experimental environments.  Which is also highly suspect)

So here's where we differed.  I trusted doctors who cite peer-reviewed research.  The commenter didn't trust doctors because most of the well-known peer-reviewed research is paid for by pharmaceutical companies which might not have the most noble of agendas.  The commenter trusted anecdotal evidence of homeopathic treatments that he found in forums and articles on the internet.  But I don't trust anecdotal evidence of homeopathic treatments because they have not been tested in ways that I would trust.

Which got me to thinking...is there a way to crowd-source homeopathic remedy studies?  They wouldn't be as trustworthy as rigorous scientific studies performed under tightly controlled conditions.  But people who use homeopathic remedies already experiment on themselves all the time.  Websites like Livestrong and WorldHealth are chalk-full of forum posters who are all experimenting with all sorts of unregulated supplements and untested treatments.  The data is out there, and there are lots of people who would like to access that data.  If you were the type of person who preferred supplements over FDA-approved drugs, wouldn't it be great if you could see that one kind of supplement helped 250 people on a website while a different kind of supplement only helped 30 people on that same website?

Plus, if such a website showed a strong correlation between users that took a supplement and users that said that they benefitted from that supplement, that would encourage scientists to study such a supplement.  Pharmaceutical companies and PhD students alike would jump at a chance to verify such overwhelming anecdotal evidence with a formalized study in a way they would not jump at a chance to study an obscure urban legend about ginko biloba or apple cider vinegar.  After all, that's how all of the studies were spawned that proved that there is no direct causal link between vaccinations and autism.

Alas, this is yet another business idea that I'm rather unqualified for, and am too lazy and disinterested to make myself qualified for.  Donated!

Welcome to my mind

Welcome.  I've decided to start blogging again.