3IT--May 3

The "Stop This Train I Can't Get Off" Edition

In his famous analysis of modern life, Future Shock, Alvin Toffler compellingly describes how the increasing velocity of change in our world can cause a disillusioned emotional stasis, an inability to adapt to change often coupled with a desire to return to the past.¹ Published in 1970(!), the book absolutely applies to our situation today, though the rate of change has, as Toffler would predict, only increased. In talking to others, I hear similar challenges, like struggles to focus or adapt or keep up with things…perhaps not true “Future Shock” but certainly mini-episodes of feeling like Lucy and Ethel on that candy assembly line.

Last week’s 3IT was about being in flow. Writing that and reading Toffler² has me thinking about my recent struggles to find focus. I can still get there, though it’s often harder and of shorter duration. I’m not fully into Lucy/Ethel mode, nor am I grappling with a crippling inability to adapt to change, but there certainly exists a misalignment with how I want to be thinking and my mental environment.

Some of it’s due to 14 straight months of working from home, and maybe delayed quarantine madness, or even just simple #springtime. But mostly it’s also about managing an overabundance of choices, inputs, opportunities, calls for attention, distractions, amusements, etc. Since it’s impossible to turn off the cultural spigot, we are left with controlling our own response and exposure…and that’s hard.

So, here are three interesting things about how our brains make it challenging to simplify. Maybe understanding that better can help us improve how we select and focus our endeavors.

1) With so much of our lives focused on adding MORE to every equation, it can be easy to forget the good old 180 degree twist to making LESS the priority. In fact, it’s actually one of our cognitive biases; this article from Scientific American explains how our brains struggle to employ subtraction to help solve problems. 

2) 18 years ago The Paradox of Choice made a compelling case that more choices do not guarantee greater satisfaction, yet we still avidly persist in compounding our options (I currently have 23 open tabs in my web browser, as an example.) But making choices comes at a cognitive cost, as Discover Magazine explains, so maybe “satisficing” and opting out of the maximizing race can be a good thing.

3) We humans are nonstop “lumpers,” constantly putting ideas and objects into meaningful and like categories. It’s a key component to conscious thought, fueling our ability to learn, prioritize and focus. But as we’ve been discussing here, it’s easy for that system to become overloaded or for our cognitive biases to distort the process. This piece from Behavioral Scientist dives deeper into lumping and provides some thoughts on how to better facilitate this human super power.

BONUS LINKS!!!

B1) The next time you look out at your yard during a Zoom call (or ideally, actually spend physical time in nature), I urge you to stop for a second and think about what’s not visible, all the hidden forms of competition, cohabitation and collaboration going on, like how trees communicate via their roots.

B2) Our entertainment media is full of guns, and even though the weapons may be the real thing, the dramatization of their effects is worse than fiction, which you will learn after reading this poignant, informative and heart-rendering profile of a Philadelphia ER trauma surgeon.

B3) Toffler’s book also gave rise to one of Funk’s best moments, Curtis Mayfield’s song of the same name, here performed on the legendary Soul Train.

1. He terms it a “shattering stress and disorientation”.

2. I use the term “reading” liberally here. I get through 2-3 pages a night before falling asleep…it’s a most effective soporific.