Stumbling on Happiness
A tendency I have, for better or worse, is to tell my friends about whatever I am reading if I find it exceptionally significant. Recently, I have read three books which are highly complementary and illuminating: Social Intelligence by Harvard Neuropsychologist Daniel Goleman, Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships by Buddhist Psychotherapist John Wellwood and the book which gives this blog entry its title, Stumbling on Happiness by Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert. (BTW, here is Gilbert's own blog, which is fascinating and wonderfully written:
http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/blog/)
What I love about the Goleman and Gilbert books in particular is they lay out meticulous research and data to support a lot of what makes intuitive sense. I could spend a blog on each one, but for the Goleman and Wellwood, will simply urge you to check them out, in that order. Then move to this one:
Stumbling on Happiness basically comes from the premise that Humans are the only species that remembers the past, thinks about the future and tries to control it. This is where are our pain and beauty and utter folly comes from. I have often been reluctant to predict the future, and have had close friends ask me what I think will be happening x months from now, do I see myself here, do I see them there, and I always answer I just don't know. I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about the future, because I see it as pretty uncontrollable and unpredictable. For instance, if you had asked me 3 years ago whether I saw myself separated from my wife of a 25 year relationship, I would say absolutely not. Well, that is exactly what is happening. As John Lennon said, life is indeed what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.
Gilbert jumps off from this to say the following. There are 2 impulses for why we try to predict and control the future, both universal and one good, the other sheer folly. The first impulse is that it just makes us feel good and gives us comfort. The 2nd is that we truly think our choices affect our future happiness. Gilbert lays out in wonderful and highly entertaining prose how wrongheaded this 2nd impulse is. I won't bother laying out all the research by which he makes the case, but suffice to say that, for those whose minds are not completely immune to a different idea than the one they currently hold, it is convincing.
By the way, I don't say that last sentence lightly. Gilbert shows that almost to a man and woman, we are NOT open to ideas that contradict our own belief systems, requiring mountains of evidence if it contradicts our views, and little to none if it confirms them. Certainly the creation science debate is a good example of that. We also tend to surround ourselves with people who will confirm the rightness of our perspectives, swimming in an echo chamber of sympathetic murmurings. Tell a devout Christian that there are no contemporary accounts of a man named Jesus during the time the bible says he existed and that the story of his resurrection was a common myth at the time and, if they don't hit you, they will at least block you out. I have experienced many faith-based discussions under various guises, and past a point, there is no evidence that you can give that will sway folks from the Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap "it goes to eleven" school of reasoning, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.
W and his acolytes on Iraq is a good example of goes to eleven thinking. One can have faith-based discussions about everything from jazz to relationships to religion to basketball, and it is the rare individual who can actually be open to a point of view that contradicts their faith. My therapist calls it magical thinking. The dressing up of utterly illogical and irrational views in the garb of science or pseudo-science. Whether it is something as benign as someone continuing to insist that echinacea cures colds, even in the face of a massive 10 year double blind study, or as ominous as asserting that being gay is a choice despite all the evidence to the contrary, faith-based truly permeates our interactions, both on a personal and a global level. Our ability to step outside our prison of subjectivity and see another perspective at odds with our own decreases, the closer the matter is to our heart, and when it comes to relationships ranges from mediocre to nonexistent. I am working on mediocrity!
Gilbert also says we tend to view the same actions by ourselves in a very different light than the same actions by another individual. We view ourselves as unique, special, for better or worse, though the commonalities among us are far more than we would like to think. So if I am delayed 10 minutes in meeting a friend, it is unavoidable, no ill intent, terrible traffic, I did my best, he should just relax. If my friend is 10 minutes late, he is a selfish and inconsiderate bastard who is inconveniencing me, perhaps deliberately. We give ourselves the benefit of doubt for an action we find unacceptable in others. Generally, we see ourselves as exceptional, for better or worse, than the general populace, and tend to surround ourselves with people who will confirm either of those traits.
Perhaps the most fascinating phenomenon Gilbert talks about is something he dubs presentism. He discusses how when we imagine the future or remember the past, it looks uncannily like the present. We all remember those Star trek episodes from the 60s where the women are all dressed like, well 1960s go go dancers. That is an example of presentism. Look at 1950s drawings of the future and it is hilarious to see no blacks, latinos, gays, no cell phones, laptops, etc...
There is also the phenomenon of picking and choosing since our memories are falsified repaintings, broad brush strokes reimagined, which also applies to how we remember everything from relationships to vacations. Our minds are utterly incapable of recording and remembering what actually happened. Not only don't we have the storage space, but the way our neurons work doesn't hold the actual memories at all. The chemical soup that is our brain actually invents a new memory each time, based on the most searing experiences from our sense memory. Imagine an enormous game of telephone where the story comes back to you from 1000 voices away. That is how we remember. Gilbert talks about how we describe a particular family vacation as truly wonderful because the first or last thing that happens is what we recall. Say the last thing was a magnificent dinner in a palm-treed courtyard on the Mexican Pacific Coast, we may forget the noisy party or the diarrhea or the big fight with the wife, and when we recall that vacation years later, we will remember it fondly, based on that great last dinner.
Conversely, we can be in an intense romantic relationship with a majority of wonderful and delicious peak moments, but if the last thing that happens in that relationship is a bad experience, we will sometimes view the whole relationship through that prism and assume that it was and will always be that way. And here is where presentism comes in, and this is very much what I am trying to get past in my life. One of the benefits about being like me and not spending a lot of time dwelling in the past or trying to imagine the future is that you tend to be more in the present moment. However, if I am going through a rough relationship patch, which, frankly, I am right now (no self pity here, it happens to all of us, and I have been far more fortunate than most of the folks I know, but I also don't want to deny it), it is hard for me to imagine a future that looks much different than the present. This goes for the good moments, too.
This is where Gilbert's thesis is so important. Humans are so utterly flawed and mistaken in their prediction of the future, because they project a future that looks amazingly like the present and is informed by their completely flawed recall of the past.
Gilbert says this: We believe that we are the best predictors of how our choices will inform our future happiness, and this is where we go so terribly off the track. Far better, he proves, to ask even a random stranger who is going through the experience we may go through what they feel at that moment. Seems counter-intuitive, but the evidence he presents is awfully convincing.
I do believe our biggest challenge is to accept the moment we are in, fully experience it, but not try to control it or assume it will always be this way. The Buddhists were right that change is the only constant, but it never stops us from trying to control an unknowable future by making choices based on a misremembered past and an utterly transient present. The strong likelihood is the future will look far far different than we imagine, and our attempts to control it are misguided at best. Far better to experience where we are, without trying to steer it through our Daliesque recall of the past or Star Trekkish projections of the future.
When I look back on my important relationships, I know there were many many good and bad moments, and no one incident defines the experience. Perhaps this is the blessing of being a jazz player (oh yeah, it is a jazz blog after all) who doesn't plug in worked out licks. There is at least one arena in my life where I can be truly present in the moment. The only solo I think about is the one I am taking. I can't go into a gig and remember that the last time we played this tune the drummer turned the time around so I am not going to play with that drummer again. By the same token, I can't assume that, because we had a peak experience on the tune it will be that way again. All I can do is be in the moment with that drummer and remember that on balance, I love playing with him. If I refuse to play with him again because our last gig was a bad one, I am cutting myself off from a beautiful musical relationship.
By the same thinking, I am trying very hard to look at relationships in full. Every relationship has bad tunes or even bad gigs, but it is the saddest form of presentism to assume, because the last gig was a bad one, that they will all be that way. It's when the majority of gigs are not fun you have to look at making some changes. I don't want to stop playing with someone because the last gig was a bad one, if the gigs have been mainly great.
If we could only treat each other like we treat jazz gigs, we'd be better off. I, for one, want to do that. I'm off for now, stumbling towards happiness.
http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/blog/)
What I love about the Goleman and Gilbert books in particular is they lay out meticulous research and data to support a lot of what makes intuitive sense. I could spend a blog on each one, but for the Goleman and Wellwood, will simply urge you to check them out, in that order. Then move to this one:
Stumbling on Happiness basically comes from the premise that Humans are the only species that remembers the past, thinks about the future and tries to control it. This is where are our pain and beauty and utter folly comes from. I have often been reluctant to predict the future, and have had close friends ask me what I think will be happening x months from now, do I see myself here, do I see them there, and I always answer I just don't know. I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about the future, because I see it as pretty uncontrollable and unpredictable. For instance, if you had asked me 3 years ago whether I saw myself separated from my wife of a 25 year relationship, I would say absolutely not. Well, that is exactly what is happening. As John Lennon said, life is indeed what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.
Gilbert jumps off from this to say the following. There are 2 impulses for why we try to predict and control the future, both universal and one good, the other sheer folly. The first impulse is that it just makes us feel good and gives us comfort. The 2nd is that we truly think our choices affect our future happiness. Gilbert lays out in wonderful and highly entertaining prose how wrongheaded this 2nd impulse is. I won't bother laying out all the research by which he makes the case, but suffice to say that, for those whose minds are not completely immune to a different idea than the one they currently hold, it is convincing.
By the way, I don't say that last sentence lightly. Gilbert shows that almost to a man and woman, we are NOT open to ideas that contradict our own belief systems, requiring mountains of evidence if it contradicts our views, and little to none if it confirms them. Certainly the creation science debate is a good example of that. We also tend to surround ourselves with people who will confirm the rightness of our perspectives, swimming in an echo chamber of sympathetic murmurings. Tell a devout Christian that there are no contemporary accounts of a man named Jesus during the time the bible says he existed and that the story of his resurrection was a common myth at the time and, if they don't hit you, they will at least block you out. I have experienced many faith-based discussions under various guises, and past a point, there is no evidence that you can give that will sway folks from the Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap "it goes to eleven" school of reasoning, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.
W and his acolytes on Iraq is a good example of goes to eleven thinking. One can have faith-based discussions about everything from jazz to relationships to religion to basketball, and it is the rare individual who can actually be open to a point of view that contradicts their faith. My therapist calls it magical thinking. The dressing up of utterly illogical and irrational views in the garb of science or pseudo-science. Whether it is something as benign as someone continuing to insist that echinacea cures colds, even in the face of a massive 10 year double blind study, or as ominous as asserting that being gay is a choice despite all the evidence to the contrary, faith-based truly permeates our interactions, both on a personal and a global level. Our ability to step outside our prison of subjectivity and see another perspective at odds with our own decreases, the closer the matter is to our heart, and when it comes to relationships ranges from mediocre to nonexistent. I am working on mediocrity!
Gilbert also says we tend to view the same actions by ourselves in a very different light than the same actions by another individual. We view ourselves as unique, special, for better or worse, though the commonalities among us are far more than we would like to think. So if I am delayed 10 minutes in meeting a friend, it is unavoidable, no ill intent, terrible traffic, I did my best, he should just relax. If my friend is 10 minutes late, he is a selfish and inconsiderate bastard who is inconveniencing me, perhaps deliberately. We give ourselves the benefit of doubt for an action we find unacceptable in others. Generally, we see ourselves as exceptional, for better or worse, than the general populace, and tend to surround ourselves with people who will confirm either of those traits.
Perhaps the most fascinating phenomenon Gilbert talks about is something he dubs presentism. He discusses how when we imagine the future or remember the past, it looks uncannily like the present. We all remember those Star trek episodes from the 60s where the women are all dressed like, well 1960s go go dancers. That is an example of presentism. Look at 1950s drawings of the future and it is hilarious to see no blacks, latinos, gays, no cell phones, laptops, etc...
There is also the phenomenon of picking and choosing since our memories are falsified repaintings, broad brush strokes reimagined, which also applies to how we remember everything from relationships to vacations. Our minds are utterly incapable of recording and remembering what actually happened. Not only don't we have the storage space, but the way our neurons work doesn't hold the actual memories at all. The chemical soup that is our brain actually invents a new memory each time, based on the most searing experiences from our sense memory. Imagine an enormous game of telephone where the story comes back to you from 1000 voices away. That is how we remember. Gilbert talks about how we describe a particular family vacation as truly wonderful because the first or last thing that happens is what we recall. Say the last thing was a magnificent dinner in a palm-treed courtyard on the Mexican Pacific Coast, we may forget the noisy party or the diarrhea or the big fight with the wife, and when we recall that vacation years later, we will remember it fondly, based on that great last dinner.
Conversely, we can be in an intense romantic relationship with a majority of wonderful and delicious peak moments, but if the last thing that happens in that relationship is a bad experience, we will sometimes view the whole relationship through that prism and assume that it was and will always be that way. And here is where presentism comes in, and this is very much what I am trying to get past in my life. One of the benefits about being like me and not spending a lot of time dwelling in the past or trying to imagine the future is that you tend to be more in the present moment. However, if I am going through a rough relationship patch, which, frankly, I am right now (no self pity here, it happens to all of us, and I have been far more fortunate than most of the folks I know, but I also don't want to deny it), it is hard for me to imagine a future that looks much different than the present. This goes for the good moments, too.
This is where Gilbert's thesis is so important. Humans are so utterly flawed and mistaken in their prediction of the future, because they project a future that looks amazingly like the present and is informed by their completely flawed recall of the past.
Gilbert says this: We believe that we are the best predictors of how our choices will inform our future happiness, and this is where we go so terribly off the track. Far better, he proves, to ask even a random stranger who is going through the experience we may go through what they feel at that moment. Seems counter-intuitive, but the evidence he presents is awfully convincing.
I do believe our biggest challenge is to accept the moment we are in, fully experience it, but not try to control it or assume it will always be this way. The Buddhists were right that change is the only constant, but it never stops us from trying to control an unknowable future by making choices based on a misremembered past and an utterly transient present. The strong likelihood is the future will look far far different than we imagine, and our attempts to control it are misguided at best. Far better to experience where we are, without trying to steer it through our Daliesque recall of the past or Star Trekkish projections of the future.
When I look back on my important relationships, I know there were many many good and bad moments, and no one incident defines the experience. Perhaps this is the blessing of being a jazz player (oh yeah, it is a jazz blog after all) who doesn't plug in worked out licks. There is at least one arena in my life where I can be truly present in the moment. The only solo I think about is the one I am taking. I can't go into a gig and remember that the last time we played this tune the drummer turned the time around so I am not going to play with that drummer again. By the same token, I can't assume that, because we had a peak experience on the tune it will be that way again. All I can do is be in the moment with that drummer and remember that on balance, I love playing with him. If I refuse to play with him again because our last gig was a bad one, I am cutting myself off from a beautiful musical relationship.
By the same thinking, I am trying very hard to look at relationships in full. Every relationship has bad tunes or even bad gigs, but it is the saddest form of presentism to assume, because the last gig was a bad one, that they will all be that way. It's when the majority of gigs are not fun you have to look at making some changes. I don't want to stop playing with someone because the last gig was a bad one, if the gigs have been mainly great.
If we could only treat each other like we treat jazz gigs, we'd be better off. I, for one, want to do that. I'm off for now, stumbling towards happiness.
posted by Michael Zilber at 11:46 AM
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