Calculated vs Central Self, part 2.

I said in last week's post that there were several implications to discuss from the calculated/central self theory. However, it has been a full week since I wrote about this, so I'm pulling a paragraph from that post to get us all back on the same page.

"The Art of Possibility says that there are two versions of a person called the central self and the calculated self. Everyone seems to assume that the central self is obvious to us, which is probably a discussion for another post. But the interesting theory in The Art of Possibility is that the calculated self is created as a result of childhood survival strategies. My understanding of the theory is that each child survives by figuring out how to get what they need to feel safe. These strategies are the foundation of personality and, particularly, for stress response behaviors. If you take a look at those last 2 sentences, they implications are fairly astounding."

Last week, I looked at this in terms of work culture and environment where many people join to create a whole, but that is only one area of application. If this theory is correct, then it should play out for the individual as well. And that is where I'm struggling with the concept. If, as the theory states, our personalities are formed by the survival strategies that we developed in childhood, then how do we ever learn to be adults?

Let's assume that, for me personally, my childhood survival strategy was to smooth things out as much as possible. I created a safe place for myself by ensuring that there were no bumps in the road to create stress for anyone else. Then a career as a professional optimizer would make sense for me. But how did I learn to change the "child fixer" behavior to "adult fixer"? Is it just a matter of learning new skills in line with a personality that was created many years ago?

And what does it mean if I decide that I'm really a designer and not a fixer/optimizer. Does that mean that the personality I developed as a child is being overwritten? Is it possible to develop a new version of personality based on adult understandings? Or is this an example of finding some element of my "central self"?

As you can see, I have more questions than answers. As always, I rather like this phase of the process. I have some more moodling to do on the subject before I get any useful output, I suspect. And, of course, this is all seen from my point of view (5'4 - a little taller in heels). Other perspectives (oh, ADAW) are welcome!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog...

MoMA - Richard Serra inside out


















Breakfast with new purse


















At the Met - Egyptian things that we have never seen!












Glass and reflections.


















Sympathetic strings (the baryton)















The intrepid shoe shoppers


















Friday night at Radio City Music Hall

Seeing the forest

I'm still in the midst of Stumbling on Happiness , so it is coloring just about everything that I see these days. At this point in the book, Daniel Gilbert has explained how our brain works when using imaginary input as opposed to external input. So, for example, you can't look at an ostrich and tell someone whether a penguin has longer flippers than feet. He refers to this as the "Reality First" principal. When your brain is processing visual data, you can't give it imaginary visual data to process as well.

He goes on to show that this also works for emotional information - like how we feel about our lives or futures. He quotes a study where people were asked to think about how satisified they were with their lives. The results turned out to be depent on how nice the weather was in their city that day! In other words, even when imagining just general life happiness, the Reality First principal overlaid most people's entire lives with that day's weather.

On some level, I think that most of us are aware of this. But you can see how well that works in the picture of the cello above. Though I could clearly see the shine of the cello in low light through the tree fronds, the camera didn't really get it. In the same way, I often forget that no matter how clearly I believe my vision to be, the factors that are not my focus can still impact the clarity of my picture.

I know myself well enough to realize that my own mental imagery is clouded in another way. I have a fascination with details. I can't even guess how much time I spent playing with different perspectives like this on Friday night. Suffice it to say that the hosting of our benefit coffee shop was largely left up to the rest of the band for long stretches of time. This can be a very useful skill at times - when given a "big picture", I can always find the pieces that I can do to advance that picture along - but it also means that I can get caught in a point of view that doesn't make much sense.

As always, I see an analogy in all of this. There are a number of factors, in my 9-5 (as if!) life, that are darkening my perspective on a job that I, for the most part, enjoy. I am slowly eliminating them in my "one piece at at time" way, so that I can lighten up my perspective.

In the big picture, this year is buying me and mine a good future. It will give us more control over the hows and whats that will impact the next stage of our lives. As HTH will tell you, the more controls that we have to play with, the better! Which is why, of course, he has a 20 channel board for a 9 channel band....

Looking at the mullygrubs

I have a long standing habit of analysis. I'm sure that the roots are fairly far back in my childhood, but they have been fed and watered by both work and personal habits of many years. AD says that I'm part spider. I pick up pieces that don't seem to be related and then build the web between them. I'm a pattern weaver. I see analogies everywhere.

When I'm tired, stressed, overextended or (my personal favorite) all three, I forget that this point of view is very useful. My perspective gets colored by negative emotions or I start to focus on the darker parts of the picture. In the shadows, life can get fairly confusing for me. I tend to lose my center. Fortunately, something always triggers my pattern weaving brain and then the light comes on again. In this case, very literally.

HTH (the T is for thoughtful this time) came home with this plant this weekend. He told me that the flowers were called mullygrubs. Since they neglected to label the plant at the store, he figured that he could call them whatever he wanted, so mullygrubs they shall remain. The plant is lovely and, fortunately, low maintenance. I put it on the kitchen table until late Sunday afternoon when the sun shining through a window completely illuminated them.

As I was taking pictures it occurred to me, once again, that life really is a matter of perspective and focus. In the top picture, the mullygrubs fill the screen and almost completely block out the light. It is hard to even see the flowers. In this one just above, the focus is on the long shadow. The plant and the flowers are secondary. As I'm sure you will not be surprised to hear, I have been looking at my work life in this way for most of the last month.

I've allowed my self imposed stress and emotional responses to distract me from the small beauties of what is there. So, just as I did with the camera here, I'm trying to walk around to the other side and see what I can find. There are a lot of little flowers and the potential for even more. The sunlight puts a nice, fuzzy glow on everything. When I'm focusing properly, I see life and light. After all, it is MY world view. It really is all in my head. I cannot control the circumstances at work, but I can choose how I see them.

Taking a step back even further, the big picture is also quite pretty. This little plant is growing so well that it almost needs a new pot. With the bright, glossy leaves, it will still be inviting even when the flowers are gone. Yes, there are still shadows and there really isn't as much light as I would like, but there is a lot of healthy green and beautiful color. This job - OK, every job - is much the same way.

I can't be sure how this plant will fare in the coming weeks. Some of its health will be impacted by where it came from and how well it traveled before it came into my kitchen. I may not remember to water it properly. I may work my way around to the dark side again (yes, AD, you can add a Star Wars comment here) before I realize what I've done. Posting this is, in part, a way to remind myself of those things.

But, thanks to HTH and a few little flowers, I'm working on my perspective again. He was certainly right about one thing: if I have to have mullygrubs, the best ones to have are the kind that are pretty enough to get me right out of them!

Different Light

As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce our operating expenses, we have been replacing our burnt out incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. They use less energy and generate less heat - which is extremely important here in AZ. We had 3 bulbs out in the bedroom and really needed more light in the hallway, so we picked up some CFLs this weekend. To my surprise, there are now 3 different colors of CFL light. We bought some of each, so that we could try them out.

The light from each of them is very different. I put a daylight bulb in my closet, a bright white bulb in the hall, and two soft white bulbs in the bedroom fixture. I was struck by how much this changed my perspective. I didn’t recognize the clothes in my closet anymore. I kept turning on the light just to look at things.

Arizona Sunshine and 60 watt Daylight CFL

100 W Bright White CFL and 2 60 W Soft White CFLs

I thoroughly enjoy moments like this - the random entry of a means that, literally or figuratively, cast my regular environment in a different light. It jolts me out of my routine just enough that I can’t quite form a rut. AD refers to this as my childlike sense of wonder. I think I just need small bits of everyday delight to get me through the week. This time, it just took changing a few light bulbs!