A Theoretical Preamble:
Welcome back.
I’d like to begin by inviting you to join me in a little thought experiment.
Despite all the complex, nuanced ideas about life you’ve accumulated over years of experience, observation, and reflection, I’d like your permission to talk about it in simplistic, reductive language – provisionally, for the sake of making a point.
We can agree right now that life is indeed more complex that the conversation we’re about to have,
But we agree to shrink life to the size of a framework for the next few minutes for the sake of, ironically, expanding our range of options in the real world.
Why am I speaking in this strange way?
Because this is how the process of thinking works: suspending not disbelief but objections and appeals to irreducible complexity:
Yes, life is complicated. Yes, there is too much information that we don’t have for us to ever be sure,
And no, that is not an excuse for inaction and failing to develop a philosophy about life that governs you.
Growing in intellectual capacity means frequently shrinking life to the size of a single framework so that you can learn it, apply it, and confirm its uses and limitations for yourself.
Do this a few hundred times over a 10 year period and you will be a beacon of wisdom.
Today’s Framework:
Positive Feedback Loops.
Let’s begin with a definition,
and then follow that with some brief examples of how they can be used both for good and for ill,
and then, the real gem for today, how to use the philosophy of Epicurus to regulate and, when necessary, break positive feedback loops in order to maximize your personal well-being.
Firstly, what is a feedback loop?
The shortest definition is to say that a feedback loop occurs when outputs are used as inputs.
Have you ever held a live microphone, and suddenly heard a loud squealing sound? That’s feedback. The microphone is picking up sound (inputs) that are then being amplified through the speakers (outputs) – feedback is when the microphone is picking up sound from the speakers. This creates a continuous loop, causing the sound to lose control quickly.
(Normally, there is no loop at all: only the unamplified voice goes into the microphone and through the speakers – a straight line, or process that is begun anew with each word spoken into the mic.)
Here’s the kernel of wisdom to take from this: when the rate of a process accelerates over time, it’s often an example of a positive feedback loop.
The chemical reactions involved in blood clotting, apples ripening, labor contractions, the greenhouse effect – these are all positive feedback loops: the longer it goes on, the faster the effects multiply.
Not everything is like this: it’s not true that the longer I run the longer I want to run, or that the more I eat the more I want to eat: I get tired, or full, and I stop.
What are healthy feedback loops?
Some feedback loops are good!
The more information I have about a topic, the more interested I am in it: my questions become more specific, the gaps in my knowledge more frustrating, and the drive to complete the picture intensifies. I say this is a virtuous cycle.
Creative expression is a positive feedback loop: the more you explore different ideas, the more it takes for an idea to feel different: the more I write articles, or songs, or improvise and perform with my band, the more ideas I have, and the more quickly they come to me. Positive feedback.
Relationships are positive feedback loops. If you like someone, and you start spending time with them, that eventually bonds you to them to the point that being apart feels abnormal. Friendships, romantic relationships, creative collaborations; all driven by positive feedback.
A more general term for this might just be momentum.
When are positive feedback loops bad for you?
Don’t let the word “positive” fool you: think of it more like “uncontrollable increase.” That sounds a lot scarier, and, sometimes, that’s appropriate.
Addictions create positive feedback loops: using substances to cope with the shitty feelings following the high.
Lying creates positive feedback loops: it’s really hard to answer a probing question about a lie without having to create a brand new lie, and a bunch of lies now create a huge liability for you, requiring even more lies to conceal them. If you want a profound meditation on the uncontrollable spiraling effect of lies, watch the television series Sons of Anarchy.
The biggest positive feedback loop of all, however, is the loop of social norms:
Why do I need an iPhone? Because everyone else has one. So, the more people use them, the more pressure there is on everyone else to use them.
Can you be the one person in your company who doesn’t have slack on his or her phone?
Can you be the one person using public transit when everyone else is driving or using Uber?
Can you be the only athlete who isn’t using steroids when all of your competition is?
Positive feedback loops can drive curiosity, exploration, refinement, innovation and creativity.
They can also normalize unhealthy behaviors, attitudes, and delusions: giving things a foothold when they should have been staunchly opposed from the beginning. Everything insidious, everything that exploits half-truths, exploits our aversion to conflict, our desire to be seen as open-minded and tolerant, or keeping up with the times – depends on positive feedback loops.
For those looking to break out of the loop, the echo chamber, the confirmation bias, the vicious cycle, and tribalistic group think, let me now refer you to the 4th century Greek philosopher Epicurus.
Epicurus lived in Ancient Athens, and founded a commune organized around his ideas. He valued simplicity, productive activity, and friendship. He saw that doing things brought more happiness than having things.
While Epicureanism has never become a widespread movement, it, like its cousin Stoicism, distills timeless insights into compact, pithy maxims.
Of the 40 doctrines of Epicurus, I believe I can offer one, the 21st, that summarizes his philosophy as well as reading them all:
“He who has learned the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain due to want and makes the whole of life complete is easy to obtain: so that there is no need of actions which involve competition.”
Let me paraphrase: it’s easy to have enough. What’s not easy is to have more than someone else (or everyone else).
To “learn the limits of life” is to understand that your limits are set by your body’s needs, not society. Not the perceived competition. It means understanding that if you are not suffering from privation (“the pain due to want”), you don’t actually need any more of it, whatever it is.
So, let me just speak to you from this mindset for a few moments:
Is your body starving, or does a sense of social standing (competition, driven by positive feedback loops) make you feel diminished because you can’t afford to eat at that restaurant?
Are you really so unhappy with your job, your pay, your home, and your lifestyle, or do you feel less than others who appear to have more?
Do you try to be someone you’re not, holding up an illusory facade, while concealing, neglecting, and devaluing the person that you really are, all because you think this is necessary to present yourself to others?
In short: are your activities guided by your needs, or the need for mimicry?
See what happens when you take Epicurus’ words to heart: “that which makes the whole of life complete is easy to obtain.” Realize that “good enough” is real, and represents a standard that originates from within yourself, whereas “the best” only has meaning in comparison to others.
Let me phrase it another way so that “good enough” seems less like resignation, and “the best” seems more ridiculous:
The goal of being happy versus the goal of being the happiest.
“Good enough” is not for those unfit for the best: it is for those with an internal locus of self worth.
Let something be good enough for it to cease to be a source of preoccupation: if you’re strained from having too little, or stressed from having more than you can manage, this is not what you want.
You want the amount that allows you to forget about it: neither starving nor stuffed.
The point is that YOU are the source of that limit, no one else.
Where do we go from here?
In all things, be the one who chooses. Choose the areas in your life that you wish to pursue to the ends of the earth, and choose the ones to leave at the level of good enough.
I know what lights me up, and what pains me to fall behind on. I know the things I’m simply maintaining as constants, and I know the things I don’t really care about very much at all. And, that evolves over time! It should evolve. It’s good to evolve. But make it a conversation with yourself. Be conscious of it, intentional about it. Don’t be swept up in the perceived expectations of others, what psychologists call “introjection.”
Recognize that it takes so little to supply you with your real needs, and just about everything else after that can be chalked up to social norms. Don’t be led by the nose by them, and don’t childishly rebel against them, but look at them, and choose for yourself.
And choose well. Even beautifully.
Thank you for reading. Talk to you soon.
-Jas
Make Beautiful Choices 