Avatar photoSteven Savage

The Divergence of Self

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

My friend Serdar was writing about the toxicity of nostalgia, choices, and the need to see what is in front of our nose. It’s easy to ask what could have been, to want to go back. It’s an urge I entirely understand, and one I think all humans has – as he notes, that’s just part of the planning section of our brain that’s taken us so far on Earth.

It will shock no one that the last few years I’ve wondered about what could have been – and still do. In fact, I probably do it too much, though perhaps that’s part of the human condition. Maybe that survival/planning part of our brain works best with a little unease, even moreso for a Project Manager like me. But I’d like to share an exercise I did once that puts some perspective on this desire to go back.

Once, years ago, while taking a walk, I thought about my desires to go back or start over, and turned it into an exercise – one that lengthened the walk to about an hour. I thought about the major choices in my life and asked “what if” about them and what would have happened. This was not an “if I knew then what I know now” exercise, such things are different and perhaps a little idealistic about our habits. This was “what if back then the me back them made a difference choice.”

Looking back a few years, I could easily see my decisions and likely outcomes. Many a decision in life is a knifes-edge change that could go one way or another, and the memories are fresh and merciless enough to evaluate with some level of accuracy. For instance, my current (and likely until-retirement) career in academia and medicine could have started years earlier but for some petty choices – a good reminder of my own flaws. The gap between “me” now and “me” a few years ago wasn’t so large I couldn’t relate.

As my mind traveled further back the results became colder, more distant, because the person then was not who I was now. What if I had started my consulting career earlier? What if I had not tried working at startups? What if I had moved to Seattle not California? As I rolled back the years in my head, the me of the past, even as he made different choices, became increasingly alien to the person I am now.

At some point in my replay, decades in my past when my IT career started, the me in the past diverged so much I didn’t know him. I could see the choices and possibilities in the past, but they led so far off the map in the present. At some point during this rewind I just stopped being anyone I could recognize or even guess.

Now this exercise was quite useful on many levels – perhaps I’ll write about it more in time. But also at some point you realize reliving the past and asking “what if” just doesn’t serve you. You’re different people than you were and are and could be, and at some point you have to return to what’s in front of your nose. If you’re mindful, such exercises on the past put you more in the present as you realize how you got here.

You can’t go back to who you were. Who you could have been is someone else, someone you wouldn’t recognize. But you can learn to a point about who you were to be better at who you are now.

I won’t lie – in these unsettled times the “if I could back and do it over knowing what I know now” is tempting. If such a magical opportunity arose, I’d like to think the current me is grounded enough in the present to make the right decision.

But for the people I was? I can’t speak for them. They’re not me. In some cases, they’re not anyone I even recognize.

Steven Savage

Nothing Means Anything Anymore

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

There’s a peculiar dissatisfaction in First World modern life. A racing, seeking need is prowling around, so many of us are trying to get something. Whatever we churn out in technologies and media doesn’t quite seem to be enough. Whatever new social media or communities or movies that pop up, people still seem disconnected.

I get that strange, unsettled, need – and that feeling things just “aren’t like they should be.” Even when you remove toxic nostalgia and the human condition, something seems wrong. Lately, contemplating everything from music to politics, a phrase bubbled up in my mind – “Nothing Means Anything Anymore.”

So much doesn’t seem to exist for itself or because it’s just good as it is or even it’s cool or fun. I think that’s part of the dissatisfaction.

The latest new social media product is just a mixture of contrarianism, MLM, and fad so someone makes money. The latest big media sensation is part of a series being milked for money and flattened to the most marketable format. Every book cover looks alike and sells the same stories that went before it – even for indie authors.

How much of our culture is just marketing anymore? Nothing exists for itself, everything is how to get more money into a bank account, so much is “number go up.” How many times have you reviewed a film or a book for friends and caught yourself sounding like a professional reviewer or marketer? We’re so used to nothing being what it its, but being some kind of product rollout or initiative or whatever we start to sound like that.

Or maybe there’s the meaninglessness in politics and the seeking of political power. Carefully-tested bullshit is spewed making claims everyone knows are lies, but people don’t want to admit it so their side “wins.” Pundits spit out catchphrases and newspaper people are just asking questions since they don’t want to do real work. Even the conspiracy theories are recycled and the conspiracy theorists seem to be trying not to meet each other’s gaze as they know they’re full of crap.

Such multi-level meaninglessness even infects supposedly sane politics. Political discussions among friends and enemies sound like any argument held by pundits as we’re all trying to be pundits instead of themselves. Local politics can be amplified by some online influence-seeker who posts about your local town and next thing you know your city council is getting screamed at by people in other states or even countries. Number goes up, votes go up, clicks goes up, but it’s all worse somehow.

We’ve somehow managed to build a complex, high-tech First World where we know a lot of it is bullshit.

Yet when I do things like read punk mags (hey, I’m not as dull as I seem) or go to local zine fests I see meaning. There’s some meaning in these handcrafted, not-market-tested, weird, personal things. There’s satisfaction to be had out there, from weird streaming services to someone’s photocopied jokes on cactuses (really, I have it). Meaning is there to have.

I’m not proposing a solution or a diagnosis of cause right now. I’m just recognizing this right now. I do suspect some of it is that we’ve built very complex, profit-driven societies and created a lot of technologies and media we’re promoting that we may not need or want. At some point everything became so abstract nothing means anything.

But now I can ask myself what does it mean when I look at a book, a movie, etc. I can ask why I do something and what really matters to me. I can also act less like a marketer . . . at least when I’m not marketing.

Steven Savage

Broken At The Top

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

This is another one of those columns where I have to say “if you think you know what/who inspired it, you’re wrong.” So, you’re wrong, or at least not 100% right about how this column came about. Well except, yes, some of this still comes from The Unaccountability Machine, but hey that’s gonna be playing on my mind for a few more months.

So I was wondering why do so many “leaders” seem absolutely broken as people? How do they make these poor decisions, hurt people, get arrested for hideous crimes, and so on? How do you rise to the top and be so messed up? I mean I sort of get some greed and megalomania, but come on.

Worse, these people put us in danger. How much power is in the hands of people who are so greedy, biases, narcissistic, and worse? We’re facing a lot of crises right now and too many leaders are dangerous to our survival – they are the crisis.

Then I realized as this played with idea, that’s not actually the thing to contemplate at this moment in history.

The question right now is not why too many of our leaders are broken people. The question is what do we do about it because now’s not the time to play therapist.

Right now we’ve got problems to solve, and there are a lot of them. Climate change, microplastics, financial capture, and more all are bearing down on us. We need to take as much power as much as possible, and ensure the leaders and experts we have are actually on the side of humanity.

This is necessary not just to fix problems but also to make sure we stop just letting our “leaders” hande it. We’ve seen a bunch of them are broken, from weird billionaires to royal families somehow still treating us as peasants. We need to fix crap now and firewall against any a-hole coming alone to screw up a better or at least less terrible world.

Even if some leaders are just firewalls against some actual psycho taking over, its better than, well, the psycho.

A thing I learned from looking back on the old disciplines of cybernetics (Hello, Unaccountabiliy Machine) is that sometimes you just stop asking why something happens and ask what goes into a system and what comes out. There are times to just check your inputs and outputs because the system is too complex or you don’t have time (or you don’t care).

Besides, any analysis of our culture problems and leadership pathologies could take time. Sure we could analyze historical comparisons, but how well do they map across time and culture? We could do psychology but the key thing is we have a-holes now so except how to identify, isolate, or change them we’re not quite as concerned. Whatever is in the Broken Leadership Box, it’s going to take time we don’t have to sort it out.

I find this attitude liberating. I don’t have to play therapist to whatever politician, priest, pundit, or plutocrat is out there except to make sure they can’t hurt people. We can analyze them at our leisure or when we have time.

Sometimes the machine puts jerks in charge. You tweak the inputs to get less jerks before you crack the case to look inside.

Steven Savage