Friday, July 31, 2009

Sins and virtues

I had wanted to call this item "the seven sins and virtues", but in fact, I only have six on offer.

It's a long story. Two weeks ago, my wife gave our children a large fake-ancient keyring, with seven fake-ancient keys. Like most children, our children follow the general maxim that "any present is a good present", but in this case they didn't really know what to think. My wife quickly invented something about doorways and secrets and magic but, also being my kids, they demanded a much more tangible and rational explanation. So the problem was passed on to me, the idea being that I would invent a story about the seven keys.

I soon hit on the idea of writing about the seven virtues (they are definitely not old enough for a story about the seven sins), and happily set off in search of web-based wisdom on the subject. Within a matter of hours I had enough information to start. I collected all the so-called virtues (modesty, prudence, beauty, chastity, etc.) I could find - in the end, I had about 100 - in a single document, printed that out, and then cut out each virtue and started sorting them. The end result of this exercise, which again took several hours, spread out over several days/sorting sessions, was the identification of clusters of related virtues. More importantly, the sorting allowed me to refine my own personal definition of a virtue (namely by excluding good qualities that are mostly genetic, such as health, strength, intelligence, etc.) and to also exclude values that I consider outmoded (mostly also religious values). Out of the original eight, I now have six left. Here they are, not in any particular order:

KNOWLEDGE
attention, focus, awareness (incl. of self), consciousness, discernment, sensitivity, perceptiveness
curiosity, love of learning, knowledge (incl. of self), understanding, intuition, foresight

GETTING THINGS DONE
enthusiasm, passion, hopefulness, optimism, motivation, commitment, dedication, determination, responsiveness
caution, prudence
efficiency
communication skills
diligence, industriousness
fortitude, courage
patience, perseverance, tenacity, resilience, stress-resistance, endurance
purposefulness
assertiveness, self-respect, confidence, autonomy, independence, self-reliance
flexibility, adaptability

HUMANITY
caring, mercy, nurturing, benevolence
consideration, thoughtfulness, tactfulness, discretion, courteousness, respectfulness (of others)
forgiveness
friendliness, kindness, gentleness, lovingness
generosity, hospitality, charity, sharing
sympathy, empathy, compassion
cooperativeness, helpfulness, altruism, unselfishness

JUSTICE
obedience, morality, sense of ethics
judgement, priotisation, decisiveness
equity, fairness, impartiality, justice
honor, integrity
faithfulness, fidelity, loyality
dependability, trustworthiness, responsibility
sincerity, honesty, openness, candor, truthfulness

TEMPERANCE
balance
humility, modesty, moderation, temperance
restraint, self-control, self-discipline

TRANSCENDANCE
appreciation, thankfulness
acceptance, contentment
detachment, equanimity, sense of humor, sense of perspective
wisdom

Now, if I can only find a way to turn this into a children's story ...

Monday, July 27, 2009

Cold turkey (internet style)

Lately, there have been a lot of coincidences in my life. Of course I know that most coincidences are really just the result of heigthened awareness of something (suddenly seeing things that were there all along), but still. The other day, I started investigating the seven virtues, with the idea of perhaps using them in a story. That very same day, on t.v., "click on-line" had an item on a computer game that used the seven virtures and vices.

And yesterday, while cleaning up some old books, I came across a letter of someone I met once, more than 30 years ago. Out of curiosity, I tried finding him on the Internet, but didn't. I did find several references to a woman with the same last name, who was apparently a well-known authority on computer addiction, and had lately been working on Internet addiction.

That very evening my router and modem died, and I was able to experience Internet withdrawal symptoms* first hand. It is terrible. So terrrible, that I am writing this entry from my place of work (a definite no-no in my book, but addicts will stop at nothing to feed their addiction ...)

*I first wrote "cold turkey" but later realized that in fact, it was more like being in a methadon program, because I still had access to a watered-down substitute version of Internet at work.

Postscript: I am back on-line again. My drug dealer/internet provider gave me a new router and modem, and it took me all of ten nerve-racking minutes to be up and running again. Sigh!

Friday, July 17, 2009

Communication problems

One of my (many, many) pet peeves is lack of clarity in written or oral expression. In the last few weeks, the issue has come up several times. At work, I usually spend a lot of time making my professional emails as clear as possible. I do this not so much as a matter of principle or courtesy to the reader, but more to avoid misunderstandings, which are very inefficient. Even so, the other day, I used my own mental shorthand in an email. As I hit the “send” button, I knew that there was something wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on the problem, and I had already spent more than two hours whittling it down to a more palatable size, and needed to send it. It was not long before I got a request for clarification.

At home, people often assume that things will be better: the combination of shared experiences and the hours of practice often make it possible to communicate certain things very effectively. But other times domestic communication, and especially between partners, can be a complete disaster. My personal collection includes vagueness as an art form (“could you give me that thing from over there, honey?”) and the unfinished thought (as in “I was thinking that on Sunday we could …” followed by a long, totally meaningless silence).

I blame familiarity. Not that I would go as far as to call this kind of laziness “contempt”, but it is a bit like working in a laboratory with dangerous substances. After a while, you tend to forget how dangerous the substances are, and you start getting sloppy. Please note that I am not trying to compare family members with dangerous substances (although some are), just that you should take care not to assume that others will know what you mean just because you know what you mean. 20 years of marriage does not a mind reader make.

Of course, effective communication really is a lot of work. In my case, I have the added difficulty of having to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries, but even within the same language and culture communication it can be more effort than most people are willing to put into it. But – and here I return to one of my hobby horses – it is again a question of finding the right balance between the (often illusionary) short term gain and the long term advantage. Taking the effort to word things in such a way that they not only *can* be understood, but are very difficult to misunderstand, is good practice at work and home alike.

Now all I need do is find the correct cost/benefit ratio …

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Getting what you want

This morning, sitting by the side of the pool, I saw human society in a nutshell. In and around the pool were children of different ages, watched over by several adults (myself included). Most of the time, the children swam and played happily. But ever so often, conflict would break out, e.g. over a certain toy. When it did, I could see the children apply a whole arsenal of tactics to get what they wanted. These tactics fall into two main categories: autonomous action, and recurring to an authority (a parent, other adult, or possibly an older child).

Autonomous actions can be split into physical actions, the most direct one being simply grabbing whatever it is you want. Or, if you are not strong or quick enough, you can try distracting the opponent first, then grabbing (best of course being a real distraction that allows one to safely claim that the other was no longer playing with the toy, but if that doesn't work, an unexpected poke in the eye can also be quite distracting). There are however two problems with the above "solutions": the risk of painful repraisal by the child who had the toy first, and the risk of one of the adults seeing you and intervening, by either taking away the toy again, or worse, by imposing punishment for bad behaviour.

(Of course, there is always the possibility of waiting for the other to lose interest in the toy, and grabbing it then, but that is an adult solution. When you are young, five minutes can be an eternity when every cell in your body is screaming for the surfboard/water pistol/ball etc.)

The second group of autonomous actions can be grouped together as "negotiating". But there is negotiating and negotiating. Usually, the child will start with a simple statement of what he or she wants, but this can range from the relatively polite request (can I have that now?), to a flat statement of fact (I want that!), to quite demanding (Gimme that!). When that doesn't work, and depending on their relationship to their opponent, they can resort to cajoling, pleading and arguing (in which case the central point is often an appeal to the other's sense of fairness), crying (attempt at emotional manipulation), or threatening (which includes threatening to tell the parents). And then there is the more rational type of negotiating, which usually includes a compromise or trade-off. Of course, this too is rife witjust h manipulation and power games, with older children often fooling the younger ones into accepting less than fair conditions, but it is definitely a step forward from grabbing what you want.

And then there is the other main option, which is recurring to an authority. In doing so, children apply most of the tactics just mentioned. The only difference is that adults are easier to manipulate emotionally. For little girls, crying usually does wonders to make a parent give you what you want (and hopefully at the expense of the other child); for little boys, anger is usually considered more appropriate. Of course, some parents are quite good at recognizing theatrics, but even those can't always be bothered to get to the bottom of an issue, the end result often being the short-term solution: grabbing the toy away from whoever has it, and yelling at your children to stop yelling.

Of course, what they should really do is teach their children how to negotiate fairly, and offer them help in the form not of decisions, but of ideas and alternatives. In the long run, that would definitely increase the total amount of peace and quiet. The problem is that that is really a lot of work. And work is the last thing on your mind when you are relaxing in the shade by the pool.

I think a lot of the people (read also classes/nations) are relaxing by the side of the pool.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Holidays

Just a quick note to let both my regular readers know that my recent absence is not laziness but lack of Internet access.