What are you NOT focusing on?

"You didn’t see anything blue cuz you were so focused on the brown"

Can it be a coincidence that sh-t and the earth both are brown (most of time unless you have "foreign substances").

Brian / Mr. Robbins have a point when they say you see only what you focus on. In my experience most of the time we do not focus on the brown in our lives because it is something that is always there just behind our everyday awareness and we are afraid to look too closely.

Focussing on the brown is absolutely essential - isn't it what philosophers call "the examined life". The trick or rather the way forward is pretty clear once that examination and dare I say repentance is done. Then you will need what Brian says here - whale training.

Failure as learning

"Where do we start?!!? Well, failing, of course!"

Nice idea. I was really big on failing and teaching kids in school how to fail properly. Especially in my country, India where every examination season lots of children talke their lives. Teaching how to fail as an idea seemed to me to be exactly what our rat-race preparation centers (a.k.a. schools) need.

Now I think no matter what I do success or failure only partly depends on my actions.

Let G-d flow through me as Brian said here.

Your Primary Question is probably not very important

"How can I let God flow thru me?
THAT is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better question to ask myself when faced with a stressful situation, no?"

You know it is easy for a lazy guy like me to criticize some one so let me thank Brian for all his hard work in collecting these rather interesting ideas.

Now todays idea is that when faced with stress you need to ask the correct question to come out through it.

I agree one hundred percent. What I disagree with is Brian's question. This probably is due to the fact that Brian has the word 'G-d' in his question. For me G-d is not something that flows through me when I make a choice.

My cry when facing stress would be "G-d save me".

Now all of you can beat me up.

Baby steps are not always good

"why in the world would we not praise the “baby steps” we take as we learn something new"

A baby learning to walk is part of life as we know it. A group of scientists taking their first baby steps to create the A-bomb is also part of life in this world.

Once again this idea is just not enough to guide us in life.

The end of Reinforcement both Positive and Negative

"We need continuous positive reinforcement in order to change our behavior."

What can I say to Brian here, reinforcement to change behaviour to the good is good. But how does one know what is the good for one. That is the question?

A relatively beningn example of reinforcement (can be call it teaching obedience) of whales being trained to jump ropes was presented. How about the shocking obedience created in human beings in the experiments by Dr. Stanley Milgram.

So maybe the reinforcement and the one doing it should be careful.

Smiling with your fear

"All the greats feel the same fear we do. They just know how to smile with it"

I can't find anything to add to this idea. Still since I have to blog about it -- there is something to be said about not confronting the fear till you are ready. Sometimes a fear is a perfectly valid thing to have about a decision and you need to stay with it. So the idea would be not to ignore the fear or quickly take action and get over it, but to "dialog" with it, learn what it has to say.

A healthy fear is what kept over cavepeople ancestors from getting eaten.

Richard Koch: 80/20 but not for Babies

"See where you spend your time. See where you get your results. Is it 50/50 or more like 80/20?"

For this idea, I really have no idea if this is true. My supplement would be that if you 20% of what you do gets 80% of your result, it does not mean that 80% of what you do should be relegated to the sidelines of your life.

I don't know if this is the right application of the idea but here goes. If 20% of the time you spent with the family is counted as most valuable 80% (quality time), does it follow that you should ignore the remaining 80% of the regular boring non quality just being there kind of time.

If 20% of your friends form 80% of your time spent on friends does that mean you can safetly ignore or put in second place those other friends.

What I am trying to say that you can apply formulae like this to people and probably ideas.

Just wondering which 20% of the 500 ideas in Brian's list are the most valuable so I can just kick them first. ;-)

Feeding Your RAS is not enough

"Make sure you’re feeding your RAS the right stuff"

Whether what Brian is say about the reticular activating system is right or wrong, I somehow feel that the mind is not so simplistically modelled. There is an element of truth to the idea that you see and pay attention to the things you expect to see.

Here too however what you need to ask yourself is whether the good I want to see for me will be good for the whole. If you consider this in a context reduced to you or those close to you only, you may be misled into thinking that if you look for the good then your looking for the good will "trickle-down" to the whole.

What you want and what you will do

Idea number 2 from Brian is in brief, be clear about what you want and what you are willing to do to get there.

My criticism is that, without a framework of what you are and what is good for you to guide you, what you want will in all probability not be what is really good for you.

Second, if you do not have a good framework for thinking about what it is you want then it follows that you will probably not bother too much about the means you take to get there.

Much blood and sorrow have flow in this world because of such - on the face of it - determined and courageous people.

thinkArete is not enough

This is a series I hope to do in which I rant against all the big ideas here from my confused and not so politically correct partially westernized Indian Christian persective (is there anything like that?). Thanks to Brian for so painstakingly collecting them here.

Idea 1 (a very brief extact only, read it in full)
"Live to your highest potential--moment to moment to moment."

In a damaged world for broken human beings this is somewhat difficult because often without outside help we do not know what exactly is our highest potential.

Also another echo of this idea is the invisible hand of market economics where Adam Smith (I have not read his book so what I know is only from secondary sources) states that every person seeking their own economic interest will lead the market to its most optimum state. This is patently not true, witness the recent troubles of the sub-prime meltdown in the U.S.A.

My conclusion is that purely on your own without a careful yet dynamic "presence" of the context (family, neighbouhood, society, culture, God) in your decision about your highest potential, you have a very high potential to damage yourself and your context.

I would love to hear what you think.