Hypnotic

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On the sense of self

Work has been pretty hectic the past couple of weeks and so has played hell with my online courses. I had to jettison the goal of completing the courses I enrolled in exchange for prioritizing doing a passable level of work in the office and not losing focus in training martial arts.

Couple of things I've been thinking about during this awful time: who we are in the dark, and anchors. Arguably this was brought on by reading Worm during the few moments of free time I got. (I recommend this web serial to everyone, the story is very engaging). Worm had parts where the the concept of knowing one's identity came up. The characters were in a position where this was very important. And a lot of people suffered personal tragedies because they didn't give this much thought.

So now I ask: who are we, then? Is it our actions that define us, unmindful of the situations we find ourselves in? Or is it our intentions regardless of our acts? Is it our memories?

I think we are patterns as we continue to exist in the world. Our cells die in a fixed cycle, replaced by near-identical cells made of different molecules. In a fixed number of years we lose all the cells and materials we had at birth; it's like we're different people. Our minds are also even more fluid. We forget, then reconstruct in an effort to remember. Our memories of our experiences, our viewpoint, our unique set of priorities, something in our minds draws these things together and discards some. From these things we construct the sense of who we are. And if some event is intense enough we may even forget these bindings and so need to recreate ourselves once again. Or some errant thought might make itself known, and we change yet again as we try to reduce the cognitive dissonance.

There are some concepts that have a greater pull. The need to survive, or the need to belong, for instance. The urge to uphold the mores of a group, or to have a high status. These are like hunger or thirst to the mind - motifs that one can't help but return to again and again.

Such fluidity is like being lost at sea, where the only way for you to find dry land is if you make it yourself. Hence the anchors; things to keep you grounded in reality and to keep your self stable. Some you may safely lose, others you cling to as a drowning man would a lifeline. Things you can go back to again and again, that give you sure footing and a direction to build your decisions around. Order in the midst of chaos, a piece of dirt in a cloud. 

What is it then, that is me? I am obsessed with making a Red-Green Madness deck. I like to read about novel things. I am a spendthrift. I like the martial arts. I like solving puzzles like code or games. I am not a people person. I used to have a thing for cards of all kinds. I used to be fascinated with magic. I currently like Kpop - started out with Sistar, then T-ara, and now I'm seeing the attraction of Girls' Generation. But I kind of still think of myself as a T-ara fan.

I like to find things. I believe that wanting is better than having. I read Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" at least twice a year, the Thief and Hitman series of video games once a year. I don't really care for group circlejerking. I like to study psychology. I love food and self-improvement. 

And I do not like being beholden to cognitive heuristics. I absolutely hate it. I am insecure, and I can be petty. I've done a lot of things I regret in the past; still do some things I regret now - although it's either I don't regret them as much when the time comes, or I've learned to forgive myself for them. There's lots of other things, I can't really make the list exhaustive.

There's a lot of stuff. But when time comes to take stock, the earth of my island will be rich enough that I'm sure the answer that will sprout will be a robust one. 

Disaster Preparedness

This was part of the readings we had for Coursera's Disaster Preparedness course. Stuff like this kind of make me grateful I haven't faced yet a full-on marooned situation. However, thanks to the courses I've taken before on Irrationality and Social Psychology, I understand. God help me, I understand.

The patients were an outgroup. The ingroup, which were the medical professionals stuck in that hospital at the time, were completely untrained for the situation; but being the ingroup they must have favored each other more than those in the outgroup. Maybe things have been simmering for a long time and the situation forced the ugliness out. 

They were going by heuristics. There's some representativeness bias and spontaneous trait inference in them assuming that someone who has signed a Do Not Resuscitate order doesn't want to survive the crisis. Maybe there was some self-serving bias in there, thinking that their actions constituted the best care they could give under the circumstances. There certainly was self-serving bias in them declaring that evacuating certain patients would be impossible; you can't trust that statement when the people making it are dead-tired and would find it easier if a couple conveniently died on them. There was conformity - either some went along or they didn't protest effectively enough.

Then there's the rationalizations. I'm sure they made those up to assuage any cognitive dissonance. Like the consensus argument - that what they did wasn't any different to what they normally do. That what they were doing was sanctioned by the laws of God. That they were giving comfort. That since they were doing everything "respectfully," it was alright. Because they were doctors and nurses and medical professionals, so obviously they know more and should be allowed to get away with more.

I shouldn't make attributions to their disposition. They were in a terrible situation and this is why every country should have well-designed disaster management plans down to the level of the individual citizen. 

It's just that you're Americans. From the USA. Guardians of freedom, liberty, justice, and democracy. You should be better. If something like this could happen well within your own territory, then... this world... it's pretty horrible, huh?

I'm seeing Western boxing in a new light. The jab is a reliable tool for when someone wants to keep away from touching hands with us who are practicing Chinese martial arts. I'm also seeing a lot of parallels between the basic punches and stuff like the five fists of xingyi. Then there's also this article about Mayweather's infighting tactics, which is seriously giving me some ideas about where to take my techniques.