Twitteretter

This is apparently a new phenomenon, caused by the increase in the use of web meeting tools, brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. It appears that the plastic surgery and aesthetic enhancement industries have seen a rise in their activity as a result. The rationale (it is hard to use this word in this context, but I use it in its explanation, rather than rationality, meaning) of this phenomenon goes as follows: Many people are having regular web meetings, in which they spend a lot of time staring at their own faces on screen. And many are, apparently, unhappy with their looks, which is driving them to resort to interventions in an attempt, in many cases ill fated, to improve them. This is something fascinating about modern humans. We may have good reason to improve our body and mind, which we can do ourselves with a bit of effort and determination, but many choose to, instead, have someone try to improve their face, forgetting it is, according to St Jerome, the mirror of their sou...

Since I started my Youtube channel, I have made an interesting observation. If you stop any of my videos, more or less at any point, my expression in the frozen frame is likely to look positively weird. However, when we interact with most people at real World speed, our brain sees normality. Our perception combines a very high number of extremely weird frames to build a completely normal movie. This is an interesting capacity of our brain, particularly if you think about the fact that this is the same brain capable of taking completely normal societal situations and concocting the weirdest conspiracy theories with them, as shown lately by the effect fake news are having on our democratic process. Our brain, therefore, behaves like a bipolar interpreter of reality. A bipolar interpreter is a great premise, in film, for a comedy or a tragedy, and the same, I think applies to reality. It remains to be seen what kind of movie our brains lead us into. Right now, it is hard to be optimistic ...

I come from a rational household. In fact, when I was growing up, I had no idea this was a thing. I assumed, as you would expect, since we all tend to project our own normality unto others, that all households were rational. What I mean by that is that they were places in which decisions were taken on the basis of rational thought built on the available information, also knowing that this information may be incomplete. I have since, as I have moved through life and met others, discovered that this is not the case, and that there are also irrational households, places where decisions are taken on a wishful understanding of reality, on impulse or so called intuition, without regard for facts or available information. Of course, these households will have much worse outcomes, as their failure to interpret reality will impair the decision making, perfectly fitted to a World that does not exist. Rationality must be the best resource a family has to plot a successful course for its members L...

In Twitteretter 340 I split humanity into those who ensure they are happy doing what they have to do, and those who spend their time wishing they could do something else. The same applies to self image. You are a certain way, combination of your genetics, upbringing and habits. You can choose to be happy, or unhappy, with it, be it physique or intellect. It is, again, a simple matter of personal choice. And don’t get me wrong, however happy you manage to be with what you are currently like, this is no reason not to make improvements. It is critical to understand that your being is not a destination, but a journey. Whether you depart from Happy or Unhappy Port, your life will be most productive, and you will be happiest at the end of it, if you sail in a general improvement direction, towards the land of Your Ideal and, when arriving, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde when writing about Utopia, setting off again, to the land of Your Next Ideal. Progress is the realisation of Utopias’ (or ideals...

I’m giving away my age, at least with some of these dichotomies, but I’m interested in what these choices say about me. I am, or have been, at least, I confess, more on the first camp than the second. In these historical duels, I tended to align with the group representing hard work, dedication and determination over talent and panache . Only lately, as I mature, I’ve understood that the apparent ease in the performance of the second group is of course the result of work as hard as that of the former, and my preferences have in some cases changed, in others, disappeared altogether, making both equal in my estimation. Top performance, however effortless it looks, is always the result of excruciatingly meticulous preparation. But, if you are interviewing and looking for those who believe hard work to be the key to their and your business’ success, the choices in the title may hold the key to finding them and separating them from those who think talent may just come to them, without effor...

The administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine was halted last week in the EU as some cases of Deep Vein Thrombosis post vaccination were reported. This has resulted in a loss of confidence in the public, yet more proof if any were needed that the average citizen does not understand big numbers. When you are vaccinating, so quickly, such a large number of people, you are going to see all kinds of apparent after effects, just because things will happen with their normal frequency in a population and, given the large numbers vaccinated, some are bound to happen just after the vaccine. A number of just vaccinated people will crash their car, in line with current car accident prevalence, and a number will enter the menopause or lose their wallet. It is easy to draw causality when there is just coincidence and, when numbers are big, coincidence will happen. We should investigate to be sure, but not panic or develop conspiracy theories once causality is discarded, as will likely be the case L...

What is fear of failure? That feeling preventing you from doing, or even worse, fully committing to, things you may succeed at. Let’s be clear. You are going to fail. A lot. Unless you do nothing. Failure is the way that you learn to succeed, success being a building built by piling not bricks, but failures on top of each other. The more you fail, the closer to success you get. Many, however, worried they may fail, don’t try, giving up the chance to succeed. Winston Churchill, a pretty successful person by all accounts, told us: ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts’. You will succeed when you throw yourself fully into everything you do, accepting success and failure as possible outcomes, enjoying the former and learning from the latter, to turn it into success. You will be set free, able to realise your full potential only when, as Kipling’s fantastic ‘If’ poem teaches us, you treat success and failure, those two impostors, just the sam...

Sometimes I think I am too impatient for the future to arrive. I wish things went faster. I want to jump to the point when my business projects arrive at that ever elusive success destination. Or to my next holiday. Or to the end of a cold, grey winter, to the weekend or, nowadays, after a year of coronavirus pandemic, to vaccination, a pint in a pub or a meal out with friends. This, I think, is natural, a trait probably shared by all humans. We set our mind on a destination, both distant and uncertain and, since we don’t like waiting, and we hate uncertainty, we immediately wish we were already there, preferring the certainty of success to the toil of its pursuit. Alas, the future does not work that way, and it cares little   for our wishes. It arrives, precisely and reliably, one minute, one hour or one day at a time, whatever your chosen unit may be. Once you understand this you realise you better enjoy the process, make the most of it, as it will be what most of your time is sp...

This is a question I thought I would never find myself asking. Let me be clear, of course I am not. I’ve been looking forward to Trump going away for over four years. So, why the question? I’ve noticed that, with Trump gone, my interest in US politics has dwindled, against my best judgment. Trump’s presidency worked in the same way as horror movies, keeping its shocked audience glued to the screen, clutching the armchair, watching through their fingers, waiting for the next, imminent and predictable, but still compelling, horrible moment. I always succeeded at not getting drawn into horror, with the occasional high quality exception, Kubrick’s The Shining or Hitchcock’s Psycho. But, somehow, Trump grabbed my attention, kept me reluctantly watching, sunk in my virtual chair. In doing so, he sapped my appetite for US politics, leaving little for Biden. I will, I hope, recover it in due course, in the same way one returns to a light, well structured drama, days after a traumatic horror Le...

There are two types of money. Money made by working, performing tasks demanded by your occupation, and money made by other means, such as investing or gambling (these two activities can be very different or almost identical depending on each individual’s approach to the former). We seem to derive more pleasure from money made the second way. I have observed that, presented with a speculation opportunity which promises the possibility of large, easy financial returns, most of us, even those typically uninterested in wealth, excitedly jump at it. This is interesting, as one would think that money earnt by effort and toil and by performing duties well should provide more satisfaction. But it does not. I think the reason is that anyone, or almost anyone, can earn money by working, but earning money by investing or gambling makes us feel clever, different to others, special. It feels like a prize to our ingenuity, boldness and courage, earnt by our talent, rather than a salary for our toil ...

Spain is seeing record snowfalls this week, which combine with the coronavirus pandemic to create chaos. They have resulted in, amongst many other things, many drivers who ignored travel alerts being stranded all over the national geography. It is simultaneously amusing and depressing to hear them angrily calling national media to denounce that, after hours stranded, nobody has come to their rescue. We inhabit a society in which many want to exercise their personal freedoms to act ignoring all advice, pay little taxes and, convergently, have the state immediately get them out of the messes they wilfully walk into. They denounce the curbs the ‘nanny state’ imposes on their personal freedoms, but cry for their nanny as soon as their ill advised exercise of those freedoms in defiance of the state lands them in trouble. This incoherent attitude is not unusual in small children who have not learnt the meaning of responsibility yet. Freud would have a field day studying these so called adult...

This is something that maybe only happens to me, but I do of course project this onto the rest of mankind and assume that it happens to everyone. Making phone calls fills me with dread. I am not talking about calling a friend, or a family member. That is fine and I happily do it. I am talking about using it to book a restaurant, or a dental visit or to order something over the phone. I dread simple phone calls to people I do not know. When I make them, of course, they go quite smoothly most of the time, nothing untoward happens, they often even produce the desired outcome and they are always fairly predictable. But my dread persists, not enough to prevent me from calling, just enough to make it feel awkward. I grew up at a time when bookings, reservations, appointments and purchases were made face to face or over the phone, so I cannot imagine what I would feel like if I had grown already at a time when all that is done online. Does this make me a kind of extremely overaged millennial?...

The post’s title, by the way, is not a true reflection of reality. Rather, it is the feeling I had, for a few minutes, when I woke up on Wednesday morning to a sea of Trump red covering the United States map. I do care profoundly about the outcome of this election. I value civility, fairness and equanimity, I treasure democracy, I believe win-win is the only deal worth making and I understand we need very fast action on environmental issues to prevent an irreversible global catastrophe which would make the current pandemic feel like a party. But, faced with uncertainty and fear, with a possible devastating loss, our psyche triggers off our defence mechanism. If I don’t care, I cannot get hurt. So let’s just pretend that I don’t. This is a normal human reaction, which you see everywhere in life. Pretend indifference to mitigate potential failure and, as a result of that pretence, fail. I recommend action instead. Fight for your desired outcome, bring about the success you so much desire...