The state illusion

This article has an important insight about government, but I think it misses the mark by a bit. Governments use more centralization and hierarchy than markets, but they are forced to adapt to the limitation on scaling the article describes, they just do it in a different way. When we think of government as purely top-down we are oversimplifying quite a lot. Does Trump control the deep state? Formally, congress and the president are in charge. In reality, no one is in control.

And the same criticism described in the article applies to corporations and other organizations that use explicit hierarchy as part of their structure. Yet they seem able to work around this limitation somehow, at least well enough to make a profit and keep the stakeholders mostly satisfied.

I've been trying to articulate a related insight. We think of government as distinct from other organizations, as deserving to be treated as an exception, but what essential difference can we point to that distinguishes them? If they are just organizations not so different from others, why do we treat them differently?

MKP mission statement

I’ve been feeling dissatisfied with my mission statement. It started out like this:

I create a world of diversity, tolerance and openness by inviting others to explore and connect.

The target is vague and the method is vaguer. I’m going to describe how I modified it below, but I will start by giving the new version:

I nurture cooperation and adaptation by learning, growing and having fun with others.

The old one, in addition to its vagueness, failed to give me guidance about integrating things I do every day to try to make improvements with the lofty goals vaguely mentioned in the statement. I felt it commanded me to make grandeose commitments to ideas that currently lie outside my sphere of influence. The new one lets me move step by step in the right direction, instead of just skipping to the end. Maybe I can have a big impact, but I need to be able to see how to get there, what is the first step.

MKP uses visualization to get people to find their mission, but that didn’t work for me. I fell asleep instead. So I’ve used a more philosophical approach instead of pure intuition. I doubt the idea that everyone must agree on everything, and I don’t see how to achieve unanimity without coercion. I envision a world where people can disagree with each other and yet still cooperate to a large degree, even if it is just to keep out of each other's business. Societies face the challenge of integrating individual autonomy, creativity and inspiration into coordinated cooperation on a large scale. Obviously, we can’t accomplish this easily, but I seek that ideal.

A good mission statement will frame all my work and make its meaning and purpose clear to me. Don’t let it become a mental prison, though.

What is a positive way to express the idea of not placing demands on others? When I respect someone's autonomy, I do not make demands upon them. Instead, I make polite requests and negotiate from a position of mutual respect.

Categories 

I read a book about depression that listed 6 areas of concern that can play a role in depression. I want to categorize my activities accordingly. The factors are diet, exercise, sleep, light, associations and ruminations. I used a web app to create an acronym for this: Rumination, Exercise, Diet, Sleep, Association and LighT - REDSALT. Light affects mood depending on how much and when during the day you are exposed. Association stands for your relations with other people - do you have friends and associates that care about youand interact   with you frequently? Rumination is a broad category, including the stories I tell myself, my self-talk, the judgements I make, the ideas I identify with, and probably most of what would go in my mission statement when I complete it. These are the things I take for granted, things I keep reminding myself of.

A mission statement says what I think I am and what I want to be. What effect do I want to have on others? What changes in myself do I want to encourage? That was who I was. This is what I want to become. By writing it down, I can criticize it, improve it, compare myself to it. Can I use it in this way without judging myself when I fail to keep perfectly aligned to my mission? If I do judge myself, will that make me more or less likely to get where I want to go?

What is my shadow mission, the mission of the shadow self who undermines many of my actions? Stay safe, hidden and isolated from others. Don’t trust anyone. Be boring, don’t let them see the real me.

Super powers

If I could have fun while satisfying my needs for RED SALT, that would give me a sort of super power. I would strengthen myself in each of these areas, not by exerting willpower but by having fun.

Another related topic comes to mind, the Japanese concept of ikigai. Perfect ikigai combines four accomplishments into one activity (or into one life): I do it well, I get paid to do it, I like doing it, and the world needs it. I can influence myself to increase my level of skill and enjoyment. I can learn how to get paid or to connect my skills to people's needs. I want that superpower too.

People tend to look for trouble when they aren’t already overwhelmed. The ones with superpowers pick their battles.

This draft is still rough and a bit flow-of-consciousness. But I decided to release it rather than edit it forever.

Chinese character stroke order rules and algorithms

http://blog.tutorming.com/mandarin-chinese-learning-tips/7-basic-rules-to-chinese-stroke-order

Explains how to draw Chinese characters. This is not only useful for correct calligraphy, but useful to know when looking up characters in a Chinese dictionary. If you see a character you don’t recognize, you can’t look it up by Pinyin/pronunciation. So a particular dictionary style goes by stroke order. There is a list of first strokes, from there you get to a list of possible second strokes (given the first stroke) until things are narrowed down enough that you can just pick the character you seek from a list.