Category: Mental Models

Thursday, 7.27pm

Sheffield, U.K.

“You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it. The making of a painting or the fixing of a motorcycle isn’t separate from the rest of your existence. If you’re a sloppy thinker the six days of the week you aren’t working on your machine, what trap avoidance, what gimmicks, can make you all of a sudden sharp on the seventh? It all goes together … The real cycle you’re working in is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be “out there” and the person that appears to be “in here” are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.” – Robert Pirsig, Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

I came across a picture of my motorcycle recently.

Well, my old motorcycle. It was stolen years ago. And before that it spent a lot of time being taken apart because it just didn’t work properly. That’s why the fuel tank in the picture above is resting on the seat rather than the traditional location.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is possibly my favourite book and I keep going back to that when I think of anything.

We all have choices to make. Some of them seem important. Some are important. And it’s important to be able to tell the difference between the two.

David Graeber reaches out for this idea in his book “Bullshit jobs”. A lot of things we do aren’t worth doing, and so they aren’t worth doing well.

If AI comes along and does those things better that still doesn’t make them worth doing.

But it’s going to be hard to tell the difference between one thing and the other.

Let’s take something simple, like health.

You know carbs are bad right, they raise blood sugar?

You also know that’s wrong – because what’s the point of food that doesn’t raise your blood sugar?

You need the sugar to fuel your body and brain – and where do you think that’s going to come from if not carbs?

But the food advice out there is simply too confusing to make any sense.

And when something is confusing you have to ask yourself who benefits from confusion?

It’s not the people selling you potatoes.

It’s the ones selling you highly processed food.

And much of the information out there is really marketing material.

This really applies to many decision situations – electric cars or diesel? Remote or office? The list can go on.

Which is where ZatAoMM comes in.

There is one criterion that rules them all.

Ask yourself this the next time you have to make a choice, little or large.

Once you’ve made it, do you have peace of mind?

That’s all that matters.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Tuesday, 7.38pm

Sheffield, U.K.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning. – Benjamin Franklin

As some of you know my research programme is a type of action research.

The way to do action research is to do something and then think about what you’ve done and think about what you could do better and then do something again.

In action research theory is about practice – which makes it suitable for answering the kind of questions that other research methods find hard to address.

It’s also criticised by some people as not scientific because it doesn’t follow the usual approach of hypothesis, experiment, results etc.

We don’t really listen to those people.

But they have a point – action research is not replicable; you can’t do the same thing the same way again to see if it will give you the same results.

The most you can do is be clear about how you did something – and make the process recoverable.

Now you have a choice about how to do this.

Do you talk about what you’ve done or do you try and show what you’re doing?

The difficulty with describing something that people aren’t familiar with is that it’s extremely hard to understand what you mean.

Imagine describing an elephant to someone that’s never seen one before.

This is not an uncommon problem. I studied electrical engineering and passed exams on relays without ever seeing one or even a picture in real life.

I didn’t learn anything from that experience.

So if you really want someone to learn something you need to show them the thing in action.

And it’s even more complicated if the thing you’re talking about is really something that gets you to the thing you’re really after.

For example, a technique to gather information more effectively is not about the process of information gathering but about the decision you want to make once you have the information.

Or, in the famous example, what you want is not a drill but a hole.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Monday, 9.44pm

Sheffield, U.K.

Every great story seems to begin with a snake. – Nicolas Cage

I’m reading Will Storr’s ‘The Science of Storytelling’ and I keep stopping to jot down notes. There’s a lot in there that makes you think.

I’m thinking about this more because I have a presentation to do soon and I’m a little worried that I haven’t got my story right. I don’t know if what I’m saying is created in a way that helps the audience or just ends up being something they can’t connect with.

One of Storr’s suggestions is that every scene (or every slide in my case) needs to advance the story.

What you don’t want is something happened and something else happened, and then something else happened.

What you want is things to happen because.

So, a thing happened.

Because of this, something else happened.

Or, I suppose, you could also have: a thing happened; it happened because…

When you put together a series of because links rather than and links it keeps the audience interested.

This applies mostly, however, to “commercial” stuff – the kind of thing you want to do if you want to become a best-selling author or movie maker.

If you want to be a good writer – well then you can do what you want to get something across the way you like.

Some people spend pages describing a flower, apparently.

And I’m pretty sure Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes a sentence that goes on for pages in “100 years of solitude”.

I’d say that most of my favourite books don’t really follow this formula at all.

Think Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

And actually, I’m ok with it when it comes to thrillers – the kind of thing that I have the time to read on holiday.

Although I do get very irritable if people write in the present tense.

What’s wrong with just telling the story?

Anyway… where was I?

Oh yes.

I guess this is a formula, a tip, something that you can try out and see if it works for you.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Monday, 9.46pm

Sheffield, U.K.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. – Oscar Wilde

As I looked around for quotes to start this post, I assumed that they would clearly think it was a bad thing.

I was wrong.

The human brain, I am beginning to believe, is not constructed to cope with having too much.

It wasn’t a problem we found in nature so we just didn’t evolve to deal with it.

Nature, in its randomness, has no plan for us, no expectations, no requirements.

We evolved in a world where each creature’s survival depended on a balance – one that it found in its environment with other creatures and living things that also tried to survive.

Human beings, with their big brains, are the only creatures to break that link and decouple their ability to gather resources from the rate at which those resources occur in nature.

We can force food to grow, animals to multiply and make the things we need rather than waiting for them to grow or finding them on the ground.

So our problems now stem from having too much of everything.

We have non-communicable diseases or lifestyle diseases.

Which is a nice way of saying we eat too much of the wrong things.

We have stresses brought on by working in a made up system for made up things.

But at least some of those things are real.

My children are desperate to acquire imaginary things in imaginary worlds for imaginary money – for which they have to spend real time.

I don’t know where this leads other than a world where many people are unhappy and sick and don’t know how to change things.

And one reason for that is because money is the measure of things – if it doesn’t make money it’s not worth doing.

Although, there are some people who think differently.

They try and eat thoughtfully, create businesses that build communities, and share resources, such as with the Free software movement.

They’re the ones who’ll be first up against the wall if the people with money and power have their way.

But, there’s a certain natural selection that happens.

People with power and money don’t like to share so there will always be less of them.

It’s like that thing about carnivores and herbivores. Although plant eaters are seen as weaker they vastly outnumber the predators.

But in our world the predators have found that it’s easier to make the prey sick – that way they stay under control and also you make money from the medical bills.

Is that too cynical?

It is. No one is smart enough to invent such a system of control and rewards.

It’s happened by accident, just like everything else with evolution.

This blog is about making good choices.

Start with making good ones about your health.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Thursday, 9.04pm

Sheffield, U.K.

I like to say I’m determined; some people would call it stubborn. It depends on your perspective. – Peggy Whitson

I was thinking about drawing a chicken.

The reason I was thinking of a chicken is because I was thinking of Doug Lisle’s presentation about a chicken crossing the road.

He has a chicken on the screen and asks why it crossed the road.

[General laughter from the audience]

There are some suggestions thrown out. To get to the other side and all that.

Then he explains – what the chicken is doing is a rapid cost-benefit analysis.

Is it better for me to stay here and look for worms or go over there where there might be more worms?

This cost-benefit analysis is something that underpins every situation.

With each sentence you read you’re rapidly evaluating the utility of continuing to read versus giving up and doing something else.

And before you opened this post you made an analysis of whether it was worth opening or not.

This is quite a powerful insight.

Let’s say you’re giving a presentation – what happens if you think of each slide as part of a cost-benefit calculation.

You’re costing someone a certain period of time – their attention.

In return you give them a benefit.

Are you droning on and on or does each slide you advance have a new, clear benefit to offer?

And if it doesn’t are you better off dropping it?

This works at every level – if you ask someone out on a date they’re doing a cost-benefit analysis; what’s it going to cost them and what are they going to get out of it?

The answer to your question depends on the results of their calculation.

But is it possible that those kinds of calculations only work when you’re faced with immediate decisions in the here and now?

What about longer term decisions that are affected by many factors – with many outcomes, each with their own costs and benefits?

In that situation, maybe you have to go a little with your gut – see the costs and do it anyway.

Maybe the chicken isn’t the only model you need to know in order to make good decisions.

So, in the end, I’ve gone for a fantasy bug-ish thing – hoping that it will help make sense at some point.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Wednesday, 9.39pm

Sheffield, U.K.

No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience. – John Locke

I’ve been thinking a little about managing conversations – and in particular how to handle / manage / cope with big voices.

These voices are everywhere. They’re in the news, in social media, in any single forum you can think of.

And they’re very loud.

Let’s go to the research.

We assume that people who are quiet are also powerless, they are dominated and, as they have no voice, are not heard.

On social media we are told that if we don’t post every day then we won’t get any business. To be voiceless is the same as being invisible.

But in many organisations and contexts those who stay silent do have power over those who we hear from. Think about Hollywood and the power of the studio over the actors.

Fletcher and Watson’s (2007) ethnographic study suggests that what you don’t see matters.

The power someone holds has to do with the dynamic network of relationships that exist in the social context you’re looking at.

There is always a cost-benefit calculation going on, of what is said and what is done, what is offered and what is received.

In each relationship, if the benefits are right, then what is said doesn’t matter. But if it’s not, that’s when you see problems.

What you’ve got going on are “implicit contracts” or “psychological contracts”.

People are quiet for three reasons: they’re going along with you; they don’t want to tell you you’re heading for trouble; or they don’t want to hurt your feelings.

For the person that’s loud – this is a problem – because you only know there is an issue once things have gone wrong.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

References

Fletcher, D and Watson, T. 2007. “Voice, Silence and the Business of Construction: Loud and Quiet Voices in the Construction of Personal, Organizational and Social Realities”. Organization.

Tuesday, 7.45pm

Sheffield, U.K.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. – Friedrich Nietzsche

I have always been wary of groups. It comes from leaving home young and seeing early how people act – and deciding I didn’t want a part of that.

Of course, that’s not a good thing.

In Terry Pratchett’s books wizards live in a university, well fed and satisfied – only looking for how they can climb the ladder by helping someone higher up out of his shoes.

It’s only men, of course, except when there was a woman but that’s a whole book.

This is because wizards, when left to themselves, retreat to towers and start hurling fireballs at other wizards and everyone gets very upset as a result.

Isolation is something that we think leads to creativity – but that might only be a romantic notion.

Real creativity happens in groups, in collaborations, when different kinds of knowledge come together.

But it’s hard to get into a sandpit and play nicely with others.

And even if you do get in the issues don’t end – they just become one of group dynamics rather than individual ones.

Groups that follow one approach seek to convert people on the fence, flatter those that already believe in them and criticize those on the other side.

But if you really want to understand why someone thinks differently than you then you have to spend time listening and watching.

Not judging.

There is no easy solution to this – walk your own path or join a group. Which do you choose?

I guess you try both and see what happens.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Monday, 8.05pm

Sheffield, U.K.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being. – Franz Kafka

The question in the picture that accompanies this post is from a book by Po Bronson.

Is there any question that is more important for you?

As long as you have food, that is.

Let’s pull these strands together.

I mentioned Doug Lisle in a previous post because I’ve been watching his videos and like the way he uses drawings to explain his ideas.

He’s a psychologist for the McDougall program.

I didn’t really think too much about that.

I’ve also been wondering about food.

I grew up in India and went to boarding school. I ate a lot of food, everything that was served, and was pretty skinny. I never really thought about it at all.

The first time I noticed packaged food was when I was 17 or 18 and went into the real world – stuff like Coke and crisps. I went to town on those salty and sugary things and put on quite a lot of weight. When I realised that, I exercised, and it came back down again.

But it’s been up and down since then. 10-15 years of commuting and quick food didn’t help.

Cooking seems to complicated. There are all these ingredients and instructions and I don’t really understand it all.

One of the things I learned in school was to reason from first principles – do I did that.

We have four tastes, I had learned: salty, sweet, bitter and sour. So I thought – how would I cook with these? A lot of food that I remember seems to use combinations of salty and sour food, and I liked those. And sweet. Everyone likes that. Bitter, not so much.

So that’s all we really need to make food that tastes nice – salt and sugar. Maybe sour. What about bitter?

I was experimenting with these recipes when I finally looked at this McDougall program thing and realised that it was actually about eating choices. It made the same points I was thinking: we’re designed to seek out salt and sweet foods. Bitter and sour are warnings – they tell us things might be poisonous.

Salt is a mineral.

And sweet comes from plants, especially starchy ones.

Now, suddenly my diet – the traditional ones – made sense. They’re based on starches, with combinations that make food taste good by combining salt, sugar, sour and even bitter. We even have a vegetable called a bitter gourd. I didn’t like it.

So, if that is the food that is traditional why are people in India having such high rates of heart disease?

That’s a combination of many things – the pollution and the lack of exercise among them.

But the biggest problem is the added fat in our diets – oils and ghee used in cooking.

Fats are the problem. Fats from meat and dairy and poultry and it’s the fat that is making us sick.

Fat is incredibly expensive to make. You have to work at it to make oil from plants. You have to feed animals until they’re fat enough to eat. It’s bad for the environment.

But there’s more money in that, I expect, than there is in selling you potatoes and rice.

I’m interested in making better decisions – and using drawing and writing as a way to help me do that.

If you want to do something with your life you first have to be healthy.

That means getting your food right.

And I don’t think we have it right around the world – something is wrong. What we’re told to eat and what we have in the market is making us fat and sick.

Maybe before we ask the big questions about what we want out of life we need to ask the little ones first.

Like what’s on our plate?

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Sunday, 8.37pm

Sheffield, U.K.

‘Say Hello’ was inspired by optimism. – Nancy Wilson

When you start learning a new programming language the first thing you do is get it to say “Hello World!”

If you learn Go it now teaches you do to that in Chinese.

The intention of this instruction is that you get on and do something, something very simple, like printing a line to the output.

But you do it.

There are many people who never take this step.

They observe and analyse and read and try to understand.

They do this with AI – it’s something people talk about and they’re watching it.

They do it with markets – someone is talking about trading in a certain way.

Here’s the problem.

Life is so complex these days that it’s almost impossible to understand something from the outside.

At the same time it’s simpler than ever to actually understand things.

And this leads to a situation where people don’t know enough to know that they don’t know something.

So they make decisions believing that they know what they’re doing when they don’t.

But their knowledge is just not equal to the situation.

And the answer isn’t in studying more or reading more.

It’s in getting involved, in taking action.

Taking the very simplest first step.

Printing “Hello World!” to the screen.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh

Saturday, 10.41pm

Sheffield, U.K.

You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead. – Stan Laurel

Some people know exactly what they want to do and what they want to be and have a plan to get them there.

I’m not one of those people.

I meander, go down wrong pathways, look around, turn back, get lost, go somewhere else.

When you don’t know what the goal is then any path will do.

And that’s interesting, all on its own.

Take learning to draw, for example.

This blog is about using drawing to help one think more clearly.

I don’t really have much to say in terms of instructions – how to draw, for example.

I also don’t have much to say about thinking.

I simply use drawing and writing as a way to explore my thinking.

Which I fear is the wrong way to do it – I have the words of authors like Naipaul running through my head as they rail against people who try and understand their inner world rather than the outside one.

Narcissism, they shout.

But how can you understand others if you don’t first understand yourself?

Every once in a while, it’s worth starting again, trying something different.

If that works, then great. If you return to your old ways, that’s ok too.

Intentional practice – that thing about doing something again and again until you get it right only works when the something is simple and unambiguous.

It works if you want to play the violin or play a sport at a world class level.

When it comes to just being you… I’m not sure it’s as simple as that.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh