The Challenge of Giving to the Homeless

My coworker Robert

I live about two blocks away from the largest homeless shelter in the southeast United States, so as you can imagine, I encounter homeless people often.

One of the two questions that always come to mind is about how these people do it. How do they survive the conditions of their lives? I’ll talk about that another time.

The second question is about how to best help these people who are in need. When do I give? To whom do I give? What do I give? How much of it do I give? Do I give… or do I do?

I believe that giving to organizations that provide services to the homeless is a great thing to do, but that is not the topic of this post. I’m more concerned with 1-to-1 giving right now.

I have always been hesitant to give people money directly, because I don’t trust that they are going to make a wise decision with the money. So I once bought a bunch of $5 gift cards to Subway and gave those out. In that way I was able to control what they spent their money on. I was happy with that for a while, until I realized that this was ego giving. True giving is relinquishing control over your gift and how it is used. So what we need is a way to feel good about giving money along with any expectations of how it will be used. You never know, they might be saving up for a sleeping bag or a jacket or something else.

I went to a Kabbalah class this morning, and one of the topics discussed was how to give in a way that uplifts the recipient. Nobody likes to receive out of sorrow or pity. That breeds shame. Instead, people prefer to earn their share fairly — in return for something given or done. This uplifts the recipient, because he feels self-sufficient. You know the proverb about teaching a man to fish.

“But I’m just on the street… all I can give a guy is the money in my wallet.” Not true. You have a short amount of time with that person. Face time from someone who both cares and can help is rare for him. He needs it as much or more than money. Because of this, it’s important to make the most of your 15-second interaction with him.

The most important thing is to interact with him as a human being who is no better or worse than yourself. He finds himself in a place of needing help while you find yourself in a place of being able to help. Any person who is not homeless by choice was obviously subject to circumstances that were beyond their control; because if they had sufficient control of their circumstances, they would not be where they are. In many cases it is illness — mental and/or physical — that has prevented him from earning the means to own or rent a home. Mental disease includes personality disorders, mental retardation and drug addictions.

I have heard it said that in shamanistic societies, the mentally “ill” are sometimes the most gifted shamans; and here we are locking them up or letting them starve. Instead, let’s try to learn something from them. In traditional Tibetan society, the monks are the homeless. They are the teachers. The society supports them, and in return they teach.

But our urban homeless people are probably not ready to be shamans or monks, and we probably don’t have so much time to give them. So, what do we do?

First of all, do not make excuses if now is not the time for you to give. You can simply turn to him and say, “I’m sorry, brother, not today.” This is the quickest and most respectful response that I have found.

If you are in the mood to give, and you have 15-30 seconds of your time to spare, here’s how I recommend responding to a homeless person’s request. It takes some courage:

1. Stop, turn toward him, and give him your full attention. Let him address you directly.
2. If he starts to ramble, interject: “I need to stop you, we only have 15 seconds”.
3. Tell him, “You are here because of the events in your past, and I respect that. That’s the past. It’s gone.”
4. Decide how much you feel like giving (see below for help deciding this).
5. As you give him whatever you’re giving him (say it’s $5), set your intention: “Here is $5.00. I am giving you not only this money, but my confidence that you will use it to bring good to yourself and to those around you.” This is the “service” that he is rendering in exchange for the money, and this gives him an opportunity to feel worthy of it and uplifted.
6. Let him thank you if he wants.
7. If you want, thank him for giving you the opportunity to give.
8. Say goodbye and part ways.

Regarding how much to give someone, I think the simplest solution is to make a monthly/yearly budget of money — and time — to give to the homeless directly. Assign a number of seconds to each dollar so that you can track your time easily. So, for example, a $1/6s ratio means that if you budgeted $20 a month, you would also budget 120 seconds (2 minutes) per month, allowing you to give four people each $5 and 30 seconds of your time. Adjust the multiplier based on how valuable your money is in relation to your time. Do not give anything if you cannot give at least 15 seconds.

If your money is worth much more to you than your time, then give the person more of your time. You don’t even have to give money. Just talk to as a human being. Show them that they matter enough to you for you to stop and talk to them. Ask them about themselves and their history. Learn about them. It’s usually pretty interesting.

The most important thing is this: Whatever you give, give wholeheartedly.

The Effective Teacher’s Secret to Student Cooperation

Teacher by AhavatHaEmet on Flickr

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to get students to simultaneously behave well and like you? Yelling can achieve the former, and befriending them can achieve the latter, but neither of these achieves both. How, then, do you achieve the perfect balance of the two? Veteran teachers understand intuitively that you must earn their respect and trust by treating them with as much respect and trust as you expect from them. This is not so easy to do, so I’m going to break it down. As you continue reading, keep in mind that even though I frame my techniques and examples in the context of kids in a classroom, the same concepts apply equally well to adults.

In order to control undesired student behavior such as lying and acting out, we must understand what motivates such behavior. Surprisingly, the blame usually lies in how the teacher behaves toward the students. Each teacher responds differently to misbehavior; some more emotionally, and some more professionally (i.e., showing less emotion). The students know what to expect from their teacher, and it is in their nature to try to elicit emotional responses to their actions. In general, these emotional responses fall into three categories: approval, anger and fear.

Approval is a response indicating that the teacher is pleased by a student’s actions. It is a positive emotional response. Well-behaved students seek approval through positive behavior and “fishing for compliments” (e.g. “How do you like my project??”). These students are people pleasers and end up displaying desired behavior primarily because others like it, and not because the actions intrinsically motivate them. The approval response only encourages this mentality. Poorly-behaved students, on the other hand, generally try to antagonize the teacher, and therefore seldom seek approval. Logically, then, we can see that teacher approval is a useless and counter-productive response to student behavior.

Anger is the second common emotional response, and probably the most prevalent. Teachers who take student misbehavior personally tend to respond by angrily lashing out at their students. The well-behaved students seek to avoid provoking the teacher by behaving properly. This is a technique known as positive punishment and is not a very effective way to control behavior. The poorly-behaved students purposely misbehave, because they have been conditioned (usually by their parents) to enjoy the attention and power they feel in response, even though it is negative. Their objective is to provoke the teacher, and they skillfully play her in different ways until they find the most effective ways of doing so. By maintaining a calm, collected demeanor, the teacher can remove most of the incentive for these students to misbehave.

Fear, or more mildly discomfort, is the last common teacher emotion. Many teachers feel overpowered by, and not in control of, their class. Though they will not admit this verbally, their body language tells a different story. Kids are remarkably adept at interpreting nonverbal language, and the poorly-behaved ones learn to control the teacher through skillful manipulation of her fear response. These students seek power and control; when they succeed in breaking down the teacher’s defenses, they feel empowered. Therefore, the teacher must avoid any indication of fear or discomfort, thereby removing the incentive for such behavior. We will see how to do this a little bit later.

As we can see, it is important for the teacher to avoid all emotional displays when giving instructions or directions of any type. In general, people receiving instructions or suggestions tend to evaluate their merit, in large part, based on the emotional undertones of the speaker. Instructions borne of emotion are generally considered to be less rational than those given with a straight face and no emotion. Therefore, people tend to ignore emotionally-based instructions.

Those who do follow instructions given emotionally are generally doing so to appease the instructor. They have not been given an opportunity to calmly evaluate the merit of what the instructor is saying, and therefore never internalize the reasoning process for the correct behavior. Additionally, these people tend to cease the desired behavior soon after the instructor’s emotion has subsided, which again demonstrates that the emotional response is only a short-term fix.

From these examples, we can see that hiding your emotion while redirecting a student increases the likelihood of cooperation. However, it also has the positive side effect of allowing the student to save face when they follow your directions. Students who follow instructions just to appease the instructor frequently feel like they were coerced into correct behavior, and may feel embarrassed when their classmates see them “lose” in a shouting contest with her. If you give instructions amicably and reasonably, the student will not feel threatened. He will accept your advice, because he sees that you care. But the best part about their ability to save face is that the rapport between the two of you is not damaged, and within seconds you can go back to joking around and having friendly discussion with no ill will.

Now that we recognize the need to put our emotions aside when dealing with students, we now need to know how to do so. In the following paragraphs, I will present five techniques to avoid escalating your – and your students’ – emotions.

First and most important is not to take student behavior personally. You must internalize the fact that kids naturally seek to test their limits, and behavior is no exception. They don’t necessarily believe that you deserve to endure their bad behavior, but simply behave poorly because they can get away with it. They would behave identically with anyone else who behaved toward them in the same way as you do. Therefore, you must not personalize their behavior, but rather emotionally detach from the situation and play it like a game. Once you see it as a game, you will suddenly discover a myriad of tricks and tactics that you missed while blinded by your emotion.

Secondly, it is important to speak quietly. I have noticed that students in a classroom subconsciously lower their volume level to match that of the teacher. I once had laryngitis and taught a class in a voice not much louder than a whisper, and the students magically lowered their voices to match. Lower voices also means less yelling, and less yelling is perceived as less emotion.

Third, you must ensure that what you say to them is meaningful and well thought out. Make sure you speak firmly, clearly, slowly and deliberately. When responding to a negative behavior, take a second before you respond, and allow yourself to detach and depersonalize so that you don’t say something you don’t mean or can’t stand behind.

Fourth, you must show them the same exact level of respect that you’d like them to show you. I see so many teachers speaking to their students as if they were unworthy scum. Kids can tell when you don’t respect and trust them, and they likewise immediately stop respecting and trusting you. When you speak to the student, consider them as an equal. Try to speak to them with the same love and respect with which you’d speak to your best friend or significant other. When the student needs to tell you something, give them time to answer without interrupting them, and listen to them. Do not make faces while you listen. These betray your emotional reactions, which we agree have no place in teacher-student communication. Also, it is important to show respect to our students by giving them the benefit of the doubt in all communication. When asking a student to explain a situation in which they are potentially at fault, first assume they are not at fault, and then ask a non-leading question in a non-accusatory tone, with a relaxed facial expression. You will find that the student is much more likely to tell you the truth, even if he is at fault.

Finally, you must remove all nonverbal expressions of emotion. This is probably one of the most difficult of these techniques, as there are three types of nonverbal behavior that we need to be aware of: vocal inflections, facial expression and non-facial body language.

Vocal inflections can significantly change the meaning of what you say. It can show many different emotions including the three mentioned above. Speak with a calm, low-pitched, confident voice and they will respond much more positively. For example, imagine saying “Did you take his pencil?” first with a tone of accusation, and then as if you were interested for purely educational reasons. Notice the difference. Students react defensively when confronted emotionally, but answer truthfully when asked in a calm manner.

Facial expression are usually the biggest giveaway. Make sure that when talking to students you completely relax your facial muscles. Practice different emotional facial expressions and then relax your muscles. See how it feels, and look in the mirror to see how it looks. Pay special attention to your eyebrows, forehead, and corners of your mouth, as these areas betray many emotions such as surprise, anger, disappointment, concern, etc. One important note is that smiling while you give instructions to a student can indicate fear or discomfort. Even though you may interpret it as being friendly, they interpret it otherwise: Consider chimps and other primates. When they’re scared, they draw back their lips and expose their gums. We manifest our fear and discomfort in much the same way, even though we may refuse to admit it.

The last nonverbal channel of communication that you must monitor is non-facial body language. Make sure you keep your hands out of your pockets and in the open. This shows that you have nothing to hide and are not afraid. Additionally, always make sure that you make and maintain eye contact with the student. Don’t look away while you are talking to him, and don’t let him look away, either. Speaking with eye contact gives your words much more weight.

Now that you have a collection of techniques to build respect and confidence between you and your students, you can start implementing them. Once you begin to do so, you will begin to see changes immediately. Students will be truthful more often as they realize you are probably not going to overreact in response. They will lose interest in trying to incite and anticipate emotional reactions from you, which will cut down on negative behavior. Students will save face, and as a result they will appreciate and respect you. You will become the teacher they look forward to seeing, and your class will become a treat for them.

The Lost Symbol, Noetics, Avatar, and Qi

I just finished reading Dan Brown‘s latest novel, The Lost Symbol, and I decided to write today’s blog post about it. I don’t intend to give any significant spoilers, so you’re safe if you haven’t yet read the book.

The setting is Washington, D.C. The protagonist, as in his last two novels, is symbologist Robert Langon, whose job it becomes to prevent the antagonist, an evil man who calls himself Mal’akh (hebrew for “angel”), from obtaining the secrets to achieving apotheosis, the transformation of man into god. According to the story, these secrets have been guarded for many generations by the Freemasons, many of whom were instrumental in founding our country. Throughout the story, we find buildings, artwork and artifacts designed and placed by these founding fathers with the intent of protecting the secrets until the time came for a deserving individual to decipher the maze of codes to find the secrets and transcend mortality, becoming the messiah and ushering in a new age of understanding.

In this story, we see the return of Katherine Solomon, who you may remember from the Da Vinci Code. She has been doing a great deal of groundbreaking research in the field of Noetic Science, and is on the verge of releasing her pivotal body of work to the public. The idea behind Noetic Science is to learn the capabilities of our mind previously thought to be outside the realm of possibility. The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was founded to study this topic. Their website introduces them as follows:

IONS is a nonprofit membership organization located in Northern California that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness—including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute maintains a commitment to scientific rigor while exploring phenomena that have been largely overlooked by mainstream science.

It further states,

Noetic sciences are explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing—including intuition, feeling, reason, and the senses. Noetic sciences explore the “inner cosmos” of the mind (consciousness, soul, spirit) and how it relates to the “outer cosmos” of the physical world.

What interests me is investigation into the claim that we have the possibility of using our minds alone to affect other entities (particularly living ones) around us; the claim that with focused intention, we can manipulate a certain unseen energy present in all living beings, enabling us to do things such as heal others, or even, as shown in Dr. Masaru Emoto‘s famous work Messages from Water and corroborated by Kristopher Setchfield, change the molecular structure of inorganic material around us .

The aspect of Noetics is what is most interesting to me about this book, and I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to Avatar, which I recently saw in IMAX 3D, an experience I highly recommend. This movie is also based on the idea that all living organisms are connected by way of an unseen life force that is probably the same energy Noetics is concerned with, and the same energy that Eastern culture calls Qi.

The field of Noetics is still very new, having been created in the 1970s. Many people agree, however, that Noetics is simply the rediscovery of knowledge that was well-understood, practiced and documented in a variety of ancient mystical traditions. The Lost Symbol points out several possible parallels between this emerging field and the well-documented phenomena from ancient times. My belief is that without all the modern technology we have nowadays, ancient people spent more time focusing their energy on introspection and study of the mind. Nowadays I think we have become distracted, and have lost the abilities once possessed by the ancient scholars.

I am hopeful that research continues in the area of consciousness. There have already been a huge number of unbelievable discoveries, many of which have been summarized and cited in The Intention Experiment by Lynne Mctaggart, which not only shares the scientific progress that has been made in this exciting field, but concludes by encouraging its readers to participate in collective intention studies through the associated website, www.theintentionexperiment.com. This book is referenced by name in The Lost Symbol as Katherine’s inspiration. I smiled when I read this, as I had already purchased the book several months earlier. I have only gotten a few chapters into the book, but am now actively reading it, and look forward to sharing my thoughts in a future post.

If this is a topic that interests you, you may be interested in reading The Intention Experiment, as well as a couple of other less scientific but still interesting books, What the Bleep Do We Know? and The Secret. Movies have been made of both of these books, but I recommend reading the books to allow yourself more time to think about the topics at your own pace.

The Mysterious Force of Trust, or Confidence Part II

Last week I wrote a post about confidence. The post was supposed to include a bit about trust as well, since the topics are closely related, but I decided to save that for this week. After seeing a lackluster response to last week’s post, I hesitated to post the rest this week. Unfortunately I lost all choice in the matter when I realized that Thursday was here and I hadn’t even thought of a different topic. So, I now humbly present you with my thoughts on trust vs. confidence.

First, I’d like to point out that there are two types of confidence: confidence in oneself, known as self-confidence, and confidence in others, known as trust. In some languages – German, for example – the words for confidence and trust are actually the same word. At first it may be difficult to understand how trust and confidence are similar, but it should begin to make sense after reading this article. Once you understand that trust is confidence in others, you will also understand that self-confidence is trust in yourself.

If self-confidence is trust in yourself, it makes sense that when you show others that you trust yourself – that is, you are self-confident – they begin to trust you, too. And because trust is reciprocal, their trust in you naturally causes your trust in them to increase. Everybody wins.

But what does trust do for us? Who does it benefit? While self-confidence clearly benefits you, trust benefits the community. Trust is the foundation of modern society. It enables us to function in group settings, which are essential to progression of our culture. As communal beings, we need to know that we can rely on other people to get things done for us. Think about all the people you work with or employ to do things for you. If you couldn’t trust them, we wouldn’t get anything done. Ever. In corrupt third-world countries lack of trust leads to anarchy and counter-productivity. In small communities such as kibbutzim trust is very high all around, and it creates a productive and safe living environment.

If trust is so important, how do we build it? First, I believe that you cannot trust someone until you show full confidence in front of him. Building confidence is a process by which you simultaneously show confidence in yourself and trust in the other person. This can happen when you share private information about yourself or entrust the other person with a responsibility, for example.

Once you have built trust between yourself and another, they become a “friend”, and you begin to see additional benefits. First, you naturally begin giving your friend the benefit of the doubt in difficult situations, because you know that it is unlikely that she would purposely harm you. Giving the benefit of the doubt means that you stop taking things so personally, because you realize that what your friend is doing or telling you is not meant to harm. You let down your guard and see things for what they really are, objectively. You become able to accept honest criticism and improve yourself; you are not worried about what she thinks of you, because you are self-confident in her presence.

What’s interesting about trust, though, is it seems that the more you trust you show someone, typically the more honestly they behave with you. The only catch is that the trust must be visible to the other party. I believe there is a natural tendency in humans to try to take advantage of, or circumvent, the system when possible. However, when someone knows they have been trusted to do the right thing, they generally live up to the expectation of that trust, because the challenge to circumvent the rules has disappeared, and more importantly, they feel respected. People who feel respected seldom cheat those who respect them, lest they betray their trust and lose their hard-earned respect.

Even though showing trust may seem easy, most people can sense when you pretend to trust them, and then they pretend to act honestly, and ultimately end up taking advantage of you. When people do not truly trust, they show it by checking back too often, speaking with hesitation, etc. Therefore, the best way to receive full honesty is to give full trust and respect, and mean it.

Snowy Branches, by Moshe Jacobson

The Quick Path to Self-Confidence… And Respect

Lately, I have made a special effort to notice the behaviors of confident people and the benefits they reap. I’ve discovered that those with confidence seem to end up with everything working in their favor. A little confidence can drastically affect — for the better — the way you interact with others, and the way others interact with you. What’s most interesting is that the more confident you are that things will go your way, the more likely they are to do so; it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In this post, I am going to speak specifically about self-confidence, which I would define as a strong belief in your own abilities. This could be the ability to succeed or the ability to be right, or the ability to persevere. Regardless, having self-confidence means that you know you can do whatever you set your mind to. The benefits of self-confidence are numerous. When you believe in your own abilities, many positive things begin to happen. For example,

• You become happier and mentally & emotionally healthier because you begin to realize your power to make things go your way.
• You begin to develop higher self-esteem, or a higher valuation of your own worth, because you realize that you can actually make a difference.
• You become more able to push through difficult times.

When your self-confidence and high self-esteem begin to show outwardly, people see that you believe yourself to be worth their respect, trust, and attention. People behave toward you in ways they never would have before.

So we’ve learned that showing confidence can achieve some useful results. But what if you don’t have confidence? How can you show it? The answer is, it’s difficult at first, but the more you show confidence on the outside, the more real becomes on the inside.

The first part of behaving with confidence is to do things deliberately. In other words, you should give thought to your actions and do them in a meaningful and unhurried way. Your actions should show that you mean what you do, and you do what you mean. Here is a list of examples:

• When you speak, speak loudly and clearly with the intention of being heard and understood, or do not speak at all.
• Don’t try to fill gaps in the conversation with empty words. Talking excessively is a sign of nervousness, which is a lack of confidence.
• Don’t ever laugh at your own jokes first. If the joke is funny, let them laugh. If not, don’t be the laugh track to your own failed attempt at humor.
• Don’t apologize excessively. It is a nervous behavior and weakens the effect of a genuine apology, which should be deliberate and meaningful.

The next important behavior to monitor is the way you react to things. A confident person reacts appropriately and without excessive emotion (e.g. defensiveness or emotional outbursts). Here are some examples:

• Don’t feel the need to explain your actions, words or appearance until specifically asked. Giving people unsolicited justification for your behavior indicates a need to justify it to yourself — a clear sign of lack of confidence in your own actions.
• Keep your emotional reactions under control. Confident people are not pushed around by their emotions.
• If someone else laughs at your intentional behavior, do not laugh with them. Laughing shows your agreement that your own actions are somehow funny or worthy of ridicule. Instead, politely ask them what is so funny, and give an explanation if one is requested.
• React to things on your own. For example, if everyone is laughing at something, but you don’t understand what’s so funny, don’t laugh just because everyone else is laughing. The confident person trusts her own instincts.

The last category of important behaviors to watch is body language. This is probably one of the most important, as it can betray uneasiness even when your words show none. You must monitor and control your body language, such as in the following examples:

• Don’t fidget when speaking to someone. It shows an uneasiness that comes with a lack of confidence.
• Have good posture when sitting, standing and walking. You should keep your head up, and make sure not to slouch — or appear too tensely rigid.
• Put your hands out in the open and don’t fidget with them. Don’t try to hide them by putting them in your pockets or crossing your arms. We hide our hands when we feel uneasy with ourselves.
• Take care of your physical appearance. You don’t have to be ultra-trendy or anything, but show that you put some level of effort into your grooming, which indicates that you take pride in yourself.
• Don’t back down when someone tries to intimidate you by entering your personal space.
• Stop touching your face. This is a nervous behavior indicating lack of confidence, particularly in your words. Plus, it can cause skin problems and infections.
• Look at people when you speak to them. Maintain an appropriate level of eye contact, but don’t stare.

The examples I’ve given are by no means a comprehensive list, but with a little practice you will begin to notice your own “tells”, or indications of uneasiness, and you will begin to fix them. I am confident that this advice can bring anyone a long way toward a happier, more confident life, and would love to hear any anecdotes and testimonials that you might have to share.

Blind Shadows, by Moshe Jacobson

“That’s retarded”: The devolution of words

As I was working with multiple monitors on Windows XP the other day, I became very frustrated at something: “You have to reboot just to enable the second display? That is so retarded!” Most people would agree that what I said is offensive: I chose an adjective normally reserved for someone with a mental deficiency and used it to describe something as deserving ridicule, thereby associating the mentally handicapped with things deserving ridicule.

St. Jozefsheim mental institution, by ~lp1986soldier~

What if I had used the word idiotic, or stupid? I think most people would see no problem with that. Why is this? The truth is that all three of these terms (and many others) originated as clinical diagnoses for mental deficiencies. They were to be used to describe people with specific medical conditions, and were in the same class as words such as anorexic, albino, or schizophrenic. However, through repeated colloquial use, they have taken on a different meaning. They are now used to describe things or ideas as illogical, ill-conceived or nonsensical.

When a word’s meaning evolves to signify something other than its original meaning, and its new sense is potentially insulting, the word can no longer be used for its original meaning, and a new word must be invented to take its place. In this case, idiotic, which came about in the 12th century, was replaced by stupid in the 14th century, which was then replaced by retarded in the late 19th century. Once retarded fell into common colloquial use, we started seeing replacements such as mentally handicapped, mentally challenged, or special needs. These serve as non-judgmental terms to describe people with mental deficiencies, leaving retarded to be used as a stronger synonym for stupid. Now, retarded has lost most of its original meaning.

I believe that retarded is a word with no good substitute. It is stronger than stupid or idiotic, and it has certain connotations that are not matched by any other word. I believe its colloquial use has actually enriched our language, and I think that it should not be considered politically incorrect. The word retarded should no longer be associated with legitimately mentally handicapped people, nor should it create any sort of negative prejudices against the mentally handicapped.

As you can see, the evolution of retarded from clinical to colloquial is nearly complete. Once everyone accepts that it can no longer be used in serious contexts, the word will have completed its transformation.

Now, what about the word gay? Is this word undergoing its own evolution? Gay, of course, started out meaning “happy”, then came to mean “homosexual”, but now has come to mean “lame”, as in “Man, this homework assignment is totally gay.” When used in this context, it is creating an association between “homosexual” and “lame”. Just as with retarded, the word is taking on a new, and negative, meaning. The difference here is that there is no non-judgmental, neutral term to substitute for it yet. Granted, if the negative sense of the word continues to be propagated, it will eventually take over the word, and we will invent some new non-judgmental colloquial term for “homosexual”, but at this point in time, gay is really the only available term for “homosexual”, so we should be careful not to use the term in negative contexts.

It’s interesting to think about the direction in which words evolve. We’ve seen here that they can evolve into more negative meanings than their original, because of the fact that people do not want to be mistaken for using a negative word when they really mean something neutral. But can a word evolve in the other direction, from negative to positive? I guess that’s a topic for another day.

P.S. I chose the photo of the abandoned mental institution’s stairwell on the right to represent the devolution of words. The building has a fascinating history.

P.P.S. I will leave you with a George Carlin quote: “There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad Intentions. And words.”

Why Word Nerds Rule

A word nerd is what I call someone who has a big vocabulary and enjoys using it correctly. You may think these people are just showing off, but I would like to suggest otherwise.

Have you ever noticed that certain people sound much different in writing than in person, and that they also have problems expressing themselves clearly in emails or IMs? If we take a look at how communication has evolved over the millennia, we can see both why this is the case, and why — despite what our critics say — word nerds are the pioneers of the future.

Throughout history, language has evolved hand-in-hand with the complexity of the ideas we’ve needed to express. When an idea cannot be precisely communicated with the existing vocabulary, new vocabulary is invented. Back before we had spoken language, our vocabulary consisted exclusively of body language and perhaps grunts of various intonations. Our species became extremely skilled at expressing and perceiving needs and emotions nonverbally, and we still rely heavily on that ability today, particularly before we’re old enough to understand speech. It is commonly stated that 95% of meaning in a typical face-to-face conversation is transmitted through nonverbal language, whereas only 5% is transmitted through words.

But what exactly is in that 95% of nonverbal information? What does body language add to our words to help us communicate more effectively? The answer is emotion. Consider the phrase “Jason’s at the front door.” When you read that out of context, you can assume nothing beyond that a guy named Jason is at the front door. It could have any number of possible implications. But now, try saying it with each of the emotions in the list below and imagine the meanings it could have in each case.

“Jason’s at the front door”: Happiness – Sadness – Fear – Love – Anger – Urgency – Surprise – Excitement – Confidence

As you can see, the originally ambiguous phrase has so much more meaning when we use nonverbal cues such as intonation, facial expression and gestures to resolve ambiguity. Also notice how your story changes if you change the age of the speaker, which is another nonverbal cue.

But let’s go back to the history of language. Once we developed phonetic written languages, our vocabulary and grammar began to evolve much more quickly. Written communication lacked visual or auditory aids to resolve its ambiguities, so word choice became extremely important. However, most writing was for record keeping or formal communication, and those who knew how to write were generally well-educated and understood the need for careful word choice.

Nowadays, we still make heavy use of body language, and using it properly is a very important social skill. However, written communication has gained incredible ground. The convenience, speed and efficiency of written media such as email, text messaging and IM often makes it a better choice than conversations by phone or in person, even for day-to-day chats. As as result, writing is no longer reserved for the highly educated; many people use writing for little more than informal communication over email and IM. These people tend to write the way they speak, not understanding that they are omitting 95% of the information they would otherwise be conveying with body language. Their written communication is awkward and riddled with ambiguity, and they are unable to express ideas as simple as driving directions without causing confusion. But they think they are being entirely clear, and are confused when others misinterpret them.

These people would have formed the illiterate class a few hundred years ago, and would communicate strictly via face-to-face conversation. Now they have access to written language, a very powerful and richly expressive tool, but they do not know how to use it properly. That, coupled with the fact that written communication is so commonplace, is causing common usage to deviate farther and farther from what was once considered proper. However, the language is also maturing faster than ever before, and the divide between those who use writing formally and informally is widening.

As time goes on, more and more of our communication will be textual, and our nonverbal communication skills will begin to atrophe to some degree. Being able to write well is aready essential for effective communication today, and those who lack written communication skills are frequently misunderstood or not taken seriously. Their inability to express themselves precisely over text leads to ambiguity and misunderstandings, which result in frustration, wasted time, wasted money, and even lost lives. So if people tell you that you speak like a walking thesaurus, take it as a compliment, and be happy that you possess the communication skills necessary for success in the Information Age.

In the background of this rather anachronistic portrayal of an cave dweller, we can see some early occurrences of phonetic written language. Credit: Deathwaves@Flickr.

How I Chose To Become Medicated, or What’s Wrong With Raising the Bar?

Only a few months ago I began taking, for the first time in my life, a daily performance-enhancing drug: Adderall XR.

Until then I was getting by just fine without it, but always felt I had a harder time staying on task than others did. I had never been interested in going to the effort and expense required to get a prescription for this class 2 controlled substance. I also didn’t like the idea of becoming dependent on an unnecessary daily medication.

While I was in college, it never even occurred to me to try any sort of drugs I was not legally prescribed. I’m sure I could have had easy access to amphetamines (Ritalin at the time?), but I just wasn’t interested. More important to me than the fact that it was illegal was simply that I didn’t feel any need to use drugs to make myself better.

Anabolic Steroid Tablets

But a couple of years ago, I was hanging out with a friend of mine, telling him how frustrating it was not to be able to concentrate on my work, and that I thought it was becoming worse. As one who was familiar with its effects, my friend offered me an Adderall of his own so that I could be the judge of its effectiveness.

I couldn’t believe what it did for me. Every particle in my brain aligned as if by some huge electromagnet. I was hyper-focused on the task at hand and on nothing else. My working memory felt twice as sharp as usual, and I was able to manipulate more information simultaneously in my mind. Movements, sounds and other distractions had no effect and flitted out of my mind as quickly as they popped in. I was in Brainiac Nirvana.

I understood now why so many people liked Adderall, and wanted some some of my own. It would be nice to be able to perform like that more often. I began exploring alternatives to dropping over $2000 on an ADD evaluation that would potentially result in a negative diagnosis and no prescription at all. I spoke to a friend of mine, who pointed me to a $500 student evaluation available through Emory University’s psychology department. The student’s final diagnosis would be signed off by the her licensed teacher, so it was really all the same to me who evaluated me. All I needed was a positive diagnosis.

The test was very thorough and included an IQ test and a long interview. The final report was equally thorough. At the end it stated, “Although Moshe does not meet criteria for a diagnosis of adult ADHD, a trial of stimulant medication may be considered to determine if it would help alleviate his symptoms of distractibility and difficulty sustaining attention. We recommend that Moshe consult with either his primary care physician or a psychiatrist if he is interesting in pursuing this option.”

All I needed to do was go to my doctor, but I delayed for almost two years. I am not sure why I procrastinated for so long, but I think that deep down I didn’t want the prescription. I didn’t want to be dependent on a drug that raised the bar. By taking the drug on a daily basis, I would increase others’ expectations of me, and I would then be pressured to continue taking it so that I could meet these expectations.

Additionally, I worried that my negative diagnosis would make my doctor unwilling to write me a prescription. When I admitted this to a friend, he informed me that most doctors write ADD prescriptions with a level of gravitas equal to that with which they blow their nose. Maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult after all. I was surprised that a controlled substance could be so easy to get.

"Caffeine up close" by eyeore2710

So after convincing myself that I’d just take the medication on certain days, I finally bit the bullet and went in to get the prescription. My doctor wrote it without hesitation. After a couple of weeks, I came to enjoy the way I performed with it, and have now begun taking it almost every day. In an irreversible move, I have raised my own expectations of myself; I have raised my own bar.

Adderall is just one example of performance-enhancing drugs, a category including anabolic steroids, caffeine, alcohol, pain killers, marijuana, Valium, and DayQuil, among others. The question is this: Is the use of performance-enhancing drugs morally acceptable?

Obviously, their use in competitions is not only morally unacceptable but also usually forbidden. The reasoning behind this is clear: it skews the playing field. The competitors who choose not to take drugs are at a disadvantage, and are pressured to take the drugs just to compete, despite potential physical and/or mental health risks.

But what about enhancing our everyday performance with drugs? Is there anything wrong with my taking performance-enhancing drugs on a daily basis if I am aware of, and willing to accept, the inherent health risks?

Consider that life itself is a big competition. We are always trying to be the hardest working, most efficient, highest producing, or highest quality employee, parent, company, or country. When I come to work sick on DayQuil, I am increasing my competitive edge in the short run, but in the long run I and others are expected to take fewer of our sick days. When once stay-at-home moms begin working a job or even two, thanks to the power of caffeine, they begin earning more in the short term, but they also create an increased labor supply. An increased labor supply decreases wages, and now we’re not only sleep deprived, but we’re earning less for the same work or having to produce more for the same salary. Working a second job is no longer optional for that single mom struggling to make ends meet. It’s a slow process, but in the end the higher bar eventually becomes the new baseline.

On the other hand, haven’t we been raising the bar in other ways for as long as we’ve existed? We now understand how to eat properly so that we grow stronger and live longer. We know how to avoid and cure many diseases that were once fatal. We have modern tools that we never had before. Raising the bar, or performance enhancement, is a completely natural part of the evolution of our species. It just so happens that our species has advanced to the point that we are improving not only the tools we can manufacture, but the tools we carry with us everywhere: Our brains and bodies.

This mentality of medicating for “quick-fix” enhancements plays right into our capitalistic mindset: We Americans always want more results with less effort. We’re going to get what we want, but ultimately it will be at the cost of our own mental health.

"Adderall XR 10 mg" by robert_rex_jackson

Religious Consistency, or Are You True To Your Beliefs?

Dusky Beauty by Souvik_Prometure

If someone you met were to ask you what your religion is, what would you say? What makes you say that? How sure are you of your beliefs? Do you practice what you believe?

This discussion is about a metric I call religious consistency, or how closely your actions match your religious beliefs. For the purposes of this discussion, we are concerned only with those who say they belong to a particular religion with specific rules and beliefs. That means that if you said you’re atheist, this discussion doesn’t apply to you; your religious consistency is harder to define.

Those who say they belong to a religion can be divided into nine different categories. The colors indicate the level of religious consistency of the people in that category. Try to determine which box you fall into, as I will be giving my thoughts on each below. And please excuse the ugly table.

Level of belief	Fully practicing	Partially practicing	Non-practicing
Strongly believing	zealot	apathetic	private hypocrite
Unsure	pressured	undecided	agnostic
Non-believing	public hypocrite	comfortable	closeted

Please keep in mind that “Strongly believing” does not necessarily mean that you agree with the most conservative form of your religion. It just means that you strongly agree with the belief set that you ascribe to. For example, a Reform Jew’s beliefs are much more relaxed than those of an Orthodox Jew, but neither is necessarily more or less practicing than the other. I use this example because the label “Reform Jew” is many times simply used to mean “non-practicing Jew”, but this is incorrect usage and should be avoided.

Inside El Ghriba, by Bartek Kuzia

Let’s talk about each of the types of people in the above table.

• Zealot: You practice what you believe. You are the most religiously consistent of anyone in this table. There is little to no disparity between what you practice and what you believe, and you should be commended for this. You may derive great happiness from your beliefs, but please avoid forcing them upon others, who may not feel the same way about your beliefs as you do.
• Apathetic: If you fully believe in your religion, why do you not practice it in its entirety? You must make the effort to become more practicing, or you risk becoming a private hypocrite.
• Private hypocrite: You are a hypocrite to yourself. If you strongly believe in your religion, why do you not practice? You must either change your lifestyle and begin practicing, or you must re-evaluate your beliefs. You have low to no religious consistency in your life.
• Pressured: It is likely that you are practicing only because those around you are pressuring you to do so. You should spend some time evaluating your religious beliefs and let those around you know what you have decided. You should practice a religion for your own good — not the good of others.
• Undecided: You are tentative in your beliefs and therefore practice half-heartedly. Are you practicing only for the approval of those in your religious community? Why do you observe the traditions that you observe? You probably derive little meaning from your religious practices, and you can probably say the same about many of the other things you do in life. You will probably find happiness from making a decision one way or another about your beliefs, and matching that decision with a corresponding change to your practice.


BAPS TEMPLE by Dan from Toronto1

• Agnostic: It seems that your religious beliefs are weak, and you have stopped practicing as a result. You are probably comfortable not practicing, but it is likely you do still hold a few beliefs. You should carefully examine these beliefs to determine if they are compatible with your lifestyle, and adjust accordingly if necessary. If you have no beliefs that are specific to your religion, then you should not continue calling yourself a member of your religion. Consider Unitarian Universalism, atheism or agnosticism, depending on your beliefs regarding the existence of God.
• Public hypocrite: I don’t have much good to say about you. What is your reason for so fervently maintaining a public image that runs so directly counter to your beliefs? You are doing a disservice to yourself and everyone around you. You should not delay in thoroughly analyzing your life and your beliefs. Are you a closet nonbeliever?
• Comfortable: You most likely enjoy the traditions and the community associated with your religion, because they make you feel comfortable. There is nothing wrong with this, but any pragmatic person will tell you that this is a waste of time and effort. Consider finding new routines and practices to replace the meaningless traditions you currently practice, or a new community with which you can honestly say you share a belief set or an interest.
• Closeted: You have admitted to yourself that you do not believe, and you have stopped practicing. You are religiously consistent with yourself, but you have yet to let others know of your beliefs. Don’t be afraid to tell people what you believe! They will respect you for having the guts to go against the grain.

Hopefully this has offered you some insight into the thorny world of religious practice and beliefs. It can be difficult to decide what you believe, and it can be even more difficult to reconcile your beliefs with your actions. We are fortunate enough to live in an age where most countries give you the freedom to practice whatever religion you believe in, or not to practice any at all. So make a decision and run with it. Be true to your beliefs!

The Baha'i Temple at Blue Hour by kern.justin

Posting delayed

To my faithful readers who come expecting a post today, I regret that you will have to wait until tomorrow. For the year of 2010 my posts will be appearing on Fridays, to help me keep better track of my traffic by week, since the year started (and as a result every week will start) on a Friday.