Recognizing Treasures

If you found a treasure, what would it be? How would you know that it is a treasure? What kind of systems do you use for finding treasures?

My system for finding treasures is public, taxpayer-paid, and at everybody´s disposal - provided you speak Finnish. It is called Radio Yle 1. It provides trigger information that has often proved out very nourishing in many ways.

Luckily we have not lost all radio channels to porridge-tum-dum music cut by headache-provoking nonsense chatting. In Radio Yle 1 we still have knowledgewise ambitious reporters and proper programmes.

My latest catch was the name of an author, Taleb. I heard just the last name. The rest was to be found by a Google search, Taleb Nassim Nicholas, closer still his book the Black Swan (978-0-713-99995-2). The next step was just to tell my wishes to Amazon.com.

Yesterday I went to the post office twice to get the book. The first time was a disappointment, because the parcel was not yet there. The second time was two hours too late. The post office was closed.

Today I got it. - How do I know it is a treasure? Maybe I just pick up a couple of ideas from Taleb´s text. He says, for instance, that life is a cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks:

Look into your own personal life, to your choice of profession, say, or meeting your mate, your exile from your country of origin, the betrayals you faced, your sudden enrichment or impoverishment. How often did these things occur according to plan? (p. xix)

I have always admired achievers who reach goals by following a consciously chosen strategy, who steadily proceed from one goal to the next. Or maybe I should write ´who seem to proceed´.

In the course of the years many strict strategies seem to have fallen apart. What at the first sight looked a relatively smooth path has often turned out to be a couple of handfuls of "significant shocks". Life seems to require great amounts of energy and effort from most of us. What we call ´normal life´ may just look normal - seen from outside.

Perhaps we live our normal-looking lives just for others. We try to show each other that life is going on smoothly and normally. If I asked you how you are, you would not blurt out all that frightens you and makes you panic. You do your best to pretend to be calm and in control.

If we freely and profusely exposed and exchanged our primary worries and fears, the society would get shocked and out of rails. That reminds me that my parents were talking about peace propaganda having been used during the war. It was important that people did not get totally frustrated. When all people agree on pretending life to be normal, it becomes normal. Not pretending normality would be too risky.

What Taleb says in his book is that we have a need to think that life is less random than it actually is.

"Both the artistic and scientific enterprises are the product of our need to reduce dimensions and inflict some order on things. Think of the world around you, laden with trillions of details. Try to describe it and you will find yourself tempted to weave a thread into what you are saying. A novel, a story, a myth, or a tale, all have the same function: they spare us from the complexity of the world and shield us from its randomness." (p.69)

The other day I wrote about Finnish people telling about their unemployment. Taleb says that ideas come and go, stories stay. You may make use of them. For instance, if you work in a randomness-laden profession, you frequently face significant shocks. You are likely to suffer from burnout effects. Keep a diary. That is, according to Taleb, the least you can do in those circumstances. You could also decide beforehand to lump all your pain into a brief period and to spread a steady flow of enjoyment - in the form of small and frequent positive rewards - into your story. Whether you want your story to be a comedy or a hero-story is up to you as well.

I recommend you read The Black Swan to know, for instance, that elephant matriarchs play the role of superadvisers on rare events. We learn from repetition. Events that are nonrepeatable are ignored before their occurence. Linear progression is not the norm. The norm is to be taken by astonishment and suprise.

If you found a treasure, how would you know that it is a treasure?