Stress Valley

Despite a booming economy, pleasant climate and natural treasures, nearly two-thirds of Bay Area residents say the quality of life here has gotten worse in the last five years, according to a new poll.

No wonder people working there get paid a lot as compensation for the misery.

Apparently people love money and fleeting fame so much that they have made quite a deal with the devil!  And even the people who don't have money don't want to leave, which makes no sense to me.

Meanwhile, The New York Times notes that the Silicon Valley's very-important-people seem to be obsessed with the virtue of suffering.

They sit in painful, silent meditations for weeks on end. They starve for days — on purpose. Cold morning showers are a bragging right. Notoriety is a badge of honor.

Madness, my friends, madness this is!

I have often joked with students that if I wanted to starve and not have hot showers, well, I could have easily stayed back in a poor village in India ;)

So, the Valley's very-important-people are turning to ... Stoicism?  WTF?

Stoicism has been the preferred viral philosophy “for a moment” for years now — or two decades, by one count. The topic of Stoicism usually comes up in the Valley in terms of the maintenance of the personal life. Start-ups big and small believe their mission is to make the transactions of life frictionless and pleasing. But the executives building those things are convinced that a pleasing, on-demand life will make them soft. So they attempt to bring the pain.
“We’re kept in constant comfort,” said Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, in an interview on Daily Stoic, a popular blog for the tech-Stoic community. Mr. Rose said he tries to incorporate practices in his life that “mimic” our ancestors’ environments and their daily challenges: “This can be simple things like walking in the rain without a jacket or wearing my sandals in the December snow when I take the dog out in the mornings.”

Seriously, these are the nutcases that are shaping our collective future through hi-tech?

Why Stoicism?

Ada Palmer is a professor of early modern history at the University of Chicago and a novelist. Her books are popular in Silicon Valley, and she often visits for dinners with tech workers.
“It’s very interesting to see their sort of sad lethargy,” Dr. Palmer said. “When you’re 37, rich, retired and unhappy, it’s very perplexing.”

"Sad lethargy." There is a cure for that--go do something that connects you with real humans.

Can the art of conversation be taught? I think not!

As the sabbatical comes to an end, mentally I am beginning to get ready to return not only to my own little corner of this planet, but to the professional life as well.  Naturally, my web-surfing, too, is returning to some of the established habits from which I had taken a break and it included checking with A_L_Daily.  From there, off to this piece, which is about the art of conversation. 

I have no idea how awful or tolerable my company is at conversations, and I can only hope that people don't run away when they spot me five miles away, afraid that I am a terrible bore :)

Over the years, I learnt from a few people a couple of key traits: be genuinely interested in what the other person has to say at a party; lob others questions right up their alley because people think that we are good conversationalists when they have a good time talking about their favorite topics; always have a bunch of jokes and groaners in the metaphorical back pocket that can be appropriately interjected into conversations; judge what contexts are serious and which ones are on the lighter side; and, of course, resist every bloody temptation to talk about how great I am!

It turns out that what I have understood from over thirty-plus years of observations was always available for the taking, from Cicero!  Yes, Cicero of the old Roman times!  The FT piece quotes the statesman:

Speak clearly; speak easily but not too much, especially when others want their turn; do not interrupt; be courteous; deal seriously with serious matters and gracefully with lighter ones; never criticise people behind their backs; stick to subjects of general interest; do not talk about yourself; and, above all, never lose your temper.

So, if I had been presented with Cicero's advice, say, when I was in my early teens, would that have made me a better conversationalist?

I am confident that the answer is a no.

This is not the same as teaching science; such aspects of life have to be experienced, and reflections on our experiences then make us better students, I suppose.  It took me a while to understand that I might be able to score some cheap laughs at somebody's expense, but that makes me neither a good conversationalist nor a better human.  It is not that this golden rule was never clearly laid out for me, but understanding through experiences is immensely profound.

I tend to think that every class meeting I have is nothing but conversations with students.  No class meeting is about me and, instead, the meetings are always about the students.  I invite them to join the conversations, and try to draw in the quieter ones in particular.  I have a stack of groaners and anecdotes ready, if the situation warrants.  What I learn in the classroom, I apply elsewhere, and what I experience in the "real world" I teach in the classroom.

Here is to hoping that I have learnt a lot more about conversations, over this sabbatical and that I am a better conversationalist in the classroom.