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Musings Report 2019-8 2-23-19 Transforming One Thing Requires Transforming Everything
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Welcome to February's MUS (Margins of the Unfiltered Swamp)
The last Musings of the month is a free-form exploration of the reaches of the fecund swamp that is the source of the blog, Musings and my books.
Thank You, Contributors!
Thank you, Sam F., John K.A., Robert J. and Willard S. for renewing your generous support of my work, and welcome new subscribers-patrons Leslie G., Mike M. and Steve H.
Transforming One Thing Requires Transforming Everything
One of my goals in my writing and in my life is to reconnect the "silos" of specialization that have divided up our understanding of the world, making it difficult to reach an integrated understanding of just about anything.
My focus this year on the principles of evolution and adaptation is part of this long-term attempt to generate an integrated understanding of the core systems of our lives and our world.
Since I've been discussing health in evolutionary terms this year, I'm going to use a health-related analogy to discuss today's topic: Transforming One Thing Requires Transforming Everything.
As a generality, increasing specialization has led to increasing efficiency and productivity: when machines and workers are dedicated to repeating tasks, productivity rises as small inefficiencies are slowly eliminated.
This trend has nurtured a generalized belief that small incremental improvements are the core process of higher productivity.
The other modern trend is of course the introduction of a new technology that transforms the old process in one fell swoop.
Specialization and the promise of a technological "magic bullet" together generate the expectation that the "solution" to the lifestyle illnesses associated with obesity is a new technology: a new pill, a new surgical procedure, etc.
Rather than seek an integrated approach, we tend to focus on incremental changes in one process (for example, diets that demand the removal of various foods) or on the hope of a miraculous technological cure, examples of which appear just often enough to justify our hope that every disease will soon be conquered by a pill or injection.
But in the real world, transforming one thing--for example, one's weight--requires transforming everything: not just the quantity of what one eats but the variety of what one eats, when one eats it, one's exercise routines, one's fitness, how one interacts with the built environment and beyond these physicalities, one's personal and class identity, one's cultural beliefs about food and fitness and so on.
One of our good friends has lost over 50 pounds in the past two years, a goal many aspire to but few attain and sustain. In observing our friend over the past two years, we've noticed that she didn't change one thing such as diet--she changed everything about the way she lives, which includes what we do, think, believe and feel.
One of the few things we know for sure is that the social support of one's peers is a key factor in changing behaviors and perceptions for most humans. It's very difficult to transform Everything in isolation.
Our friend religiously attends her support group, and monitors / measures her food and weight. Baked goods (which she used to love) are out, and so are snacks and sugary soft drinks. These are not brought into the house so they're not temptations. Desserts are rare and limited treats.
She walks virtually daily now, and on the weekends takes long, challenging hikes with others or by herself.
Common sense tells us that our cultural and class-based perceptions and beliefs about food, diet, exercise and our bodies have a tremendous impact on what we eat, what we want to eat, how we eat, where we eat, what type of body we aspire to, etc.
Books such as Food and Culture offer an academic overview of the profound influence of culture and class on our health and diet, and this helps us understand why narrowly focused attempts to change our health via a diet alone generally fail--and why incremental change that works so well in engineering settings fails to lead to sustained transformation in complex areas such as health.
From the point of view of complex systems, evolutionary principles and adaptation, it makes no sense to imagine profound transformation can be achieved by focusing on changing one specialized "silo" of behavior. Every behavior is the manifestation of a complex constellation of beliefs, cultural assumptions, interpretations, habits and individual blind spots, goals and decisions.
Perhaps many of our failures stem from an implicit belief that we can transform one thing by changing one thing, when the reality is more complex and challenging: the only way to truly transform one thing is to change everything connected to the one transformation we seek.
Highlights of the Blog This Past Week
10 Common-Sense Amendments to the U.S. Constitution 2/22/19
Homeless Encampments and Luxury Apartments: Our Long Strange Boom 2/21/19
Let's Face It: The U.S. Constitution Has Failed 2/20/19
Which One Wins: Central Planning or Adaptive Networks? 2/19/19
Credit Exhaustion Is Global 2/18/19
From Left Field
The new tech totalitarianism: When companies know more about us than we know about ourselves.
MMT Sounds Great In Theory...But
Why disaster capitalists are praying for a no-deal Brexit
The horrors of communist China under Mao Zedong that most Westerners don't know about
These Are the Wealthiest Towns in the U.S.
"The Trap Has Been Set" -- worth reading even though it's about financial matters...
9 Books On Healthcare For People Who Want To Fix Healthcare (2015)
The Greatest Investor You’ve Never Heard Of: An Optometrist Who Beat The Odds To Become A Billionaire (via Maoxian) -- he studied company's patents and IP....
What are the most underrated and overrated watch brands? -- Timex not listed, darn....
The Last House of Fans, Paris
A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won’t Be ‘Assembled in U.S.A.’ (via GFB)
An Honest Living: What is it like to go from a tenured professorship to an hourly wage driving buses? This piece tries to make sense of an unusual transition. -- Everything he describes is verboten in the MSM and academia.
"You steal someone's wallet and they're broke for a day, you teach them to play guitar and they're broke for a lifetime." Overheard in East Nashville, via Twitter
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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