Ambigamy

Well I'll just admit it:I haven't been keeping up with your blog. This article in particular represents why. You argue with the age old wisdom: "be present." Why? I've never known better advice than this. Are you saying that we shouldn't be present? That we should constantly be worrying about the future and wallow in our own insignificance? I would like to present the idea to you that we each choose what is significant in our own lives and that if we PLAN on following through with our GOALS, then both the goal and plan will be realized. I could also tell you that everything that we do, in fact the whole of our lives, is insignificant. But if you are present in your own personal significance in this life, that wouldn't really matter much to you. You can't ask "what is significant;" it's a relative question. Ask what is your significance to the world, make it a goal to discover that answer and plan to live it!

Thanks for writing. A few comments.

From your reply I can tell that what I said about "be present" being as incomplete as saying "always pay attention to..." doesn't apply to your interpretation of it. You read "be present" as actually implying what you should be present to--your goals and plans and present activities as opposed to being present to your insignificance and your anxieties.

If I say the advice is empty, I'm certainly not arguing that it's opposite is full. So please don't misunderstand me. I'm not advocating "not being present." You admit at the beginning of your note that lately you have not been present (paid attention) to my columns. Do you really think I'd be saying never pay attention to anything? I'm saying pay attention to the right things and not the wrong ones. I believe there is a right and wrong but that they can't be known absolutely today. You can only bet on what are the right things to pay attention to and that whether you paid attention to the right ones will not be fully revealed until the future.

I emphasize such uncertainties. It's sort of my shtick. But do I think life's decisions are really that uncertain? No. I mostly think we do just fine guessing well enough what to do. Still, I think there's a fundamental difference between the people who take their bets as certainties based on principles and people who embrace the betting nature of it all. And with as many theorists out there looking for the always-true rules from which you can deduce all behavior, it ain't bad to have a guy like me in the mix.

When it comes to advice, true and practical are not the same thing. I can use advice to very good effect without it being necessarily an accurate reflection of the way things work. Take for example, Jay Dixit's cover article from a few months ago. He wrote an article that at least implied that you should always overlook your partner's disappointing behavior. If I'm a person who tends strongly to fuss counterproductively over my partner's disappointing behavior Dixit's advice could be very practical advice for me to embrace. By preaching "always overlook" to myself I can compensate for my natural tendency to not overlook. I won't be able to follow the advice to the letter anyway so I'll end up with an appropriately mixed approach but one that reduces the amount of counterproductive fussing I do, right? And it doesn't matter that it's not factually true that the best solution is to always overlook the foibles.

Or take a rule that "God is watching your every move and if you stop drinking he'll grant you eternity in heaven, so therefore you should stop drinking." If I have alcoholic tendencies such advice might well be worth embracing even if it's not entirely accurate.

I'm writing a piece about that called Philtres. It plays on a pun, the way that a filter is something that passes material selectively, allowing some stuff through and barring passage to other stuff. A philtre is a magical potion or charm, medicine that has a powerful effect. I think psychology sits uneasily on top of the ambiguity between wanting to prescribe useful recipes and wanting an accurate depiction of how things and especially minds work. I think we reconcile these two by promoting filters as philtres, very selective or filtered interpretations of the way things work that are designed to serve as a clinically effective magic potion.

In fact Jay Dixit's advice has been a useful philtre and filter in my life lately. I'm now employing a policy of zero comment or critique of my partner's disappointing behaviors. Zero, and it's working very well. I'm employing it however, not because it represents a true law of nature, but because I think it will work. I'm mostly arguing for pragmatism. If Jay had said "do this because it often proves to be the right thing to do" it would have been promoted on practical grounds. As it was, the case was made more deontologically, as though it was reporting some moral principle derived from the scientific study of nature. I don't think it is. I think in practice there are times to overlook and times to not overlook. If I were someone who overlooked too much, Dixit's article would have been bad medicine.

We reach for the philtres that either reinforce or correct for our natures. Gentle people advocate gentleness. Ungentle people embrace philtres that argue for gentleness. I reach for Jay's advice because I needed to cultivate more tolerance for my partner's ways, but I don't reach for it because it is well argued from truths about the universe. It filters out or ignores crucial countervailing factors, and instead claims there's some absolute principle.

It's a subtle distinction that I don't expect everyone to understand, embrace or find credible. But you seem to understand it. You use the philtre, or filter that says "be present to your goals but not your insignificance," which is actually a filtered philtre advocating that you employ a filter. If you continue to feel like filtering out or not being present to my columns, I heartily endorse your choice and hope that, in practical terms it works out for you. Really.

Jeremy