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Tag Archives: Research

Daily Ramblings – Bonus Content – The Land of Confusion

13 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by Dave Gardner in Bonus Content

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1984, Arguments, bias, Confusion, Investors, Orwell, Propaganda, Research, Sources, Truth

I try to avoid politics in this blog, because it is so divisive. The days of two politicians fighting it out on the floors of their respective houses, and sharing dinner and drinks afterward are long gone. Today, we watch two political parties (in America), eviscerate one another on television, radio, the print, and digital media.

Today, trusting the news you receive is a fool’s bet. One side says the other is evil; the other side reciprocates. Today, we need fact checking on our social media so we can feel good about the information we get on our social media feeds.

Are eggs good for us? Are carbs bad? Are fats bad? Is there climate change? Are the police racists? Is there such a thing as systemic racism? Use any of these sentences for a google search and you will read many arguments claiming one side or another. There are no definitive sources of information anymore. There is nowhere you can go to that can be considered the final authority on anything.

If you are in the U.S. or not, it is likely you have read about the riots, the police brutality, the racism, present in America. You can read about statues being torn down, people being killed, businesses burned, whole sections of towns being taken over by radicals, all while politicians watch and do nothing, leaving the helpless citizenry to fend for themselves.

You can read about strategically placed pallets of bricks, metal bars, and other “weapons” in areas where “peaceful” protests are being conducted. You can read about local governments pursuing campaigns to defund the police. You can watch radicals burn and loot businesses, destroy historic statues and monuments, all while the police watch or are “magically” not available. Insane?

What can you trust? Who can you believe? Is there any information source you can trust? Unfortunately, no. Today, you have to dig a lot deeper to get at the truth. If you lack the time or patience to seek out truth, you’ll be fooled on a daily basis. Because that is what it is about today. Fooling you to push a narrative. Deceiving you to support one political plank over another.

You can watch a video of a policeman brutalizing a citizen, only to find out later, that the original video was doctored. You can read about a particular cause you have, only to find out later that the supporters of that cause, paid off the scientists to get a result they wanted. You can follow a movement, thinking you are doing the right thing, only to find out that the money you donated is not going toward the cause, but toward political races that have nothing to do with your cause AT ALL.

There is a quote in George Orwell’s 1984. “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Many folks who have never read 1984, don’t understand these quotes until they are put into context. These quotes are slogans for the totalitarian government Orwell describes.

Pay attention to the last quote and think about what I’ve described. Ignorance is strength. When you overwhelm the public with seemingly contradictory information, you gain strength over them. You gain strength because you divide them. The United States is the most divided I’ve seen in my lifetime.

How do you solve this problem? Read books. Read philosophy. Read history. Read all of it broadly. Follow arguments that are supported by facts, not feelings. Go to the source. Do not depend on anything labeled “News”. There is no news anymore. People’s opinions are not news.

This article leads me back to my post about critical thinking. Think. Read. Think. Read some more. Go to the source. Find out who supports that source. If you read an article that states that eggs are wonderful for you, find out if it was a scientific study supported by the egg industry. If someone says sugar is no problem for your health, find out if it is supported by the sugar manufacturers. You see? You can do this with any topic, be it racism, climate change, nutritional benefits of eggs, sugar, etc.

Every scientific study is supported by donations and grants. Who provided the money? What stake do they have in a given study’s results? Who gains from one result over another? Where is it published? What is their editorial process?

If you do watch the news (I don’t anymore, I only scan the news now in digital form), do your homework. Watch multiple sources of the news from both right-leaning and left-leaning sources. Typically, the truth is in the middle of these two extremes. You’ll be amazed how informed you really feel, when you think about the sources of information you are using, and how the author derived their arguments. Are their arguments based in reality or pushing some political narrative?

Here are some more examples. We were told to avoid large crowds to avoid spreading COVID-19, yet now we are seeing large crowds without social distancing protesting in our streets. If you protest the lockdown, you are wrong. If you protest police brutality and racism, you’re exempt. If you like guns, you’re a nut, unless you are taking over six blocks in Seattle or Portland. Then the guns are OK. If you think putting up a wall to curb illegal immigration is OK, you’re racist, unless you are a group of radicals putting up a wall in Seattle or Portland to protect their newly found Utopias. Welcome to the Land of Confusion. This is outright insanity, right?

In our information saturated world, we all have to be more discriminating. We have to read broadly. We have to take a look at the arguments being posed by all sides and then make a decision about who we think is right or wrong. Arguments that are not supported by fact are weak and untenable. Arguments supported by junk science or biased studies are weak and untenable.

Listen to your gut. If you read something and it is filled with emotion, insults, and outrageous claims, it is likely false. If it is filled with verifiable facts, it is more likely to be true. But don’t stop there. What facts are being used? Where were they derived from? How were those facts and figures determined? Who paid for the study that produced the facts? How are these facts being used?

It’s a lot of work to get at the truth. You have to dig, and dig, and dig some more. When you have completed this hard work, you will begin to understand how important it is to get at the truth, by thinking critically.

You can circumvent the Land of Confusion by doing this hard work. Stop accepting what you are “told” is true. Verify, dig deeper, and weigh the arguments carefully. Then make your decision. If you can’t, dig some more. You don’t know enough yet.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Discovering Latent Skills

20 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by Dave Gardner in Wisdom Wednesday

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Tags

Boredom, Building Skills, Creating Your Day, Habit Formation, Latent Skills, Research, rituals

“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” – Lucille Ball

Read more at: Brainy Quotes

Boredom

This quote got me thinking about different times in my life. I recalled a time when my life was very predictable. I would get up, go to work, come home, drone out in front of my TV and go to bed. It was comfortable but boring.

Our brains automate everything. The brain doesn’t like change. The brain uses a lot of energy to alter the patterns or grooves it wires for itself. Each time you do something new, the brain creates a neural pathway to automate that action. If you perform this action over and over, the brain continues to reinforce that pathway until it becomes automatic. This process occurs over and over again subconsciously. The brain resists change because the creation and reinforcement of these neural pathways eats up a lot of the brain’s energy. Your brain is always trying to automate things to conserve energy. Our brains love being static. The less energy your brain uses the happier it is. Changing things is hard and requires consistency for the changes you make to take hold.

Change

If life bores you, you might explore for things you could do differently. Do you have any hobbies? Do you read? Do you do any writing? Do you exercise? Do you create any art? Do you play an instrument? These are things I questioned when I was exploring for something new in my life.

You are unique. You have more talent than you know. Each of us comes into this world with active talents and latent talents. Active talents are those talents we develop out of necessity. Latent talents are those we have but are unused or undiscovered. How do we find these talents if we do not know what they are? We can find our hidden talents by trying new things.

Discovering Latent Talents

My search started with the Internet. I wanted to know the things I could do to add spice to my life. I wanted to find things that other people were doing to add flavor and excitement into their lives. I wanted to find things to do that would assist me with generating an income I could earn on my own, without having to go to a company or work for another boss. I wanted more control over my life, and I wanted to be doing something that built a life with a solid foundation. A foundation that would fulfill me and provide me with an income.

Next, I wanted to find out what successful people were doing with their lives. What is Tim Ferris, Bill Gates, and other successful people doing? What was the template? To learn about these people, I read. I read articles about morning rituals, evening rituals, habits and their formation, planning and goal setting. I saw a pattern emerge. Successful people concentrated their efforts on those things that provide the greatest benefit to their lives.

I followed the advice these people were offering. This led to reading more books, chasing after meditation, writing, exercise, reading, and lifelong learning. I saw areas in my life that needed improvement and discovered things I would like to try. This led me to writing.

Writing was something I liked early in life but never really pursued. I used to be a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan. To run a game for my friends, I had to create entire worlds from scratch. I had to create characters, scenes, and dungeons, filled with monsters for my players to fight. I had to create plot lines that would react and evolve with my player’s actions. Then, I joined the Army and my childhood writing ceased.

Another area I discovered during my search for latent skills and change was computer programming. I love video games. I don’t play a lot. These games are very addictive and eat up a lot of time. I play them, however, and because I play them, I became interested in how they work. This led me to reading about programming, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in IT, and dabbling in programming languages throughout. Again, I didn’t take these skills to the next level.

When I retired in 2016, I learned why people who retire get bored. They no longer have an organization giving them things to do. There is no structure in their lives, other than what they structure. I decided after a few months of piddling around that I needed a daily structure of doing things to build new skills and pursue paths towards residual income. I had to choose paths that would allow me to work, build content, and sell that content for the rest of my life. Writing and programming became my focus. These were two latent skills I uncovered by accident.

Building Skills

This is a wonderful time to be alive. Technology allows all of us to find information we seek. Technology has also altered the education landscape. To build my writing and my programming skills, I needed to find out who was teaching these things and work towards proficiency. I found multiple resources for writing and programming and have built in daily activities to achieve my goals. My goals are to build a large following for my blog and write books. I also want to build programs and applications that will serve people in ways unavailable to people now or improve on existing applications that are good but could be better.

Using all the knowledge I gained around goal setting, planning, habit formation, and daily rituals (collections of habits that are synergistic), I planned a daily regimen of writing, programming, reading, exercising, meditating, and learning. Applying what I learned has helped me plan a fulfilling day of activities that help me forge ahead toward my goals.

You Can Do It

Anyone can do what I’ve done. It really starts with the motivation to change your life. Are you bored like I was? Is something missing in your life? Get out there and look. Experiment with different areas you are interested in. You may find some hidden talents you never knew existed. Once you have clues that uncover one talent or another, get out there and find the resources you need to improve these skills. All that’s left is figuring out how to monetize these skills so you can continue to support yourself.

I hope each of you takes risks. I hope each of you pursues the things that interest you and excite you. I hope each of you attain your dreams. I hope you pursue all the things you want in this life and avoid the regret that accompanies a life of inaction, mediocrity, and fear. Take risks, explore, and try things out. You’ll never know what your life could truly be, if you don’t get out there and try.

Until next time…

Dave

 

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Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Changing your life…

30 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by Dave Gardner in Quotes

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Tags

Carol Burnett, Changing your life, Making decisions, Research

“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” – Carol Burnett

Are you satisfied with your life? If you are terrific. If not, how would you like your life to be? What actions can you take to make the changes necessary to get the life you want.

I think one of the biggest challenges all of us has is the influence of advertisers and marketers who try to show us what the good life is. These advertisements show a life that is typically unattainable. They also influence us in many respects to do or buy things we really don’t need or want. The other influence is from those around us. Maybe you are jealous of someone who has a nice car, nice house, nice boyfriend or girlfriend. The point I’m trying to make here is that some of us are unhappy with our lives because we are being shown daily what a “good life” is and we are convinced that our lives aren’t good enough. Subsequently, we chase after a life that perhaps we do not really want.

The other challenge when we seek a different existence is the inability to decide what we want. Do I want this or that? Do I need this or that? Do I need to find a better place to live? Do I need to get in better shape? Do I need to go back to school to get a better job with more security, pay, and benefits?

Take your time when deciding about what you want. Really contemplate on it. You’ve lived the way you have for some time. There’s no rush.

Once you have found something you’re interested in doing, investigate what others before you have done to achieve what you want. You’ll find some good advice out there in books, online blogs or articles, even YouTube videos, and Vlogs. Once you’ve decided on what you want, set a plan and go for it, adjusting along the way.

Personally, I’ve found I wanted an uncomplicated, minimalist life. I don’t want to carry around a lot of paper or books, so I scanned in all my important papers and only buy kindle books or borrow books from the library. I got rid of all the clothes I never wear. I keep my wardrobe to what I need in a 7-day week, other than a suit I always keep handy for special events.

I also wanted to focus on my health and wellness. To accomplish this, I read as much as I could on these topics. I found out that the two biggest contributors to wellness are meditation, exercise, and a good diet, filled with natural foods (no processed foods).

Another area I found that contributes to my well being is doing things for others. This led me to do some internet searches for acts of kindness. Some of these are simple, easy to do, and don’t take a lot of time. It also feels good when I think about what the person would feel like on the receiving end of my giving. One thing I do is randomly drop a sticky note with words like: “You are loved”, “You are amazing”, or “You are appreciated”.

I also discovered during my journey the necessity for rituals in my daily life. My rituals include daily writing, daily reading, daily contemplation, daily religious study, daily learning, daily journaling, and daily exercise. These things literally transformed my life. I have a purpose. I have a schedule to follow. I have something to look forward to.

I hope some of these suggestions help you. They have helped me tremendously.

Until next time…

Dave

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