The 7 Idiots of the Internet

If I could hazard a guess, I'd say that you're likely spending more time on the internet now than normal. Here's my PSA about how to be a nice netizen.

The internet is full of idiots. Sometimes I am one of them.

I hate being wrong. But sometimes I am. 

We've all done it - ardently argued for something... and turns out we were wrong. Might be moments or millennia later our mistake is figured out, but we are proved incorrect.

Several factors come into this. When someone disagrees with us, humans have a tendency to double down and insist that their point of view is correct. We default to going on the defensive instead of pausing, listening, and considering the others' point of view.

I worked in Sydney at a salad bar stall for awhile. One of the items we sold was a tuna nicoise salad. French being French, there's a difference between masculine and feminine items, and they're pronounced differently - feminine has an e on the end, and you pronounce the last consonant, where as masculine you don't. For example: bon appetit - masculine, bo(n) a - pet- tea, bonne appetite feminine, bon a-pet-teet

So this guy comes and orders a tuna nicoise salad and I, having taken university level French (albeit only first year) only 2 years prior, condescendingly say 'Oh you mean the tuna nicois (nish-wa)' salad?'
Him: 'No I mean the tuna nicoise (nish-was) salad'
Me: Actually, because it has the e at the end, you don't pronounce the s
Him: Hmmm... (*get a load of this gal* smirk to his friend) are you sure?
Me: Yea, pretty sure.
Him: Well my friend here is French, and he disagrees with you.

This was 2009. I remember this conversation vividly - you know why? Because he was right! But more pointedly because I recall with shame how sincerely wrong I was. I thought I was right, and challenged him accordingly, but I went back and checked my facts, and I was not.

In the moment, because he challenged me, I doubled down on my obviously-correct-to-me 'facts'. He let it go, but it niggled and nattered away in my brain until I'd resolved it.

Now I recall it as a moment of hubris, where I was just a little bit too big for my britches.

This phenomenon where people double down when they're called out on the fallacy of their argument has countless examples, but one of my favourites is Marcus Lush attempting to dissuade someone of pronouncing Opoho incorrectly, comparing it to saying Camembert cheese incorrectly and sounding like an uncultured twat. The name is not an English word, therefore it is wilful ignorance to pronounce according to English rules of pronunciation.

He's arguing from a theoretical, factual point of view, but she is coming from a perspective of 'you're attacking my identity', and she stands up to the assault to her world view.

We groan as we listen to her - or I do at least - and I hope that she has a similar moment to me with the nicoise, and afterwards realises the mistake she's made, and now that she's been called out on it, realises the error of her ways, and changes. 

This may be naive optimism.

Unfortunately the human brain is more truth-averse than we would like it to be. It is wired for community and collaboration not evidence and empiricism. We 'find' our truth to match the social group we want to belong to, rather than seeking objective truth. Our need to belong trumps our need for facts.

Sometimes challenging people when they're wrong plants a seed - the beginnings of a change - in their mind. Other times, it just leads to them thinking you're a jackass.

Correction is a bitter pill to swallow, but it is an important one. To do so with grace and humility, is more rare still. This is quite a counter-cultural act now. It is far easier to just rally troops, cite sketchy sources that back up your point, and double down on your interpretation of 'the facts'. 

Alas, some do not appear to have fertile soil for the seeds of change to grow in. 

What happens when you stumble upon someone with whom you do not see eye to eye with in the vast ether of the interwebs?

Let's look at a few common idiot varieties first.

1. The Passionate Idiot

Sometimes it's that you're too passionate. You think (you KNOW!) you're right, and you will not back down. This is closely associated with the cognitive bias of doubling down on one's views when challenged, and thinking there's something wrong with the facts, not with you, when presented with facts. 

It can also be associated with confirmation bias - looking for evidence for your already established point of view, rather than researching, weighing up the evidence and coming to a conclusion.

Being passionate is good. Being so passionate about something that you don't listen to reason is not good. That is when people start putting the cart before the horse, and looking for facts to back up their opinion, and not the other way around.

A tempering thought for me is always 'But people used to believe that the world was flat.'

(...And then I go down a rabbit warren of 'In 100 years, I wonder what kinds of the things that we 'know to be true' now are going to be disproved, improved upon or otherwise starkly changed?', 'Is anything actually objectively true, or is it all just our perception of reality?', 'Who can be trusted?', 'I wonder how many conspiracy theories are so good that people don't even know about them?')

I digress. 

I've always admired passionate people. Sometimes I have a go at being one of them, but I find it often backfires. It is unfathomable to me that you can be so utterly convinced that you are right that no other points of view matter.

Exceptions to this are where it was visionary, rather than delusional. People like William Wilberforce and his fight for ending slavery, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movements in the US, and the lads who were leading the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland and declared it a Republic, jumping three steps ahead of everyone else, when the rest of Ireland was just fighting to get its Parliament back. 

Photo credit

These people are brilliant, steadfast, and eloquent - and most importantly history has proved them right. 

Be very careful before you consider yourself one of these people though. We all like to be right, and there's a human default to think that we are slightly smarter and just a little bit better than most.  Walking the tightrope of brave vs stupid, these examples ended up on the minority side of brave. Most do not. Pick your passionate battles wisely.

2. The Opinion = Objective Fact Idiot

Sometimes you're both 'right', but seeing it from different perspectives.

This is where we run into problems with the post-modern idea of 'live and let live'. That's fine for relatively unproveable things like 'Is there a God?' and 'Is there life after death?' or things where there's more than one way to do them. For instance, how you mow your lawn.  Do you go in neat methodical rows back and forth or in crop circles, cutting it into sections and conquering it section at a time? How you get butter out of the dish - slice the end or knife across the top? 

These are inconsequential things where the differences in methods and opinions matter little. They're subjective preferences not objective facts.

The issue we run into is when there are real life consequences from people having different opinions on objective facts. I know I'm not the first to speak on this idea, and I won't be the last, and I'm not going to get too fully into examples because we are seeing this bullshit on the daily with BoJo, ScoMo, Trump, Climate Change, Anti-Vaxxers and Flat Earthers. There are a plethora of people that believe a multiplicity of things that defy 'objective, agreed upon, scientific, tangible facts'. 

When we mistake subjective preference (this is how I make a pizza) with objective fact (this is the only and best way to make a pizza, and everyone who doesn't do it this way is wrong), things start getting a little bit hairy. 

Likewise, when we mistake objective fact for a subjective optional belief, that's when we have systemic climate change, measles outbreaks and people thinking they're somehow immune to coronavirus and continuing to shake people's hands.

Photo credit

3. Emotional Idiot

'The reason I feel strongly about gay rights (because I'm gay)'
'I think abortion is an abomination (because I can't have any more children and I really want to adopt one)'
'Guns are cool. They're my fundamental moon-given right. (I have 23).'

When people are emotionally invested in the debate, they do not argue well. They argue to justify themselves to themselves, and it does not matter what you say. I have notice a dangerous trend with these idiots: an inability to see the issue from anyone's point of view other than theirs.

There's a lot of reasons that you shouldn't try and talk someone out of their emotions, and there's also lots of proof to show that you can't even if you try. If you encounter this type of idiot, proceed with a great deal of caution, or not at all. Reason and logic will not help you here.

Loosely, the emotional part is a slightly 'less developed' part of your brain and when you're functioning out of that part of your brain (the part of your brain that's in charge during the terrible twos or adolescence), your higher-order thinking in your frontal cortex is not firing on all cylinders and that is the part that is capable of empathy, rational arguments, and seeing things from another's point of view.

Emotions are cool, and important, and you should have them, and feel them, and it is good to be passionate about things you believe in. They're not always trustworthy though.

I often find it quite hard in debates because I can see both sides of the argument. Doesn't mean I agree - it means I understand where they're coming from - and how they've formed that opinion.

I also find it hard in debates when I know I'm emotionally involved and I'm trying for the life of me to be understanding and objective.

Emotionally charged issues for me include but are not limited to: background checks on weapons, suicide, how to help grieving people, depression, mental illness, education, teaching, public schooling, dyslexia, divorce, infidelity, daddy issues, God, church, church schools, women's rights, domestic violence, gay rights, homophobia, poverty, geopolitics, developing countries, environmental justice... and so very many more. 

If you put something about one of these subjects up, do not be surprised if you get me as an emotional idiot on your newsfeed.


4. The Uninformed Idiot

Sometimes it's that you're not passionate enough. Whether you're an armchair anthropologist commenting on cultures and ideas from afar, a half-hearted activist, a keyboard warrior or firmly believe that Facebook, the Sun or the Daily Mirror are a wholegrain source of informational fibre, some people take their standpoint from an article (or just a click-baity headline) that they read this one time once without further thought, analysis, reading or research. They chime in with their ill-formed opinions, only knowing half the story and depending on who they are, other people listen to them!

There's a danger in letting others form your opinions for you, without you actually going to the place, or interviewing the person yourself, or trawling through the scholarly articles (if you can access them) and researching further. Say it with me: credible sources.

Much like me with my omniscience of the rules of French, there is a corollary between those who know a little bit and believe themselves to be experts, and those who are experts, who will pause, and listen, and couch their work in terms of a theory, a possible truth, or the best knowledge we have at this time. This is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and it looks something like this.

To outsiders this humility can sound like vacillation or uncertainty, but experts realise a fundamental truth: the more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn, and how profoundly little you know in comparison to that vast amount still unknown.

This video explains this notion a little further.

5. The Situation-Specific Idiot

Sometimes someone presents you with advice or an idea that is true...but it's only true to a certain extent or in some situations, or in a limited time frame.

Things like 'Always be positive' or 'The government has social housing so homeless people must choose to be homeless'.

Certainly, sometimes you should be positive. As often as possible in fact. I've heard it's particularly important at parent-teacher conferences. But sometimes it's OK to be down and out. Sometimes you need to be positively miserable.

Grief - for a person, a job, an opportunity, a marriage, a tragedy, a season. There's a bunch of times that 'be positive' is tots inapprops, or at least not appropriate - yet.

Similarly, some people might choose to be homeless. Of all the homeless people I've spoken to, I haven't met any that said 'Warm bed, not for me. Showers are overrated.'

For some it's a natural consequence of poor life choices, and yea, some people 'deserve to be there' if we are still into that thing of ruthlessly punishing poor people for being poor.

But most? They were unlucky. They suffer from mental illness. Addiction. Or they lost their job. They got evicted on a whim by a landlord who could make more through AirBnB. Their mum died, and the house went to someone else.

Most things in life are not as simple as they appear from the outside, and essentialism doesn't help with complicated issues. This idiot can often also be an Uninformed Idiot.


6. The So-Correct-They're-Incorrect Idiot

Teachers learn really quickly - some of us more quickly than others - that arguing with students is not a good idea. Particularly not in front of the whole class. But at least once in your teaching career, a student will goad you enough to get under your skin and you will launch into a full blown

'No, you're wrong, sit down and shut up, stay there with your wrongness, and let me show you how I am right.'

This almost never goes well.

Because for those of us that really enjoy being right, it's not enough to just be right and shine our halos in our sanctimonious correctitude. We are not finished until we've proved the other person wrong as well.

What then happens is any shred of willingness on the other person's side to listen to you is destroyed. They have no respect for you, and they are hurt that you've publicly embarrassed them. The relationships breaks down, and you then can't get through to them at all.

Why?

Because people do not care what you know, until they know that you care.

This idiot's strategy is often the cause of the phrase 'It wasn't what you said; it was how you said it.'

The temptation to be condescending or arrogant when you know you are in the right is just a little too much for some, and they hammer away, hollering down from their high horse, even when their opponent has waved the white flag of proverbial surrender.

What happens in people's brains at that point is they're in fight, flight, or freeze mode, and in full-on cave-man brain. They're being attacked, and they will respond not out of friendly banter and debate, but as if they're running from a tiger.

Please see the Oatmeal comic about this.

If your purpose is to actually impart knowledge or change someone's mind, this idiot's strategy is unlikely to achieve that goal.


7. The Incorrect Medium Idiot

Sometimes your mode of delivery is incorrect.

A really useful piece of advice I got when I first started serious-business working was that there are four main methods of communication.

1. In person
2. Over the phone
3. Email
4. Text

And with each drop in communication level you lose clarity of communication. In-person you have the luxury of facial expressions, gestures, tone, reading the other person's body language and adjusting - mid-sentence if needed. But as you go down the list, you lose that. Phone conversations are good, but you can't see the person anymore, you can't read their body language. 

Email doesn't have the same immediacy, and you need to use a lot more time and words to have the same simple exchange that on the phone would take you about 30 seconds, and there's lots of room for misinterpretation because you don't have tone or cadence of conversation. Sometimes you just need to pick up the phone and call. Sometimes go and hang out F2F and avoid a lot of unnecessary miscommunications. (Obviously do not do that now - stay in your bubble!) Video chat y'all.

Some conversations you can text away about, no bother, but trying to debate the merits of Thai governments when they're largely split between two warring drug-fueled gangs? Probably reserve that for a face to face or phone call.

By the time it gets to the comments sections on the internet, you've lost body language, tone of voice, and the mere words on a page are usually open to a raft of different interpretations depending on who is reading them. You also don't have the luxury of rapport - if someone knows you, they'll read things in your voice and likely guess when you're joking and when you're not. 

Sarcasm, for instance, does not read well on the page. One needs to insert a lot of emojis to convey that you are kidding.

Consider your method of communication depending on the topic at hand.

Today my writing percentage is about 50%

Whoop-dee-doo Basil, But What Does It All Mean?

So these are some of the varieties of idiots we see in the zoo of the internet. 

Knowing what we know about the foibles of our brains, how do you avoid becoming one of these internet idiots?

If you think someone is wrong when you're talking to them,

• Be compassionate - but for the grace of God, that could be you being that idiot about another subject, on another day.

• Be correct but kind - you are far more likely to convey your point by calmly and clearly presenting the facts you know, telling your story and asking a few strategic questions than to get hot under the collar, and tell people they're wrong, get snarky, sarcastic, mean or - worst of all - resorting to personal insults. People don't care what you know until they know that you care about them. People are more than their opinions or actions. Remember the iceberg. 

• Be well-researched - your perspective might only be half right, or true under particular circumstances. Read more. Listen more, from both sides of the debate. Keep in mind: You don't know everything there is to know. 

• Be open minded - people speak out of what is true for them, out of where they're at and their current knowledge. Smart people learn facts. Wise people learn facts too but also how to present facts in a palatable way. 

Regardless of your views, there's some good tid-bits in the Bible if you look.

If it is you... It's ok. We're all idiots sometimes. Fix it.

• Be hyper-aware of your own biases and hot buttons. See down below for an extensive menu of bias options. 
• Be aware of the possibility of you being wrong or having only a half-truth
• Be willing to apologise
• Be willing to be corrected
• Be willing to listen
• Be willing to learn

How does all this help us in an age of partisanship and social media echo chambers?

Freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press are the foundations for a functional democracy - but so is having a well-informed electorate.

Kindly but gently disagreeing with someone is the basis of participating in a democracy. We're supposed to debate, we're supposed to disagree, but we seem to have forgotten the rules of engagement. We are also supposed to listen to the merits of all sides of the arguments and come to an informed conclusion.

It seems now there are only two extremes - full on guns-blazing word warfare, or silence. There is no in-between.


We need the in-between! 

You don't need to go in and land half a dozen scientific studies in the inbox of Freddy Flat-Earther, but maybe just one? We need the seeds of knowledge to be planted.

A useful teaching strategy is 'spray and walk away'. If you see kids doing something that they know they shouldn't be doing, walk past, remind them of the rule, and keep walking. It will be more effective than getting all up in their grills, chewing them out, and standing there for ages and demanding that they tell you why they were doing such a foolish thing, or issuing consequences or anything like that. Give them a chance to fix it, and check back in 5-10 minutes and ensure they have, then congratulate them for doing so.

Spray and walk away. Plant a seed of knowledge, and leave it be. Let it grow. 'Did you see this article about that particular subject?'


Remember What It Feels Like To Be Challenged

Have you ever had someone do that to you? They presented you with knowledge, but you weren't ready to hear it. You didn't fully take it on board or understand what they were talking about until years later? This is growing, this is how we mature in our understanding.

One example of that is me telling my piano teacher that my parents were fighting lots, and the reasons why. She said there were always two sides to every story, and it takes two people to make a marriage work, but also two to make it fail. I was pretty sure there was only one person who was at fault, and it took me years to understand what she meant.

The seed was planted when I was 15.

Learning something is a tricky process. It doesn't take the first time. It takes a lot of repetition initially. The rule in teaching ideally is 4:2 - 4 different exposures to the same information over 2 days. This will help synapses fire and connections to be made.

Keeping new learning in your mind is also tricky. Forming new connections between neurons is what makes neural pathways, and initially they're delicate. This is why new habits are difficult. Creating pathways in your brain is like hacking through dense jungle - new connections are tenuous and vulnerable to overgrowth. Myelination is the process of making those pathways permanent, like turning that jungle path into a beautiful tar-sealed highway that neurons can fly up and down with ease.

This is how your brain protects information that is worth protecting and why if you don't use it you lose it - it'll get pruned if your neurons aren't regularly using that pathway. Yay brain plasticity!

This process takes a lot of repetition, not like 21 days, more like 99 days. The bible reference of seven times seventy-seven that we're supposed to forgive people, is because even if they're making concerted effort to change, it can still take that long before the change takes.

So if the person who you are trying to convince with facts is not convinced, spray and walk away. It is not a war to be won, but a seed to be sown.


Agree to Disagree

You can have lively debates on contentious issues and still remain friends. We should strive to retain this aspect of divergence amongst our acquaintances, because there's already enough of an echo chamber created in our online platforms that Google searches, ads, Facebook and I'm sure many others tailor-make our newsfeed to tell us what they think we like to hear first of all. We need divergent people to call us on our own bullshit sometimes.

It would be the height of self-indulgence to only maintain friends that agree with us completely in every respect. Where is the room to be challenged? Where is the opportunity to grow?

We need to develop the resilience to listen to others' opinions without judgement, offer a counter point if appropriate, and agree to disagree if it comes to that. Not just insult, block, and never speak to them again. People are more than their words and actions, if you care to look.

No one wins in the disagree-and-block scenario. Obviously your life is easier without someone you disagree with in it, but this culture where 'I don't agree with you so I block you' with no explanation seems to me like a grass-roots censoring movement. The result is not changed minds, its shattered relationships, and you go on thinking you're infallibly correct, and so do they. Usually, the 'objective truth' is somewhere between those extremes, if you have the temerity and patience to talk it out.

Preferably in person.

I'd be interested to know your experiences with online debates. Or in-person debates. Have you ever successfully 'converted' someone to your point of view? Have you had your viewpoint changed?

The only way I have succeeded in doing that is by telling stories of my personal experiences. That seems to inoculate the theoretical debate of facts. But what about if you don't have personal experience?

Are there some issues that you should just not have an opinion on because you haven't experienced it? For examples, should I not have an opinion on abortion because I've never been pregnant? I've read all the cases for and against. Just because I haven't experienced that, does that make my opinion null and void? No, possibly not, but it certainly means I need to listen a whole lot more than I talk on the subject.

When people's opinions are all we see, it's easy to relax into the idea that is all you get. Who they are is synonymous with what they believe. For some, that is true. However, others have 'fashionable' beliefs, and they are persuaded with the changing times. Others are merely parroting beliefs that they've been taught, without ever really examining them. Others still are independent thinkers and are always learning and progressing their ideas and beliefs about the world. These are usually the ones amplifying the views about to become fashionable. You get to choose which one you're going to be.

I'll leave you with one last brain-hack. There's a part of your brain called the RAS, the reticular activating system, and it is responsible for the idea of if someone talks about a yellow car, you will see yellow cars everywhere.

Your brain seems to be excited by the fact that you've learned something new, and selective attention occurs. Your brain subconsciously thinks, "Hey, that's awesome! I'm going to look for that thing without actually thinking about it." So now that you're looking for it, you find it. To make it all the more powerful, confirmation bias occurs after seeing it even once or twice. In other words, you start agreeing with yourself that, yup, you're definitely seeing it more.

This is basically the highlighter of the brain, and the premise of 'where focus goes, energy flows'. If you are looking for Thing, you will see loads of it. 

This is why planting the seed of a new or opposing idea can be quite powerful, and how it will then start to seem like everyone is talking about that Thing. Also because Big Tech Brother is reading and listening to, and tailoring, everything you do online. But that's not the point. 

My point is that your brain is a really strange, brilliant, complicated place wired for community and to save you from tigers. To be an awesome netizen, you need to know how this plays out in your head, be wise to the cognitive biases and loopholes you hold, and have a fair idea of how this plays out for other people too. 

Let's take self-awareness to a whole nother level, and ratchet up the awareness for others in the process. Have courage, and counter ideas with kindness.

Tread lightly with the idiots of the internet, and make sure you're not one of them.

Some resources for your perusal: 

Oatmeal Comic on Core Beliefs - Definitely worth a read
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

The RAS Explained
https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/if-you-want-it-you-might-get-it-the-reticular-activating-system-explained-761b6ac14e53

Telling someone they're wrong is like punching them in the chest

https://medium.com/@frankmckinley/what-happens-when-you-tell-someone-theyre-wrong-10ff95503201

6 ways to extricate yourself from an infallibility battle
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/201612/im-right-and-youre-wrong-about-everything

The psychology of doubling down
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-psychology-of-doubling-down-2

Questionable English, but extensive list of cognitive biases
https://humanhow.com/en/list-of-cognitive-biases-with-examples/

Another list of even more cognitive biases
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

How to delicately change people's minds with psychological techniques
https://www.spring.org.uk/2012/12/why-people-believe-weird-things-and-8-ways-to-change-their-minds.php

Brilliant article about cognitive biases
https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-biases-distort-thinking-2794763

Quarantine Diary #4: What about me?

I love those people in your life who present you with something and it completely upends your life as you know it, makes you question a bunch of assumptions and ideas, and really think 'am I doing life the best possible way?' These people are like the whetstones used to sharpen the sword of your wit - you are more refined for them.

One such person is my friend Andrew.

His whole lifestyle is very counter-cultural as he has a laptop and goes to various corners of the world travelling and connecting with beautiful souls. He works online, building websites and playing with code and block chain by day then explores countries, cities and cultures by night.

When I was briefly living in Sydney in 2009, it happened to coincide with him living in Sydney, and we hung out a bit. He showed me this video one time and he showed me this music-based documentary called 'What about me?', a compilation of theories, ideas and philosophies of what it is to be human. It features a bunch of academics, priests, philosophers, musicians and celebrities like Stephen Fry, Noam Chomsky and Billy Connolly and heaps more, just talking through what it is to be human. It is a feast of culture and colour, and the sound track is amazing given that the documentary is put together by a band called One Giant Leap.

I looked for it for years afterwards to share it with other people and for a brief time, I had a copy, but it was on a computer that died a few years back.

I decided to look for it again recently as I've never shown Jared, and I found it! It's here! So given everyone has so very much spare time right now, I thought it would be an ideal time to endorse it and give everyone an opportunity to watch it.

It is beautiful and challenging and life-affirming and one of those things that makes you marvel at the beauty of what it is to be human.

There are a few quotes that have stuck with me over the years from it are (super-paraphrased):

I used to blame a lot of people for things, my partner, my flatmates, my workmates, but when you strip that all back, and take that all away, the lowest common denominator is me. And at some point you need to face up to the fact that I might me the reason for my own problems. I am the lowest common denominator. 

Where it talks about taking anti-depressants or meds for ADHD. Pills can help a bit, but ultimately you need to be able to confront yourself, you need to confront these problems within yourself and grapple with them, and it shouldn't just be shoving pills in kids because it's inconvenient for you mum and dad or you teacher, these kids might need a different strategy. 

Until you get enough and you realise it isn't enough, you keep pursuing, you keep chasing, because you think out there somewhere there will be enough. Wanting doesn't stop, no matter how much you have. 

TV is a triumph of the blaze. 

There is no future; there is only this, there is only the present moment. We ruin our present by stressing about the past or worrying about the future. 

It's a really interesting plethora of perspectives from a range of people, faiths, countries and cultures. It's quite slow moving, so you need to be in the right mood to fully appreciate it. I would prescribe a glass of your chosen beverage or 3, and be ready for a big of a boogie around the room. Perhaps have something to do to occupy your hands if you're a fidgety type.

But do make some time to watch it. I'd love to hear what you think about it. Leave your reviews in the comments - love it or hate it - let me know!

Quarantine Diary #3

I really admired my paternal grandparents.

They had basically nothing, but they gave a lot. 

My granddad was staunchly religious and avidly Seventh-Day Adventist. He read his bible and Ellen White literature in equal parts every day. He was dogmatic and domineering, and disagreeing with him was tantamount to disagreeing with God. But he was very generous. He worked tirelessly for widows and those less fortunate in his church community, helping with house maintenance, stacking wood, and bringing trailer loads of cheap fruit from Hawke's Bay to Palmerston North each year, at cost, so fresh fruit and preserves could be available to everyone.

Meet Ron Brooking, my dad's dad

He was much loved in the SDA Palmy circles, and throughout the country. Like a good Adventist, he worked for many years at the Sanitarium Factory, and like the curmudgeon he was, I heard stories that he even used to go into the factory on Christmas Day, as he saw parties and celebrating as idle frivolity. 

He was the personification the protestant work ethic. He dedicated his life to putting his faith into action, and he was an inspiration to many. For most of my life, he would get up at 4am and go and sort out mail and the Longburn Post Office, come home for breakfast, then head off to the Strawbridge's farm to go and do [some blokey thing that usually involved hammering or sawing]. He was always on the go, unless he was reading and having worship. He came down to Wellington a few times and helped dad split wood and water blast our family home, he didn't really care about seeing us, but he was all about GETTING.SHIT.DONE. 

He would give blood every three months without fail, telling the nurse to take an extra pint because he felt fine. 

He gave to the church, faithfully paying tithe and giving extra, and he also gave to ADRA - the World Vision of the Adventist world. 

My first job after uni was with ADRA in Laos, and he was never more proud of me as he was when I was working for them. I neglected to mention that we were 'just' helping the less fortunate and not giving them bible studies or proselytising, because we would've been kicked out of the country. Granddad would not have liked that - he was all about helping - but letting you know just how good his God was in the process. 

My Nana was also very generous - one of many examples of her generosity is when she sent me US$100 with a letter when I was living in Laos. It happened to be the same month my passport and half my pay had been stolen, so it was very welcomed and help me survive until the end of the month, when next I got paid.

Nana, me, Jared, Tina and Aunty Diane

My grandparents lived very modestly, and shopped mostly at charity shops. My granddad's hobby was picking up a bargain at the auctions in Palmerston North, and so their home was filled with a quirky array of paraphernalia.

Their ability to live on the smell of an oily rag and simultaneously give generously amazed me. 

We used to go and stay a lot at their house when we were growing up. One time when I was about 7 or 8, I was playing in Granddad's room and discovered a stash of $1 and $2 coins, hundreds of dollars worth in neat stacks, all saved up for 13th Sabbath offering where Granddad gave generously to mission work. 

I had a Michael hill advertisement catalogue with me that I had brought from home, because even at 7, I was a magpie and idolised shiny things. I noticed that there were a bunch of things on sale, and realised that I only had to take a few coins to be able to afford one of the beautiful necklaces. 

I crept back into the room with the coins and filled my little wallet with as many as it could hold. 

Unfortunately that is where my cunning ran out. I was not a very good thief and when I got caught, I was interrogated about where I had gotten the coins from. I confessed and sobbed as my Nana told me if she wanted to, she could call the police and send me to jail. I was mortified! I adored my Nana and I hated that she thought less of me. I also hated that I was dumb enough to get caught. 

Less so, I hated that I didn't get my shiny thing. Here they were sitting on a stash of money, and I just wanted a shiny thing, and I couldn't have it. 

'That money was destined for the less fortunate, Lauren, not you. You are not less fortunate because you don't have shiny things. Beauty does not come from outward adornment, but instead it should come from your inner self, your character, Lauren. That is the beauty that we want for you.' The words of my grandmother reverberate through my mind to this day.

This priority of theirs to live in what I think was mostly optional poverty, living frugally and then still having a surplus, something to give away was something I grew to admire about them. 

I have been trying for some time to replicate it but my wanton desires for shiny things and travelling to the far corners of the world have stymied me. Hopefully one day, I can live up to their legacy of generosity. 

This legacy of generosity has lived on in them, and also in their family. This fundamental belief of 'if you can help, then you should help, and if you can't help, then arrange your life in such a way that you can.' has shaped who I am as a person. I have an obsession with helping people and being part of the 'greater good'. 

And so at a time when the Individual is god and in a large cosmopolitan city where it's all work (though not for me) and latent panic, I have taken a leaf out of my grandparents handbook and reached out. 

I doubt anyone will respond, but it was really important to me that I offer it. I have surpluses in time, in health, and in movement at the moment. And while there's a voice in my head chastising me for finding ever more creative ways to procrastinate from the book I'm writing, I think this is important. 

And so I have created lame puns, and made cards for everyone in our building letting them know that if they need, we can help them. 

I say this not to blow my own trumpet. Sure, I like to help, and I think other people should extend the same offer but the more I thought about it, the more I asked myself - what is the alternative? Try and ride this out by ourselves?

Even from a pragmatic standpoint, if those who are needing to self-isolate don't have enough to eat, or don't have someone to go to the pharmacy for them, then they're likely to do it themselves, and then what? They're like to cough while they're out, then touch something or someone, and leave traces of their germs everywhere they've been. That is then going to infect more people - possibly the chemists or the doctors or the supermarket staff - the people we need most right now. 

Further in the pragmatic department - if Jared and I have to self-isolate and we have made some connections in the building, hopefully people can return the favour if needed. 

So it is not only happy-go-lucky altruistic warm fuzzies I'm after - it is the speedy return to some version (a better version?) of life as we know it. If we reach out to those around us - hopefully the next version contains more neighbours, more friends, and ample health for all.

(Then we can get stuck into fixing the planet 🌎)

 There is not much that has stuck with me from my 1st year Anthropology lectures, but one word did - 'communitas'. As coined by Victor Turner in 1969, it is the idea that people that are going through a particular event together - whether it be a short term thing like a hike or camp or a weekend trip, or a rite of passage like graduating school or college, or a colleague will form a heightened bond, more than just normal societal bonds. You have a shared experience and that is the basis of your relationship, it draws you together. The more difficult the experience, the deeper the bond. 

Though I wasn't there, I think this typifies what happened during the World Wars. This explains the camaraderie of soldiers. Everyone had a broad 'rite of passage' shared experience and there was a collective coming together, a communitas for the good of the nation, sacrificing sons-turned-soldiers, rationing food, making clothes out of flour sacks, and countless other sacrifices were made to ensure that the Allies won and freedom was retained. (Although likely the 'losers' also made such sacrifices, and more). 

There's been little to collectively bond over since then really. A couple of stock market crashes, but the victims of that were invisible, not dying in their thousands by the day. 

I think we're about to enter a time of quite great suffering, and you're going to need some people to lean on, and you're going to need to be OK with leaning on other people. For cabin fever, video chat drinks and some light relief from the boredom, but also for medical supplies, food, fears, and fever if it comes to it. I hope I am wrong, but this right now feels like the tide going out before a tsunami surges. How great the suffering later largely depends on how magnanimous the actions now. Either way, this is bigger than any of us, and the only way past it is through.

It is amazing how much your perspective can change in even just a few days. I have been operating on a scarcity mentality for awhile now, and trying to infuse it with gratefulness. I've found that when the headlines are '150 000 people lose jobs overnight' and 'thousands more die today' it does compel one to gratitude for what you still have, very quickly. 

Scarcity: Panic buys

Obviously there are limitations to abundance thinking, and like most binaries, the middle ground between the two is probably the most balanced, honest place, but energy goes where focus flows. There is something soothing about counting your blessings even when the walls of society as we know it are starting to crack. 

When you can articulate the things you have to be grateful for, it changes your perspective and all that warm fuzzy stuff, but it also literally rewires your brain. If nothing else, I always think to myself - what's the alternative? In this case, be ungrateful, scared and anxious, eternally wallowing the quagmire of my own thoughts? 

We'll give gratitude and helping others a go and see where we end up a?

Where am I going with all this? We are heading in a direction where we need relentless kindness with ourselves and with others. We've been schooled into a consumerist type mentality that highlights what we don't have, in order to sell us more. But you and I, we do actually already have a lot. So start thinking about what you can spare - be it your time, your money, your effort, your love. 

And like the story of the traveller...

Knowing Jesus is Everything, Alejandro Bullon, pg 74

(Obviously metaphorical huddling together. Stay the fuck away from everyone.)

What can you give? Who can you help? Who needs it most? You can't make someone accept help, but certainly you can offer what you are willing to give.

This is a template people are using to inform people who might need help. It was started by a lovely girl in the UK, and has now spread as far as Australia. New Zealand even has a tailor-made template. 

Here are some other ideas of how people are collaborating and helping others out during this weird time. 

The only way we get through this is together. Physically apart - I can't stress that enough - but socially together.

[Update: Made friends with the lawyer next door]

Quarantine Diary #2

Day 9: Exiled for the Good of the Realm

Saturday, 21 March 2020
1pm

I write from Dublin's deserted streets, which I can see from the confines of our top-floor apartment.

No James Joyce Centre this week

The shiny light in the bottom right corner is the Off-License (Liquor store)
- it is still open and doing a roaring trade so it is.

The family I work for is very generously giving me paid time off as they're both working at home, so are juggling work and home-schooling their kids for now. One of their kids was born premature, and they're scared of what might happen if he contracts anything, so they're being super-careful.

So now I get to watch Jared work. And sleep in. File tax returns and finalise our building consent in New Zealand. I have made us delicious food and watched a lot of Anne with an E. I have spent a lot of time looking at pretty graphs on the internet and reading the news. (Shout out to Al Jazeera and RNZ, doing a fine job.)

We're not (yet) on full lockdown here, so I have been dragging Jared away from his work-from-home desk for a walk or bike ride each evening, in order to maintain sanity and sleep. Yoga each morning has been a nice way to start the days.

Royal Canal at Sunset

Inaugural Dublin Bikes excursion

Blitzing him on my bike... what do you think about Orla the Orange for a name?

I have developed a very specific sore throat. It started on Sunday.

I had minor paranoia that I had contracted Covid-19, despite having none of the symptoms.

My throat feels like the time that I had an ulcer on my tonsil. It seems to only be on one side and is reasonably impervious to painkillers. It's been a week. I hoped it'd get better on its own. it's not a big deal, just constant. Present. Twinging each time I swallow. Gnawing away at my resolve to be amicable and calm. On Thursday, I finally caved and called the Doctors.

It was the strangest Doctor's appointment I've ever had: I called them to make an appointment. I was informed that I was '6th in line' and they would 'call me back'. They 'called' and my phone didn't ring. The telecommunications infrastructure is struggling under the weight of this new responsibility. Voice message. I return the call. Jared, the best amateur doctor around, took a photo of what's happening in my throat, we emailed it to the doctor with my guess of what is going on. She looked at the email and called me back. She agreed with my self-diagnosis. The receptionist called me back to get my credit card details and said they would email the prescription to my choice of pharmacy.

I told her the pharmacy at the end of our street.

I went to collect my prescription later and it turns out that pharmacy is closed because their staff came into contact with someone who had Covid-19 and they had to self-isolate.

The sign on their door said that the pharmacy down the road was taking their orders.

I went to that pharmacy.

They hadn't received the email on Thursday evening, despite my doctors swearing they emailed the second place.

I messaged the closed pharmacy on Facebook and they had never received the prescription from my doctor either.

I went back to Life Pharmacy yesterday, assuming that they would by now have the prescription.

Those poor harried souls looked at me aghast as to why I was back again: They hadn't called me.

The line to see them was around the corner - all social distanced, a metre-ish apart. They apologised profusely, and looked through their emails. They said they still hadn't received anything.

I will try again today, now that I've blasted my doctor's office, and have a copy of the prescription emailed to me as well.

[Update 3pm] The pharmacy is closed until Monday. FFS.

Pharmacies operating on gmail accounts in these circumstances is a bit of a joke, lads.

I decided it was important to get dressed up to go to town. Leaving the house is now an 'occasion'.

In other news, you'll be pleased to know that this week our supermarket has implemented social distancing in the queues, but nowhere else, and they're out of flour but have HEAPS of toilet paper.

Of my monumental list of awesome things to do to avoid Lauren getting bored, I have done 3 things. I'm not going to tell you which things those are. How is it possible to be so 'unproductive' even when there is literally ONLY free time and nothing else to do? What have I been doing with my time? Ya know, I'm not really sure, to be honest.

I've done a bunch of mending. Actually getting better at hand-sewing and can nearly create a straight line when required.

We've watched 'Pandemic' on Netflix. We also tried Netflix Watch Party. Eh.

I made coconut loaf to calm the latent homesickness, and pretend like my mummy is near.

I spent a lot of time reading and watching all around the world, as the pandemic spreads and it is daunting reading. This is my fave site to check on how it is all unfolding.

Yesterday, I cycled to IKEA before it closed 'for the foreseeable future'. I am aware that I totally took the bait, but we haven't been there since this time last year, and it was a good excuse for a 18km bike ride. There were pre-recorded messages playing about social distancing. The checkout staff wore gloves, and only accepted tap payment. I hardly touched anything and washed my hands before and after going around the shop. I started with a scarf around my face, but it kept falling off and I was aware of how ridiculous I looked.

I can't remove the battery from my electric bike, so now it's just a bike. The bike store is closed, so no help there either. I will have just a bike for awhile yet. I think any cycling will progressively get curtailed, so probably not too much of a bother just yet.

Cafes are all closed. Any hope of getting a decaf cappa with coconut milk is zero.

I've made some lovely friends here in Dublin who are proving to be a hilarious vicarious source of support and love. Especially the Australian contingent - they really understand how hard it is to be so far away from home at this time and we're all going to support each other through this trying time.

Yea right. They'll be... supporting from afar.

I had a bath last night. It's supposed to be relaxing right? Our hot water cylinder only has enough water in it to create about half a hand's depth in the bath. So I had to get creative and a bit diva-ish - I put every pot we have on the stove and boiled water in each, then boiled the jug as well. I got Jared to bring in a pot every 10 minutes. Have I mentioned recently he is the best husband? He is definitely the best.

I tried to read. I read through some Irish poems of even more dire days, and decided that was enough doom and gloom for one night.

I feel like this is more a 'beautiful terror' at this stage, and not very beautiful at that.

It is the most frustrating thing trying to relax when there's low grade panic coursing through your veins. My attention span has withered away to nothing, and like a child, I'm complaining about everything and bored every 5 minutes. I had already been aware of how precarious our position was, but this has really highlighted it. My job security is entirely dependent on someone's good opinion of me, and how long they'd like to keep giving me free money, we have no insurance, no savings, no return flights, no guarantee of medical care, and apparently no functional access to a pharmacy or doctor should we need one.

Relax, Lauren. Relax, just chill, why aren't you relaxed yet?

The flip side of all this worry is we do have a lot to be grateful for. We still have jobs. We have a nice place to be cooped up in. We have food. We have power. It is getting warmer, so there's less need for heaters. I have a pretty amazing quarantine buddy, who's always up for snuggles, I can usually coerce a massage out of him and we can turn our lounge into a dance floor and just boogie. We have a bath. We have internet, and entertainment. We have a modest collection of board games, and we're up to 4 different versions of Ticket to Ride. Most importantly, we are healthy (for now).

It has seemed like a very long week, with a blissful banal nothingness relentlessly stretching out before me.

View from our room

If the rest of Europe is anything to go by, this is just the beginning of the lockdown.

You can't really see it but in the centre middle of the foreground there's an abandoned yard next to ours, overgrown and dead-looking... I have an insatiable desire to throw things in it which I'm trying to quell.

I listened to a podcast by the Guardian yesterday that was talking about Social Distancing and how important community will be over the next little while, and how people in the UK have Whatsapp groups for their neighbourhood etc, and how important it is to check on others and if they have to self-isolate, then they're going to need people to bring them things, so we will need to reach out more than (our current) normal. Kindness is key, don't expect too much of yourself, and be extra compassionate to yourself and others.

One of the key things mentioned was thinking about what you can do for others.

So I got to thinking about what I could do. I have an entire week with NOTHING to do of any importance next week except for write a book and re-file my dropbox account... Perhaps I'll use some business cards, drop a kind note to my neighbours, and create a bit of community in this giant building where 100 or so live side by side but don't know each other's names.

The fear of possibility is much worse at present than our lived reality, but my heart aches for the stories out of China, Italy and Iran.

Despite all the coming darkness, there are reasons to hope. Some of these have been eloquently expressed in a poem by a priest. I'll leave you with this.

Lockdown

By Brother Richard Hendrick

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

Yes there is even death.

But,

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise

You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet

The sky is no longer thick with fumes

But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

People are singing to each other

across the empty squares,

keeping their windows open

so that those who are alone

may hear the sounds of family around them.

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today a young woman I know

is busy spreading fliers with her number

through the neighbourhood

So that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples

are preparing to welcome

and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting

All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way

All over the world people are waking up to a new reality

To how big we really are.

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

To Love.

So we pray and we remember that

Yes there is fear.

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation.

But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying.

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness.

But there does not have to be disease of the soul

Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today, breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic

The birds are singing again

The sky is clearing,

Spring is coming,

And we are always encompassed by Love.

Open the windows of your soul

And though you may not be able

to touch across the empty square,

Sing