by Scott Adams
“That sounds like karma,” I said. “When you do good things, good things come back to you.”
“Yes, but good things do not return in a one-for-one manner. Individual actions are not directly rewarded. It is only on average that doing good improves the quality of life for you and the people around you.”
“Does God forgive people, in a manner of speaking?”
“Yes, essentially, by exerting control over the averages of human activity and not the individual acts. Every person has the opportunity to improve his average contribution to society regardless of what he has done in the past.”
“What about an afterlife? Where’s the payoff? What difference does it make to me whether I contribute to society or not? I’ll die anyway, eventually. Why should I care if God gets conscious or not?” I asked.
“God will become conscious whether you as an individual are in harmony with probability or not. God controls the averages, not the individuals. Your short-term payoff for contributing to God’s consciousness is fewer problems in your daily life, less stress, and more happiness.
“Stress is the cause of all unhappiness and it comes in infinite varieties, all with a common cause. Stress is a result of fighting probability, and the friction between what you are doing and what you know you should be doing to live within probability.”
“That sounds simplistic,” I said. “Sometimes stress just happens to you because you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let’s say a family member dies of old age. That’s stressful but there’s nothing you could do about it.”
“Stress cannot be eliminated from your life. But you can reduce stress by being in harmony with probability. You can deal with the death of a loved one more easily if you have done proper estate planning and are mentally prepared for the inevitable. If you have been a good friend to many people and stayed close to your family, the loss will be softened. If you allow your mind to release the past instead of trying to wish the deceased back to life, or wishing you had done something different, then your stress will be less.”
“What about the afterlife? Are all the benefits here and now or is there something later?” I asked.
“Over time, everything that is possible happens. That is a fundamental quality of probability. If you flip a coin often enough, eventually it will come up heads a thousand times in a row. And everything possible will happen over and over as long as God’s debris exists. The clump of debris that comprises your body and mind will break down and disintegrate someday, but a version of you will reappear in the future, by chance.”
“Are you saying I’ll reincarnate?”
“Not exactly. I’m saying a replica of your mind and body will exist in the distant future, by chance. And the things you do now can either make life more pleasant or more difficult for your replica.”
“Why would I care about a replica of me? That’s a different guy.”
“That distinction is an illusion. In your current life, every cell in your body has died and been replaced many times. There is nothing in your current body that you were born with. You have no original equipment, just replacement parts, so for all practical purposes, you are already a replica of a prior version of you.”
“Yes, but my memories stay with me. The replica of me in the distant future will have none of the memories and feelings that comprise my life,” I said.
“There will be many replicas of you in the future, not just one. Some will have lives similar to yours, with similar memories and feelings. The replicas will be different from you only in concept, not in practical terms.”
“The thing I like about your view of God is that it’s easy to follow the rules. All I have to do is go with probability.”
“Sometimes it is easy,” he said. “Other times it will be hard to sort out the right probabilities. Today, the news reported that teens who publicly commit to avoiding sex have more success in abstaining, compared to those who don’t. What would you conclude about the probabilities in that story?”
“Obviously it helps to make the public commitment. That improves your odds.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe the teens who wanted to abstain were the only ones who were willing to publicly commit. Or maybe the teens who made the public commitments were more likely to later lie about their rate of sex. Probability is simple but it is not always obvious.”
Relationships
The old man rocked some more and smiled at me. “You’re alone much of the time.”
He was right. I enjoyed being alone. I had friends, but I was always happy to get back home.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Your pupils widen when I talk about ideas.”
“They do?”
“There are two types of people in the world, my young friend. One type is people-oriented. When they make conversation, it is about people—what people are doing, what someone said, how someone feels. The other group is idea-oriented. When they make conversation, they talk about ideas and concepts and objects.”
“I must be an idea person.”
“Yes. And it causes trouble in your personal life but you don’t realize how.”
“That’s rather presumptuous of you. What makes you think I have trouble in my personal life?” I had to admit he was right. Everyone has an imperfect personal life, but for me that imperfection was almost a defining principle.
He continued, “Idea people like you are boring, even to other idea people.”
“Hey, I’m insulted,” I said, not really feeling so. “I will admit I’m not the life of any party. Whenever I try to inject something interesting into a conversation everyone gets quiet until someone changes the topic. I think I’m pretty interesting but no one else does. All of the popular people seem to babble about nothing, but I usually have something interesting to say. You’d think people would like that.”
“Actually, the popular people only seem to be babbling,” he countered. “In fact, they talk about a topic that everyone cares about; they talk about people. When a person talks about people, it is personal to everyone who listens. You will automatically relate the story to yourself, thinking how you would react in that person’s situation, how your life has parallels. On the other hand, if you tell a story about a new type of tool you found at the hardware store, no one can relate to the tool on a personal level. It is just an object, no matter how useful or novel.”
“Okay, so how do I become more interesting?”
“If I gave you advice, would you follow it?”
“Maybe. It depends on the advice.”
“No, you wouldn’t follow my advice. No one has ever followed the advice of another person.”
“Now you’re just being disagreeable,” I said. “Obviously people follow advice all the time. That’s not a delusion.”
“People think they follow advice but they don’t. Humans are only capable of receiving information. They create their own advice. If you seek to influence someone, don’t waste time giving advice. You can change only what people know, not what they do.”
“Okay then. Can you give me some information that would help my personal life?”
“Perhaps,” he said, clenching his red plaid blanket tighter around his tiny body. “What topic interests you more than any other?”
“Myself, I guess,” I confessed.
“Yes, that is the essence of being human. Any person you meet at a party will be interested in his own life above all other topics. Your awkward silences can be solved by asking simple questions about the person’s life.”
“That would be totally phony,” I said. “First of all, it would be like interrogating him. Secondly, I couldn’t possibly pretend to be interested in the answers. If he turns out to be some shoe salesman living with his mother in Albany, my eyes will glaze over.”
“It would seem phony to you while you asked the questions, but it would not seem that way to the stranger. To him it is an unexpected gift, an opportunity to enjoy one of life’s greatest pleasures: talk
ing about oneself. He would become more animated and he would instantly begin to like you. You would seem to be a brilliant and talented conversationalist, even if your only contribution was asking questions and listening. And you would have solved the stranger’s fear of an awkward silence. For that he will be grateful.”
“That solves the stranger’s problem, but I have to listen to this guy drone on about himself. The cure is worse than the disease.”
“Your questions to the stranger are only the starting points. From there you can steer him toward the thing you care about most—yourself.”
“Wouldn’t he want to talk about himself instead of me?”
“When you find out how others deal with their situations it is automatically relevant to you,” he said. “There will always be parallels in your life. Find out what you and he have in common, then ask how he likes it, how he deals with it, and if he has any clever solutions for it. Perhaps you both have long commutes, or you both have mothers who call too often or you both ski. Find that point of common interest and you will both be talking about yourself to the delight of the other.”
“What about sharing my opinions on important things?” I asked. “I’m always getting into debates with people. It seems like I always have a more thought-out view of things and I feel like I have a responsibility to set people straight. Sometimes, though, I wish I could just shut up. But when you hear the crazy views that some people have— actually, most people—how can you just let it slide?”
“Have you ever been in traffic behind someone who doesn’t move when the light turns green, so you honk your horn, then you realize the car is stalled and there is nothing the driver could have done?”
“Yeah, I’ve honked. It’s embarrassing,” I said.
“Most disagreements are like my example. Two people have different information, but they think the root of their disagreement is that the other person has bad judgment or bad manners or bad values. In fact, most people would share your opinions if they had the same information. If you spend your time arguing about the faultiness of other people’s opinions, you waste your time and theirs. The only thing than can be useful is examining the differences in your assumptions and adding to each other’s information. Sometimes that is enough to make viewpoints converge over time.”
“Hey, if you can teach me to get along with women, I could sure use that.”
“I can tell you some things.”
“I’ll take whatever help I can get.”
“Women believe that men are, in a sense, defective versions of women,” he began. “Men believe that women are defective versions of men. Both genders are trapped in a delusion that their personal viewpoints are universal. That viewpoint—that each gender is a defective version of the other—is the root of all misunderstandings.”
“How does that help me?” I asked.
“Women define themselves by their relationships and men define themselves by whom they are helping. Women believe value is created by sacrifice. If you are willing to give up your favorite activities to be with her, she will trust you. If being with her is too easy for you, she will not trust you. You can accomplish your sacrifices symbolically at first, by leaving work early to buy flowers, canceling your softball game to make a date, that sort of thing.”
“Why does it seem like the rich and famous guys get all the women?” I asked.
“Partly because the rich and famous are capable of making larger sacrifices. The average man might be sacrificing a night of television to be with a woman. The rich and famous man could be sacrificing a week in Tahiti. There is much to be said about the attraction of power and confidence exuded by a rich and powerful man, but capacity for sacrifice is the most important thing.”
“What do men value?” I asked.
“Men believe value is created by accomplishment, and they have objectives for the women in their lives. If a woman meets the objectives, he assumes she loves him. If she fails to meet the objectives, he will assume she does not love him. The man assumes that if the woman loved him she would have tried harder and he always believes his objectives for her are reasonable.”
“What objectives?”
“The objectives are different for each man. Men rarely share these objectives because doing so is a recipe for disaster. No woman would tolerate being given a set of goals.”
“So what should a guy do if the woman in his life doesn’t meet these secret objectives? How can he get her to change?”
“He can’t,” he replied. “People don’t change to meet the objectives of other people. Men can be molded in small ways—clothing and haircuts and manners—because those things are not important to most men. Women can’t be changed at all.”
“I’m not hearing anything helpful here.”
“The best you can hope for in a relationship is to find someone whose flaws are the sort you don’t mind. It is futile to look for someone who has no flaws, or someone who is capable of significant change; that sort of person exists only in our imaginations.”
“Let’s say I find the person whose flaws I don’t mind,” I said. “The hard part is keeping her. I haven’t had much luck in that department.”
“A woman needs to be told that you would sacrifice anything for her. A man needs to be told he is being useful. When the man or woman strays from that formula, the other loses trust. When trust is lost, communication falls apart.”
“I don’t think you need to trust someone to communicate. I can talk to someone I distrust as easily as someone I trust.”
“Without trust, you can communicate only trivial things. If you try to communicate something important without a foundation of trust, you will be suspected of having a secret agenda. Your words will be analyzed for hidden meaning and your simple message will be clouded by suspicions.”
“I guess I can see that. How can I be more trusted?”
“Lie.”
“Now you’re kidding, right?” I asked.
“You should lie about your talents and accomplishments, describing your victories in dismissive terms as if they were the result of luck. And you should exaggerate your flaws.”
“Why in the world would I want to tell people I was a failure and an idiot? Isn’t it better to be honest?”
“Honesty is like food. Both are necessary, but too much of either creates discomfort. When you downplay your accomplishments, you make people feel better about their own accomplishments. It is dishonest, but it is kind.”
“This is good stuff. What other tips do you have?”
“You think casual conversation is a waste of time.”
“Sure, unless I have something to say. I don’t know how people can blab about nothing.”
“Your problem is that you view conversation as a way to exchange information,” he said.
“That’s what it is,” I said, thinking I was pointing out the obvious.
“Conversation is more than the sum of the words. It is also a way of signaling the importance of another person by showing your willingness to give that person your rarest resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation reminds us that we are part of a greater whole, connected in some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce. Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless.”
For the next few hours the old man revealed more of his ingredients for successful social living. Express gratitude. Give more than is expected. Speak optimistically. Touch people. Remember names. Don’t confuse flexibility with weakness. Don’t judge people by their mistakes; rather, judge them by how they respond to their mistakes. Remember that your physical appearance is for the benefit of others. Attend to your own basic needs first; otherwise you will not be useful to anyone else.
I didn’t know if I could incorporate his ingredients into my life, but it seemed possible.
Affirmations
“I’ve heard of something called affirmations,” I said, taking the opportunity to spelunk another tunnel in the old man’s brain. “You
write down your goals fifteen times a day and then somehow they come true as if by magic. I know people who swear by it. Does that really work?”
“The answer is complicated.”
“I have time,” I said.
“People who use affirmations know what they want and are willing to work for it; otherwise they would not have the enthusiasm to write down their goals fifteen times every day. It should be no surprise that they have more success than the average person.”
“Because they work harder?”
“Because they know what they want,” he said. “The ability to work hard and make sacrifices comes naturally to those who know exactly what they want.
“Most people believe they have goals when, in fact, they only have wishes. They might tell you their goal is to get rich without working hard, without making sacrifices or taking risks. That is not a goal, it is a fantasy. Such people are unlikely to write affirmations daily because it would be too much effort. And they are unlikely to be successful in any big way.”
“So the affirmations are unnecessary?”
“They have a purpose. Writing your goals every day gives you a higher level of focus. It tunes your mind to better recognize opportunities in your environment.”
“What do you mean by tuning your mind?”
“Have you ever had the experience where you hear a strange word for the first time, and then soon afterward you hear the same word again?”
“That happens all the time,” I said. “It’s freaky. It’s as if hearing a word for the first time makes it appear everywhere. Like fescue. I never heard of that word until I saw it on a package of grass seed in the store last week. That night I was at a party and some guy used the word. I’m fairly sure I’ve never heard that word before in my entire life, then I hear it twice in a matter of hours. What are the odds of that?
“And last night I was at my neighbor’s house down the street, shooting some pool on his new table. I asked him if he ever played a game called foosball. It’s that table game where you use handles connected to little soccer players and try to kick a wooden ball into the other guy’s goal.”
