I am highly entertained by Governor Schwarzenegger. Here's a good example of why that is, from the most recent edition of Meet the Press:
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MR. RUSSERT: In your book, "Education of a Body Builder," you said something that caught my attention. "I was always honest about my weak points. ...I think it's the key to success in everything: be honest, know where you're weak, admit it." After 100 days as governor, what do you think your weakest point is in trying to be governor?
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, I'm very happy that you studied so thoroughly my body-building books, and I can tell on your body that this is a whole different ball game now, Tim. I mean, look at your deltoids and your six-pack. It's amazing, so congratulations on that.
But on top of that, let me tell you, one thing I found out in these three months of being in office is, is I've made mistakes. You know, you go in there, and you try to rush and you try to do keep those kind of deadlines. Like for instance with the budget, I remember when we made the midyear adjustments, I made certain decisions of programs, for instance, for the mentally disabled and I made certain cuts. And then after that, when I talked about it, I didn't realize that I made those cuts, so I had to go back and just say, "Look, I made a mistake. I made those cuts. I did not intend to make those cuts. I want to put it back."
MR. RUSSERT: Did the first lady talk to you about those kind of cuts?
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: We all talked about it. It was like literally two or three days later when we--I mean, I read it, number one, in the paper, and then we talked about it in our family. And, you know, I have been a big promoter and always involved with Special Olympics, with helping people with mental disabilities. And I said to myself, "What am I doing? I'm now making cuts in programs for mentally disabled? That's not good." I mean, so then I went back and made the adjustment.
So the key thing is, again, when you have a problem like this or you make a mistake, which you inevitably will make, that you right away admit it. Again, like I said, in "Bodybuilding," you know, point right away at the problem and fix it. That is the key thing. That's the only way you can improve. That's the only way you can get smarter rather than like some politicians that they get stuck with it, you know, because they're embarrassed to say, "I was wrong." They get stuck with it at the end, and they bury themselves deeper and deeper into a problem. So that was one of the things that I've learned in the last three months.
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While I have yet to be convinced that his idealistic way of doing this will turn out to be effective, I'm sure having a good time watching the press that he stirs up.
I'm displeased that I haven't been able to get my DNS server to properly map my domain name to this site yet. Trying to solve that problem is impeding much progress on this project.
Anyway, I am having a moment of clarity that I thought I would jot down. One can make the case that one's personal motivational abilities (i.e. drive, will-power) can be a more important factor in determining life success than raw intellectual ability. It goes something like this. Intellect is really about how a person can look at the world and see possibilities where other people cannot. Its about the skills acquired, the libraries of solutions that can be applied, and how quickly they can be assembled.
What intellect is not, arguably, is the drive to take that extra insight and act on it. Einstein was once quoted to say that if one merely read something new about a topic for fifteen minutes each day, that they would be an expert in a year, and a world expert in five years. Anyone. Sounds like he believed in the power of personal motivation independently of intellect.
Moreover, investigations into brain science suggest that motivation is something that is mostly created not by cortex, the part of the brain most closely associated with human intellect, but by the parts of the brain that humans share with other animals. This suggests that most of our basic drives, to find a mate, to feed, to drink, to feel safe, are rooted in systems that far pre-dated the human ability to play chess or program a computer. Perhaps the model we should use is one where basic drives flow out of our older brain structures, and are filtered through our "human intellect" before manifesting themselves in behavior.
Is this true? Its hard to tell at our current state of understanding about the brain. Either way, I argue that this is a useful way to conceptualize and understand a bit better what human intelligence is. Like any theory, it is only as good as far as it provides a good model of what happens in reality.
Why am I going on about this? Lately, I have found myself in a bit of a motivational connundrum, that I hope I am starting to understand and work my way out of. I am calling it the difference between being "event-driven" and being proactive. I have become very comfortable in my academic life simply responding to deadlines. If something was really important, it would make itself obvious to me by the impending doom of its arrival. This careless-sounding way of living was not so much of a conscious decision, as a reflected view of how most of my life has been lived up to now. I have heard this referred to as living your life as a "fire-fighter", constantly running to put out another fire.
This has been made obvious to me by the fact that I have a growing to do list filled with things that would make my life better if I did, but I never seem to get around to. I bought shelves a month ago and haven't put them up. I need to find a local dentist and get a check up. I should re-work my personal budget. My New Year's resolution of going to the gym no less than twice a week was woefully broken the first week. I am watching my to do list grow almost as if its not really mine.
Am I without the time to get these things done? No. The scarce resource is in fact my motivation to get down and dirty and accomplish things that are annoying and irksome. This problem has been with me my whole life, but being out in the working world has made it much more pronounced. So long as I successfully respond to events at work, my life could continue like this for a while. I have a feeling I am not alone in this.
The question is, how do I escape this box, and how do I stay outside of it longer than a short period just to make me feel better? Well, I'm not sure yet, but I think its a good first step to at least identify the problem and be upfront about it to myself.
Hi, Welcome to my web log! I'm just getting this kicked off. I am hoping that the content that is to follow will be of some use to those who choose to check back regularly.
I have been paying some attention of late to the Democratic primaries (as have many). I have been noticing the increasingly populist message that some of the candidates have been stressing. By populist, I mean that candidates seem to be gearing themselves rhetorically and issue-wise towards the common man. While this may be an attempt to draw a distinction with the special interest entanglement of the administration, I can't help but wonder if this isn't campaign finance reform doing its job correctly. The theory is that the Democratic candidates, whose party is traditionally worse at accumulating hard money contributions than the Republicans, need to reach out more to the common person in order to gather enough resources to be competitive. In order to attract more common persons, they shift their messages to aim more squarely towards them.
Its interesting to compare the amount of contributions that were donated in 2002 versus the amount that were donated in 2004 so far. Sure, the 2004 election cycle is far from over, but even so, you can already see the impact that eliminating soft money contributions is having.