Stages of patriotism?

After reading this piece by Jonathan Haidt (whose work I admire), I must say I disagree with his conclusion about patriotism being clearly positive. Here's my stab at progressively increasing views on it:

1) The Curmudgeon: doesn't take pride in being American, but that's because he hates everyone else. Displays an American flag: no.

2) The Patriot: doesn't particularly dislike non-Americans, per se... but okay with them losing out a bit, particularly if it means more of the pie for us. Displays an American flag: hell yes.

3) The Budding But Misguided Empath: feels that preferring fellow Americans necessarily demotes others. Decides that this is not the way to true empathy. Displays an American flag: no.

4) The True Empath: does not prefer the wellbeing of any one person or group over another, but recognizes that displays of camaraderie can be healthy for communities -- and can be a net positive even if it does foster the unhealthy some-more-equal-than-other mindset of The Patriot. Displays an American flag: depends on the environment.

Perhaps most people who love their country also love all other countries and their citizens just as much, but that sounds a tad optimistic.

How empathy?

Why does meditation enhance empathy? A few reasons:

• You notice that much of your "bad behavior" (e.g., snapping at people when you're hungry and irritable) happens when you're subject to anxieties / insecurities / a generally turmoiled mind. Settling the mind reduces the occurrence and potency of those states (your hunger is less likely to manifest as irritability, and you're more able to de-identify with the irritable part of your mind).
• You also note that this turmoil and bad behavior (both being irritable and snapping) doesn't feel good for you.
• You suspect that everyone else is going through the same thing, i.e.
• Their turbulent minds are the most immediate cause of their "bad behavior", and
• Their "bad behavior" is typically causing them as much pain as they're inflicting (this also softens the black-and-white victim-perpetrator divide; see below for more).
• One of the common effects of meditation is to help you respond instead of react, by giving you space to observe your emotions before acting.
• In immediate situations (e.g., being cut off while driving), you can give people the benefit of the doubt (which prevents the startle from evolving into road rage).
• In larger contexts (e.g., considering how to solve the problems of the world), it helps you broaden your focus beyond the immediate and obvious causes. When we're told that person A harmed person B, a common instinct is to blame person A, and direct malice his way (and sometimes mock everyone else as "tree-hugging liberal hippies" or similar), and forget to consider a whole host of causes and conditions that were involved.
• When you're told that Andrea Yates drowned her 5 little kids, your first instinct may be to feel some rather nasty things about her, and forget to ask yourself if there's more to the story (there is).

In short, a calm and introspective mind is naturally imbued with more empathic qualities (and of course meditation assists with generating a calm, introspective mind).

What is boredom?

Boredom is nothing more than the inability to stop fighting a reality that you have decided is insufficiently interesting to you.

If you're a fan of personal growth, realize that this is never a good thing. Complaining to a friend that last night's opera was sooo boring is basically bragging that you're sooo incapable of handling your own mind.

Makes for good small talk, but hardly something to be proud of :)

The Empathy Gap

I'm reading a book by J. D. Trout called The Empathy Gap. The most poignant sentence I've read so far, that captures a lot of how I feel:

It is just too easy to make people look personally responsible for bad outcomes when, in truth, all of their realistic options were bad ones.

See also: The Fundamental Attribution Error and The Lucky Effect.

How to detect that someone is a sociopath

No, I'm not talking about that old, silly psychopath "test" involving the woman at the funeral.

After even a minor mishap, most people seem to apologize or look embarrassed almost immediately, even if it's unnecessary. I'd bet that the presence of this response is good evidence that the person is not a sociopath.

Like pain, embarrassment causes a clear physiological response, and one that should be hard to fake - - at least consistently.

Psychopaths can and often do imitate normal pro-social emotions, but to do so quickly and consistently, even in the most minor circumstances, should be hard. The opposite, to quickly and consistently suppress a response should be easier (and monks seem to be able to do this, at least for negative reactions).

So whenever I see someone blurt out a sheepish "oops!" when opening a door into me at work, I mentally check him or her off the "possible psychopath" list. Everyone else is still on it ;)

Compassion is not pity

Maybe I've written about this before, but I'm too lazy to go check. I think it matters a lot, so I'm even fine saying it again: compassion and pity are different things.

A group of young people on the street laugh at you and call you fat and ugly. Why not just remind yourself how those poor, miserable dolts probably didn't get enough love as a child, and pity their ignorance?

Because you can instead remind yourself how these unfortunate kids may actually not have received enough love or guidance, and you can wish that they do get on track before it does them and others more harm.

Okay, so maybe it takes some practice to get from the first response to the second, but it sounds worth it. Do you really want to cultivate condescension?

Daydreaming is a downer

I'll be giving a talk about roughly this subject soon, but here's one to mull over:

Snap out of it! That daydream you're having about eloping to the Bahamas with Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie is leaching away your happiness. In a new global study, researchers used iPhones to gauge the mental state of more than 2000 volunteers several times a day—even when they were having sex. The results indicate that, if you want to stay cheerful, you're better off focusing on the present, no matter how unpleasant it is.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/11/daydreaming-is-a-downer.html

Original paper here: http://scholar.harvard.edu/danielgilbert/files/a-wandering-mind-is-an-unhapy-mind-killingsworthe-ma-science-2010.pdf