It's All Levers

Nonsisyphean Effort

Recently, a friend shared his incredulous conviction that his girlfriend was going crazy. The theory goes that she grew up in a pre-1950s house in Newark where lead pipes are a problem, and she’s now experiencing the results of lead poisoning. Fortunately for her, my friend is inclined to be dramatic when annoyed.

His main issue is that she’s constantly asking him to make decisions. Even for inconsequential things, like food, colors of His and Hers towels, destination of weekend getaways, while rolling her eyes when he asks what movie to watch. She has become overbearing. Crazy!

“Maybe she wants you to be more assertive and that’s her awkward way of not saying it outright.”

“You think so?”

“See?”

“…OK, but why not just say it to my face?”

Yeah, why not? It got me thinking that women, given their superior intuition, know better than that. Telling someone to be more assertive (as opposed to their current, nonassertive state) is circular reasoning; it’s like telling someone to be happy by becoming happy. Beyond some metaphysical notions about free will and control over our thought patterns, I find this type of self-improvement technology to be worthless at best¹.

Instead, his girlfriend understood, perhaps unconsciously, that by putting these little quests and tasks in place she could train assertiveness in his system. She basically used a lever.

Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth

You can’t choose to become one thing over the other. You can’t change a behavior by changing a behavior! For better or worse, humans aren’t blank slates but contain a myriad of conditions and unconscious causes that influence their behavior in ways that can’t be controlled directly. In the same way you can’t grow muscles just by thinking about big muscles, you can’t become more assertive, happy, confident by thinking your way to assertiveness, happiness, confidence.²

The way you grow muscles is by using levers, figuratively and literally.

The Tao and the Sandwich Principle

The Tao is infamously hard to name, or so they say. It’s an unknown, ineffable state, a radio frequency if you will, that humans can’t conceptualize with their logos. Does that mean we can’t live according to the Tao, the underlying nature of reality? No!

Taoists understood that in order to access an unknown state, they can’t just will themselves over there because… well, it’s an unknown state. There’s no target to aim for. So, they used a lever. Intermediate states, peripheral qualities and causes, that when in place could produce an internal condition that gives rise to the Tao. Instead of “doing” things³ to reach the Tao, they cultivated what sits between them and the Tao.

This is the Sandwich Principle. You don’t BAM have a sandwich just because you have meat, cheese, and bread lying around. You have to mince the meat, slice the bread, cut the cheese, cook them, pack them in the correct order and then you have something.

Likewise, you can’t decide to become a different person. There are qualities that need cultivating first that will have an indirect effect on who you fundamentally are. Don’t lose the referent!

Good Effort vs Bad Effort (Nonsisyphean effort)

I think always trying to conclude a post with “actionable advice” is patronizing to the reader. What do you want me to say? Make a list with “7 SIMPLES STEPS TO BECOME A NEW MAN AND CRUSH THE COMPETITION”?

Instead, I’ll leave you with a brief comment on nonsisyphean effort.

In the example of my friend, choosing to make a conscious effort to “become” more assertive will yield some results but mostly towards the appearance of being more assertive (insert any adjective here). I think we’ve all been there, for various behaviors, following the timeless fake it till you make it. The effort, in this case the bad effort, is directed outwards, in the performance. It doesn’t address the underlying conditions, and for that reason, under stress my friend will return to his baseline.

Using a lever, however, involves addressing the various qualities and causes that made him nonassertive. Finding and working on them will multiply his effort. That requires radical self-inquiry (unsurprisingly) with a mereological perspective;

Instead of addressing the whole, we usually take it apart and examine its constituents. What you think, consciously, your problem is there’s a good chance that it masks something more fundamental. The behavior itself is just a part, a symptom, of a core pattern. Finding the One Pattern through the repeated breaking down of the onion-layers isn’t easy but it’s what will essentially take care of the little behaviors that bother you.

The good effort should steer you away from self-improvement and toward integration/unity of the different parts under one cohesive state.

1. I’m sure someone will claim that they chose to become happy. I refer you to Gettier-type problems

2. You can argue that you can become less happy by thinking about sad stuff. In this case, you were already sad OR the “sadness” state is ephemeral and your baseline remains stable.

3. This is closer to Wu Wei than the popular do nothing interpretation.