On Never-Ending Problems

Are things getting worse – or does it just feel that way?

Concepts like ‘trauma’ or ‘violence’ have stretched to encompass things no previous generation would have worried about

By Oliver Burkeman, the Guardian, on 20/07/18

Extracts:

“Is everything completely terrible – or is the world getting better? It’s a popular topic of debate, because both claims seem to be true. (...) I’m grateful for a fascinating new study, published in the journal Science, which sheds new light on such matters. Although it began with a seemingly unrelated, borderline absurd question: how would you define a “blue dot”?

In the experiment, participants were shown hundreds of dots in shades from deep purple to deep blue, and asked to say whether each was blue or not. Obviously, the bluer a dot, the more likely people were to classify it as blue. But what’s interesting is what happened when researchers began reducing the prevalence of the blue dots they displayed. The fewer dots that were objectively blue, the broader people’s definition of “blue” became: they started to classify purplish dots that way, too. Their concept of blue expanded, a phenomenon the study authors label “prevalence-induced concept change”. Which clearly has nothing to do with social problems such as poverty or racism – except that, actually, it might.

It’s been argued that we live in an era of “concept creep”, in which concepts like “trauma” or “violence” have stretched to encompass things no previous generation would have worried about. Hence the idea that certain forms of speech are literally violence. Or that letting an eight-year-old walk to school alone is actual child neglect. (...) If you ask people to classify faces as threatening or non-threatening, then reduce the incidence of threatening ones, they’ll define more neutral faces as threatening. Ask them to classify research proposals as ethical or unethical, then reduce the unethical ones, and they’ll expand their definition of “unethical”. As co-author Dan Gilbert put it, “When problems become rare, we count more things as problems.”

This has big implications for progressive-minded types, since it suggests that even if things are getting better, we’ll find that hard to perceive, because we’ll respond by expanding the problem. But it doesn’t follow that all these new problems are fake. Sometimes, concept creep is good. To use Gilbert’s analogy, an emergency doctor is right to prioritise gunshot wounds over broken arms; but if there are no gunshot wounds to treat, she’s perfectly correct to expand her definition of “what needs immediate attention” to include broken arms. Conversely, a neurologist shouldn’t expand his definition of “brain tumour” simply because he can’t find any.

The challenge when it comes to social problems – or your personal problems – is to ask whether the thing you’re worrying about is more like the former or the latter: a serious problem in its own right, or one you’ve essentially invented? If it feels like nothing’s improving, it might be because your brain keeps shifting the goalposts.”

On Midlife Crisis

Midlife crisis? It’s a myth. Why life gets better after 50

We don’t peak in middle age, say the experts. So forget about the stereotypes and embrace change

By Jonathan Rauch, The Guardian, on 21/07/2018

Extracts:

“(...) Midlife is a tricky and vulnerable time. But most of what people think they know about midlife crisis – beginning with the notion that it is a crisis – is based on harmful myths and outdated stereotypes. The truth is more interesting, and much more encouraging.

1. You’re entering a danger zone

Actually, midlife is a time of transition. For most people, this is gradual, natural, manageable and healthy, albeit unpleasant. It is, in other words, the opposite of a crisis. (...) About 15 years ago, economists made an unexpected finding: the U-shaped happiness curve. Other things being equal – that is, once conditions such as income, employment, health and marriage are factored out of the equation – life satisfaction declines from our early 20s until we hit our 50s. Then it turns around and rises, right through late adulthood. This pattern has been found in countries and cultures around the world; a version of it has even been detected in chimpanzees and orangutans.

(...) Importantly, ageing’s effect is not sudden and dramatic. It is slow and cumulative. I was a textbook case. In my late 30s, I noticed restless and dissatisfaction, as if neither my life nor my accomplishments amounted to anything worthwhile. The malaise grew gradually but persistently. It was seriously dispiriting by my mid-40s. Then, at around 50, my malaise began to lift, as gradually as it had come. Now, at 58, it is mercifully behind me.

2. I must be unhappy about something

Not necessarily. Often, midlife malaise can be about nothing. At the age of 45, I won one of the highest prizes in American magazine journalism, a National Magazine award. That, finally, brought fulfilment – for about 10 days. Then the malaise came back. Flailing for an explanation, I lit upon my career. Many days, I felt tempted to quit my job, just to get out of my rut.

Humans are quite bad at attributing the causes of our unhappiness, and mine was the result of the ageing process. Throwing my career into the wind wouldn’t have helped, and may have made matters worse. Fortunately, I was rational enough to avoid rushing for the exit. So are most people. Contrary to the American Beauty stereotype, most of us slog through a midlife slump without acting out, which is fortunate, because a slump can indeed become a crisis if it leads people to make impulsive and costly mistakes.

So what is the slump about? It seems to be the effect partly of natural changes in our values. We begin adulthood, in our 20s and 30s, ambitious and competitive, eager to put points on the scoreboard and accumulate social capital. In late adulthood, after midlife, we shift our priorities away from ambition and towards deepening our connection with the people and activities that matter most to us. In between, we often experience a grinding transition when the old values haven’t brought the satisfaction we expected, but the new values haven’t yet established themselves.

3. Midlife unhappiness is for low-achievers

Surely, if we are lucky enough to have put lots of points on the board by 40, achieving or surpassing our goals, malaise won’t strike? Wrong again. The most perverse effect of midlife malaise is that high-achievers are especially vulnerable. The reason is what researchers call the hedonic treadmill. To motivate us, youthful ambition makes us unrealistically optimistic about how much satisfaction success will bring. Later, when we meet a goal, our desire for status and success moves the goalposts. Despite our objective accomplishments, we are not as satisfied as we expected. We wonder, “How come I’m not happier?” As this cycle of achievement and disappointment repeats over time, satisfaction comes to seem forever out of reach.

High-achievers are particularly vulnerable precisely because they set so much store by accomplishment, and because they have so much to be grateful for. They often experience their dissatisfaction as unjustified and irrational: a moral failing. That makes them still more dissatisfied. Now dissatisfaction is bootstrapping itself, creating a self-propelled spiral.

None of this is to cast aspersions on building a business, earning a doctorate, having a family, or other admirable ambitions. Those things are well worth doing. Just remember that objective success provides no guarantee against subjective discontent and, indeed, can make it worse – until the aforementioned changes in our values make it easier for us to jump off the ambition treadmill.

4. At 50, my best years are behind me

This myth is one of the biggest causes of discontent, because we assume that if we are not fulfilled at 50, we never will be. In fact, the happiness curve shows that, other things being equal, the best in life is yet to come. As we traverse our 50s, 60s and 70s, ageing makes us more positive and equable, and less stressed and regretful. This so-called positivity effect even seems to provide some emotional armour against the negative effects of physical decline and ill-health. In 2011, a study led by the Stanford University psychologist Laura Carstensen concluded: “Contrary to the popular view that youth is the best time in life, the present findings suggest that the peak of emotional life may not occur until well into the seventh decade.”

The false assumption that we peak in middle age not only makes midlifers unnecessarily pessimistic; it also fuels the stereotype of the burnt-out, bitter elder, which in turns fuels age discrimination that leaves vast reservoirs of experience and creativity underused. In the US, studies find that people aged 55-65 are more likely to start companies than those aged 20-34, and that older workers are just as productive as younger ones (and increase the productivity of those they work with). But you would never guess this from the way we think and talk about ageing.

5. Midlife slump is something to be ashamed of

This is perhaps the most harmful misconception of all. Combine the false assumptions listed above, and the picture emerges of midlife crisis as an unjustified, self-indulgent form of acting out by fortunate people who should be more grateful. No wonder it has become a widely mocked cliche, something people tut-tut over. But the result is that millions of people who are working through a midlife transition do so in silence and isolation, afraid to talk about it, often even with their spouses, for fear of setting off a family panic or being told they need medication.

That needs to change. Isolation and shame compound the likelihood of instability and genuine crisis. Instead, people need support and connection. They need to know, and to hear, that they are passing through a perfectly normal and ultimately beneficial human transition.”

On Anxiety

Consumed by anxiety? Give it a day or two

The problems you’re experiencing today seem fraught and important, but that’s mainly because you’re so narrowly focused on the present

By Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, 15/09/17

Extracts:

“The next time you’re consumed by anxiety – which, given the headlines, is probably this minute – you might borrow a tip from the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, author of the excellent new book ‘How To Be A Stoic’. In a recent podcast, Pigliucci described how he used Google Street View and Google Earth to create a slideshow that starts with an image of his own home, then zooms out, out and out, until it shows the whole planet. He consults it when feeling overwrought. You couldn’t hope for a more vivid illustration of the Stoic “dichotomy of control”, which urges us to restrict our attempts to change things to those actually in our power, instead of making ourselves miserable railing against those that aren’t. (...) You are – not to be rude – a tiny part of the cosmos. That doesn’t make you powerless. But it does mean you’re almost certainly stressing about things that will, without doubt, remain majestically unaffected by your stress.

If you ask me, such perspective shifts are even more powerful when applied to time. The problems you’re experiencing today seem uniquely fraught and important, but that’s mainly because you’re so narrowly focused on the present. This is, of course, the reasoning behind the old suggestion to ask yourself if your worries will matter on your deathbed, or in a decade, or even next week: they probably won’t. But you can do better than “probably”, as the psychology blogger David Cain points out, by turning your gaze backwards rather than forwards. Because it’s an undeniable fact that every single problem you’ve ever had is currently solved, with the exception of today’s small handful. “Every heart-twisting crisis, every fearsome responsibility, every breakdown of confidence or hope, everything I ever thought I couldn’t handle” – all sorted. “Every single disaster has inevitably given up its emotional hold, except that thin leading edge of the two or three things that are really bothering you right now.”

(...)  Most of what troubles us turns out to be tolerable, or even wonderful, or just never happens at all. Next time you worry that something’s going to ruin your life, it’s worth remembering that if you’d ever been right about that before, even once, your life would presently be ruined.”

Kafkaesque

What makes something kafkaesque?