Leisa Michelle

Nerdy Monologues of an Autodidact

I don’t believe in family loyalty

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I don’t believe in family loyalty.

Read that one more time: I don’t believe in family loyalty.

The first time that thought entered my head, I was horrified. I actually felt ashamed. I promptly told myself, “What a terrible thing to think! How could you even let that thought run through your mind? Get rid of it. Never think that again.”

But a few days later, it came back to me. Hearing it the second time, I was still shocked, but this time I was able to take a look at why. And after a lot of thinking, I’ve really accepted it.

I don’t believe in family loyalty. And I don’t think you should either.

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Speak What You Think

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About a week ago, this quote popped up on my Twitter feed. I absolutely fell in love with it.

“Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?” –Paul Graham

It’s a little bit embarrassing how excited I got. But the thing that I liked most about this quote was that it reminded me how important it is to form your own opinions and speak what you think – even if you feel like you have an unpopular or “the wrong” ideas and opinions.

Having unpopular opinions is relatively much safer today than it was one or two or three hundred years ago. A couple hundred years ago, if you said something bad about your king or the Church, you were imprisoned or exiled at best. Today in the US, it’s pretty safe to say that you won’t be assassinated like Cicero, or exiled like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or even thrown in jail like Oscar Wilde or Bertrand Russell.

It’s not that things are perfect today. You might lose your job or be barred from certain professions for publicly holding certain beliefs (if you’re an avid creationist, most people won’t to hire you as a biology professor). Jail time is still a possibility (though usually only if you act unlawfully according to your beliefs). But I think I’d rather lose my job than face exile or an assassin in the night.

Where would we be today without all those intellectual radicals?

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On the Unconscious and Empathy

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The following stream-of-consciousness style essay is inspired by The Charisma Myth by Olivia Cabane. You can read my summary and review of the book on Goodreads.

The point of The Charisma Myth was to help the reader adjust their body language to reflect their interests and desires. And it was interesting for me to read not just as a means of self-development, but also as a means of self-awareness and interpersonal awareness.

Obviously, people don’t always mean what they say. But the opposite is true too. Sometimes people do mean what they say, and if you read too deep into the language used or body language exhibited (even if the assessment is completely subconscious), then you can easily misunderstand people.

To use an example from the book: You scrunch your face after I say how important personal privacy is in the context of government surveillance. I can assume that you reacted that way because you don’t like what I said. But maybe the sun is just in your eyes. Another example: Someone asks you how long you’re going to be “stuck” in your current job. You can assume that they think you’re powerless over your situation, or that they disapprove of the work you’re doing. But maybe they’re just trying to be funny, or maybe they didn’t give their word choice much thought. It’s easy to misunderstand people when we delve too deep into things.

And it can be hard to say exactly what you mean. You don’t think in words or language, so speaking involves several encoding and decoding processes. Things quickly get lost in translation. And everything gets more complicated when you yourself don’t even know what you mean.

Unconscious Processes

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“Revolutionary Parenting” – No More Punishments

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I don’t usually listen to podcasts (they’re uncomfortable to take notes on), but today I did. I started up Isaac Morehouse’s podcast episode entitled “Revolutionary Parenting” this morning just to hear what “revolutionary parenting” actually was. I was planning to Google whatever came up in the first 10 minutes of the discussion, turn off the podcast, and then keep reading what Google gave me. But I was completely entranced after a couple minutes of listening to Kevin Geary and Isaac bounce back and forth parenting philosophies that toss traditional ideas of punishment out the window.

“Parenting without punishment and reward” wasn’t a new concept for me when I started listening to this podcast episode. I meet a lot of educators and psychologists that practice NVC (nonviolent communication) and advocate primarily the use of empathy in child rearing instead of rewards and punishments. But the idea (and reality!) of not punishing your kids never gets stale for me. It’s incredible to consider what society would be like if we raised a generation of kids without punishing or shaming them for misbehaviors and so-called “bad choices.”

Why do we even punish kids?

According to conventional wisdom, when a kid does something wrong or bad, he needs to be punished. He didn’t do his homework? Grounded. He hit his sister? Grounded. He knocked over the china while playing ball? Grounded (or shamed with an unnecessarily brutal or accusatory talk). Maybe he’s spanked. Maybe he’s sent to bed without supper. Somehow, in some way, he’s punished.

We rationalize punishment by saying that all actions have consequences. We see ourselves, adults, as the judges of morality, good choices, and good behaviors. We uphold the law. If we don’t teach that actions have consequences, our kids will never learn that, right?

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You just have to want what you Want!

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“You’ve lost your humanity, friend. Really, truly, you are no longer human.”

It was my turn to laugh. “So what? I should be more like you? You’re human?” I scoffed, gesturing at Pan’s furry hide.

“No, I’m not human. To be human is to search, to reach, to dream. And it seems to me that your purpose now, Atilius, is to connect what you want with what you Want.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Dearest Atilius,” Pan hopped off of his resting place and waved the forest nymphs away, “it’s quite simple. There are things that fulfill you in your life, things that give you meaning and a sense of purpose. These are your Waaaants,” he said with a dramatic flourish of his hand. After a pause he continued. “On the other hand, your wants are what you do to try to make your true Wants a reality. Your wants are the physical realizations of your true Wants. For example, you Want love. Love will fulfill you, love will make you whole. You want to be a general because you Want love. But the problem is that you don’t get love from being a general. Your wants aren’t aligned with your Wants. So the solution is simple. You just have to want what you Want!”

-Excerpt from Atilius and Pan by Leisa Michelle

Why is wanting what you Want so hard?

The problem is that we get fixated on the physical. Our Wants aren’t physical, they’re… something else. Something deeper. They’re connected with our essence, our feelings, our spirit, our intuition. And it’s easy to ignore our feelings, spirit, and intuition because they aren’t concrete. And as if that doesn’t make it hard enough, society in general degrades feelings, the spirit, and intuition.

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