Monday, May 27, 2019

Why Am I Reading This?

My darling Zuni, my beautiful dog, died on Wednesday. I'm not going to go into it because I'm gutted. But the whole thing has brought back to me how much I rely on fiction. Medicine is amazing, wonderful, but when it can no longer help, fiction has always been a vital source of comfort.

I think it is good to have books of different kinds - books that stretch your mind, and books that comfort you. Sometimes a book ends up doing both those things. Many books do neither. I follow Alom Shaha on Twitter and a while back he said that he'd been so disappointed in so many books that he felt like he'd somehow lost the ability to enjoy novels. Various replies sympathized; one woman said that she tended to re-read old favourites just to feel what it was to love books again. It was a good thread to find, because I have been feeling this way and wondering what's wrong with me.

I know that there are good books out there. But, like Mr Shaha and the others, I keep finding myself a quarter of the way through a promising-looking novel, wondering where the joy is. I keep reading books that have no heart. Books that have a kind of bleakness to them, in which I feel like the writer is saying, We will not be lowering ourselves to the level of enjoyment. We are too sophisticated for that. I like a good plot, well-constructed, ingenious. Imagine a cat's cradle, taut. Instead plots are loose and sagging - but only Philistines hanker after plot. Characters are hollow and behave in nihilistic ways that human beings almost never do.

I can't help but suspect a kind of selfishness and egotism on the part of the writer when I read a book like this. The past week or two I had been reading Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans. I hadn't read any of his other books and my husband bought me this one partly because it was a sort of detective novel, and a good whodunit is something I relish. This is not a good whodunit - there is no ingenious plot, there are no clues or satisfying tying together of strands. Like several other reviewers on Goodreads, I assumed at some point the events would turn out to be a dream, because it made very little sense. The 'plot twist' when it happens involves, as so often is the case, the rape of a woman. It ends on a flat note and is the kind of book that would leave me depressed even on a normal day.

Yesterday was not a normal day. Ishiguro owes me nothing, of course, and the idea that books should avoid disturbing themes or scenes is a terrible one. I have no wish to wrap my mind in cotton wool. I've read books that have included very dark things, but I felt like they were an integral part of a story that ultimately gave me something. It's that, I think, that leaves me slightly resentful. I just find so many books ungenerous. They are caviar - not tasty, enjoyable or even nutritious, but the fact that you consume them tells you and others that you are the right sort of person.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Sacred Cow, Batman, that's some motivated reasoning!

I have been thinking, A LOT, about critical thinking. About how we as a species can work out what is most likely to be true, and also work out how best to minimise harm and facilitate good things (what even *are* good things?).

A most unnerving thing happened the day before yesterday, when I was scrolling through Twitter (wading through Twitter?). I'd returned to Twitter after a healthy break, like the weak-willed worm I am. Someone was saying how more people should learn Critical Thinking Skills, and a guy replied saying that he taught them. He had a diagram and everything. The thing is, I recognised that guy. I recognised him because a few months ago I read his tweets as he spouted the most flagrant nonsense.

Or was it nonsense? I'm not going to go into it, because either he asserts utter nonsense even though he teaches critical thinking, or I believe a logical and true position is utter nonsense even though I've read books like Stuart Sutherland's Irrationality and listened to Steven Novella's Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills (I know, I'd bet on that Twitter guy too. Those are both great books though). Either way, it's possible to learn about critical thinking skills, genuinely want to think critically, and be very, very wrong.

But here is what I think trips up even the most sceptical of sceptics: motivated reasoning. I think that if we want to think something, it is incredibly difficult for us to fairly weigh the arguments for an against. At the moment, I believe it may be the single biggest stumbling-block to clear thinking.

I now have a few tricks I use to try and side-step my biases. The first and most important of these is to admit to myself what I want to be true, and list the reasons why I want it to be true. In other words, identify my sacred cows. Once I have them identified, I can tie bells round their necks. The jingling of the bell - bear with me, this is one tortuous metaphor - will alert me that I am being led astray by the bias of a sacred cow, instead of following the... elk? The Elk of Truth.

Next time, I will discuss what to do if the Elk of Truth leads you into the Valley of Despair. (Involves Tents of Wine).

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Do You Need a Montage?

Recently I've rediscovered Deodato's wonderful, trippy Also Sprach Zarathustra and I have it on my MP3 player as the first song in a progrock-ish mix. I put it on when I go for a walk. There's a thing I do a lot when I'm listening to good music, which is that I imagine a video for it. For this one, I imagine a montage of me doing all the stuff I want to do - the illustration project I'm working on, DIY around the house, running, etc. It is the perfect musical accompaniment - very cheesy with dramatic flourishes where I zoom in on my imagined achievements (drawings, curtains, shelves).

It's put me in such a good mood lately that I want other people to do it too. Of course you might need to find a different song if Deodato doesn't work for you. Mason Williams' Classical Gas is similar in cheese-factor fantasticness, but for me that's reserved as the theme tune to a 1970s-style detective drama featuring my dog, who drives a blue Triumph Dolomite.