Expectations are the source of most dissatisfaction. This does not mean the key to our happiness is to lower them until satisfaction emerges. Such a logic can only lead to an ever-degrading mediocrity. Instead, we must be aware of expectations, adjust them accordingly, and revise them often.

The reality is expectations affect us as human beings as much as it does the things we consume. People have expectations of us and we have expectations of people.

Since they can be unshakeable burdens, we should spare others when we can.

Unshakeable burdens

The culture echoes. Trends reflect the likes and dislikes of a time and place, bouncing off individuals, weaving a web of influence, claiming the spotlight, and taking centre stage.

We influence the network. We see famous and celebrated people changing the culture every day. Yet, the network also influences us. Depending on the amount of time we are exposed to the cultural network, the more we become like it, the average of it, more predictable as a pastiche of stereotypes and expected behaviours.

The echo chamber is hard to escape from. It is also cosy. That’s why we don’t even think about leaving.

Cultural cages

The more we know, the more we realise we know very little. And yet, our ignorance is less than it was the day before. The unachievable vastness of reality could tempt us to give up and accept our meaningless cogging in the machine that continues to sustain the inequalities of our age.

An alternative is to be aware of the degrees of improvement, however small. Every person who switches to an EV, becomes vegan, recycles or lets flowers grow where once mowed lawns prevailed counts. Every tenth of a degree of global heating we reduce saves lives.

Counting every tenth

Undoubtedly, an open mind will prepare us for change. An open mind is more resilient and adaptable, better suited for an ever-faster mutating reality.

Yet, there is also a price to pay. Open minds don’t deal well with the aspects of the world that don’t change. Going back home is not as easy, because home is somewhere else, possibly unreachable, if home has become the change itself.

The change itself

Self-imposed restrictions are responsible for some of the best acts of creativity we have ever enjoyed. Limit one’s palette, and one will strive to make the most with the given tools. Conversely, unless restrained, the modern age’s limitless resources can overwhelm and impair the most prolific minds.

The key is in the “self-imposed” nature of the restriction. Let the artist choose how to limit themselves. (Although, arguably, external oppression can also lead to magnificent protest art—food for another thought.) The other key is to vary one’s restrictions: we don’t need to repeat ourselves. Thus, we can make the most of various sets of tools, opening ourselves to choosing the best of them in combinations we would have otherwise never entertained.

Self-imposed restrictions set us up to do our best work

We accept the need for two opposing views to have an argument. How else could we have a meaningful debate? Diverging perspectives take the stage so that others can make up their minds. Disagreement is the basis.

However, I’ve come to realise that the foundation of an argument must be the willingness of any part involved in it to change their minds. If one becomes so entrenched in one’s views to be unable even to modulate them, one is not ready to argue.

Yet another cry for help: for more uncertain people, for less certain folk.

Martian Thoughts

Unshakeable burdens

Cultural cages

Counting every tenth

The change itself

Self-imposed restrictions set us up to do our best work

Another cry for more uncertainty