Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Uncategorized

  • Test Draft

    Chillin’ In The Eno…
    brown wall with design
    Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com

  • Writing v. Speaking: Writing Is More Artificial…which is not a bad thing

    One of the most satisfying aspects of writing and posting something daily is…you guessed it…writing and posting something daily. Writing is artificial in comparison to speaking. What do I mean? When you speak, it is mostly stream-of-consciousness, with opportunities to course-correct, amend, update, or renounce utterances on the fly. I hope all that makes sense. 

    Both speaking and writing propagate words into the world. But the spoken word is often uttered with less care and painstaking than the words of a careful writer. The impermanent means you can afford to be a little more free-flowing and off the cuff, less careful, less precise, overall. And for some, their emotional state may cause them to say things that will be briefly heard and pass into the ether more quickly than if they were to write the same things for posterity.

    Writing is really, rewriting. That’s what makes writing ”artificial” by comparison, since it is an abstraction from verbal language. Very close, intimate friends and companions will of course engage in “re-speaking” for the sake of clarity. Understanding and being understood are precious to intimates. It is the foundation of intimacy. So often, some “re-speaking” goes a long way to preserve and strengthen it. Of course, both are ”sequential” forms of communication. Each word, whether spoken or written, follows a clear start-to-finish linear progression. The visual arts – painting, dance, video, and certainly the art of music are also “artificial” forms of communication, like writing is, but they do not present information in a strictly linear format.

    That striving for understanding is where speaking and writing share the highest common goal. If you speak to someone and you are careful to read their body language, you can make observations about whether they are hearing you and understanding you. And you have the opportunity for feedback. Not so with writing. Which is another aspect that makes writing artificial in comparison to speaking. 

    If you’re writing, you’re only present in your readers head in the vaguest way. Your words are all you have. No possibility of reading the signs of body language. So, there is a lot of re-writing, re-thinking, restructuring. This ”artifice” is what makes it challenging and rewarding as a skill to be honed. But it has the benefit of helping you to clarify your views, think through an idea, maybe see if from a different angle. That’s a benefit that writing can grant to anyone.

    As I’ve written something for ”public consumption” each day for a couple of months straight, I notice my own thinking is becoming more disciplined and streamlined at the point I attempt to communicate my thoughts. So, I still have a meandering, serendipitous mind when it comes to exploring and indulging my interests, but I’ve gained a structure when it comes time to tell about what I’ve been grokking on. This is a good thing. No one likes endless rabbit trails and non-sequiturs in conversation, and certainly not in decent writing.

    These months of daily immersion have helped to clarify and streamline my thoughts, making me more conscious of what it is I want to say, and hopefully in the neatest, clearest, easiest to understand manner. I have a long way to go, lots of words to cut, and I look forward to getting better.

  • The Ultimatum Game

    How many of these could you win?

    There are two basic motivators for humans. These are fear of loss and hope of gain. This dynamic animates every choice we make. There is overlap. There is some vicissitude from one decision to the next, but most people will generally align themselves into one camp or the other over their lifetimes. ”Fear of gain” and ”hope of loss” do not exist as motivators, but the way people perceive gain and loss, are relative. The concept of value comes into play. And human interaction, with its perceived value, has an impact. The two basic motivators then, nudge people toward what they value. 

    Interesting studies show that in general, persons place a higher value on things they possess or think they are owed, than they value the very same things if they were trying to obtain them. Your used car, or your house is worth more to you as the owner/seller than the same car or house would be if you were trying to buy them.

    A study on the psychology of economics (Neuroeconomics) called the Ultimatum game presents some interesting findings. First developed in 1982, it has been repeated many times, across many different cultures and countries, and with many variations. There is an abundance of information online if you care to indulge yourself further.

    The typical format for the basic version of the Ultimatum game groups participants into pairs; a proposer, and a responder. They are endowed with a sum of money. Both the proposer and the responder know the amount of money being gifted. The proposer is told to make a single, one-time proposal on a split of the money between the participants.  If the proposal is accepted, the pair will each receive the amount of the proposed split. If the proposal is rejected, they each receive nothing.

    What is being studied is whether or not the participants will make rational decisions enabling them to agree on a proposed ratio and pocket their cut of the provided money. If not, what other considerations are at work?

    Example: Al and Barbara are given $10 in ones to split between themselves. Al has to make a proposed split that Barbara will accept, otherwise, neither of them takes home any of the free money. Al can make only one offer. Barbara knows there are ten dollars on the table. What does Al propose? What do you propose if you are Al? What are you willing to accept if you’re Barbara?

    Pure rationality, expressed as the expected utility theory of economics, dictates that the responder should accept any proposed split, even if it is only $1. Any amount is more than zero, comes at no cost, and is more than the participant entered the study with. In actual results, any offer of less than 20% of the total amount is rejected more than 50% of the time. Offers of only $1 are rejected almost all the time. Offers of between 30% and 40% are accepted almost all the time by responders, albeit, the further from 50%, the more reluctant the responder is to accept, and the less happy they feel about their share.

    Why is this? Researchers in economics are puzzled by these findings since they defy rational behavior, and therefore don’t fit neatly into economic theory. Psychologists dig deeper and discover that an emotional component exists in humans that causes perceived unfairness to be rejected. But it goes further than just rejection of an unfair proposal for one’s cut of ten bucks.

    Interesting fMRI findings show that some respondents declining to receive an offer they feel to be unfair, prefer to punish the proposer, causing both themselves and the proposer to receive nothing. The part of the brain that is stimulated to release dopamine as a pleasure response can be triggered by the rejection of the offer, specifically because it punishes the proposer for his unfairness. Let me say that again: The research shows that there is pleasure derived from punishing the unfair actor. 

    Turning down an unfair offer, induces physiochemical and psychological gains to the responder greater than free money in their pocket would provide. They are willing to punish themselves financially, forfeiting the purely financial gain, because it literally feels better to them to walk away with zero, rather than to walk away with a gratuitous dollar and be treated unfairly.

    Researchers surmise that since the responder knows the total amount of the endowment (which in some experiments is significant, totaling $100 or more), they calculate that ”fair” would be a 50/50 split of the pot. They proceed to take mental and emotional ownership of that 50% portion. Any proposal offering less than that amount, even though it is a positive gain in terms of money, feels like a loss in contrast to the 50% portion emotionally banked in the responder’s mind. Though fictitious, having no basis in reality or rationality, this is a loss that many responders are not willing to bear.

    In such cases, the feeling one receives from punishing an unfair partner is greater than the feeling one has from walking away with money on the house. The punisher is placing a much higher value on the amount of money they believe they are ”losing” by accepting an unfair offer, than the value they place on the non-zero amount they could have by accepting whatever offer is made. And…they get some dopamine as a bonus for punishing the unfair partner guaranteeing that they will get zero as the wages of their perceived greed.

    These findings are skewed to a statistically predictable significance when factors such as ”pro-social” or ”individualistic” personality types are factored in for comparison. Surprisingly, researchers find that the more a participant identifies as individualistic, the more they are willing to accept the most unfair of offers. The flip side is that pro-social participants will more often reject offers even at the 30% range to ”teach a lesson” to the unfair proposer. Pro-social persons value cooperation and fair play. They exemplify a ”win/win” attitude. 

    Individualists, on the other hand, do not expect fairness, are not surprised or angered when unfair offers are made, and they are not out to correct the unfair proposer’s future behavior by giving them a ”lesson”. To the individualist, there are winners and losers, and that’s that.

    Remember, there is no negotiating in the basic version of the Ultimatum game. Reciprocity is not a factor. It is a one-time, take-it-or-leave it proposal. The proposer has an incentive to be fair if she wants to walk away with anything, but the selfish greed of human nature dictates that even when an 80–20 split is proposed, it’s still accepted about half the time; and the proposer gets to keep 80% of the endowed amount.

    I find it fascinating and a bit counter-intuitive that individualists are more willing to be treated unfairly and not feel bad about it, at least in purely economic transactions. Especially in light of the fact that researchers have found that there is a correlation between behaviors in the Ultimatum game and other aspects of life that are not purely economic. 

    Sociologists study these kinds of psychological tests and their results to determine people’s ability to recognize, and willingness to tolerate, social injustices and economic inequalities. Apparently, self-declared individualists would rather be taken advantage of than have to suffer the indignities of cooperation and teamwork. At least according to the Ultimatum Game results.

    I don’t know anyone who relishes being treated unfairly, but then I suppose some people will sell themselves cheaply if they don’t have the kind of wealth or principles that are more valuable than what can be bought with a dollar. Especially if they can pocket that dollar and still cling to their illusion of self-reliance. Maybe to such a one, that feels like being a winner. After all, a dollar is a dollar, and self-respect won’t buy a cold beer.

  • Being Lied To

    …is the ultimate humiliation.

    Trust in relationships is based on the belief that the other person has your best interests at heart. The surest way to erode that trust is for the other person to lie to you. If a person lies to you, you can be fairly certain they aren’t protecting you, or looking out for your interests. They are protecting themselves from what you would think of them if the truth was revealed.

    A person who lies to protect their own image does so in the hopes of continuing to dupe you. They want you to believe they are the person you trusted in the first place. They are relying on the innate desire (need?) we all have to want to believe that the things we have invested in are real, especially relationships. 

    When you find out you’ve been lied to, you feel like an absolute fool. You’re filled with a very distinct kind of self-loathing and self-recrimination for having based your trust on falsehoods. You realize you’ve been trusting a person who does not even exist, playing a part in a life that’s not real. The rug of your false reality has been pulled out from under you in the most humiliating way.

    I know exactly how this feels. At the bitter end of a 22 year marriage, I was holding on to an illusion, seeing things the way I wanted them to be, and not the way they were. Acknowledging the truth meant facing some very painful things about myself. It meant recognizing that much of my life had been built on sand and shadows. It meant that I’d convinced myself that I was loved, valued, and respected, when in fact, none of those things was true at all.

    This gut-wrenching feeling is so difficult for some people to face that they will continue to be taken in by the liar. It is just too painful for some people to admit they’ve been suckered.

    That’s going to be very, very hard for 74 million Americans. The shock of looking inward and seeing themselves as the victims of an elaborate con, a hoax, fake news, and a BIG LIE is going to take a while to come to grips with.

    If that describes you, when the shock wears off, I hope you’ll remember if a person lies to you; it’s not you they care about.

  • Wouk, Vonnegut, and the Moral Relativism of War

    I recently completed Herman Wouk’s two novel masterpiece, Winds of War, and War and Remembrance, a historical fiction about World War II.

    In the volumes, Wouk catalogs the causes and effects of the war and the holocaust with careful attention to historical accuracy. Far from a recitation of dry history, he weaves a captivating story told  from the point of view of a fictitious family whose personal trials are woven through the war years.

    He takes the reader on journeys to Washington, D.C., Berlin, Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Tehran, Pearl Harbor, Midway, the Leyte Gulf, and to many more locations familiar to world war II buffs.

    The reader accompanies characters on nighttime bombing raids, evasion of depth charges in a submarine, diplomatic conferences with Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, the siege of Warsaw, as well as the disinterment and burning of desiccated Jewish bodies, while searching those bodies for hidden loot and gold fillings to fill Nazi coffers.

    The purpose of the books, as stated by Wouk, is to induce the reader to recognize the existential folly of war.

    Wouk’s genius transported me to a Jewish ghetto I’d never heard of, used throughout the war for German propaganda, in which the inhabitants, learning of their imminent transfer to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, on the eve of their departure, in defiance of their SS captors, find courage in passages from the Torah, sing psalms of praise in Yiddish, and finally dance a “dance of death”.  At this scene and many others, I cried in remembrance, and at least for me, he succeeded in his aim. I am convinced that war has to end or we will end.

    I have also just finished reading, or rather, re-reading, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, which is also an anti-war book. It is ostensibly about the allied fire bombing of the German city of Dresden at the very end of World War II which killed over 130,000 civilians, more than the number killed by the atomic bombs dropped on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

    Though he also aims to convince his readers that war is no longer viable as an option for modern nations, Vonnegut has taken quite a different tack than Wouk.

    Whereas Wouk chronicles in great detail and with great skill the macabre scenes of air, land, and naval battle, prisoner-of-war camps, and Gestapo run Jewish ghettos, he  does so while interlacing episodes of individual heroism and moral courage.

    Vonnegut instead crystallizes the individual soldier’s existence as pure, unadulterated insanity and de-humanization. Vonnegut’s soldier is a clownish scarecrow caught up in a world he did not create, which he cannot understand, and in which he cannot escape being played as a pawn by powers he cannot resist. For Vonnegut, once the gauntlet of war is thrown down, the appellation ”hero” is forfeit. All the players are fools.

    Vonnegut’s basis for no war is its absurdity and moral relativism. Wouk’s basis is its cruelty and moral relativism.

    I have laughed so hard reading Slaughterhouse Five that I’ve nearly injured myself, and that has been one of the most healing things I’ve done in a long time.

    Wouk provided me a catharsis of tears, Vonnegut a catharsis of laughter. Either way, while I have nothing but profound respect and appreciation for our soldiers past and present, I’m purposed to glorify war no longer, nor to be its proponent as a solution for any problems extant, even militant Islamic extremism.

    As both Wouk and Vonnegut would no doubt point out, in the final analysis as measured by the toll on human life that we as Americans purport to value so much, is a victim of the bombing of a doctors without borders hospital less dead than a victim of a suicide bomber?