Monday  5 August 2024


Don't let your "how" become your "why"
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Humans, like all other organisms that exist on earth, are the product
of evolution. Natural selection developed humans over a period of at
least 300,000 years. It molded both our bodies and our minds.

Natural selection is solely determined by the chance of reproduction.
Our own happiness plays no part in this. As a result, we all
experience a sense of uncertainty and dissatisfaction. It is difficult
to be content with what we have in life and we over-valuate the things
we don't have.

Marketers are fully aware of our prehistoric conditioning, and their
subliminal messages target our feelings of uncertainty and
dissatisfaction in order to sell us more meaningless stuff.

Five whys
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We must exercise caution when pursuing our own objectives. Not all of
our desires align with our best interests. When we crave ice cream,
the next flashy thing, or sleeping with our neighbor, it is simply
human history playing tricks on us, and often satisfying our desire does
not make us happier. Many ideologies suggest that we examine our
desires in order to improve our personal happiness and morality.

When a desire enters our mind, we must investigate it. A good starting
point is the technique of the five whys [1]. Repeat the question
"why?" five times, each time directing the current "why" to the answer
of the previous "why".

Smartwatch
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Last week, an old friend informed me that they had ordered a
smartwatch. This flabbergasted me because I know this individual to be
frugal and prudent. Before I knew it, I was asking the reason for this
purchase. The friend responded that they want to keep track of their
fitness and had noticed that, when compared to other fitness tracking
gadgets, a smartwatch has the most sensors. I do not wish to pass
judgment on their decision, but this explanation sounded odd.

To me, it seems that this is a showcase of where a "how" gets promoted
to a "why". Using the technique of the five whys, we can zoom in a bit
on this.

The next "why" would go into the wish to track their fitness. "I want
to change my lifestyle to be more healthy" could be the response. The
objective tracking of time spent being physically active can help with
this, which is already a "how" rather than a "why". Then their next
question might be how to do the monitoring, and a smartwatch could be
an answer. 

Tricks of the mind
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Our mind perform numerous tricks on us. A decision is made, and we
invent the reasons and justifications later. The promotion of a "how"
to a "why" is one of the many mental tricks that we must consider when
examining our desires.


[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys 


Last edited: $Date: 2024/08/05 08:24:31 $