Hands-down the most fascinating thing that is coming out of my reading of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Job’s biography is Jobs’ use of what his friends called the “reality distortion field”.  It was well known that Steve Jobs basically had a conflict with reality.  He often refused to accept it. Wikipedia actually has an entry for the term and it describes “Steve Jobs’ ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement, and persistence. RDF was said to distort an audience’s sense of proportion and scales of difficulties and made them believe that the task at hand was possible.”

Those around Steve Jobs saw this as both a good thing and a bad thing.  The negative part was that sometimes Jobs was wrong and when he pushed against reality, it, at times, pushed back and he was left with the cold truth of failure.  His cancer and the fact that he believed he could treat it by unconventional means combined in such a way that he put off necessary surgery until it was far too late and he eventually died from how the disease developed.  In this case he could have prevented such an early death by accepting reality and having surgery.

At other times, in many business decisions, Jobs refused to settle for unambitious “realistic” product concepts, timelines and designs and pushed his people to achieve more than they thought was possible.  He was absolutely relentless and this drive often paid off.  Today, Apple is peerless as a result of Jobs’ leadership.

When I think about my own reality distortion field I think about how I can use it for my passion of savvy, global do-gooding.  I don’t want to settle for less than the best.  I don’t want to dream small dreams, to limit myself by what others deem realistic.  Of course there is the flip side of not wanting to hallucinate.  I’ll be the first to admit that I can often err on the side of being overly optimistic.  But I think that this positive naïveté isn’t really the problem.  The problem is often my follow-up.  The halfhearted follow-up on what are obviously stretch goals. 2012 is a year that I want to dedicate to a more full pursuit of these dreams that have been born in the reality distortion field.  I am fully expecting some rude awakenings.  But there may also be some dreams that come true.

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

I just got done watching the State of the Union and I am amazed at how, for just over an hour I was swept back into the kind of political dogmatism that defined my life back in 2008.  Those were charged times.  A president that I loathed was on his way out, the guy I backed had declared one of the most historic political victories of my lifetime and all was rosy.

The last three years have been rocky.  I haven’t dramatically changed allegiances but I have to admit that my other-minded friends have rubbed off on me.  I’ve questioned myself a lot.  As the unemployment rate (mostly) rose, stocks plunged and credit ratings dipped, I couldn’t help but wonder if my political ideas were right after all.  Political team pride aside, how effective were my ideas for government and international relations?  How did they stand up to reality?  How much of me was living in an idealized dream land? Was I sticking to ideas simply out of a human need to be right?

My questions about politics mirrored, to an extent, my agonizing over religion in my late teens.  How did I know that what I believed was true?  What if the next guy was the one with the truth?  Could I face the scary questions?  Should I just retreat into my religious community and refuse to question anything?  Why couldn’t I be like those sheep that never had any doubts?

In college my questions about faith turned to more postmodern questions.  What if there was no truth?  What if all that existed was a personal truth that we each retained for purposes of life meaning but that had no real bearing on reality.  What if the best we could expect in this life was to find a ‘truth’ that was pragmatic, that worked for us on a day-to-day basis but that could just as well have been an unflagging belief in teddy bears?

My questions about religion were never completely resolved.  I think what changed was more my attitude to these questions.  I decided that what was important to me personally was that I remained open to receiving truth and that while I would never see the complete picture of existential reality I could act positively and gratefully on what I did understand.  I could do good and live generously in view of what I did understand.

This beginning of generosity in my religious thought life did not immediately reflect itself in my political attitudes (as many an early CultureMutt reader can confirm:))  Somehow it seemed that it was OK to make sweeping statements in support of my political camp and in deriding the poor losers on the other side of the aisle.  Perhaps it was the closet fundamentalist in me that needed to express himself…

But as the political rhetoric in the United States heated to stratospheric levels culminating (in my mind) with the Tucson shooting of Gabby Giffords, I started to seriously question the value in having to feel like I was right.  Why did I have to be so dogmatic about my politics?  Who was being helped by my partisan rants?  Who would respect me less if I conceded a few more points, if I decided to actually listen instead of simply using moments when others spoke to craft my own rebuttal?  How badly did I need to be right?  How did I feel about admitting that I was often wrong?

I’m still contemplating these questions and the implications of honestly answering them.  The pendulum swinging between cocky dogmatism and disillusion will likely continue to swing in my mind but if I have a wish for the future it is that I grow in self awareness, in the knowledge of my own fallibility.

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

I can’t really watch the clip above without tearing up. It was agonizing to hear today that US politician Rep. Gabby Giffords is going to resign from Congress this week.  I definitely am not saying this to make some kind of partisan statement.  She is, quite simply, one of the bravest people in the public spotlight today. Somehow, despite the fact that she was shot in the head a year ago in a mass shooting, she survived.  Many of us, on either side of the aisle hoped against all hope that this Arizonian Congresswoman would come back to Congress despite the horrible odds.

To me Giffords speaks to the heart of what I love most about the United States.  What lifts the problems and the ugliness and persuades me to call this country home is the “candoitness” that defines the American spirit, the “never say die” attitude that I think finds some of its most pure expression in the heart cry of the best Americans and in some of the bravest leaders around the world.

Gabby Giffords loves the fact that her district included Tombstone, the “town too tough to die.”  There is something about this mentality that cannot help but inspire dogooders the world over. Giffords may need to step aside for a season but she promised that this would not be it for her work.  Her words “I will return” should give us courage, not just for the future of American politics but for our own lives as we stare down the fear of failure and persist in reaching for that which transcends our present circumstances.

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

I don’t know what it is about vending machines that I like so much. While some people find them annoying, tacky and full of crap that should never be consumed, I am frequently saved by these handy pantries. The push to get them out of public schools may be well founded but I hope they stay around everywhere else because I think they are fun. Maybe its the child in me but I genuinely enjoy scanning for the tastiest/coolest item in a vending machine, getting rid of annoying change, hitting the right buttons and listening for the thud of the delivered product… I also like finding change in machines that people have forgotten.. you should check, you’d be surprised how much it happens.

To add to my vending machine craze I have now actually discovered what is a New York-based, downright NOBLE use of the machines:  vending machines that allow you to donate and receive FREE STUFF. Here’s how it works:  When you approach one of these vending machines you enter you email and you are given three credits. Donating an item to the machine gives you a credit, taking an item rids you of one.  Easy peasey.

“Creator Lina Fenequito says the goal of Swap-o-Matic is to promote a shift from unconscious consumption to more sustainable living, and hopes the vending machine will show consumers that reusing and recycling can be as fun buying something new.” (Springwise.com)

The giving and receiving of totally free stuff is hardly novel but what is COOL is how this vending machine concept cashes (sorry) in on our human enthusiasm for feeling like we are shopping, like we are consuming.  It is a way to tap into our desire for more, more, more and get some do-gooding mileage out of it.  Brilliant, huh?

What else could we think of to harness our natural desires so that they accomplish noble causes?  Do-gooding is the new social currency, and 2012 needs to be a year of spending in more ways than one.  Let it be the year of studied selflessness:)

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

Typically by about mid January each year I have fully dispensed with my New Year’s resolutions.  Because I am an optimist I typically set pretty high and noble goals.  I figure that it is not physically impossible to achieve my objectives and that if I really put my mind to achieving them, I can.  I don’t think that this logic is off.  When I focus on something and I push myself, I am typically able to get it done or at least make some strong progress. My problem tends to be one of focus.

I get distracted by problems, other opportunities or other pressing circumstances.  I remind myself of my goals for the first few days after I set them and then guilt and forgetfulness swallow them up and before I know it, they are gone, relegated to my pile of abandoned good intentions.

If I have improved at all in recent years it probably would be in the area of self-awareness.  I am beginning to recognize my own patterns, rhythms and rationalizations.  So after I set my goals for this year I decided to be aware of how life would distract me from them. Perhaps if I recognized the interruptions, discouragements and fluctuating willpower that tend to prevent me from achieving my goals, I could bring myself back to center and to a sense of focus.

I got some immediate practice at this.  My goals had basically been threefold:

1)  Exercise before work

2)  Plan the day before work

3)  Blog before work

The first week of January I tried repeatedly to wake up early enough to get all this done.  Each morning I rationalized going back to sleep and none of the above happened.  The best I could do was not let go of the goal. I WAS going to achieve it all tomorrow.  My first breakthrough was in the second week of January when, on Monday, I was up early enough and I got the exercise done.  Then I got the flu and the rest of my week was shot. But I reminded myself repeatedly of my goals and that, as soon as I was better I had to take another stab at it all.

Which brings us to this morning.  I was in the gym by 4:30 AM, working on this post by about 6:30 and I’ve been able to put some thought into how I want to spend my day.  It feels good.  It’s too early to tell if I’ll be able to actually establish a habit of early rising and tackling my goals.  I’m sure that it will, at best, take some time to gain some consistency.  But now that I’ve made my goals public, maybe focus will come a little more readily….

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

I wasn’t sure whether to feel patriotic or embarrassed at the news:  Sweden has officially recognized file-sharing as a religion.  No this is not a joke. The basic idea doctrine of the church is that it is right to file-share.  The church’s website states that “information is holy and copying is a sacrament”.  Some other out-there language (complete with awkward Swedish-to-English translation):  “The community of kopimi requires no formal membership. You just have to feel a calling to worship what is the holiest of the holiest, information and copy.”

Why did it have to be Sweden?!! Not that I am overly protective of my native land but we have enough weird stereotyping going on already:  Burly mountain men, naively goofy blonds, female volleyball teams… Why did WE have to be the ones with the fake religion announcement??

Of course there are the concerns about piracy that come up with an announcement like this.  “Hopefully, this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution, says Isak Gerson, spiritual leader of the Church of Kopimism.”   Gerson hopes that file-sharing will now be given religious protection.  If it achieves this status it will be harder to crack down on piracy.

But here’s the bigger question:  How much does this water down the idea of the need for religious freedom and protection?  If you can seek religious protection for downright ridiculous causes (apologies to my file-sharing enthusiast friends), what is to stop society from saying enough is enough and drastically cutting down on religious freedoms and protections?

The language of the church appeals to the religious cynic:  “The church, which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V (shortcuts for copy and paste) as sacred symbols, does not directly promote illegal file sharing, focusing instead on the open distribution of knowledge to all”.   Yes, anything can be declared sacred, anything can be made holy.  Apple should get right behind this and make their logo sacred… enough people treat it as such anyway.

Sweden is famously secular, downright hedonistic and revels in neopaganism.  Hopefully Kopimism will quickly be relegated to the weird corner occupied by offshoot sects and political parties.  Until then, remember to show a little more reverence when you copy and paste.

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

I was in Vegas for my bachelor party almost a year ago.  Before you start thinking that the whole thing was a blur of hedonism I would like to add that the prime organizer of the weekend was a pastor.  The wildest thing we did was sip chilled lemon water in a spa at the Venetian.  One of the most memorable things about the weekend came at the very end.

The Mistake

We decided to go a Thai restaurant that was drawing stratospheric ratings.  The first night we went there the wait was so long we gave up and decided to come back earlier the next day.  As soon as we got in the next day we scoured the menu and picked out what we thought would make for a great blend of dishes.  When asked what kind of spice level we wanted we all decided that we were being modest by saying “medium”.

The Suffering

What followed was a study in torture.  “Medium” turned out to be deceptively easy on the taste buds at first and then fired up to the point where we felt like our mouths were being torched.  Within minutes we were all sweating and realizing that all the hype and determination had been wasted because we were suffering and could not taste our food because our taste buds were fried.  Talk about a white boy moment.  This was particularly humbling for me since I was raised in Asia and am way overconfident about the amount of spice I can handle.  It was a drop kick.

Humble Pie

A couple hours later I boarded my plane for Sacramento as a somewhat subdued nearly-wed.  My faux pas at the restaurant was a wake up call for me, someone who prided himself on strong navigation of cross-cultural scenarios.  Overconfidence, especially in navigating a new culture, can be humbling at best.  As I write this I think of other times I have screwed up in cross-cultural settings from being too confident:

1) I’ve assumed that I know how best to communicate a grievance and been perceived as being rude – Freshly back in the UK after living in the US for a couple years I lectured my boss’s executive assistant on correct media etiquette after she was less than cordial with a visiting American film crew.  She clammed up for 48 hours and then blasted me for stepping out of line.  “I’m sorry, I just got back from the US where people are a little more direct!” I stammered.  She told me that “it showed” and our relationship was off to a bumpy start.

2) I’ve definitely tried to say things in languages in which I don’t have a strong foundation – I don’t even want to start on how many times this has flopped.  There’s a thin line between being bold and adventurous with language learning and making a fool of yourself…

3) I have tried to fix problems and disagreements between friends from cultures other than my I own that I should have left alone.  (Filipino marital conflict mediation, anyone??)

Don’t Over-Correct

My point isn’t that we should lose all the confidence that we have built up from travel and other intercultural experiences.  That would be a waste of life experience and a definite shame.  But confidence so easily leads to cockiness which can be particularly humiliating when it goes wrong. So show off your cross cultural savvy by knowing where to draw the line…

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

The world loves to lecture Americans.  It can come as a bit of a shock to US citizens the first time they travel.  After months of planning and excitement in the lead up to a big international trip, the giddy American is just getting used to the routine in the new country.  Then he or she mentions being from the US and someone has a question about the “crazy politicians” or why so many Americans are fat or why Americans always stick their nose in everyone’s business.  As much as you may try to diffuse the confrontation that ensues, things can easily get ugly.

The abuse can be worst from people from small countries.  I’ll admit to having been one of these nitpickers, especially when I still lived in Europe.  Unsuspecting Americans would come over to Europe and I would take my frustrations with parts of American foreign policy and culture out on them.

It works in _________ country so it should work in America

One thing I would frequently do was to insist that something that worked well in a small country like Sweden, would work well in the US.  Welfare policies that worked in Sweden and allowed for very generous policies on education, health care, vacation time, etc made perfect sense to me.  So what if you had to pay more taxes for it?   It was a better system, more enlightened and more compassionate.  Or so I felt.  Strongly.  And I would argue with Americans about what I saw as a heartless, greedy system where the rich got richer and the poor, weak or otherwise disadvantaged were largely ignored.  Sometimes Americans would listen.  Other times they would get upset and we would launch into huge critiques of each others’ countries.

Americans don’t seem to expect it

This is definitely not true for all the Americans I have met.  But for many it is:  the abuse they take abroad is not expected.  As much as most Americans have some knowledge of the anti-American sentiment out there, a lot do not quite understand the extent of it.  The anger directed towards America in large parts of the world is palpable and it only gets worse when Americans get defensive or act shocked at the abuse.  It’s a vicious cycle: people shout abuse – American tourist/traveler/expat is caught off guard/upset – people shout more abuse.

Stereotypes

As much as we all deny it, everyone loves to stereotype.  It prevents excessive thinking and fits so well into the modes of thinking that we have been able to construct for ourselves.  Americans have been pegged as loud, ignorant about the rest of the world, spoiled and, nowadays, increasingly as citizens of a fading superpower.  This is a hard stereotype to shake and unfortunately, there are enough brash American tourists out there with entitlement complexes to keep this image alive and ruin things for everyone else.

Jealousy

This is not one that most people admit to but, as a non-American, I definitely feel that much of the lecturing and abuse aimed at traveling Americans comes as a result of international jealousy.  Yes, it is true that America is not quite the same gleaming promised land of past decades.  The recession and serious foreign policy blunders have hurt the US image but America is still the big kid on the block – the richest and the most powerful nation on earth.  That is enough for some to want to make life difficult for Americans.

What to do?

So what do we do about all of this?   If you are an American, how do you brace yourself against the onslaught of haters.  I am not even American and I have had to take abuse for sounding like one.  I have found that overcompensating with false humility or forced praise of other countries comes across as trite.  Too many oversensitive tourists have tried this in the past.  Defending yourself doesn’t really work either.  The critics are not going to miraculously change their minds because of your sensible talking points.  Generally the only thing I have seen work is developing personal friendships with the critics and challenging their viewpoints from an experiential angle rather than a philosophical one.  If they like you, at worst they may simple label you “the one good American.”  Be happy with yourself even if you only get this far.  You may even get lucky and introduce the idea that Americans are a very diverse bunch that don’t fit into any boxes.

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

“Ungrateful wretch.”  That about summed him up, I thought.  I was basically babysitting a whole flock of unruly kids in Telbang, the little Filipino fishing village I called home for several months in 1997.  Between the language barrier, the expected travails of working with grade school kids, some trouble children and my 16 year-old inexperience with all of the above, I was frustrated.  My songs and stories and overall programming ideas were falling flat.  And a nearby adult was doing nothing to help and was instead muttering under his breath in critique of what I was trying to do.  I was fed up and feeling very under-appreciated.

Before setting out on my year-long service adventure I had dreamed of being a heroic help to everyone I came in contact with.  Instead I was feeling decidedly mediocre, the kids were being uncooperative and the most petulant child turned out to be an adult.

Going unrecognized

Looking back, the experience of not being glowingly recognized for my well-intentioned work was a helpful one for me.  But helpful growth experiences are often only helpful in retrospect.  In the midst of the chaos and toxicity of the day-to-day, trying to do the right thing and help other people can be a very low profile, unrecognized job.  For a generation of 20-30s coddled by Baby Boomers into thinking that everything they do is deserving of heartfelt pats on the back, not being recognized for good deeds is often extremely demotivating.  Good deeds are only good if they attract a storm of Facebook comments and some serious retweets.

Divas

It sounds pretty superficial and ridiculous but my age demographic (I just turned 30) doesn’t want to do anything unless we get props for it.  Part of this is obviously human nature.  Everyone wants to be recognized and praised for good deeds.  But in a society saturated by diva values everyone wants the spotlight and everyone wants the praise.  When good deeds and acts of service do not get the attention they supposedly deserve, we questions whether it all is worth it.

Hypocrisy

Whereas we all admire someone that does good without seeking credit for it, very few of us want to be that person.   What is it that drives this value set?  Why can’t we be satisfied by the mere act of service?  Personally, whenever I do something for someone else that does not get attention, I feel an intrinsic reward that makes me wonder why I don’t do more without seeking attention.  I wish this mindset would last but its hard to resist the will to do things for the rewards of recognition.

When the credit goes to someone else

There’s only one thing worse than not getting the praise for personal do-gooding and that’s when the credit for something we have done goes to someone else.  SO frustrating.  This one is especially tough in the workplace where everything from respect to wage scales can rest on who gets to take the credit for a job well done.

A solution I am experimenting with

Is there a way out of all this?  Not an easy one.  I have found that the pressure that I put on myself when I let the desire for praise to fuel my performance in life, hurts me in the long run.  Whenever I have focused on simply being helpful or turning away from personal needs for glory, I have felt that weight of anxiety and at least some of my fear of failure start to lift.  It takes the pressure off when I give myself permission not to be obsessed with myself and my ego.  This is not something that comes naturally to me and it has to be a daily shift of focus.  But however imperfect my attempts so far, this approach has by far, been the most satisfying.

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman

It hadn’t even been a week.  I had just started college in the United States and here I was, singing backup with a mostly Latino group as my friend serenaded a girl who seemed very happily surprised by the gesture.  I didn’t speak a lick of Spanish at the time so I didn’t have a clue what I was singing, I just copied everyone else.  It went beautifully.  The girl smiled, my buddy did a good job with his solo and everyone felt good to have started the school year on such a positive, if slightly melodramatic note.  I had never serenaded or even back-up serenaded anyone so this was a big intercultural step for me.  It was totally new to me but as most of my new friends were Hispanic, I was eager to learn and fit in. Sadly, it was also the last successful serenade that I remember my friends and I pulling off in college.  Here’s how we botched the rest:

Forgetting the Words

One of the top rules of serenading has got to be KNOW YOUR MATERIAL.  And yet, partly because most of the songs were in Spanish, some of our group (and especially yours truly), had issues remembering words.  We would practice the song or songs a few times but clearly not enough.  After surprising a girl and drawing a lot of attention, we would start off confidently.  But somehow, even accompanied by friends on the guitar and trumpet, we would mess up the lyrics and our grand gesture ended up looking endearingly goofy at best.

Drawing Abuse from Everyone

Our theory was that serenading had to happen at night.  So we would wait until most people were in bed before making our way over to the relevant residency hall and assembling underneath the right window.  As soon as everyone was huddled, the guy who sang the solo (and this was definitely never me), would step forward and we would start.  Between the trumpet, guitar and mediocre singing, the girl would wake up, come to the window and watch the show.  The problem was that everyone else also woke up and came to their windows.  The unamused, awakened masses would then start yelling at us to shut up and go home.  This kind of took away from the romance.

Not Staying up Late Enough

Regardless of the reaction from the angry hordes, those in the know judged the success of a serenade partly based on how late the guys had waited up to do it.  Once some friends of mine thought they were too tired to stay up and instead went and sang to one of our friends for her birthday at 11 PM.  This backfired royally.  I had luckily escaped being part of this one but I was in the room when they got the call from the girl who blasted them for not showing more effort and staying up later to serenade her.

Self-Sabotage

Probably the most high-pressure serenade I heard about in college involved my friend who really could not sing, serenading his girlfriend of just a few weeks.  He was nervous but decided it had to be done.  As he started to belt out his song his backup crew did the unthinkable – they started a competing song with the most mocking lyrics possible to put him off.  I have no idea how he made it through alive.  He even yelled out something about her being the “best girlfriend in the world” at the end.  I hope she was touched.  It was a disaster.

Luckily a serenade was not on the list of requirements my Southern Californian wife had for a husband.  I shudder to think of how things would have gone had she asked for one.  Have you ever serenaded someone or been serenaded yourself?  Tell me about it in the comments…

LEAVE A COMMENT

LIKE CULTUREMUTT ON FACEBOOK

Bjorn Karlman