If:

If our supposed social ideals were corruption, destruction, and death, do you think then the news might emphasize stories of brotherhood, growth, and health?

Write drunk;
        Edit sober.
-Hemingway

In 2010 a team of psychologists from Princeton University published a study in the journal Cognition, testing the hypothesis that presenting new information in a difficult to read font could lead to more thorough retention. Their aim was for practical application in the education system, but I think their findings connote a much broader life-theme...

The researchers had two groups of students study made-up facts about aliens (to ensure there was no advantage from prior knowledge). The control group read the information in a clear font, while the test group read the same information in a more obscure, lightened font. Upon quizzing the subjects later, the group with the more obscure font did approximately 14% better. Thus, the researchers concluded that "more cognitive engagement leads to deeper processing, which facilitates encoding and subsequently better retrieval."

On reading this I wondered- outside the classroom, how else is this reflected in human existence?

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“For anything worth having one must pay a price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice-- no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service.” -John Burroughs

***

I remember studying in Spain and adjusting to life as a foreigner. Despite my textbook competency, I lacked the conversational mastery of the language that would allow me to speak with fluidity and ease when I first arrived; communication consisted of well-constructed yet emotionally hollow sentences. I remember wanting to shout: “I have a personality I swear! I know I sound like a vapid 5 year old, but in my language I have interesting things to say!” It was like some bizarre trap being so restrained by my inability to articulate thoroughly.

When speaking a second language before fluency, your words are few and as such, more precious. Without the luxury of myriad words at our thoughtless disposal, expression must always be deliberate. Language can be such a gorgeous thing, but we can (and often do) take advantage of or abuse it when allowed unbridled access to it. In the aforementioned research, the hard-to-read fonts prompted more mindful reading and improved retention, just as being reduced to the elementary basics in a new language demands deliberation, producing thought-full communication.

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This is obviously not a novel concept, it’s woven throughout a legion of stories, quotes, and proverbs; nevertheless I continue to find the broad-sweeping relevancy of this idea so intriguing. Reducing the accessibility of something inevitably forces increased effort to obtain it, and therefore produces more meaningful or valuable outcomes: So are we promised a measurable payoff if we intentionally seek experiences that require work? Certainly not. But whether or not we are met by great reward at the end of any great effort, there is merit, dignity, and always a soul-benefit, if not a tangible one, in choosing to pursue things that demand your attention and energy. Endeavor to chase something greater than what is handed to you freely, do not settle but strive, roll up your sleeves and undertake the mysterious work of living.

DISCLAIMER: If you prefer stability and ease over growth, then this has nothing to do with you.

If you have made a decision that requires separation from stability and certainty, and you find yourself second-guessing, or doubting whether you chose rightly, be reminded- this is the brave world, not the safe world, that you have chosen. This is what it feels like to pursue movement and truth.

May I take you back to the time when things were safe and comfortable? Go back in your mind to when you were in the midst of something that needed to be changed, but had yet to budge. Maybe it was a wretched job, or a relationship that had lost its guts, became vacant and fruitless. Then an awareness developed in you, whether gradually or almost instantaneously, that where you were at was wrong, and you needed to move on. Maybe it wasn’t blatantly wrong, but had just lost its rightness. Either way, you knew things needed to change, but you didn’t yet want to face the dramatic consequences of such a shift. You didn’t feel prepared to undergo the physical and emotional adjustments necessary, so you waited. Maybe you even did what I have done, and what many humans are wired to do, and you tried to rationalize why you were fine and why things didn’t need to change.... why the job was satisfactory, or practical, or why the relationship wasn’t really that bad. Maybe you tried to return to ignorant bliss, but I’d wager that you quickly realized ignorance is not something that one can return to. It is quite literally impossible. And so you returned once again to the internal tension of knowing things were actually not ok.

Think hard about that precise place you resided for awhile- knowing you needed change yet unwilling to initiate it for fear of the resulting discomfort. If you are or were anything like me, that feeling was so much worse than anything felt in the aftermath of change. Don’t get me wrong, change incites some gnarly emotions, particularly relational change, but those feelings are at the very least productive.. they reflect a progressive existence. But the pit-of-your-stomach feeling of knowing you need to move on from something unhealthy, and yet not doing anything about it, knowingly living in wrongness, is exponentially worse. Worse because it perpetuates stagnancy. It is a conscious decision to live backwards, to ignore your internal discoveries and the associated call for growth.

So if you feel insecure or aimless or empty in this time of transition you’ve opted for, remember the inadequacy of that former time. Remember that pit-of-your-stomach feeling, and hold your head high because you found that kind of mediocrity to be intolerable.

You chose the right and powerful thing to do, and whether easy or hard, you are better for it and will continue to be so.

The brilliant and hilarious George Carlin:

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating..... and you finish off as an orgasm.”

No matter how humble or selfless we can try to be, we still exist wholly and exclusively within our own shell, and perceive the world accordingly. And so it follows that we often find ourselves frustrated or stressed over difficulties, and respond with a seemingly proportionate amount of energy. It isn't our fault, as we're only capable of forming responses in the context of our own experience and knowledge. But this is what perspective is for- though we cannot actually see from another's eyes or understand what life feels like from their vantage point, we can, at best, continuously remind ourselves that contexts exist outside of our own.

The other day, I heard someone liken the human lifespan to the small act of placing a single bolt into the golden gate bridge during its construction. An entire life, reduced to a singular act within a massive process, nearly undetectable at the finish, yet still essential. I kept thinking about that analogy and couldn't figure out how to feel about it..

In some way it might feel belittling- the realization that all your days and breaths and thoughts, when rolled up and finished off, amount to nothing more than a nearly-invisible contribution, a minute blip on a broad screen. But by the same token, there is encouragement to be found in that image. To highlight the analogy's point let's imagine we are born, we put a bolt in the bridge, and we die. Sorry to be curt, this is not meant to diminish any individual's significance or worth, but the truth is that our lives are finite, singular pieces of an expansive saga. Remembering this simple fact puts into perspective the weight, or rather the lack thereof, of most momentary and circumstantial woes, and I'm pretty sure that a failure to do so will inevitably result in constant concern for things that are universally and eternally meaningless.

We are so silly, us humans, always busy trying to tie the knots that keep our hearts feeling anchored, trying to weave the fragmented strings of our life together, and usually overlooking the frayed ends sticking out here and there. We sure seem to notice those raw edges though when our knots start slipping and the whole damn thing unravels. Then we actually care to look at the ends where the unraveling began, tracing it back to the source. We're so silly, thinking that we ever have a tight grip on those strings, when really it is but a temporary privilege to hold any of them.

Hold your strings earnestly, but loosely still.