“Loyalty” is an interesting, but frequently misunderstood virtue.

While people can be loyal to each other, “loyalty” is still describing a set of priorities that one entity feels towards another. I can be loyal to you and you to me, but we’re still describing two relationships then. And I think both sides of the loyalty connection are misunderstood.

First, “loyalty” doesn’t mean “obedience” – though far too many think it does. Or, more accurately, they think that a lack of obedience means a lack of loyalty. I’m extremely loyal to my kids, but that hardly means I obey their every whim.

Loyalty doesn’t mean obedience. I don’t even think it means never inflicting harm, and I’ll tell you why. At the core, I think loyalty means that I place the long-term well-being of an entity on the same level of value as my own.

I’ll inflict short-term harm to myself for long-term gain. That means if I have to, I’ll do the same for those I’m loyal to. Kids are a good example – my kid doesn’t WANT to stand in the corner in a time-out for 15 minutes because she smacked her brother with a plastic dinosaur. Making her do that is inflicting a short-term harm, but it’s much better for her long-term well being that she grows up understanding the consequences of actions and not to harm others.

Loyalty is a long-term virtue. In the short term, not enough stuff even happens to really test loyalty, and I think loyalty untested is no loyalty at all. If I do a bunch of stuff that benefits you, but also benefits me, that’s not really loyalty. At some point, loyalty unquestioningly requires sacrifice.

Look, I don’t want to put my kid in the time-out either. She whines, and her eyes well up, and she gives me the most adorable puppy dog eyes you ever saw in your life and it breaks my heart. I’d much rather believe her obviously-insincere apology and let her get back to playing. But that’s not helping anyone either – me or her.

This isn’t really a post about parenting, but parenting is a good example. Just as we often confuse loyalty with obedience, we also often confuse it with “hierarchy.” As if only people of a lower position on some ladder could be loyal to those higher. But if anything, it’s the other way around.

A soldier’s loyalty to his general is going to be tested far less frequently than the general’s loyalty to his soldiers. Why? Because the soldier rarely has a choice. The soldier obeys orders whether he’s loyal or not, or bad things happen. The soldier gets paid. The soldier (mostly) has less information than the general. These factors all mean that the soldier’s loyalty isn’t really tested – a soldier who is loyal in his heart of hearts and a soldier who is a cold, self-centered mercenary will still mostly behave the same, because all the other factors align to make it so. But the general has a thousand choices a day to abandon his loyalty to his soldiers. If he is truly loyal to them, if he values their long-term well-being as his own, he’ll make very different choices than if he doesn’t, and he’ll be free to do so. He has far more choice.

This is why loyalty is a very finite resource. You can’t be loyal to a dozen different entities, because loyalty to one may conflict with loyalty to another. You have to be careful with loyalty; temper it heavily with principles and make sure that you understand that you must be loyal to yourself first (and yes, loyalty to yourself is different from selfishness).

But loyalty is like love. There are plenty of misunderstood versions, flimsy facsimiles, or even malicious imitations of it, but it’s worth cultivating the real thing.

People like me don’t take feeling good seriously enough.

It’s convenient when it happens, but I don’t pay enough attention to it. It takes a back seat to other responsibilities. I’m aware of the Big Things ™ that I want, that give me satisfaction and purpose, but I don’t pay enough attention to smaller things that just make me feel nice in the moment.

I’m not even talking about things I can do. I know that a walk around the block makes me feel good, so I do it when I can – though I don’t prioritize it enough. I know I feel better when I drink a lot of water (especially with some cucumber in it… mmm), and yet despite how free and easy it is to do, I don’t drink enough. But more than these small things which I don’t give enough space, there’s also the things that happen to me.

I love hearing a new song, but I don’t turn on the radio. I love the opportunity to fix a broken thing, but I don’t go where broken things are. I love a chance conversation with a stranger, but I don’t go out.

Busy, busy, busy. Too busy for little things, little smiles.

Maybe not today.

I’m going to go cut up a few slices of cucumber and put them in a water bottle and walk around the block. Smile for me today.

It’s so fun to peel back the shiny outer layers of the world and see what happens behind things.

Almost all living organisms produce some sort of outer covering to protect their delicate and complicated insides from outside influence. Skin, membranes, whatever. Even liquid metals develop an oxide layer as just a natural consequence of being exposed to the world, and this layer in turn protects the rest of the element.

Institutions and organizations form public-facing fronts that look very different from the “factory floor.” Cars aren’t just exposed engines riding around.

My point is, everything gets a shield. Naturally or artificially, everything just sort of develops a cover to shield its guts from the outside world. That shield is protective, but it’s also obscuring – you can’t tell how a car works by looking at it, because you can’t see all the parts that really make it work.

That’s true of almost everything. But you can peel back that layer. Sometimes in a more literal sense and sometimes metaphorically, you can go digging around inside. You can find out all sorts of interesting things by opening a back door somewhere and looking around inside.

But it takes some courage. Modern humans have developed a real aversion to poking around where they haven’t been expressly invited. They think that if they haven’t been asked to go somewhere explicitly, then they’ve been banned from there implicitly. That’s not true at all!

We have a local pizza place near us that we adore and is my kids’ favorite restaurant. It’s been a neighborhood staple for a while. One day while we were sitting in the dining area waiting for food to come out, my oldest kid just wandered into the back and asked to see the ovens and such. I admit (regrettably!) that my first instinct was to tell her to come back out and not bother the poor folks trying to work, but I’m glad that my instinct was shot down. Wendy, the wonderful owner, told my kid to come on back and look around and showed her all sorts of stuff. My kid was glowing, and ever since she’s considered herself practically staff at that place – she’s even earned a few dollars in tips by busing tables there!

All from having that perfect child-like courage to ask to look around. Lots of people are actually flattered when you show an interest in their thing and are happy to show you around. And if they’re not – so what? Be on your way and find a new adventure. There are plenty out there.

There is a natural rhythm to life.

Things will happen when they happen. Our brains have patterns, and we unconsciously spread those patterns all over the place. Ebbs and flows in all things.

“What goes up, must come down” is a good saying. It’s true in all sorts of ways.

One of my favorite economic concepts is “regression to the mean.” In a nutshell: when you have a lot of data points, most will be clumped around an average and there will be a few outliers. Every time a data point gets added, it will fall somewhere in the distribution, but in aggregate, most will end up in that middle. That means that if a particular data point falls really far to one edge or the other, chances are good that the next data point will be closer to the middle. So if your average run time for a mile is 18 minutes and one day you run a 16-minute mile, chances are good that you’ll do worse the next time.

If you don’t know about regression to the mean, that can be really discouraging! You ran a 16-minute mile, got all proud of yourself, and then the next day you ran 17.4. Maybe at first you get depressed that your success didn’t stick, and then maybe you start to make excuses – “oh, I was just tired and sore from yesterday,” or “oh, I got complacent and didn’t work as hard,” or something. But the reality was that your 16-minute mile was the outlier, and not a new base average.

Don’t get depressed! For one, it works both ways. If you run a 20-minute mile, you can probably safely assume you just had a bad day, not that your new base time is 20 minutes. Just be careful that the next day when you run an 18.3 you don’t make up fake stories like “I was more motivated because of yesterday’s failure!” Real change doesn’t happen in single data points.

You can improve the average. You can steadily go from 18 minutes to 17 to 16. But you have to stay consistent and work. Trust the rhythm. Things will go up and down along the way – that’s okay. You have to breathe out sometimes, too.

This might be a controversial post!

I have a very clear memory of a moment with my father when I was young. I don’t remember clearly what led to it – just that I felt bad about some interaction with another child at school. Maybe it was an argument, maybe I was bullied, I just remembered feeling bad about it. In explanation of my tears, I told my father something to the effect of “he hurt me.”

His response was advice that I feel is sorely needed by many, and that I carry to this day. He said: “He can’t hurt you, because he’s not touching you. Words can hurt, but then he’s fighting you with his brain instead of his body, and his brain is no match for yours.”

His message was powerful. It wasn’t that words had no power or couldn’t be weaponized, but rather that the power to weaponize a message and use it to hurt could be countered by your own ability to rise above and control your own reaction. No mind has more power over you than your own.

It’s like arm wrestling, but always against a weaker opponent. Mind wresting, and you always have the advantage.

Now, let’s be clear – this doesn’t mean that you should be thoughtless or cruel with your own words, just because someone else could defend. After all, you shouldn’t just arm-wrestle people without their permission, either. It’s still impolite. But it does mean that you always have within you the capacity for defense from insult, offense, and annoyance.

This also doesn’t mean that this first line of defense should be the last. If you see cruelty and injustice in the world, you should act against it even if you’re able to defend yourself from the heartache it would otherwise cause. But let’s be realistic: a calm, clear mind is a better actor against injustice than a raging, sobbing mess. If someone can reduce you to tears with a barb or jest, you’re in no position to fight the good fight to defeat real injustice.

The first battlefield in any fight is your own mind. If you allow your enemies to occupy that territory, you’ll never win anywhere else.

If you are very, very patient, every safe is crack-able.

If 28-34-16 didn’t work, try 28-34-17.

Tweak. Improve. Iterate.

It’s not the best position to be in, the position where you’re literally just trying every combination. There are better ways, but sometimes the better ways fail. When you’re down to just trying every combination, don’t do it at random. Do it in an orderly way. Track your progress.

Don’t get frustrated. Not because it isn’t frustrating, but because being frustrated doesn’t help.

Even if you don’t succeed, I’ll tell you this – a tracked, categorized failure is better than a random, jumbled one.

You can always sell a well-recorded history of an interesting failure as a good story and a road map for others, if nothing else. It might turn into fuel for a better idea down the road. But none of that happens of you get reduced to this point and just start flailing.

When your back’s against the wall, more than ever, be deliberate.

There’s a particular kind of dirty rhetorical trick you’ve probably encountered called a Motte-and-Bailey fallacy or doctrine. In case you don’t want to read that whole other post (though it’s good!), here’s the gist: it’s when someone attaches an uncontroversial statement to a controversial argument and switches back and forth as if they were the same thing to pull the rug out from under you. Here’s a fake example to illustrate:

Sue: “All men should have to give half of their income to the Women’s Rights Group of America in order to rectify long-standing inequalities between men and women.”

Steve: “I don’t agree.”

Sue: “Oh, so you don’t think women are people?!”

Steve: “Whoa whoa! No, women are definitely people.”

Sue: “So you agree with me, great.”

Now, that’s an extreme and absurd example, obviously. But you see what Sue did? She made it seem like believing “women are people” and believing “all men should donate half their income to a specific women’s rights organization” were the same thing. The controversial argument is the ‘bailey,’ the place where you actually want to be. The uncontroversial argument is the ‘motte’ – that’s not where you want to end up, but it’s way easier to defend. When someone attacks (read: disagrees) with you, you retreat to the motte, which isn’t where you want to be long-term, but it’s way easier to defend.

Now, on an individual basis people do this all the time, and they often do it with a lot more subtlety and it works often. But that’s not the thought I want to put forth (for more thoughts on that, read that linked piece by Scott). The thought I want to put into words here is that a great deal of well-established institutions in our society have a built-in Motte-and-Bailey that they will often deploy to justify terrible behavior.

For instance, let’s look at higher education. When people defend or advocate for our current university system, they’ll make grand claims about the transformative power of a college education, the human capital improvements, the lifetime returns on earnings from the investment, and the civilizing and even enlightening nature that colleges and universities grant to society at large. That’s the bailey – the position they want to occupy. But like all baileys, it falls apart easily: there’s tremendous research out now that clearly shows that all of that is bunk. Colleges and universities don’t do any of that. (Rather than defend that position myself, check out the research on your own: read Cracks in the Ivory Tower and/or The Case Against Education, both excellent books).

But when you bring up those very real and substantially-supported arguments, those same people retreat to their motte: “So you don’t think education is important?! What, everyone should just stop learning?”

When you look at it like that, the ploy is obvious and you might think that no one would fall for it. But of course, nearly everyone does – because the vast audience for these kinds of public debates just latch onto the motte argument and repeat it: “So-and-so thinks we should just abandon all learning and no one should be educated!” And then you get attacked for that position, even though you don’t hold it, and the whole thing goes sideways.

Law Enforcement is another one. Advocates say that law enforcement is the essential glue of an orderly society. When someone suggests that there are critical, necessary systemic reforms that are needed, those advocates retreat to their motte: “So you just want lawless chaos in the streets, huh? I hope you never get robbed and have to call someone!”

All large institutions have good and bad things they do. Major corporations might provide really useful or essential goods and services to society, but pollute or exploit. Large charities might do real good in their area of influence, but also waste money or manipulate data. Political organizations might advocate for genuinely beneficial societal improvements but also damage the fabric of the political system in which they operate.

When talking about themselves, of course these institutions will always talk only about the good that they do. The bad stuff, even if they don’t want it, might be costly or inconvenient for them to fix. Even worse, they might not want to fix it, as institutions that grow larger over time tend to become corrupt and self-serving by their nature. That means when someone points out the bad stuff, they don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to fight out in the bailey, they want to retreat to the motte, and accuse detractors of wanting to dismantle the good things themselves.

I don’t have a solution; this is a pretty deep problem if I’m being honest. But a small step might be just shining a light on it. It’s good to be familiar with the tools of the scoundrel; maybe you won’t get hoodwinked yourself.

It takes me much longer to think about what to write than to write it, on most days. Writing comes fairly naturally to me (though that’s dangerous in its own right, and I’ll get into why in a bit), but I give thinking some serious thought.

I don’t like to overly deliberate, and I do like to engage in “productive thinking,” where I’m actively doing something value-creating while thinking. In the short term that might mean that my “thinking time” will also be workout time, laundry time, etc. In the long term it means that even if I can’t decide what I’m going to build, I’m still going to be gathering tools and materials, scouting locations, etc. in preparation for when I do decide.

But while I don’t like to overly deliberate (I believe action is vital), I also never like to act in haste. I like to look at a problem or task or situation and roll it around in my head for a bit. Examine all sides. Live in it. Maybe even try a few initial attempts in my mind. Then when I act, I go all in.

When I write these blog posts, I usually (to an outside observer) just stare at the blank screen like a zombie for a bit. What I’m actually doing is moving words around. Preparing a concept. Then I write like crazy, straight through. It can look like I don’t plan at all, but I just plan differently.

Still, that can be dangerous. When something comes pretty naturally to you, you have a tendency not to develop technique as well. My writing could definitely be better. I think it’s improved dramatically since starting this blog, because practice makes better, if not perfect. But still, I think it would be worthwhile for me to actually take a writing course of some kind – so suggestions welcome!

Regardless, always give yourself a few breaths and a few heartbeats before you engage. Especially with speaking – it has an odd way of being permanent. Words can cut. And before you cut once, measure twice.

If you’ve read my blog with any sort of regularity (or you just know me as a person), then you know I’m a pretty grounded, pro-science, logical guy. Not a lot of mysticism in my life. Given that, what I’m going to say next may surprise you: I believe in “signs from the universe.”

I do! But I have a pretty grounded, scientific, logical reason.

First, what do I even mean by “signs from the universe?” Well, let’s say you’re trying to decide between buying a red or a blue dress. And on your way home from work, you hit every red light, and then you find that the front door of your building has been freshly painted red, and you receive an unexpected present from a relative and it’s a red pair of shoes. Signs from the universe that you should pick the red dress, right?

Ah ha! Here’s the trick: if you said “yeah, that’s a sign! pick the red dress!” then you should pick the red dress.

If you said, “no, those are just coincidences, they don’t mean anything,” you should pick the blue dress.

Why?

Because people believe in “signs from the universe” when the universe tells them what they want to hear. They ignore such “signs” when they don’t. But that’s way more useful than it sounds! Because we’re often bad at being attuned to what we really want. We’re plagued with indecision. In the initial scenario, you couldn’t decide on the red or blue dress – but in your heart of hearts, you knew which one you wanted. You just couldn’t quite pull the trigger.

Letting “signs from the universe” (read: “convenient excuses”) push you towards what you truly wanted can be a great decision-making aid. It’s like a more advanced version of the coin flip trick.

(If you’ve never heard this, the Coin Flip Trick works like this: take your two options and assign them heads and tails, respectively. Then flip a coin, but don’t look at the result, keep it covered – what are you hoping for, in that instant? Heads or tails? That’s your answer, you don’t even need to look at the coin.)

So if you’re trying to decide between two or a few options, and you can’t easily eliminate them (meaning the decision is probably pretty close), then go ahead and follow signs. The ones you’ll believe will point you towards the thing you want anyway.

Here’s a weird piece of human condition:

Sometimes I’ll see a group of people that I think are unified around their love of pineapple pizza, let’s say. This is a divisive topic! Lots of people hate pineapple on pizza, and some of those people are of the kind to turn that hatred into hatred of people who like pineapple pizza, instead of just hating the pizza itself.

So I’ll see two people talking who both love pineapple pizza, and I’ll think, “oh, how nice, two people share an interest and they’re discussing it and–” and then suddenly one of them will say that the other one doesn’t like pineapple pizza the right way or something, like maybe they like crushed pineapple instead of chunked or Sicilian pizza or something, and suddenly those two people will be at each others’ throats.

The problem here is subtle, but pervasive. The problem is that humans are actually really bad at liking or hating stuff. Concepts, objects, whatever – we’re bad at it. What we’re good at is associating that stuff with certain people, and then liking or hating them.

You see this message everywhere. The reason “hate the sin, love the sinner” is even advice is because almost no one ever does it. They hate the sinner (however they’ve defined the “sin”) through and through.

This causes people to build barricades around their “Labels of Identity” and commit to purity tests of all kinds in order to jockey for position. And this, in turn, betrays their ultimate motivation.

You can’t help it. For most people, the ultimate motivation is “tribal status.” Meaning you’ve picked a group (or maybe just fallen into one), and all your motivations ultimately come down to wanting a higher position of respect within that group.

If you really just loved pineapple pizza for pineapple pizza’s sake, you’d buy it and eat it and make it and maybe even share it! You’d tell other people that had never had it that they should try it. You’d make them some! You’d be okay if they didn’t want it, but you’d offer. And if you found someone else who loved pineapple pizza but maybe a different kind than you, that would be awesome, because obviously that person is a kindred spirit, or at least more so than the person who hates pineapple pizza.

But in reality, many people attack the person who likes pineapple pizza the wrong way more than the person who hates it. That’s because most people don’t think of themselves as “people who dig pineapple on their pizza,” but as “Pineapple Pizzatarians” with logos and bumper stickers and badges and flags and commemorative pens. It’s a group, and group identity matters to humans more than almost anything else.

Know your Maslow. People really get stuck in that level 3-4 range. (I think that’s a big part of why physical discomfort can reduce stress – one of Maslow’s insights was that you simply can’t care about the next level up when you’re still grappling with your current level. Putting myself into the woods for a few days was a way of artificially returning to levels 1 & 2 for a while, and while you’re there, you can’t even fathom the problems of the higher levels.)

But this isn’t really a post about Maslow (though in a way, I think most posts are). It’s a post about how that tribalism explains one of the worst aspects of our behavior, which is our tendency to attack close ideological neighbors instead of the more distant enemies we might ally against.

Move away from the tribalism. Question your own people, don’t take things for granted just because they’re said by people you want the esteem of. Learn the basic building blocks of reality, the things that aren’t fancy or exciting or filled with slogans but are essential to good understanding. Learn statistics, Public Choice theory, psychology. Read books, not headlines.

And don’t attack people who want most of what you want just because they don’t agree on the last 1%. There are people out there who disagree with you 99%, and if you want to make substantive changes to your society, at some point you’re going to have to treat those people like humans and figure out how to work with them, instead of just yelling at your closest allies for not being even closer.

The reason to study the flaws of humanity is to rise above them. Know your Maslow, then make him wrong.