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Can we fight poverty by stimulating demand in Africa?

2009-10-11T18:08:00.004+02:00

[E-mail to William Easterly]

William,

My name is Jacob Stedman. I very much enjoyed reading your latest NY Review of Books article The Anarchy of Success, and it made me reach for my copy of The White Man's Burden (and End of Poverty) and once again try to sort out what I believe about foreign aid. (Since graduating a couple of years ago, I have unfortunately spent less time thinking about this.)

I have a question: what is your opinion about stimulating demand in poor countries? On p. 5 in "The White Man's Burden", you write "The poorest people in the world have no money to motivate market Searchers to meet their desperate needs." But what if they had?

Let's assume (and i think that's not a totally unrealistic assumption) there was some practical way of distributing foreign aid - in the form of money - to individual third-world country citizens/families. Basically, everybody gets a number of banknotes (denominated in dollars, to decrease the risk of inflation) and are then free to do what they want with it: save, invest, consume.

Even though this approach clearly has some "planner" mentality to it, i think it also avoids your main criticism of the Big Plans: it allows individuals to exercise their preferences through markets. People would still have incentives to increase their wealth, since this "subsidy" would be a fixed endowment. And if consumers suddenly have more purchasing power, you would expect the invisible hand to provide the supply. There is some analogy to social security within rich countries: we (mostly) don't give our poor commodities we think they need, we give them cash and trust them to use it wisely.

Clearly, this wouldn't solve all problems haunting Africa (e.g., physical infrastructure, quality of government services, corruption). But to your main argument, one initiative doesn't have to.

What's your perspective on this?

Best regards,

Jacob Stedman

Understanding genocidaries: is the concept of humanity a myth?

2009-07-13T18:11:00.010+02:00

This spring saw the passing of the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. In just two months’ time, 800,000 people were massacred to death by machetes, in most cases by their neighbours, while the world turned its back. The killers were mostly farmers from the Hutu majority ethnic group, and the victims were Tutsis – a minority ethnic group – and moderate Hutus. Every week-day for two months, after a hearty breakfast, the farmers would organize in small groups, and do a nine-to-five shift looking for fugitive unarmed Tutsis to kill. After a hard day’s “work”, they would spend the evenings socializing and celebrating, before going back to “work” the next day. Initially, the efforts were directed by government militia, eventually, the farmers became self-motivated and self-going.

How can humans possibly engage in genocide despite all the human mechanisms for restraint and empathy? Those mechanisms are obviously quite strong: how else could we explain that millions of strangers live side by side in cities around the world, with only the occasional and exceptional act of violence? But, as obviously, they can also be set aside, as when groups of people deliberately set out to exterminate other groups – in many cases consisting of individuals they know personally.

I suggest there are five categories of reasons for an average John Doe to circumvent all intrinsic and learned notions of cooperation and empathy and engage in genocide. Many of my arguments are based on two disturbing but excellent first-hand accounts from Rwanda: A Time for Machetes: The Rwandan Genocide - The Killers Speak by Jean Hatzfeld and We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. I recommend them to anyone interested in learning more about the 1994 genocide. Gourevitch’s book is more structured and vividly describes what happened during the fateful months in 2004. Hatzfeld’s book is, if possible, even scarier as it consists of unedited and pretty explicit interviews, done a few years later, with a group of actual killers.

So what are the reasons people can find themselves participating in a genocide? First, people can clearly be motivated and brainwashed by racist perspectives and other ideologies. Genocides are legitimized and enabled by a story describing “the others” as evil/immoral/sub-human and as a threat to the own group. As Ben Kiernan writes in Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur, “[justifying ideologies] include not only racial and religious hatreds but also other idealist cults of ancient glory or pristine purity, more modern conceptions of biological contamination, and varied historical forms of agrarian romanticism and other obsessions with land use.” In Rwanda, the continuous broadcasts from Radio Mille Collines in Rwanda was a principal force in inciting racial hatred. In Nazi Germany, Hitler spent a decade rallying about Jews before the exterminations began.

Second, humans are herd animals who value obedience and submit easily to peer pressure. In Rwanda, killing was supposedly mandatory: everybody had to do their duty. Voicing disagreement out load with the government militia could be fatal. In practise, however, there were many ways to sneak off: “I don’t know of anyone who was struck because he refused to kill.” (Hatzfeld, p 68). Similarly, many Nazi agents tried to argue they had to follow orders. However, as Hatzfeld notes, no defence lawyer could ever find a case where a solider was punished for not killing unarmed civilians. Supposedly, the social need to fit in a group is a stronger motivator for many than the physical risks of disobeying. And being part of the killing squads did indeed increased social cohesion. “Suddenly Hutus of every kind were patriotic brothers without any partisan disaccord.” (Hatzfeld, p. 13)

Third, “normality” doesn't always imply benevolent, cooperative and peaceful attitudes. As history shows, empathy can quickly be subordinated to a new, brutal, reality. After some time, killing became the new norm: “It meant nothing to us to think we were busy cutting our neighbours down to the last one. It became a goes-without-saying. They already stopped being good neighbours of long standing, the ones who handed around the [banana beer] can at cabaret, since they wouldn’t be there anymore. They had become people to throw away, so to speak.” (Hatzfeld, p. 42)

The killers did acknowledge that they retained some sense of old friendships: “For example, a man finding someone with whom he has popped many [beers] in friendship might turn aside, but someone else would come along behind and take care of it. In any case, in our group, that never happened.” (p 111). But in the evenings there was little remorse: “Poor people seemed at ease, the rich seemed cheerful, the future promised us good times. We were satisfied with our private celebrations, with eating well, drinking well, and having lots of fun.” (p. 88)

For most genocidaries, the unprovoked killing of one person in another context would be considered a murder, and their consciousness would likely condemn it. However, when people were dying all around them – and everybody else was participating – killing one person more or less must have seemed to make less difference. (This applies in the reverse in less extreme situations as well: In a recent article, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof writes about our “the more who die, the less we care” mentality, referring to studies showing that people are “much more willing to donate to one needy person than to several.” He argues that widespread death might be too complex for our sense of empathy (“one death is a tragedy, a million a statistic”), and thus treated more as a rational moral issue. And there, perversely enough, saving 100 lives (when a million is a stake) becomes less interesting than saving one life (when it’s the only one at stake) because we are reminded of the enormity of the situation. The “rational” decision maker would then become more pessimistic, experience less “feel-good rewards” for any help given, and thus be less likely to help.)

Fourth, people can have economic and social incentives to kill. William H McNeill argues in the article "Man Slaughters Man" that “acute local shortages of cultivable land” might be in many cases be the real driver between genocide, and the ideology just the “window dressing” to justify the economic agenda. This seemed to be an important reason in the Rwandan genocide too: “[killing] was more productive than raising crops, especially for someone with a meagre plot of land or barren soil.” (Hatzfeld, p. 58). Even where economic incentives weren’t a key factor initially, competition pushed more people to participate in the looting and make sure they got their share of the prize: “we didn’t care about what we accomplished [when killing], only about [...] stocks of sheet metal, the rounded-up cows, the piles of windows and other such goods. When we met a neighbour on a new bike or waving around a radio, greed drove us on.” (p. 77)

The opportunity to seek forced sex from petrified refugees was another incentive (Tutsi women were considered desirable but unattainable), or increased status in the community (“Later on the bravest young guys become leaders, the ones who gave orders without hesitation ... Me, I made myself the leader for all the residents of Kibungo from the very first day. Previously I was leader of the church choir, so now I became a real leader, so to speak.”, p. 10).

Fifth, some types of reasons seem to belong in the pathological sphere: “When we saw Tutsis wriggling like snakes in the marshes, it made the guys laugh. Some let them crawl a while longer for more fun.” (Hatzfeld, p. 123).

A final note on leaders of genocide, to put things in perspective. Surely, it is an even greater abhorrence to incite hatred and genocide in other people’s minds. I almost fell of my chair when reading an article about the original intentions of the Nazi leadership: “Had things gone the way that Hitler, Himmler, and Göring expected, German forces would have implemented a Hunger Plan in the Soviet Union in the winter of 1941–1942. As Ukrainian and south Russian agricultural products were diverted to Germany, some 30 million people in Belarus, northern Russia, and Soviet cities were to be starved to death. The Hunger Plan was only a prelude to Generalplan Ost, the colonization plan for the western Soviet Union, which foresaw the elimination of some 50 million people. (…) The project to kill all Jews was substantially realized; the project to destroy Slavic populations was only very partially implemented.”

Genocide is truly an assault of the core values of humanity: As Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka puts it, “To train cadres, to indoctrinate an elite sect is one thing, but to enroll a majority of the population in an orgy of self-mutilation? And self-mutilation this surely is, unless of course we conclude that claims or concepts like basic humanity are a myth, and that only a veneer of social accretions separates us from the lurking predator.”

I’d like to believe that humans are more than just lurking predators with a thin veil of learned social protocols. However, reading Gourevitch and Hatzfeld makes me wonder. Luckily, William H McNeill reminds us that “convincingly balanced history must take account of both [human cooperation and human violence]”. I think the next book I read will be about human cooperation.

Jag minns när Smirre räv förklarades fredlös

2008-12-26T17:15:00.001+01:00

Jag minns när Smirre räv förklarades fredlös
Det var i den gamla världen
Den gamla världen, med stora skogar
Med mörka myrar, milsvida mossor och finsktalande fåglar

Den nya världen är regisserat ljus
Vägar, villor, volvos
(volvimus?)
Om de i gamla världen förstått
Hur fullkomligt ljus är från ovan
Då hade de prisat Honom med mönster av eld
Inte stentempel

Då som nu
Utan vår flocks gemenskap är vi intet
Inte ens en räv överlever den sociala döden
Jag tror inte Smirre var rädd för att bli sedd, och riven
Jag tror han var rädd för att för evigt bli exkluderad
Jag kan inte se mig själv utan spegel

Då som nu
Utan vår flocks gemenskap är vi intet
De stora aporna började plocka loppor på varandra
Och gav oss månlandningar, Illiaden och American Idol
En panter må löpa snabbare än en dotter av Eva
Men i gemenskapen uppfinner hon jetbränsle
Och springer om varje panter
Sovandes

Du sköna, nya värld
Fylld av ljus, kärlek och glädje
Dagsböter istället for fredlöshet
Gemenskap för alla
Alla som ödet
behagar casta i rätt roll

Någon fortfarande osäker på om lågkonjunkturen är här?

2008-12-02T00:03:00.001+01:00

Dagens ekonominyheter på mobil.dn.se (alla, ej urval):

18:02 Kraftigt fall på börsen
17:24 Ränteras väntas på torsdag
23:59 Nya IT-lagar kan kosta hushållen miljarder
08:38 Dystra siffror från industrin
11:25 Varselvågen ökar i styrka
14:20 Nedgången tilltar
12:22 Opec planerar stor minskning
11:59 Försäljning trots rättstvist
09:55 Island kan byta valuta
10:54 Strama åt din ekonomi

The art .. no, the craft of putting your best foot forward

2008-11-20T02:18:00.003+01:00

1628: Once upon a time, there was a brilliant and accomplished man, who failed to put his best foot forward. This is his story.

Admiral Clas Larsson Fleming was a remarkable royal advisor in 17th century Sweden. He is remembered as one of the Navy’s best leaders and organizers – ever. But he was also responsible for one of the greatest maritime disasters at that time, when he bowed to royal pressure and authorized the newly built warship Vasa to go to sea, even though he had himself witnessed the top-heavy ship roll and almost keel over in a stability test in the port. Predictably, on its maiden voyage, the grandiose ship capsized after a nautical mile, killing hundreds. How could this happen? Admiral Fleming would surely in other circumstances have recognized the severity of a failed stability test. For some reason, he did not do so this time – despite his many qualities. Admiral Fleming’s story proves to us that, at the end of the day, it’s not about possessing supernatural skills, insights or talents. It’s about listening to your gut and having the will and energy to put your best foot forward.

2008: 380 years later, there lived a remarkably less accomplished man, who wanted to learn how to put his best foot forward. This is his story.

There are five things I want to become better at, some job-related, some not, some related to me as a person, some related to my dealings with others.

1. Put my best soul forward – validation from inside should be enough. I really like the AA creed “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference”. I sincerely believe I can be the person I want to be, and I don’t need anybody else to tell me I’m good. It’s only that, sometimes, I could need to believe that even more sincerely… Yes, I can!

2. Put my best will forward – do things in the right order. I’ve always wanted to do things my way. Finish the chapter before I come down for dinner, do the fun analysis before the boring analysis, make the easy call before the hard call, be late because I like long showers. This behavioral mindset is a luxury, and something I’ll continue to relish (what would remain of life if you could not eat your dessert before your main dish?). But there is a time also for non-luxury, and I sometimes need to do things in the most suitable order, not in the most enjoyable order. Yes, I can!

3. Put my best tongue forward – think before I speak. This is really another version of #2. I’m very proud of my ability to not think ahead and still manage to say something quite smart or quite funny 90% of the time. But sometimes 90% is not enough, and sometimes quite smart doesn’t cut it. Yes, I can!

4. Put the whole me forward – life is more than career. For the last year, I’ve been putting most other interests aside. Ironically, it’s only now – when I realize I’ll probably not be promoted before my peers but will have to wait as long as the average colleague – that I’m seeing what I’ve been missing. My job is a great source of excitement, and will continue to be so. But so is the feeling of correctly memorizing a complex Latin verb, writing a page in your script with dialogue you really like, or just reading fiction and realizing that this storyteller just told you something – through a voice wrapped in cellulose – that you would never have said or thought yourself. Life is more than work, and exciting and memorable moments don’t just occur in boardrooms – we need to make those autumn strolls count too! Yes, I can!

5. Put my best heart forward – stay patient and tolerant. This might come as a surprise to some, but my temper is occasionally surprisingly bad. There are only a few people who are exposed to this, but they happen to be the ones I care about the most. So forgive me, Johanna, for being annoyed about you not putting the knives in the dishwasher they way I expect them. And also, everybody, forgive me for instances of bigotry and narrow-mindedness, for those seconds I forget that everybody is a person first and foremost, or for the wrecked moments when I fall to the temptation of treating people according to a set pecking order. That is not what I want to be, and I won’t. Yes, I can! (And so can you…!)

Solen går upp mot mitt öra

2008-11-18T00:01:00.001+01:00

Solen går upp mot mitt öra
Apollons ekipage accelererar mot mig
Jag fångar en skymt av honom där himlens kalsongblå kupa
Touchar molnens oändliga matta
Jag: nagelbitande, outsträckt, apelsinjuicedrickande
Täckt av croissantsmulor, klämd mellan stolar

Visst är ett privilegium att få utforska världen från plats 12a
Men likaså en curse,
For all the usual reasons,
Och framförallt när en bistungen Hektor pa anabola
Sitter på 11a

Jämfört med tjugo års irrfärder
Är veckopendling att leva en Dolly Parton-låt
Men jag önskar innerligt att Apollon försov sig nån gång
Hans morgonpigghet stressar mig

A Portrait of the Artist through his Young/New MemoPad

2008-08-21T21:27:00.003+02:00

I always find inquiring what's on other people's mind very fascinating. Somehow, what people choose to spend energy thinking about must be important .. at least to them. But in a way, wouldn't notes say even more about a person? The things that people care to commit to paper (or, these days, some electronic sort of paper) most be even more important since they are deemed worthy of preservation? After all, great writers throughout time have managed to express, or filter, their inspirational personalities through the needle's eye of a napkin or a diary.

Can you get these insights into people from anybody's notes? Or are those items mostly trivial notes-to-self, like "buy milk"? As a case study of the notes people do scrib down, I'm offering the headlines of entries in my phone's MemoPad. 21 entries, all neatly sorted. They are all quite new, since I got this particular handheld 4 months ago.

Avis - discount ID
Dalberg - consulting companies doing development
Emergency aid - discussion point phone call
Essenza - name of espresso machine
Great cheese
Great movies
Grinda Island - best cottages
Learning Chinese - textbook
Metabolism and working out
Music to listen to - Foofighters, Kings of the Stone Age, Concrete Blondes (Joye)
Neljatoista - 14 in Finnish
Peru info site
Reflections on beauty and the market for friendship - never-finished blog entry
Roaming charges phone
Size cabin baggage
Skopelitis and me - never-finished travelogue
South America - tour company to check out
Subscriptions to get: National Geographics
Things to mention to sullen friend
Web sites
Wines

I'll leave the question whether my personality can be distilled from these 21 entries to somebody else. But if anybody wonders what's on my mind these days, I guess these entries says pretty much all. Sometimes I want to remember that great web site about Peru or start writing that great blog entry. Most of the time, however, I just want to save my Avis discount ID somewhere.

My next challenge is to stop looking for challenges

2008-07-02T16:53:00.002+02:00

IT WOULD BE COOL to be able to stop my constant subconscious search for challenges and stimuli, and just enjoy the small things in everyday life. I'm still not sure whether that is attainable. It could be that I'm doomed to a perpetual quest for stimuli, and then I'd better make the most of it - probably by being more mindful about all stimuli that is always surrounding me.

THIS IS A PROBLEM only because I'm afraid I'm missing out on some things. A prime example would be fiction, for example a book which offer only low-intensive stimuli for most of the read. Then, after finishing it, the reader might feel very inspired and blissful - and that's what I'll miss out on since my lack of patience made me stop after two chapters. Another example would be a beautiful scenery, which would make me happy, but only for a minute - then I would need another beautiful scenery. A third example would be excellent food, which I would typically enjoy for a bite or two, and then just shuffle it into my mouth without thinking too much.

To take a step back, I think the problem is my preference for relentless stimuli, combined with the principle of decreasing marginal returns. The third chapter is not that much more different than the first two chapters compared to other books, the scenery is more amazing the first minute than the second minute, the first bite of the food is more new and different than the second bite. And then I lose interest and start searching for new challenges, new stimuli, new insights, new news.

I DO, OF COURSE, ACKNOWLEDGE that my desire to face new challenges and learn new things / get intellectual stimuli has largely been beneficial to me. My interest in intellectual stimuli is probably more constant than most things in my life and I wouldn't want to do without it.

Also, I'm realizing more and more over the last few years how cool physical and sensorial stimuli can be - like speed, like the temperature change of running out of a sauna and jumping into the sea, or like learning to appreciate the butterflies in my stomach and the increased pulse before an aircraft takes off. But it still makes me feel like a junkie that needs a quick fix. Maybe it's possible to spend an hour without any short-term stimulus?

Luckily, my inability to live without short-term stimulus is only related to when I'm 1) awake 2) by myself. When I'm sleeping, as far as I know, I feel little need to face challeges. Also, when I'm with others, I typically get totally submerged in the conversation. Additionally, when I'm awake and by myself, my need for challenges and stimuli is often appropiate, since I'm either working on my paid job or pursuing some spare-time activity where I do want an end product.

THAT LEAVES FEW SITUATIONS. BUT THEY STILL EXIST. For instance, as I'm writing this I'm lying on a blanket somewhere in the Stockholm archipelago. The weather is reasonably good and I'm on my first week of summer holidays. And I really want to read a novel (partly because I want to be a person that reads fiction, partly because I'm sure reading would do me good). But I can't. Every time I start on a novel, I lose interest when I've picked the low-hanging fruits: when I've understood the writer's style, when I think I know what's the story's about, when I run into pages with too many adjectives.

I occasionally do manage to finish a book - Kiterunner most recently - but then it's because the story is action-oriented, and it still takes quite some will power. So after a chapter of fiction I usually switch back to my trusted non-fiction books which offer guaranteed short-term stimuli, and read a chapter about extinct languages, wave lengths, Greek islands or the former archbishop's perspectives on miracles. And then I get bored and switch again.

And all would be well, if I did not have this horrible feeling that my lack of persistence makes me miss out of many cool reading experiences. I feel like a treasure-hunter who will never get to the X because he gets bored when the map includes a stretch of plain road.

I THINK "MINDFULNESS" MIGHT BE ONE OF THE SOLUTIONS. (Another possible solution would be to force myself to be bored occasionally, sacrificing my thirst for new short-term stimuli on the promise of eventual fulfilment. I believe this will be partly necessary, but this can't be the entire solution - I react like a rebellious teenager when forced to do things (even by myself)). A better solution, I think, is to start valuing stimuli that I didn't care enough for before. Basically, train myself to enjoy pages with adjectives, beautiful sceneries and second bites of great food.

Wikipedia describes mindfulness as "bringing the mind to focus on what is happening in the present moment, while simply noticing [and potentially choosing to ignore] the mind's usual 'commentary'." It goes on to state that "once we have noticed the mind's running commentary, we have the freedom to cease identification with those judgments/perceptions: 'washing dishes: boring' may become 'The warm water is in unison with the detergent and is currently washing away the plate's grime, the sun is shining through the window and casting an ever greater shadow on the dish's white ceramics.' In this example, one may see that washing does not have to be judged 'boring'; washing dishes is only a process of coordinating dishes with soap and water. "

This is something I will try to internalize. Washing dishes is a process of coordinating dishes with soap and water, an adjective is another insight about the world where a novel is set, a scenery consists of thousands of items that have come together before my eyes, in the same way that each bite is an opportunity to discover new tastes.

If I just look for stimuli and interesting insights hard enough, I'm sure life will deliver them to me where I want them.

PS. AB, thanks for introducing me to this concept last year. And, JJ and NR, thanks for reminding me.

Self-confidence, meritocracy and transparency to the people!

2008-05-18T22:38:00.003+02:00

Like any human, I derive a great deal of happiness from sensory pleasures. Watching the sun rise over the archipelago, touching the lips of a person I care about, or eating camembert are simple but very rewarding experiences. But, like any human, I also derive pleasure from sharing certain beliefs or concepts, and observing them being validated.

For some, these beliefs might be along the lines of "Inter Milan is the greatest team ever." Personally, I don't believe that. Instead, there are three social concepts or principles that I really care about: the spread of self-confidence, meritocracy and transparency. If I would write the rules of the game of humanity, they would be in. For every individual that gets to live according to these concepts, I’d say that the world is better off.

So, why these three concepts?

Self-confidence. Since confidence is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy, being self-confident drastically increases the chances of people succeeding with their undertakings and realizing their inherent potential.
Meritocracy. Self-confidence is only part of the solution: it’s no good believing in yourself if nobody else gives you a chance. I very much cherish the idea of a society where people get chances to contribute and succeed based on their abilities (merit) and nothing else. This entails individuals treating each other, and judging each other, based on individual assessments rather than drawing conclusions based on demographic factors (with some exceptions – night clubs might be one place where it’s acceptable to screen individuals based on demographic factors.)

This means that a bright poor girl in Myanmar should have the same chances to get into Harvard as bright rich boy in Boston. And it, by implication, means that all children should face the same set of choices initially – any baby is a tabula rasa (blank slate) and has, or could have for what we know then, the potential to become anything.

(I'd like to add that I am not saying that people lacking certains abilities should be treated without respect for their intrinsic humanity. I'm just advocating a social system where people contribute to society/a workplace etc based on ability.)
Transparency. Personally, I very much like understanding what’s on people’s mind. I care little for what they had for breakfast, but I want to understand their concerns, their source of joy, and how they think. You could say this is my idea of a docu-soap, just more interactive, personal and real. But I believe transparency is much more important than that. In addition to the beauty of undressing other people’s souls (and the insight of how similar we all are), I'd argue that a group where people are transparent is a group with less selfish people.

The argument is quite simple: transparent communications increase people’s understanding for one another, and thus their empathy and their tendency to take others into account when making decisions. Also, in an environment where transparency is the norm, it is possible to discuss a potential gap between a self-confident self-image and others meritocratic assessment of yourself.

This is why I feel almost physical pleasure when I observe human interactions between people who have managed to build up confidence in themselves, who treat each other as individuals rather than representatives of some group, and who are open and transparent towards others. In my world, that's cooler than anything Zlatan Ibrahimovic's right foot can do.

The Anatomy of Failure

2007-08-17T10:47:00.000+02:00

I flunked my golf test yesterday. No big deal really, all it means is I have to get tuition for 45 minutes and then I’ve most likely caught up with the others again. Still, the feeling of failing was horrible, especially since I was the only one out of seven which didn’t pass. It’s exactly the same feeling that makes kids cry: powerlessness, disappointment, self-pity. It seems distant today; yet, it was very real and very intense for one hour yesterday.

This is how I conceptualize failing, and overcoming failures, in situations where you are the subject who directly undertakes an action and have some matter of control over the likely outcomes (as opposed to, for example, being struck by lightning). Although life is not a competition, I think people – well, at least I – think in terms of success and failure in many circumstances. Not success/failure as in inevitable long-run consequences, but as a feedback mechanism after a certain action. Sometimes, it’s very explicit, e.g. when doing an exam or a test. At other times, it more implicit, e.g. when trying to make new friends in bars or learning how to yo-yo. I’d argue that people – most people – are more content when things happen the way they want, and consequently less happy when things go the opposite way.

Let me walk you through the slightly less obvious parts. I think an initial disappointment is inevitable if a certain action produces an outcome below expectations. That is rational: the expected outcome has by definition been anticipated (“discounted for”); failure to reach it decreases utility. (Clearly, the importance of the task at hand as well as an individual level of obsession with success can magnify the emotion.) But as with all sorts of external (non-fatal) events, people can to some extent choose how to react to this external stimulus. Granted, if an alligator ate my leg, I would be severely displeased, unless I had some sort of clinical emotional block. But for most everyday situations, I believe the resulting emotional sensation (sadness etc.) is more influenced by the mind than by the actual physical event.

Historically, I have been weak when it comes to bringing forth internal strength in the short term to overcome setbacks. This has seldom affected the chains of events in the long run, but I have had my share of short-term sulkiness when things didn’t work out the way I wanted. I realized I had become too dependent on the availability and desire of friends to cheer me up and restore my scratched self-confidence. If they did not deliver this cheering-up service, I would be disappointed in them and be in a sulk until something positively happened for any random reason. Then I would bounce back like a frog who just got out of the quicksand, eager to make up for lost moments of happiness.

I realized – eventually, but also quite distinctively thanks to a certain close friend – that this reliance on external assistance was unsustainable. Partly because it was unpredictable and demanding on my friends, but mostly because it didn’t make sense to choose a strategy where I would in effect choose to punish myself for reasons I had no control over! If I could muster the inner strength to deal with the situations rationally, I would give myself both keys to the toolbox with all tools that would alleviate the problem. Yes, both keys as opposed to having a dual key system - where both a friend and me would be required.

It has worked surprisingly well since. Of course, different situations call for different options. Sometimes, adjusting (i.e. lowering) expectations might be appropriate; at other times, it would be justified to keep my expectations and just realize that expected/average outcome implies that some particular outcomes are worse than that. Often, it might be a good idea to use that feedback to practice more in order to boost expected outcomes. As long as either of these options are feasible, the setback should cause only short-term ‘adjustment’ pain since it does not imply a serious dissonance between self-view and reality.

I suppose adjusting expectations would be hardest – and potentially devastating if this is not successful. If I was madly in love with a princess, and I realized she would never ever marry somebody who was not of royal blood, I would have to lower my expectations (potentially going for a baroness instead.) If my self-worth hinged on marrying her, it would be a painful dissonance between desire and reality. Lesson: hinge your self-worth on flexible hinges, or on things which should never change.

So how come this internal-strength thingie didn’t work yesterday? Life is not black and white. Better execution is not optimal execution. But there was an important different, even in the midst of yesterday’s sulking: I was almost as annoyed with my reaction as with its cause, and that emotion gave me the strength after an hour or two to shrug my shoulders and think of something else. (Yes, my friends’ and my girlfriend’s attempts to cheer me up did help a lot. Thanks!)

And being unhappy an hour or two every now and then seems like a reasonable deal with Life.

The Unbearable Lightness of Eloquent Dialogue

2007-07-18T21:00:00.000+02:00

I’ve spent the last five days lying in the sun, downing beer, dancing on loudspeakers and tables (I love places where you can actually dance on things without getting thrown out) on an island in the Baltic Sea, Gotland, which is supposed to have the highest number of pubs per capita in all of Sweden during the summer months.

The last five days have been great, very fun (feels like I’m being laughing more or less constantly, save for the time required to swallow beer), even occasionally relaxing, and with great company. However, I realize that in between drinks on a party island in the Baltic Sea, you very rarely have conversations such as this casual discussion Franz and Sabina have in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (p. 97):

Franz said, ‘Beauty in the European sense has always had a premeditated quality to it. We’ve always had an aesthetic intention and a long-range plan. That’s what enabled Western man to spend decades building a Gothic cathedral or a Renaissance piazza. The beauty of New York rests on a completely different base. It’s unintentional. It arose independent of human design, like a stalagmitic cavern. Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wondrous poetry.’

Sabina said, ‘Unintentional beauty. Yes. Another way of putting it might be “beauty by mistake”. Before beauty disappears entirely from the earth, it will go on existing for a while by mistake. “Beauty by mistake” – the final phase in the history of beauty.’

And she recalled her first mature painting, which came into being because some red paint had dripped on it by mistake. Yes, her paintings were based on ‘beauty by mistake’, and New York was the secret but authentic homeland of her painting.

A bit later in the narrative, Frantz thinks about academic research and shakes his head: ‘And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls’ Day.’

Why am I so mesmerized by this eloquence? Is it preposterous, vain or snobbish to wish that real people spoke – and, even more important, thought – this way? Is it possible for me to – really and truly – ever understand how to walk the line between a beautifully flowing sentence and an artificially constructed domino tile of words, juxtaposed just to show off and signal distance?

I realize this is not for all contexts. I don’t think my professor in my screenwriting course would have approved of this as an example of ‘crisp dialogue that movies the story forward’. But The Unbearable Lightness is not an ordinary narrative; it is an essay about life, love, people and what they do to each other. And its language is more than just beautiful – it also cuts through the reader, at least when the reader is me, and make him or her, I mean me, feel like one small additional piece of the big jigsaw of life has been found.

The dialogue is supposed to be even more wonderful in the original language version. That seems like reason in itself for learning Czech.

Rakhmon(ov) meets Mill

2007-05-27T05:05:00.000+02:00

I found this NY Times article to be almost a case study of how a certain action could be viewed in very different light depending on whether you subscribe to a consequentialist or a rights-based view on ethics:

President Emomali Rakhmon called for legislation to limit the size and expense of weddings, birthday parties and funerals, saying the ceremonies had become too expensive and unjustified for the people of his impoverished country, a former Soviet republic. He told a group of lawmakers, clerics and intellectuals that guests at weddings should be restricted to 150; at a funeral to 100; and at a circumcision ceremony to 60. Mr. Rakhmon (formerly Rakhmonov) recently decreed that the Slavic ‘’ov” be dropped from the surnames for all newborns and outlawed gold fillings.

I think that you could make a utilitarian argument that such a legislation might actually improve aggregated social utility, providing that people spend more than they really can afford because of social norms, and that top-down legislation is needed for individuals to be able to resist that pressure. On the other hand, from a rights perspective, it is clearly an abomination to restrict people's freedom to host big parties.

Peter Singer on Saving Drowning Children

2007-05-27T04:52:00.000+02:00

Peter Singer, "the most influential philosopher alive today", was speaking at UCLA yesterday about global poverty and whether the affluent world have an obligation to help out or not. He posed an interesting thought experiment to the audience:

To challenge my students to think about the ethics of what we owe to people in need, I ask them to imagine that their route to the university takes them past a shallow pond. One morning, I say to them, you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class.

I then ask the students: do you have any obligation to rescue the child? Unanimously, the students say they do. The importance of saving a child so far outweighs the cost of getting one’s clothes muddy and missing a class, that they refuse to consider it any kind of excuse for not saving the child. Does it make a difference, I ask, that there are other people walking past the pond who would equally be able to rescue the child but are not doing so? No, the students reply, the fact that others are not doing what they ought to do is no reason why I should not do what I ought to do.

Once we are all clear about our obligations to rescue the drowning child in front of us, I ask: would it make any difference if the child were far away, in another country perhaps, but similarly in danger of death, and equally within your means to save, at no great cost – and absolutely no danger – to yourself? Virtually all agree that distance and nationality make no moral difference to the situation. I then point out that we are all in that situation of the person passing the shallow pond: we can all save lives of people, both children and adults, who would otherwise die, and we can do so at a very small cost to us: the cost of a new CD, a shirt or a night out at a restaurant or concert, can mean the difference between life and death to more than one person somewhere in the world – and overseas aid agencies like Oxfam overcome the problem of acting at a distance.

You can read my notes from the lecture if you are interested.

The Meaning of (my) Life

2007-05-09T04:40:00.000+02:00

For some reasons, it seems important to me to put down into words what I want out of life. I aim to *include* all the most important stuff, while simultaneously *exclude* things which are not as important. This is my best attempt so far.

1. Short-term non-intellectual sensorial pleasures, as well as more abstract aesthetic ones. I choose to split this point into two subpoints, because having sex and admiring Guernica is really two difference experiences. However, both appeal to me.

2. Knowledge and insights in how people work and affect each other. I'm definitely more of a social sciences than a natural sciences person, and I think most things related to human social behavior and human society is pretty fascinating: anthropology, social psychology, economics, neurosciences (I know that's more natural sciences, but..). In this respect, I just want to understand things.

3. Personal development and self-actualization for me and people I can relate to. As Maslow figured out a long time ago, feeling this intense joy of self-actualization is a force worth sacrifying a great deal for. Also, thanks to mirror neurons or empathy I suppose, I sincerely enjoy experiencing similar accomplishments in others -- at least in people I care about. That could mean friends or loved ones, or it could be the protagonist succeeding in a movie. (Did I mention I love the concept of storytelling?)

PS. This exercise is not so simple as it seems. I don't disagree with what I wrote in January, but it's too inclusive and vague, so here I'm trying to make it a bit more precise. On the other hand, a hierarchy of MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) labels would be stringent but cumbersome and boring. I like -- and agree with -- the simplicity of the PADI slogan "Meet people, go places, do things [underwater]", but it seems a bit too ... borrowed! (even though I claim credit for co-inventing the concept of people+places+things). Also, I think comfort zones could be one way to structure it, but like harmony vs personal development, it does not capture all aspects.

Two dissertations and some lecture notes

2007-04-20T05:47:00.000+02:00

I just got home from a Virginia Tech Vigil at the UCLA Residence Halls. One woman read the names aloud of all the 32 victims, one by one. The candles were beautiful in the darkness. Another speaker recited a letter send to students by a professor who had lost his daughter, urging them all to take nobody for granted and tell their family how much they loved them. I wept a little. Then I started walking home. Two hundred meters away, students were skating, talking, laughing, smoking. It felt odd, but it was a good feeling. "Memento mori," as the Roman Emperors and generals instructed their slaves to remind them. "Memento vitam," or something along those lines, would also serve a purpose. Life goes on, even when lives doesn't go on.

I wanted to post my my bachelor's disseration in Peace and Conflict Studies and my master's thesis in Economics. Interestingly enough, for those unfamiliar with the Swedish university system, the former were actually written after the latter (it's part of a second degree). Publishing the disserations as pocket books selling in convenience stores would be much preferred, but since no publisher has called yet (maybe because I have a phone cell phone no...?) I will have to resort to publish them on my own blog.. ;)

Trust Thy Neighbor - Comparing Trust Behavior between Northern and Southern Vietnam
Abstract: This thesis aims to explore how trust behavior varies between northern and southern Vietnam, in order to improve our understanding of what is required to increase economic performance in the developing world. We use economic experiments with university students to study differences in deception, trust and trustworthiness between northern and southern Vietnam; two regions with different income levels and
different degrees of market integration. We also study the correlation between deception and trust. Our findings do not confirm any differences, on the contrary, they indicate that overall trust behavior is fairly similar between the two regions and that deception is not correlated with trust. Our findings also suggest that there are gender differences in deception, trust and trustworthiness in northern Vietnam. Written together with Emma Mårtensson.

Fighting for Peace - Exploring Military Intervention in Civil Wars and its Contribution to Sustained Peace
Abstract: This dissertation aims to explore if foreign military intervention into civil wars during the post-Cold War period has contributed to sustained peace. I use a quantitative approach to investigate if non-neutral intervention and neutral intervention are correlated with sustained peace, and if decisive victories and
negotiated peace agreements are important determinants. The findings indicate that biased intervention on the side of the government do not promote sustained peace, and might indeed prolong conflicts. However, supporting rebels challenging the central government do seem to contribute to negotiated peace agreements and lasting peace. The findings also suggest that neutral interventions before violence has ceased usually occur when peace seems remote, and if that is controlled for, they are effective. Finally, neutral interventions after the end of violence are believed to promote sustained peace by alleviating the security dilemma and the commitment problem.

Notes from Seven Dimensins of Emotion
The first week I was in LA, before school started, I attended the Seven Dimensions of Emotion conference. According to its web site, it was an attempt to integrate "Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives on Fear, Disgust, Love, Grief, Anger, Empathy, and Hope." I thought it sounded terribly interesting and was able to do a walk-in and attend the conference. As one of the speakers put it, "there is an impenetrable mystery in the fact that subjective experience exists in a psychochemical world." I couldn't agree more. I took notes and had some vague idea about crystalizing the main points and blogging about it in the future. I might still do that, but then again, I might not. So in order to decrease my own future commitment, I decided to post the unedited notes straight away.

Some of lectures resulted in really powerful insights, one example being the attempt to divide emotion into primary processes or neurochemical systems such as anger and fear, secondary processes or biological emotions such as disgust and sexual passion, and tertiary processes such as empathy and hope. Interestingly enough, it was argued that love can be decomposed into maternal care as a primary process, sexual passion as a secondary emotion, and reverence as a tertiary process. At least one other speaker came back to this educated guess that love as we know it evolved from maternal care for the offspring.

There were also interesting speeches about topics such as

how to structure an meaningful and nuanced analysis of the interplay between culture and hereditary predispositions,
experiments on disgust as a way to avoid poisoning,
mirror neurons and empathy,
grief as a narrative and as rituals,
how anger is perceived by different culture and how that effects behavior,
why sexual exclusivity is not necessary the same as social monogamy for animals,
how a general sex drive differ from person-specific attraction and attachment

and much else.

Finally, I got an extremely interesting hand-out as part of a binder: Decomposing Human Emotions by Harvard Professor of Psychology Jerome Kagan. It argues "that discussions of emotion should distinguishing among brain states, detected sensory feelings resulting from a change in brain state, semantic labels, and dispositions to act or actual behaviors." I haven't been able to find it in softcopy on the web, but it presumable available from the author at jk@wjh.harvard.edu. He argues -- in a convincing way -- that current schemes and labels are about as useful as the medieval classification of matter into air, water, fire, and earth.

The wonders and annoyances of being 8,800 km away from home

2007-04-10T04:43:00.000+02:00

I intended to blog about a conference about emotions and their evolutionary determinants tonight, but something else came up. Instead of discussing the origins of emotions, I want to discuss some real emotions.

Since March 26th, I have been in Los Angeles on an exchange program, which is 8,800 km from Stockholm according to infoplease.com. It is generally a wonderful experience so far, and I'll come back to that. There are also a few issues which sometimes seems like challenges, in the neutral sense of the word.

I think the most critical of this is that not all of my personality comes across. I tend to regard myself as fluent in English (and I'm pretty sure I'm at least at the same level as many people who would describe themselves as fluent in their CV..). But in some cases, it becomes obvious that English is not my native tongue.

Especially when the context is a bit demanding or uncomfortable -- for example, speaking loudly in a class room or with somebody you don't know but want to make a good impression on -- it is so easy to fail to find the right word immediately. Sometimes the phrases might be idiomatic enough, but my intonation makes it hard for others to understand, especially if I just utter a few words.

This causes a few interesting effects. First, I sometimes become disappointed at myself. This ranges from self-pity ("oh, i wish i spoke as rapidly and eloquently as all these Americans") to a determination to improve, with more focus on the latter. Most of the time, it's very undramatic and I don't care. Second, people might be less inclined to talk to me if this happens too often. Fortunately, I haven't got that impression. (By the way, sometimes I get the spontaneous feedback that I have a cute accent. This used to annoy me immensely. It doesn't anymore -- especially not when it is said by smiling 22-year-olds. But I'm also quite happy that many people seem to spot traces of a British accent.)

Also, even when all parties understand each other, there can still arise a certain lack of precision since my vocabulary is smaller than in Swedish, and so is my repository of idiomatic phrases expressing certain nuances. In a sense, this is almost more unfortunate, since this to some extent "filters" my personality. I remember that my former engagement manager at McKinsey gave me the feedback that I should try harder to "put my best foot forward", i.e. being concise and to the point in meetings. This becomes even more challenging -- and even more important -- in these situations. And this is a battle that I intend to win.

There are some other challenges, mostly related to people. Obviously, most of my friends are not here, and most of the people I meet here are strangers. The former is a larger issue, and there is especially one person which I really miss. It also implies that one must work a bit harder to make friends when starting from scratch, but that is fun most of the time, except when standing alone in a bar amidst dozens of people who has known each other for at least a year. Americans are obviously very easy to meet, at least on a shallow level (prospects of deeper friendship remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic). Finally, I am alone here to a much larger extent than in Stockholm. Being alone -- as opposed to being lonely -- is actually a surprisingly positive feeling. I have really started to enjoy jogging around campus by myself, sitting in cafes reading or just walking around and discovering the neighborhood.

I wish to end on a positive note, because everything else would be most unrepresentative of how I feel. There are a considerable amounts of things which make me happy, or at least very pleased.

First of all, most of the time I'm really glad I've got an opportunity to confront these challenges (with the possible exception of missing people I care about). Also, Los Angeles is a cool place. The city itself is a unmatched experience, regardless of whether you think about famous places (at least 80% of all TV series I've heard of seem to named after places in LA..) or just genuinely nice spots. Experiencing American/West Coast culture is sometimes eye-opening and for the most part very enjoyable (did I mention the Diddy Riese ice cream/cookie sandwiches?).

I have met some really interesting people, just in these few weeks. In fact, truly realizing that personality traits transcends geographical and demographic borders is an amazing feeling. The courses I'm taking -- negotiations, technology management, social entrepreneurship, history of western civilization and screen writing -- are all above average quality in my book. And, of course, there are so many activities, experiences and excursions that seem possible here. So far, I've signed up for tennis and windsurfing classes, agreed to teach a person Swedish in return for (wave) surfing classes, started exploring the nightlife and started planning trips around Sunny California.

So far, this looks set to be some of the most memorable 11 weeks in a long time.

Free speech vs consideration for others

2007-03-14T13:55:00.000+01:00

Foreword: This has been a great day so far. 7-9, a stroll by the waterside and breakfast with a person I have come to appreciate very much. 9-12, final touches on my dissertation in International Relations. Noon, got a phone call from one of my best friends who just found out she gets to go to the exchange program of her dreams. 12-1pm, lunch with a close friend and interesting discussions. 1pm, got mail from a friend with a link to a previously broadcast TV program. 1-2, watched it. And even though I was set on finalizing my disseration this afternoon, I couldn't resist blogging about it.

First of all, here's the link: http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=780362 It's a Swedish documentary called Kobra, a 45 min program with different features on various contemporary topics. This program deals with free speech vs consideration for others. Thought-provoking highlights (min:sec):

* 1:54, Danish author and journalist Carsten Jensen on freedom of speech: "If you, as an experiment, spent 24 hours telling everybody what you really thought about them, the day would be disastrous. You couldn't meet your family, your colleagues or take a bus. If you told your fellow passengers how they smelled and how ugly they were, if you said everything you believed, life would be impossible to live. [Example from Liar Liar, with Jim Carrey being in an elevator and having to be painfully honest] That elevator is like society. You don't choose who you go in an elevator with. Everybody's going somewhere, but everybody have different objectives, different intentions. You stand crowded together, just like in society at large."

* 8:05, Ian Buruma, author in the news with his new book about a provocative Dutch movie director who murdered by a righteous Muslim: "What I try to do is to show how people from completely different backgrounds suddently met in this great clash [Muslem vs liberal secural democracy]. That shows something that is going on generally in Europe. "

* 9:04, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, politician and former Muslim, wrote the script for the film the director was murdered for: "Before you engage in any dialogue, before you engage in conversation of any sort, you have to know what you are willing to compromise on and what you are absolutely not willing to compromise on. Such notions as freedom of the individual, freedom of conscious (?), freedom of expression, the separation of state and church, I would say that those are notions we should never compromise on. Radical Islam, as it has arrived in Europe today, wants to abolish those freedoms, wants to dominate."

* 10:09, Ian Buruma: "All opinions are valid. But where you get into this gray area of ambiguity, is to what extent one should temper the right of free speech with a certain consideration. We do that in daily life anyway. It's not the same thing when a Jew tells a Jewish joke or when a gentile tells the same joke. We know that' s not the same. It's foolish to pretend that this kind of conventions never existed."

* 13:05, Ian Buruma: "It's too easy to be polemical on this and take a very strong, dogmatic view, of protecting the Enlightment values again the threat of Islam, or the sharia as the highest law. To try to see nuanced on this thing, on the other hand, is harder, but necessary because the situation itself is very ambigious. There is no absolute right or wrong here."

* 13:36, Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "You can and must critize religion at all times. That's what the West is based on, there is nothing racist about that. It is just a desire to take the debate away from what it should be about, and it is, are the beliefs called Islam compatible with liberal democracy? Some of the stuff is not. It is not racist to say that."

In general, I think Jensen and Buruma have a very good point. Everything doesn't have to be said just because it can be said. Also, I think Ali's points are valid, it is important to be able to have a discussion in society about potentially (partly) incompatible value systems. However, that doesn't justify insults. I think Jyllands-Posten did the wrong thing by printing the Mohammed cartoons. (Obviously, I most clearly take exception to the resulting violence and threats.)

Now, I'm off, maybe I'll elaborate my views some other time. Before I go: on a different note, if you speak Swedish, do not miss the Carl Bild satire at 14.43.

And finally, at 18.35, there's an interesting feature about The Valley of Wolves, an action movie about good Turks and evil Americans. On the one hand, the director do have a point that the Turks have had to accept being portrayed being the villains for decades. On the other hand, situating the plot in the contemporary Iraq conflict with a fictional egoistic American general is clearly a a bit sensitive.

Evil is what we commit when we try to fight "evil"

2007-03-03T17:43:00.000+01:00

From 1975 to 1979 - through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labour - the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population. This is a story of survival: my own and my family's. Though these events constitute my experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story too.
-- Author's note in Loung Ung: 'First They Killed My Father'

Yesterday, I spent a few hours preparing the data for my thesis in international relations. The data concerns the 114 intrastate armed conflicts, i.e. civil wars, that have been active since 1989. Even though I mainly focused on the data on a statistical level, I read bits and pieces here and there about the wars. It doesn't take much empathy to feel dismay about all gross human rights violence and conclude that some of the belligerents and militias are intrinsicly evil and that the world would be better of without them.

This is tricky stuff, if we care about consistency (as opposed to loud bashing). First of all, I do believe that the world in general would be better of without some of its inhabitants (Khmer Rough leaders come to mind). It is obvious that some individuals, while focusing on greed or ideological pursuits, can undermine the lives of many others; that is not disputed. But are they evil? Is the term useful?

And can we apply the term to people, or to acts only? As discussed in a Wikipedia article, who are evil? Are psychopaths, who lack empathy, evil by definition, or -- alternatively -- are they unable to be evil, if they don't understand? Do we judge means or ends when asserting evilness? Is bin Laden, who probably believes he is fighting for a noble goal, more evil than other people who fight for what they believe are noble goals, just because we don't agree to what his goals are? Or is he evil because the usage of large-scale violence always is "evil"? That is hardly a consensus standpoint. Often when people describes others as "evil", I believe they disagree with "the others'" objectives, maybe more so than their methods.

(A side note about violence: I passed the House of Nobility today with my Latin-speaking mother and was amused as we interpreted the inscriptions Animis et felicibus armis and Arte et Marte -- With courage and victorious struggle and [Peaceful] arts and Art [of War]. I think Swedish army officers today are less glorifying of war...)

Lars Linder reviews Cole's "The Myth of Evil" and notes that evil is certainly a reality for the person suffering, but a void concept for understanding why people commit atrocities. Wikipedia mention the claim that using the concept causes violence: the Nazis were able to incite people against the Jews because they were considered evil. Linder ends with a thought-provoking comment on the same issue:

"Today, our nation saw evil," president Bush said on September 11, 2001. In a certain sense, he was right. The devil is a mirror where we see our own fear. Evil is what we commit when we believe we are fighting him.

I think that is an important insight. Evil is not about ends per se, and it is not about means per se. It is about dehumanizing others (which bin Laden surely does, for one) and the consequences of doing so.

Visually mapping choice of employer

2007-01-28T17:00:00.000+01:00

The year of 2006 was a good year for me personally. I was fortunate enough to be spared from any personal losses and major setbacks, save for an occasionally, ehh, scratched heart. This is not the place for a pat-on-my-own-back reflection about what a jolly nice year it turned out to be. In the context of this blog entry, 2006 was the year when I decided what I wanted to do after grad school.

So what employer did I want to get an employment with? In the end, the decision boiled down to two criteria. (Well, maybe that’s not true, but these are criteria which I think I thought about the most.) The chart below spells out the axis. The first is the (gradual) choice between an organization where you focus entirely on your own career objectives (and of course the shareholders…) vs. an organization which produces outcomes which are socially beneficial. The other choice is between an organization where you spend most of your working days outside your comfort zone, i.e. in constant anxiety trying to learn new things all the time, vs. an organization where nothing really excites.

Clearly, these are extreme values – and that is why they indicate where the axes start and end. But I also believe most employers can be categorized according to these dimensions, and that their positions differ. So choosing an ideal employer is then simply a matter of identifying your own preferred coordinate and then trying to win employment with the employer closest to you in the chart. ;)

Me, where did I end up? If we make the two axes run from 0 to 10, I would say the employer I was fortunate enough to be able to choose is a (3, 8) – a definite focus on the employers and the firm (and the clients), but with clear opportunities for occasionally producing outcomes which have clear social benefits, and with a high potential for personal growth.

But this is a job I intend to start in September 2008. For the year between graduation in May 2007 and the fall of 2008, I still don’t know. My top choices are organizations with X values which are higher than this one, but with Y coordinates of the same magnitude.

The meaning of life

2007-01-28T16:30:00.000+01:00

I strongly believe in setting a meaning in life, rather than searching for it. It is not given, it is defined. (See Frankl’s book with the to-the-point title “The Meaning of Life”, for a touching description from a concentration camp survivor’s point of view.)

Presently, there are two – partly contradictory – objectives I want to work towards in life.

The first is being harmonic, i.e. short-term happiness. Since the long-term is just a lot of short-terms, clearly there can be no long-term happiness without short-term happiness. And harmony and happiness are joyful, wonderful, desirable things. Waking up close to somebody you love, or falling asleep when you are really tired, or having a delicious meal, or laughing with friends – that is pure pleasure, and that is something I value far too much to ever choose to be without for a significant time.

The second objective is personal development. Can’t this be reached within the constraints of objective #1? I’m afraid not; not always. You could say there will be some chilling and unpleasant winds when you rise from a certain Maslow stair case and start to climb higher. Or you could say that you don’t develop if don’t you stretch yourself into the unknown. And if mankind hadn’t ventured into the unknown, we would still be collecting carrots and fish near some river. The ecstasy of succeeding in learning new skills or things is too tempting for me to ignore. It has taught me that personal development is, if not a prerequisite, so at least a path to harmony and happiness in the future.

So how to balance these two objectives? I think my priorities will continuously be adjusted, depending partly on where I’m currently short. Also, I would guess there is an age affect which will make short-term happiness weigh heavier eventually.

About a year ago, I read an interview with Jeanette Söderberg, then CEO of IKEA Sweden. She also mentioned comfort zones, and the importance of reaching outside them. My twin pillars nearly fits into that terminology: short-term happiness is achieved within one’s comfort zone; personal development is achieved outside it. Long-term well-being should be a dance back and forth between these two pillars, in and out of the comfort zone. (It’s a bit like being on a dance floor where they have platforms for the guests, sometimes you want to dance on the platform, other times you just want to be down at the dance floor…)

Life is like skidding back and forth

2007-01-28T16:00:00.000+01:00

When a car’s tire loses its grip on the surface, the car may skid. As they teach you in driving classes, if you quickly turn the wheel left in an attempt to maneuver the car, you need to turn it right directly afterwards to compensate. It is virtually impossible to do it the right the first time, so you need to continue adjusting until the car is back on track. By the way, this is the same logic as a binary search: if you have a long list of people and you look for an M, you might start in the middle. If you find a K, you look a few pages down, if you find a P this time, you flip back.

This also applies to personality traits and to society as a whole. A person who comes to understand that he speaks the truth too bluntly might change into being secretive and unwilling to be open at all. A government that understood that there is a problem might devise a solution that address the problems, but at the same time goes too far and create a new problem that it is the opposite of the original one.

In general, I think it makes sense to describe traits and desirable states as a range between two dichotomies: most things are a compromise between X and Y. A person who is more X is less Y. Being more X is not always more desirable, nor is always more deplorable. In order to be able to evaluate whether the current position is close to the desirable one, we must start by acknowledging that there is a trade-off between X and Y, and that just maximizing one variable or one trait seldom is a good solution.

In defense of the bullet point

2007-01-28T15:30:00.000+01:00

Three things. First, let me explain why I think the bullet point needs defending. Second, let me actually defend it, by basically illustrating how it has been in used during the entire history of the thinking apes. Finally, I will wrap up.

I totally agree with everybody’s gut feeling: being structured is not sexy. Even I have a hard time imagining a Shakespeare play where Romeo would confess his love for Juliet using three arguments, clearly delimited and numbered. And maybe that isn’t necessary, maybe Romeo manages to get the message across anyway.

But I do believe that being structured helps communication (and thinking, but that’s another point). And speaking in a structured way – using bullet points such as “first”, “second” etc – is not something invented by the PowerPoint user documentation team. The old philosophers were structured when lying out arguments. The Romans knew that logos implied structure and clarity. And just check any textbook in any subject for a deep-dive in structuromania. Having some structure serves as a lubrication between brains, it helps messages and thoughts get through more easily and let’s the participants focus on discussing and developing the argument, not on understanding it.

Actually, there is no need to wrap up. (By the way, that is one disadvantage of declaring in speaking that you have “three things” – something you can’t think of more than two.) That said, occasionally I think I’ll try to “un-bullet” my stream of communication. After all, when I propose to someone, I don’t want it to be perceived as a structured argument.

The tall, pale westerner

2007-01-28T15:00:00.000+01:00

It's good that the ferry eventually started moving. The wind makes the heat more endurable. Hope mummy will be successful today at the market. Maybe she will even sell all the fruits today? That would be so great. Then maybe we can get pork today for dinner. Ah, pork. I can almost feel the taste of it. I shouldn't really think of this now. This just makes me more hungry. Well, we are almost halfway across the river.

Who is that? That tall guy left the tourist bus? Is he stupid or something? Why walk around here on the ferry if he can be sitting inside? Maybe he 's American. Or something. He surely has some money. I must ask him. He will surely be able to give just something small. If he can buy those clothes, he must have a lot of money. Maybe I can get 500 riel. Or 1000. Or maybe 2000. Or maybe even a dollar. I know those foreigners just shuffle money around them.

I will ask him. There he is. Behind that car. I’ll corner him. He can’t get away. He has to give me something. He will surely give me something. He has everything he needs. Mum would be so happy if I could give her just 500 riel. Stupid fuck. He’s not even looking at me. I’ll make him look at me. If I grab his arm, he can’t ignore me.

Oh, he is so tall. He is looking down at me. He looks angry. I wonder what he is saying. Why should I care, if he gives me some money I’ll let go. Otherwise I’ll stay here. I’m not backing down. I want some money. Mummy would be so happy. I must get some money. He must give me some money. I’m not letting go.

What’s that? It’s Uncle To. Why does he do that? Why doesn’t he help me? We could have succeeded, if he had just helped me. Now the tall westerner is walking away. I hate his smile. And I was really hoping for something. Stupid fuck.

Explaining love by Elias spheres

2006-12-29T18:21:00.000+01:00

I had lunch with a good friend today. We started discussing love, or, more specifically, falling in love. We were both eager to increase our understanding about the processes involved. You could say that our starting point was a common desire to decompose the vague concept of “interpersonal chemistry”.

I’ll try to sum up the discussion with the graph below. Feel free to disagree if you think it’s oversimplifying or simply incorrect. For other ideas about mankind’s current thinking about love, you could consult the approximately 979 million web pages Google provides for us One of the most interesting hits might be Wikipedia’s discussion about “limerence”, a state similar to infatuation.

This might look like some psychedelic dart board, but it’s meant to be some sort of Venn diagram indicating various parts of the population. The square box is meant to be everybody. By the way, the sizes of the various objects are not even indicative of proportions, it is just meant to be readable. This is from the perspective of one individual. Just for readability, let’s call her Maria, the most common female name in Sweden. This a generic model, so Maria’s preferences about people determine where in the box they end up. All people Maria meet would end up somewhere in the box, depending on how they are and how she feels about them.

The people included in the outer circle set are individuals display characteristics which would enable them to potentially become close friends with Maria. This is in reality a quite narrow eye of a needle, except for a person who would be able to connect with everybody on a deeper level. The gray zone contains those who can become good friends of Maria’s, but no more (and nothing less -- having close friends is probably one of the most rewarding things about being a human!). The people in the black region are those Maria would never become close friends with.

The inner circle contains people which Maria could potentially come to love as long-term partners. This clearly requires sexual attraction, as well as other traits. Note that in this model, being perceived as having the potential to be a close friend and confidant is a prerequisite, but clearly not enough, for being a potential partner. This is not a set of those who Maria actually loves, or will love. This is a set of those individuals who possess qualities which could make Maria potentially love them, given enabling circumstances. You could say they are “boy-/girlfriend material”. But the yellow circles indicates those individuals which Maria might well “want it work with” since they seem like great matches, but who do not make the final cut…

The intersecting ellipse is loosely defined as “charm”, or with a circular definition, people who can make Maria infatuated. These individuals may possess a certain manner, a certain self-confidence or may be masters of playing a now-i-give-you-attention-and-confirmation-now-i-don’t game. The people in the blue ellipse might be players, or just behaving in a way which attracts Maria somehow. Some of those might not make the cut for close friends, or certainly not for long-term partners, but Maria might still develop feelings for them, at least in the short run. In the long run, a relationship seems doomed.

And in the middle, we have the red set of individuals, which I’ll name the “Elias sphere”, in honor of my lunch partner’s past. Those are people who Maria explicitly or implicitly reckons could be close friends and sexually attractive partners, but who he or she also thinks of as charming. Our reference person might never fall in love with a person belonging in this set. This could occur for a variety of process-related reasons, for example because they never met, didn’t want to risk their friendship or because the opportunity for dating never arose. But it is likely that our reference person would fall in love with anybody in this Elias sphere, if the timing and process were right. Clearly, since they are part of the ellipse set, as well as the inner circle, they have the self-confidence and game-playing skills which seem important in a date phase.

So what does this tells us? It’s a first crack at understanding how our example person, Maria, might classify people she runs into. It tries to deal with the fact that Maria would judge different individuals to have different boyfriend potentials, as well as acknowledging the fact that circumstances and process matter. It also tries to differentiates between qualities which makes somebody a very good friend, which makes them boyfriend material and which makes them object of Maria’s infatuation.

It is probably not self-evident that there are more people Maria could consider having as boyfriends if it wasn’t for the actually falling-in-love-part, than she would actually fall in love with. In other words, falling-in-love-able people is the more exclusive selection. It might also be disputable if all people Maria could potentially come to love long-term are people she would value as confidants and friends.

This is what we talked about today. I think we’ll return to the matter on our next fika.

Losing an appendix, gaining perspectives

2006-12-05T12:08:00.000+01:00

This year has been a lot about professional self-realization. I have spent time within different organisations and proved to myself that I can contribute. This year has also been about other sorts of self-realization and the development of new interests and abilities. My months in Vietnam and Cambodia and my role in the Nobel NightCap Committee are probably the clearest example.

Last week, my appendix got tired of its, agreeably unsatisfying, life. It prompted a minor uprising in my middle regions, but in a slightly cowardish way refused to identify itself as the leader. After a few days of confused negotiations between the health care sector and my stomach region, the decided to let the appendix go, which was in retrospect a most wise decision.

Tuesday and Friday last week, the days after the surgery, was probably the most horrible days of my life so far, as far back as I remember. A few days later, I'm up and running around again thanks to the great surgery and care team at the Södersjukhuset hospital. I never wish to redo these days (seems unlikely for the same reason, obviously..), and I wouldn't wish it to anybody.

Still, it's shocking how much perspective a few days can give you -- just stepping out from my normality where Palm pilots and delivery are the norms, into a sickiality where trembling steps close to a wall and observing the fingers on the clock are the norms. I don't really know why, but I feel much stronger, even though these days clearly exposed my fragility as a body.

I guess it somehow made me feel that "if I can get through this, mishaps in every day life can't touch me". It also proved a success for the "if you push yourself into a positive loop, everything works out itself" mentality -- although I should give credits to the drugs and to my body for pushing me back into the positive, I-can-do-this loop. And I should definitely give credit to my family, Emma, Golnaz, Lisa, Katarina and Frida who visited me, in some cases several times (mum definitely made the record number of apperances possible in a few days), as well as everybody who called and cared. Without you, I might still have been there, pitying myself.

And by the way, I think I will get to like my scar. A few more entries like this, I definitely need something to prove my manhood.

Insight of yesterminute

2006-12-05T11:59:00.000+01:00

I have long thought that with some people who are close to you, it is not important if you actually have a physically intimate relationship or not. There are natural practical limits to such things. What is important is that you can realize all the non-intimate possibilities in the relationship, which are probably more unique.

I just had a complementary thought. With some people, it doesn't matter if you have an intimate relationship now or not. You'll probably have an intimate relationship at some point in the future. That's a bit like saving icecream for a rainy (or sunny?) day.

Not So Quiet on the Eastern Front

2006-10-15T13:07:00.000+02:00

Not that many new (bloggable) thoughts since last time. But as a substitute for brain food, please find below some food for the eye. Just click on any picture and you will be taken directly to the corresponding part of my photobucket site.

FIRST FEW DAYS IN HANOI: the city, going to the opera, food and much else

HA LONG BAY: a trip to the marine national park Ha Long Bay with swimming, cliffs, caves and trekking

EXPERIMENTS IN HANOI: preparing and executing games/experiments for 150 students

HANOI HASH HOUSE HARRIERS: an interesting combination of running, a mingel, masonry and university drunkenness

SIGHTSEEING AND PARTYING: Temple of Literature, as well as more modern dance temples...

NHA TRANG: diving life, both below and above the surface

HANGING OUT IN SAIGON: having a beer on the street for €0.10, or sipping on a €6 drink on a 9th floor roof garden..

SECOND EXPERIMENT, NOW IN SAIGON: preparing and executing, for 120 new students

These pictures were added on October 31st.

MORE PICTURES FROM SAIGON: partying, dancing, invitations, karoake

CAMBODIA - CITIES AND COUNTRYSIDE: Phnom Penh and Siam Reap, as well as the countryside

CAMBODIA - ANGKOR WAT: the fabolous temple ruins in the jungle of North Cambodia

EMMA'S GONE FISHING: Emma goes fishing with Vietnamese friends Xuan, Youm and Tien

Phrase of today

2006-10-03T08:00:00.000+02:00

"[We look for people] who give themselves permission to do big things."
-- Ashoka on their team selection process

Hanoi calling

2006-09-20T14:30:00.000+02:00

My blogging schedule will be slightly different during the next six to eight weeks. Right now, I'm in Vietnam on a grant from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to write my thesis. I'm here with my friend Emma from uni.

Our aim with the study is to perform economic experiments to assess people's propensity to lie and their trust in strangers, based on studies by Berg et al and Gneezy. Deception/lying and trust has been two separate fields of research, and one thing we want to do is to see if there is any correlation between a person's propensity to lie and his or her trust in others. More on this later. Maybe.

My ambitions are to keep this blog running even when I'm here (if anything, travelling obviously gives you even more things to reflect upon). We'll see how that goes. But if you read Swedish, I do suggest you take a look at http://www.jstedman.se/emmajacob where you will find a more travel-oriented blog.

Interpersonal ambitions and negative emotions

2006-09-03T23:30:00.000+02:00

I read somewhere that writers should beware of using writing as a way of consoling themselves. Maybe people-who-like-to-construct-analytical-frameworks should beware of using modeling as a way of consoling themselves?

Let me suggest a way to model interpersonal ambitions, and what could happen if the ambitions turn out not to be mutual. "Interpersonal ambitions" would be what two people who meet each other feel about the other part. Both of them have their view about the other person, and those views could clearly differ. I'd argue that there are two important aspects to consider.

One aspect is the extent of sexual desire or attraction. Sometimes it's zero, for example when two heterosexual people of the same sex meet. Sometimes it's strong, and one or both feel an urgent need to initiate a physical relationship. The other aspect could be called "intellectual desire". That's the extent to which a person want to spend time with, talk to, get to know, hang out with another person. If my "intellectual desire" for you is strong, you are really important to me as an individual and you can't be substituted by somebody else. This is similar to the "enchantment" I discussed before. However, there is nothing inheritely sexual about this. I can be intellectually fascinated by somebody I'm not necessarily attracted to.

I used to think that falling in love was kinship + attraction + something else. Now I'd argue that there is no third part. If I really really want to spend time with you because I find you interesting and stimulating, and I really really want to touch you and be physical -- then I am in love with you. Period. This doesn't not explain how these feelings or desires come about. It simply gives us a way to describe them when they exist. (I left "loving somebody" out of the picture, because that is more a habit than a spontaneous emotion.)

I've tried to illustrate this visually below. Sexual desire and intellectual desire are expressed as different axes. The two people's current positions are shown as small squares, one turquoise, one, ehh, apricot colored. In this example, the two people seem to have a pretty similar view of each other. Both find the other vaguely attractive, and both are quite interested in getting to know the other one.

But I think there are also an expectation about future potential. That is illustrated with the circles. Ms Apricot can conceivably imagine being very attracted by Mr Turquoise, as well as being extremely fascinated by his personality. It need not happen, but she can see how it could happen. However, Mr Turquoise isn't as positive. His view is that Ms Apricot and himself will never be lovers. He believes there is a limit to how much he will be attracted by her, and how much he will stimulated by her as a person. He could conceivably be wrong, but if he's reasonably mature and know what he wants, the chances are that he also knows what he doesn't want. The set of possible positions is mapped as turquoise and apricot rectangles. We can see that even though Mr Turqouise and Ms Apricot implicitly agree how they want their relationship to look like today, there is a considerable potential incompatibility (non-intersecting rectangles) going forward.

If the two people's social ambitions are incompatible, one or both might experience negative emotions. Why do we feel this mental pain? There are two dimensions of reasons which I think are worth mentioning. One, you could feel a loss today and/or feel that you lose something that has not yet materialized, but that could have happened. Two, the loss could hurt because it affects your self-confidence, but it could also hurt because you fundamentally miss out on the great (potential) experience of hanging out with the other person in the way you want to hang out. A parallel: you could desire an apple both because you want to be able to eat it -- but also because you really like apples and want to eat it.

By the way, that forsaken experience could be both intellectual and sexual. In some cases when I have been turned down or dumped historically, I have actually missed the lost intellectual experience more -- which I suppose suggest that it would have been better to be friends to start with.

Clearly, multiple of these explanations could apply in any one case. I've summarized them below -- but used the simpler example of eating an apple instead of a forsaken relationship in order to highlights the differences.

So what insights do all these boxes really add? Isn't all this obvious? Maybe. But this way of drawing the model got me thinking about both falling in love as an "automatic" consequence of sexual desire and intellectual desire, as well the difference between views today and expectations about tomorrow.

Constructing models is probably a more rewarding exercise than simply looking at other people's models. Sorry for being egoistic and keeping the best part for myself ;)

Story-telling was not a core competence for the ancient Greeks?

2006-09-03T17:20:00.000+02:00

Greek Homēros means "hostage." There is a theory that his name was back-extracted from the name of a society of poets called the Homeridae, which literally means "sons of hostages," i.e., descendants of prisoners of war. These men were not sent to war because their loyalty on the battlefield was suspect, hence they would not get killed in battles. Thus they were entrusted with remembering the area's stock of epic poetry, to remember past events, in the times before literacy came to the area.
-- Wikipedia

I'm not sure if I would entrust the task of knowledge transfer and identity building in my society to some blokes whose loyalty could be questioned...

A preference for subtleness?

2006-08-31T22:00:00.000+02:00

In my last posting, I suggested a) some simple-to-observe variables might be correlated with complex behavior b) we must be picky with choosing these variables, otherwise, they will be misleading.

Let me propose one such variable: preference for subtleness.

So what are different examples of such a preference? Some of my friends are much more into movies with an happy ending, where people kiss as expected, than some other. Some prefer paintings which closely depict reality, others like abstract images. Some laugh at irony or puns, others prefer slapstick. Some admire people who speak in black-and-white and "determined" way, others appreciate a more abstract and nuanced argument. And are these traits in any sense correlated to each other? I believe so. And together, they form a "style" or a certain "behavior" -- there is a "prefers subtleness"-type of person, and there is the opposite.

Let us disregard whether this preference for subtleness is some sort of "snobbism" or whether it is a "true" desire for the more stimulating and non-obvious insights. That is not important. But I do think that you can say a few things about people's behavior and style by understanding how they look at and feel about subtleness.

I want to be non-normative about this: nobody has any right to question other people's preferences. Nevertheless, preferences for subtleness differ between people, and to me, that is a more interesting difference than less subt ... ehh ... more superficial differences.

Why is science > general learning?

2006-08-31T21:40:00.000+02:00

Science: a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research
-- Wikipedia

I prefer this description: science is about understanding what is similar and what is not. That is, being able to say "A and B are of the same kind, B and C are not of the same kind". And how do we know that? How can we ever compare distinct objects? Especially if we have 1,000 datapoints and not just three? We simplify by focusing on some significant part which we believe will -- on average -- tell us about the state of the whole.

If we see that a person smokes, we don't need to examine her health completely, we can predict that she will likely die younger than the average person. If we see that an animal is a cow, we don't need to count legs, we can predict it will normally be four. If we know we are in Sweden, we don't need a thermometer, we can predict it will most likely never be 40 degrees C. When we have 1000 people/animals/countries (ehh) to assess, being able to predict health/legs/temperature with as little data and time as possible obviously is beneficial. We need to isolate the interesting aspects, or variables.

This aspect, or variable, allows us to understand patterns and linkages. It allows us to see that this specific difference or similarity we observe indicates another difference or similiarity. This simple variable serve as a proxy for something more complicated. People who doesn't smoke tend to live longer (correlation between smoking behavior and health). Cows tend to have more legs than cangaroos (correlation between animal family and leg count). It tends to be colder in Sweden than in Italy (correlation between geography and temperature). The trick is finding relevant dimensions which help us create meaningful ways of dividing things.

A caveat: Some very obvious differences might not be very useful for most purposes, such as demographic variables like sex, origin and age when used to understanding personality. I'm much more similar in most -- relevant -- ways to my five year younger female friend born in Teheran than to the average male born the same year as me at Akademiska sjukhuset.

So we must be careful in chosing specific variables to explain complex behavior. But on the other hand, if we succeed in defining these variables, we have improved our ability to understand the world quite significantly. Seeing patterns > observing raw data.

Eyebrows and simple pleasures

2006-08-01T12:34:00.000+02:00

I have come to appreciate 'no-regret' actions very much. You know, when there are no negative side-effects, only advantages with an action. It takes all the anxiety out of the decision process, after all, there is nothing to worry about. It's not only that you don't have to bear the negative side-effects, you also don't have to estimate and evaluate them. I have also come to appreciate actions which requires little effort and still yields a great deal - a high Return On Investment, so to speak. And if you combine these two characteristics of an action, it's a panacea: little effort required, lots of positive outcomes, and no side-effects to weigh in.

A few days ago, I did something which can serve as a good example of this. I cut off some hairs from my eyebrows. It had been irritating me for some time, since they always started to point at funny angles after becoming wet from showering. But now: no long hairs, no worries.

Sometimes, in this society of self-fulfillment and personal development, life is all about simple pleasures.

What enchants a Jacob?

2006-07-28T15:22:00.001+02:00

You often hear that you can't understand emotions -- that they have no defined root causes:

I really like her, but I can't seem to fall in love with her, can't understand why
He's a nice lad, but he doesn't have that little special something, whatever that is
I donno why, I just didn't like him

In my mind, that is not true. I believe you can often probe inside yourself to find out what drives your feelings. I agree that it is a most imperfect science. But not being able to explain 100% is not the same as not being able to explain 0%.

To prove my point, let me elaborate a bit on what personality traits I think can cause me to become enchanted by someone. First of all, I won't generalize at this point: this is what drives my emotions. Also, I wouldn't say "fall in love", because that is not only a personality thing, it is also a context thing. But if we understand why Joe is enchanted by Lisa, we would be closer to understand why Joe falls in love with Lisa.

By the way, I think you can be enchanted by somebody you are not physically attracted to, or even gender groups you are not attracted to (e.g. men). And since defining what people are physically attracted to is less intellectually interesting (however good discussions it might make for on Saturday nights), let's stay focused on desirable personality traits.

Reflective. I tend to become very intrigued by people who have 1) the mental capacity for structuring and communicating clear lines of thought, 2) the curiosity to look into various aspects of themselves or life and 3) the ability to communicate their thoughts, and listen, in a way that faciliates a meaningful and interesting discussion.
Vibrant and energized. I like people who are bubbling with energy, who almost stutter when they speak because they have so many things they want to say at the same time. And like most people -- I've noticed -- I am flattered when such a person concentrates their energy and their gaze on me for some time: "So, Jacob, what do you..."
Same sense of humour as me. Two aspects here. First, being amused by the same things makes it easier to connect to another person. Also, I find smiles, giggling and laughter attractive in themselves -- at least, as long as you don't suspect it of being shallow. In almost all cases, somebody who is giggling or laughing out load is preferable to somebody beautiful but too self-conscious with a stone face.
Challenging me. I hate when people just nods happily every time I say something, or even worse, seems to be so impressed or respectful that they don't dare arguing or speak their mind. There is nothing like a good discussion.
Self-confident. I still have to think about this one. But I wanted to add it, since I believe it to be true. Self-esteem/self-confidence is sexy, at least if it stays within healthy limits.
Empathy and altruism. Egoism might be the norm for many efficient transactions, but it's not pretty. I don't think I could become really close with somebody who would be indifferent in front of a Medecins Sans Frontiers billboard about dying Africans.
Being open and encouraging openness. Obviously I don't refer to socially disabled people who would say "I think the shirt you are wearing tonight is awful". But it's a rare gift to be able to speak freely about complicated and sensitive things, like emotions. With some people, you feel that you could say anything you think of, and that makes your feel that their soul is closer to yours.. Also, it's much easier to feel empathy towards people who are clear with their emotions and what they feel.
Caring in things I care about - like society, literature or drama. This is important, but the attitude and interest is clearly more important than factual knowledge.
Combining different and opposite interests. When I meet a person who designs robots but knows how to speak in hexameter -- or a person who designs iambic hexameter poems but knows how to speak about robots -- I'm easily intrigued, fascinated and ... potentially enchanted.

This was a very rough first attempt to structure some thoughts. I have obviously omitted a great many obvious characteristics, precisely because they are obvious. All comments are welcome. If you are a former or current stakeholder in a being-enchanted-process and feel that some of your key personality traits are being neglected, I would value your input even more ;)

Thanks, SL, for bringing poetry into my face

2006-07-26T00:42:00.000+02:00

The Public Transport in The County of Stockholm, SL, has since 1993 been displaying shorts poems on buses and in the tube. When I was deleting old text messages from my phone, I found snippets of the following poems as draft texts, probably taken down in a hurry before I had to get of. At first, I intended to print them and put them on my wall. Then I decided to put them here, on my e-wall.

Thanks, SL, for running this "poetry in motion" project and contributing to more enjoyable journeys. And sorry, folks, I wouldn't dare translating these.

Långsamt som kvällsskyn...
Långsamt som kvällskyn mister sin purpur
där över milsfjärdens blänkande slätt,
sakta som brisen somnar därborta
långt, så att ögat ej skönjer det rätt,
fjärran som ekot dör efter sista
utdragna tonen av skärflickans sång,
skall jag dig glömma, du, som gav purpur,
vårbris och toner åt livet engång!
-- K. A. Tavaststjerna

Islossning
Ej var jag sky,
ej var jag våg:
Död som en is
fjättrad jag låg.
Kom så du, sol,
gjorde mig fri,
våg är jag nu,
sky kan jag bli.
-- A. T. Gellerstedt

Saknad
Så liten plats en människa tar på jorden.
Mindre än ett träd i skogen.
Så stort tomrum hon lämnar efter sig.
En hel värld kan inte fylla det.

Så litet en människas hjärta är.
Inte större än en fågel.
Rymmer ändå hela världen
och tomma rymder större än hela världen
ändlösa tomma rymdskogar av tystnad sång.
-- I. Arvidsson

Twenty bookshelves to read about ... time

2006-06-26T12:30:00.000+02:00

Search Amazon for "time management" turned up 6,792 books -- more than 20 normal bookshelves. Searching for "meaning of life" turned up about 2,243 entries. "sexual satisfaction" resulted in 126 hits. Wonder what people's priorities are these days...?

I'm intrigued by the fact that it can be so hard. Most of my friends seem to fail, no matter how smart they are. And yet, we have everything in favour of us: being alive during a convenient part of history, in a convenient part of the world, in a convenient age. No, I'm not talking about finding/defining the meaning of life, nor about the wonders of sexual satisfaction. I am talking about time management.

So, this is my thinking. Basically, I want to do as many pleasant and as many developing things in life as possible, while still taking care of all everyday must-do's. I preferably want to avoid feeling stressed up. And I want to sleep as close to 8 hours a night as possible. I'm assuming I work about 40-45 hours a week, which is true for now.

One of the most important jacob drivers for happiness and development is meeting friends and other interesting people. But I need to do other things. And with my current lack of planning, it happens very often that I end up with a calendar full of people and with no room for anything else which I need/want to do. So this is basically an attempt to meet those needs ... while still trying to have plenty of time for socializing.

As a way to structure the week, I'll divide it into Units of spare time (I couldn't bother to come up with some creative name). A Unit is normally 2-2,5 hours, which is the time I hang up with a friend on average, or the time which I think I could focus on reading without taking a break. There are 2 Units on weekday evenings (maybe 6-8 and 9-11 pm) and 4 Units per days on week-ends (lunch, early afternoon, late afternoon and evening). The week-end evening Unit is longer, since I usually don't split up my Saturday and Sunday evenings. So, basically, I have 18 Units per week to allocate.

There are five main things I want to do with my awake time: reading, blogging, doing personal admin, doing some physical exercise and hanging out with people.

* Reading, both fiction and non-fiction. I will try to spend 2 Units on reading, probably as one block. I have a backlog of about 60 books and journal which I have on my bookshelf close to my bed, and this is clearly silly. I will try to focus on one book each time -- and basically always finish it, even if that means skimming. It might work less well for fiction when skimming isn't such an attractive option, but I'll try. I will also occasionally go back to some older reading material, e.g. some interesting articles and make sure I remember the key take-aways. This should be a much more productive way to read non-fiction than to just browse in random works when I can't bother to do anything else. I believe it's good to set the week's reading theme in advance.

* Blogging. 1 Unit. I really enjoy when I get time to do some writing. So I'll try to do more of that in the future.

* Personal admin (paying bills, cleaning up, laundry, ...). I believe 1 Unit should be enough here, if I can maintain focus. This could for instance be one week day evening combined with blogging.

* Working out. Right now, my ambition level is to go for a jog for 30-45 min twice a week, as well as doing my 3 min morning work-out ritual with sit-ups and push-ups. I think I will try to combine jogging with the other activities above to give myself some upside to an otherwise mundane activity. So, no extra Units for jogging, they are shared with 1) reading 2) blogging/personal admin.

* People. This is basically a residual for me -- there are so many interesting individuals out there that I could easily spend multiple parallel lives just debating and arguing with, listening to, laughing with and generally enjoying people. Doing the math gives me 14 Units here, which should be plenty of time, no matter how I choose to allocate this between different people. Hanging out with as many different people as possible is clearly not an end in itself, but it might sometimes be a powerful way to achieve happiness and personal development.

Again, the last bullet point isn't really the problem here, since it's much more likely that any out of several people initiates a beer than that I initiate a laundry session. So the problem is making sure I have time for the first four activities. So I will try to book the slots for jogging/reading and jogging/blogging/personal admin on the Sunday the week before, and then basically leave the rest of my days for hanging out with people.

Also, I think it makes sense to put other available time slots to social use, for examples lunches and even breakfasts. A friend and I had a walk to my workplace last week, which was a perfect way to socialize for 45 minutes in the morning sun.

This is what I came up with after walking around the nearby castle while doing my laundry. This should work. I hope it works. I want to have it all ... and without feeling stressed up! ;)

Defending absent friends or having an open debate?

2006-06-18T16:00:00.000+02:00

It was about 12 years ago. I was in the dressing room get changed after my karate class. Some of the other guys started talked about a mutual friend of theirs. They were really condescending when the spoke about him. It turned out that this guy had failed to verbally defend his girlfriend when other people critized her. She wasn't present and he hadn't stood up for her. So all my friends in the dressing room thought he was a coward for not speaking up in her defence.

As you can understand, since I remember this, the story and the associated morals made a huge impression on me. But now when I retell the story, I can't help to think about the irony that noone in the dressing room stood up for this guy when he was being critized in his absence...

This isn't just about a 12 year old case. In the last month or so, I have been forced to take a standpoint on this on at least two occasions when one friend have been openly critical of another of my friends, when the latter wasn't present. In one case, it was even mutual - both spoke to me about their negative views on the other person. My initial reaction was a bit to "shoot the messenger" - "why are you saying negative things about my friends"? But then I felt that this was an unjustified reaction, and it got me thinking.

It's a bit tricky. Let's map out the conflicting values here. First of all, there's the principle that you should not verbally attack people who are not there to defend themselves -- and if that happens, people should speak up for their friends. That's fine with me, I respect the underlying principles. But secondly, there's the principle of free and honest debate. If friend A has serious issues with friend B, why shouldn't he be allowed to discuss it with me? After all, I'm A's friend as well, and have a moral obligation to hear him out and help him.

This is my current thinking on the matter: when it comes to accounting for facts or analysing actual behaviour, I will listen without objecting, even when the person is critical about somebody I know and like. I will probably continue to appreciate my friend to the same extent, even if I'm made aware of some of his or her faults. After all, your appreciation of your friends are not really linked to their capabilities. Also, I won't "shoot the messenger" but will hear him or her out. On the other hand, I will object if somebody is just plainly defaming a friend, or if they are publicly dragging my friend's name through the mud.

To me, this seems like a good way to managing this case of conflicting values. What think you?

Heathcliff vs Buddha

2006-06-17T15:45:00.000+02:00

If I understand the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory system correctly, thinking and feeling are the two dichotomical ways of forming judgments and making choices. Obviously, a certain individual exhibits different behaviour on different occasions. But I think it's fair to argue that some people are -- or act -- more emotional, while others tend to stay more on the rational side. Another way to view this is that is just a matter of perspective. "Emotional" people tend to prioritize positive short-term effects, "rational" people would look for what's best in the long run.

On the one hand, we have the Heathcliffs who are driven by emotions and primitive drives. For a slightly less extreme example, just look at an average Hollywood movie. I would say that in 90 % of all movies, the hero/heroine's key choices are more driven by emotional motives, like love, than any sort of rational or coherent decision model. One example could be the great movie The English Patient, which is a classic example of the trade-off between saving the one you love and saving loads of other people.

On the other hand, we have the more rational (or cold, if you prefer) people who tend to make decisions based on whether they make sense long-term based on some values they hold dear. With that view, feelings are more of an annoying factor disturbing the logic-based picture. One of my best friends had a boyfriend who's a prime example (sorry, M!). He sought to stay away from negative emotions to protect his harmony of mind and make sure he did what he thought was right in the long-term. He would choose not to miss my friend while they were apart, because that was a negative and "unnecessary" emotion. In a way, I think you could draw a parallel to Buddhism here and its ultimate goal of reaching nirvana, that is, "being devoid of passions such as lust, anger or craving".

So, what's best practise, thinking or feeling? I think this one is about having a preference. And as economists (who have studied Latin in grammar school) say "de gustibus non est disputandum", "there is no disputing about tastes" -- you can't say that one taste is better than another taste.

That being said, I think life is generally about bouncing back and forth, a bit like a sailing boat correcting its route when it discovers it's slightly off track. When I'm sad, I curse my emotional self and wish I was more rational. When I can't mobilize empathy on some matter, or when I provoke people with too structured arguments on issues they have strong views, I wish I could be more feeling. The first is generally more of a problem. So my ideas about deconstructing events should be seen in the light of me generally being from the "having feelings" camp.

If that was not the case, I would probably looks for cheap drugs which would unleash my feelings instead...

Deconstructing unhelpful patterns of thinking: handling syringes, ants, corrupt police and being turned down

2006-05-08T00:15:00.000+02:00

Googling for “fear of needles” turned up 4,490,000 hits. Apparently, my friend isn’t the only one who is scared. But that wasn’t really any comfort to her, when we were walking towards the medical centre that afternoon a month ago. Myself, I wouldn’t say I’m afraid, but I used to get very stiff and concentrated when a needle was moving towards me.

When we were walking towards the medical centre, I tried to calm her down by making her look at needles in a new way. If you view needles as sharp metal objects penetrating your skin, sending impulses of pain to your nervous system, of course it’s frightening. But if you look at it on a cell level, or a molecular level, or even atomic level, the picture is different. On a molecular level, it’s just ‘needle molecules’ or ‘vaccine molecules’ mixing with different molecules in your body. On an atomic level, the atoms from the needle and from your body are even more indistinguishable.

So if you deconstruct that experience and try to think about what it really is – on another level – it shouldn’t be as frightening. It worked for me, I didn’t feel as stiff. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for my friend. The old classic hand-holding was far more efficient.

Actually, most social and physical phenomena can be “deconstructed” and analyzed in a more rational way. I used to view ants as disgusting, especially after having seen magnified pictures of them. When thinking of them as a collection of cells, they get less frightening.

Another example: we were stopped by armed police in Russia trying to extract bribes from us. It’s an uncomfortable situation, and a least one person in our group got really scared. But if you think about that from a rational – and sober – point-of-view, there isn’t really much to be afraid of. It’s extremely unlikely that they would harm us physically. Most likely, we would be able to get away without paying anything since we had a Russian-speaking person with us with an embassy card. Even if we did have to pay, the sums would be equivalent to what you spend on booze on a night out. And it would under all circumstances be an interesting experience, the basis for many stories, almost worth paying for…

A final example: when some people get turned down, they take it very personally. They really shouldn’t. Getting turned down merely says that this one person doesn’t fancy doing whatever-you-proposed with you. It doesn’t say anything about yourself. If you got statistically reliable proof that you are a person nobody wants to make out with / dance with / have a coffee with, that would be a cause for concern and self-pity (and a strong incentive to change). But getting turned down once, or even twice or three times, isn’t statistical proof. The sample’s too small, and you don’t know the reasons for their behavior – it might not be related to you, the people you ask might already have a preferred making-out / dancing / coffee-drinking partner.

I think my points are:

Don’t get too emotional, especially don't let yourself be consumed by negative emotions, try to think clear in different contexts.

Ask yourself what would be valid reasons for feeling sorrow, fear etc. And assess whether the situation at hand is really anything like that.

If you realize that your emotions are “not reasonable“ and “unproductive”, try to understand why you’re feeling that way and especially what you can do about it.

I actually drew a mind-map based on two hypotheses about myself when I got home drunk after being turned down some time ago, and it helped me. That might be a bit too much of structuring for some… ;)

I recently ran into two parallel applications of the same processes.

One, I took a course in Decision Analysis. Biases was one concept which was dealt with. The argument went: everybody has biases affecting their ability to make sound decisions, but it’s possible to diminish the problem if you explicitly think about your assumptions, how you’ve derived them, whether that’s reasonable judging from your present experience etc. The more you explicitly analyze the way you subconsciously make decisions, the better your decisions become. (The new bestseller Blink takes the opposite standpoint).

Two, I was speaking to a friend who had been attending cognitive therapy who said my method seemed familiar. According to Wikipedia, cognitive therapy is about “recognizing unhelpful patterns of thinking and reacting, then modifying or replacing these with more realistic or helpful ones”...

So, I guess this posting is an argument for replacing unhelpful emotions or instinctive reactions with more logically sound and utility-maximizing thoughts. It might sound a bit callous. If you don’t know me, don’t be afraid. I promise I’ll keep at least my fair share of unproductive emotions and illogical reactions ;)

Indispensable Jacobs?

2006-05-01T23:00:00.000+02:00

Since I read it the first time, Den Allvarsamma Leken / The Serious Game has been one of my favorite books *). It’s really a book about people, and about love. But on the side, it describes the ambitions of the young male main character, Arvid, who is dreaming of fame. He says at some point that he wants to “become part of the history of the nation”.

When I first read it as a teenager, it seemed brave and inspiring to have that type of goal. And an ambition to be “remembered” isn’t just a childish fantasy. It seems to me that many people view posthumous fame as a desirable goal, given that positive experiences during life naturally have to end at some point. It guess many people who possess power in different ways think about, and plan, their legacy.

To me, it doesn’t seem worth it. It’s not that I dislike the concept of fame – I don't really. It’s not even the insight that very few names are remembered for long – how many Classic Greeks can you think of? I think it’s more that I’ve become more utilitarian in recent years, and realized what really makes me happy and inspired and makes life worthwhile. And I just can’t see how events after my death could really influence my happiness or life quality. Obviously, I would die more happily if I could save a million people than if I knew I would bring about their destruction. But would I be more happy today if I knew people would say something nice about me in 100 years? Not really.

Fear of death is another interlinked topic. Obviously, I want to live, for a myriad of reasons. I have so many things I want to do during the rest of my life. But I think I feel less panic over the thought of dying, if the worst should happen. Obviously, it would be terrible for people around me, and I would – posthumously ;) – feel cheated on all good experiences lying ahead. But I’ve realized – and not just understood intellectually, I mean realized emotionally – that the world would not end. People would still fall in love, birds would still sing, trains would still run.

I realize I might come across as a previously extremely self-oriented person, if I used to feel that there would be no love, birds or trains without me in the world. Please don’t interpret me that way. But I picked up a fear of aging and growing old quite early on. It feels good to be able to focus on life and doing the best of it, instead of wasting energy thinking about the inevitable end.

*) By Swedish novelist Hjalmar Söderberg, published in 1912. On the surface, it’s the classic boy-meets-girl story, albeit stretched out into several decades. But the characters are so vivid. When they hurt each other, you get hurt. When they are happy, you are happy. This is not a review, do some googling, read up on it and grab a copy in Swedish or English.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (wo)men are created equal

2006-04-25T07:00:00.000+02:00

I’m not that kind of person who would buy a pink balloon to announce to the world that my newborn baby is a she. In fact, I dislike the idea of viewing humanity as consisting of males and females – except, obviously, at 2.45 am in a night club when treating people differently based on their gender does make sense. However, I won’t wage war on all gender roles – you have to choose your battles and I don’t care if only half of humanity use mascara. But in general, I tend to believe that differences between individuals are much more obvious than differences between “average” members of the same sex. Therefore, I try to view and treat people mainly as individuals.

So far, nothing dramatic. Almost a bit boring, you might say. And indeed, the above doesn’t seem to be controversial, even if it seems obvious to me that a great many men and women take pride in having a segregated view of mankind (“oh, you know, guys just can’t water flowers”). However, it’s real life that tests your intentions. It’s not only about believing that men and women behave in similar ways, it’s about instinctively understanding it in different circumsances.

For example, let’s say you’re a boy who are in love with a girl. It’s so easy to interpret her actions as modeled on some mystical and unique female pattern (while she interprets your confusing actions in an opposite way). When I was 13, I believe women worked totally different when it came to everything related to feelings or sex. And even though I’ve come to realize that both men and women experience behavioral traits such as jealousy, curiosity, fear, attraction, horniness etc in similar ways (obviously, if put in the same context), I had a hard time envisioning how women experienced certain sensations.

When chatting to a friend recently about this, I brought up orgasms as an example: “surely a man can never understand what the female orgasm feels like?”. She studies to be a medical doctor, and quickly replied that she believed orgasms were a common sensation, albeit distributed in slightly different ways. Obviously we can’t be sure whether she’s right or not (Wikipedia seems to differ) . That’s not even the point. But too me, it was an interesting eye-opener.

If even such an obvious gender-unique phenomenon such as an orgasm can potentially be understood by a member of the opposite gender, why shouldn’t we be able to fully understand all our friends equally well? Nowadays, I'm merciless when some friend say "oh, I just can't understand women". If you understand how you would behave yourself when put in the same situation as that woman are in, I bet you can predict her reactions quite well.

Let me hear your balalaika’s ringing out

2006-04-18T07:30:00.000+02:00

I spent one week in St Petersburg and Moscow recently with 25 guys and gals from my uni. I don’t want this to turn into a travel journal. However, I want to write down some of my most important memories from the journey. I do trust my memory most of the time. It’s indispensable when it comes to accessing information using strange associations and connotations. But I think my memory could use some structure for questions like “How was Russia?”.

So, how was Russia?

It’s always fun traveling with new people. We went out almost every night to dine and wine. Some turned into pleasant new acquaintances, others into friends-to-be. One person turned out a perfect companion for dancing on platforms on clubs and rubbing your bums against each other. Another supplied the ear I needed, when I needed it the most. A third person was instrumental for sharing ironic insights with about things around us. Another turned out to be the most interesting and mentally attractive (from a human point of view, it's a he -- and I'm not physically attractive to men) person I've met for some time.

Cool museums, buildings, facades and churches. All of them can obviously be find in tourist books, or available on site in Russia. I don’t think I can offer anything descriptive about them which is not available elsewhere. But I was amazed by the time people has invested in erecting nice-looking things. Especially the tale of the cathedral-which-was-demolished-to-give-way-for-a-Lenin-statue-which-was-never-built-and-which-eventually-became-replaced-with-a-swimming-pool-which-was-once-again-replaced-with-a-newly-built-church was moving. And it was cool to see the mosaic face of God himself in the ceiling.

The so-called world-class The Hermitage and The Russian Museum was obviously amazing (if I had to select one painting, it would be the giant The Last Day of Pompeii) but too big – it’s hard to keep your energy levels up for sixty rooms. I preferred the Puskhin Museum where you get a glimpse of everything from Egyptian Old Kingdom art to the impressionists in a couple of hours. And the Museum of Political History was really touching. I can’t think of much more evil deeds than being a dictator in a country where millions starve to death and doing nothing about it. Except for being a dictator who engineered the famine for political reasons.

The streets of Petersburg were magnificent with all its great facades and buildings. But I liked the Moscow streets before. Less artificially planned, more confusing. Going by cab in Moscow, especially in the night, was like watching a documentary movie. If I came back, that would be my first priority: getting in a cab, giving the driver a 1000 rubels and tell him to drive around for an hour at interesting streets.

We had a lot of great food, ranging from the ever-present borscht soup to delicious dough-wrapped meatballs and great pancakes, obviously supplemented by vodka even at lunch. There were a lot of good and creative fast food places, such as the Cow Place in Moscow.

We went to see a ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre. I had seen Peer Günt recently, but it was too long and too abstract for a ballet novice like me. This one was the opposite: fast-moving, dramatic and beautiful. Really liked it.

OK, the not-so-charming aspects of Russia. At midnight one evening, we were stopped on a small dark street by armed cops asking for bribes. If we hadn’t had one Russian-speaking guy with us in the car, and another who called us and spoke to the police, I don’t think we would have gotten away for free. I’ve realized cops in Russia seems to view bribes the same way a Swedish telemarketer view the variable part of the salary: it’s nice to have a fixed base, but you got to take expeditious initiatives if you want to earn a living.

I’ll never forget the triumph when my 24-year-old Swedish friend over the phone gave the 55-year-old policeman with his semi-automatic gun a telling-off – in Russian. He said he was calling from the Embassy and demanded that they stopped harassing us. The brain is more powerful than the gun, and seniority.

According to our guidebooks, it is seen as a signal of insecurity or weakness in Russia to smile towards strangers: “Why should I pretend to like you?”. It seems odd to us at first, but I can understand it in one way. I suspect some Swedes could think similarly towards, for instance, Americans who smile even more than we do and try harder to create a rapport with the customer in a service situation. It’s effective, but obviously shallow. Which might be OK. Smiles are pleasant.

No account of the week would be complete without a journey … into myself. At two occasions, I felt unhappy, triggered by the delicate process of socializing with a person which has been important to me lately, and who are now phasing out of my life; and the subsequent vicious circle of confirmation seeking. However, I think I learnt a great deal about myself in the aftermaths, which I intend to blog about sometime soon. Right now I’m happy and really glad I went to Russia. It’s the most non-Swedish country I’ve even been to, which makes it even more worthwhile.

Happy birthday, dear Blog, happy birthday to you!

2006-04-17T14:42:00.000+02:00

It's exactly one year since I started blogging. I'm glad I did. The 63 posts so far have helped me structure my thoughts, summarize interesting discussions I've had with friends, and initiate new discussions. After reading Jakob Nielsen's posting on Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, I felt inspired to start blogging more regularily. I'll still write when I like, but I'll try to build up a small backlog of entries, and then publish something every -- or at least, every other -- Sunday. We'll see how it goes.

A most unmondayish Monday

2006-03-14T01:17:00.000+01:00

I reckon quite a few people would say Monday is the most boring day of the week. I would normally be inclined to agree. But this Monday has been most unmondayish. Top eight experiences and insights today:

Our tutor seems to be almost as interested in our thesis as we are ourselves

There is really no point in differentiating between the depreciation and the interest component in a real annuity when doing cost accounting.

You can spend three months building something, and all it takes to destroy it is four words.

Some sentences can be flattering compliments and, at the same time, deeply painful.

Friends and family react differently when called upon. Some people rearrange their agendas without thinking to help out, others don't even reply.

Some friends think my habit of talking to most people in a party is a great asset, others consider it an inefficient means to an end.

My doctor tells me I'm allergic to birch, grass, cats and dogs, but not to mites or mould. And possibly to horses. Still doesn't really explain why I sneeze most morning in the winter when I wake up.

My usual strategy of postponing studies to the last minute works less well if you can't focus during that last minute.

Viva la feedback!

2006-03-12T23:30:00.000+01:00

I have come to view feedback as an intriguing part of human interaction. (God, why do I have to sound so pretentious at times...? :))

After all, it can accomplish such wonderful things, if the circumstances and the process are constructive. And I agree, unrepresentative misleading feedback can be worse that no feedback. But just because a social tool can be misused, I doesn't mean that we should shun it.

I'll argue that feedback is important in many cases, not just in formal appraisal processes in huge companies. On the contrary, I'd say feedback has the power to better ourselves and people around us. Of course, it's easy to find arguments against taking the effort to give somebody feedback. And clearly, we have to choose our battles.

But I think many arguments against giving feedback aren't as valid as they might look.

No use in giving feedback to your parents because, well, because they are your parents? But people who take on one of the most important tasks there are on Earth, raising a child, must accept constructive criticism of their performance during this undertaking, especially if other people are to accept feedback for relatively minor things such as public speaking.

No use giving feedback to them because it's too late, they won't raise more children? True, but parent-child relationships are important even after the infant stage, especially since parent behaviour -- and children's reactions -- tend to prevail long after the children are done with their braces.

Impossible to give people feedback about their looks? Clearly, this is a sensitive issue, but if I have an ear the size of a squirrel but a cute pair of eyes, I'd be better off if I conceal my giant ear and take pride in my eyes.

Socially awkward to give feedback to your colleague? Might be the case in the short run, but imagine how glad she might be in a year's time if you help her.

Feedback is a powerful tool. It can be used both as a weapon, as a soft IKEA cushion and a bucket of cold water. But it has too great a potential not to be used at all.

The cravings of the human body

2006-03-08T01:07:00.000+01:00

I like the concept of bio breaks. Because no matter how man excels in the space programme, on the threatre stage or when deciphering hieroglyphs, we still need bio breaks. So to speak, it is very human. And talking about "bio break" is much more honest and to the point than muttering some excuse about the need to adjust your make-up. (That being said, I'm not always a fan of being blunt. I wouldn't necessarily use the phrase myself in a social context. But nevertheless, I consider it interestingly and unusally explicit.)

By the way, why are different bodily needs more or less socially acceptable? What drives that difference? And why is only going to the toilet called about a bio break? What about eating? Eating, for one, is perfectly socially acceptable, even a social thing to do together. Breathing is obviously acceptable, but could be embarrassing if you draw attention to it. Sleeping is acceptable amongst friends or in special environments, such as on a party boat the day after, but you can't really sleep on a bench anywhere. Going to the toilet is acceptable, as long as you disguise where you are going with some phrase. Actually, peeing together with other more or less well-known people seems fine if you a) are a boy and urinating standing up b) are a girl and are slightly drunk. Having sex is maybe the most secretive human need, maybe because it's less routine, more pleasant and more exclusive (you do need another person)?

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

2006-02-20T10:20:00.000+01:00

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
-- From The Tiger of William Blake

I had an interesting revelation the other day. I was talking to my father, who is a GP, about the cold I have caught. He told me to wash my hands regularly to avoid giving it to other people. Since I wear contacts, I was afraid he would say something about the risk of catching an eye infection, and I remember feeling relief that the danger was only about passing it on to other people, not infecting my eyes. And then I felt a very strong sense of guilt for caring so little about others.

This got my thinking started. And then I got feedback from a recent interview: at first, I had seemed like a semi-arrogant insensitive CV machine devoid of personality or self-distance (later in the interview, they did form a somewhat more positive impression). And only yesterday, a person I have come to hold dear told me a story about a friend of hers who was so tired of dating business school guys who might be perfect in many respects but also structured to death, overanalyzing, predictable, boring and generally intellectual machines rather than humans.

I vaguely remember a distant pass when I was experiencing joy over obscure Latin verb forms, rather than over a new clever way of estimating market size. At the back of my brain, the first lines of the Iliad in hexameter still echo -- Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, / that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans -- albeit it has largely been replaced by modern-day quotations like "At the end of the day, it's all about the people". I still remember when I judged people on whether they could enumerate all Swedish kings from 1523, rather then whether they have memorized the 30-year US t-bond rate. I know I once preferred reading John Steinbeck to reading Vault.com career guides.

I first thought about an action plan, for example with the visionary name "Jacob 2010", but this seemed slightly too corporate for an action plan to decorporatize me. So I have decided to challenge myself, not in the way the Board of Directors challenge a CEO, but rather in the way Achilles challenged Hector during the Trojan War.

I will stop perceiving bullet points as the ideal way to structure a couple of sentences. I will stop doing cost-benefit analyses whenever somebody suggests having a muffin instead of carrot cake. I will stop looking for the key drivers that makes me want to consume a pear. I will restart exposing myself to all wonderful stories of the past, present and future -- through books, movies and plays. I will start sounding like an intellectual snob once more, rather than a business school snob. And I will start inviting people for waffle-eating (with hilarious amounts of jam and whipped cream) on week-ends, rather than dreaming about organizing mingle parties and networking events with cocktails.

And, in case you wonder, no, I'm not sacrifying my personality to suit other people. I'm just retrieving my dormant personality and giving it some mouth-to-mouth ventilation to get its breathing going.

168 hours to spend every week

2006-02-20T10:06:00.000+01:00

OK, so I (like most people) have 168 hours every week to allocate. Let's say I sleep 68 hours a week, which includes 50 minutes going to bed and 50 minutes getting up every day. I then intend to split the rest fifty-fifty between must-do's and want-to-do's.

So studying, working, applying for internships etc goes into the first category, as does doing the laundry and transportation time and everything else which cannot be avoided without short-run negative consequences. The other category is want-to-do's, which is everything I feel like doing because I like the activities themselves. This includes going for coffee with friends or partying, but also reading a novel or blogging.

I tried to count the hours I do "must-do" things, but I've realised it's easier to count the other way: so I'll try to make sure I get about 7 hours a day on average with relaxing, want-to-do things, not more, but not too much less. Hopefully such an arrangement could keep my bad conscience about "I really ought to be doing something useful instead of just reading a book" at bay.

By the way, I think I'll try to allocate one evening every week for myself, that is treating it as (possibly moveable) appointment and saying no to social activities if necessary. This is most unjacobish. But I think I would prosper by having more time to read, write and just relax. I'll try it out. Should be possible. At least while I'm still studying..

Do men have children?

2006-02-18T11:47:00.000+01:00

I visited a company presentation the other day. It was a great event, but there was a part of the Q&A which I -- retroactively -- found less brilliant.

Some senior official had been asked about the ratio of women in the workforce. He gave us a figure, and told us about their ambitions to increase it. He was also asked about how many of these women have children, and then some questions about managers and children. We probably spoke about the issue of combining a time-consuming job with small children for five minutes. Nobody from the company, or in the audience, raised the question: "do the male staff and managers have children?" I guess everybody implictly realised that they did have children, but ... that worked out somehow without the need for even mentioning it.

I didn't think about this asymmetry until it was pointed out by a female friend who also visited the presentation. I felt ashamed for not realising the mental gender segregation of people that was taking place.

The importance of fikande

2006-02-18T11:29:00.000+01:00

Fikande, the process of having a fika, can be rewarding in more subtle ways than I could possibly have anticipated. Yesterday, I was having a case interview with a major management consultancy. One of the cases concerned the profitability of running a coffee house.

One key component was estimating the potential revenues, which involved estimating the average staying time of a customer. I instantly suggested 2 hours, something I knew from my experience seemed very reasonable, at least for jacobs. Afterwards, the interviewer told me I was the only guy she had ever interviewed who suggested a number which was too high. The average time did seem to be less than my estimate, but it was in the same ballpark. Most guys suggested 15-20 minutes, an estimate which clearly didn't take the preferences of all fika-oriented people into account.

It's nice to know that your leisure time hobbies can contribute to your professional achievements.

February fika insights

2006-02-15T14:57:00.000+01:00

I have had many really interesting and stimulating fikas recently with all the wonderful people around. Fika is Swedish for having a coffee and a snack, sitting down in a café and talking for hours. It’s a favorite pastime of teenage girls, but also of 27-year-old Jacobs. For me, a fika is the ideal way to pick somebody’s mind, relax and develop (and have a semla at the same time).

Unfortunately, time is precious for the time being, so I’ll just briefly jot down a few key take-aways.

Fika insight #1: What are friends for? A structured analysis ;)

2006-02-15T14:56:00.000+01:00

I don’t want to be too analyzing when it comes to human interaction, but it is a fascinating area. At one fika recently, we were taking about friendship and the different sorts of value which friends add to each other’s life.

Obviously, a great many fikas and social encounters are related to ‘catching-up’. While it’s good to know what have kept your closest friends busy recently, this is not my favourite type of fika – as I’ve written before in this forum. A certain experience can be very common-place and standardized, but for each person experiencing it, it could still be unique and rewarding. But talking about the colorful scenery of the Great Barrier Reef is not the same as experiencing it first hand. In the same way, listening to what cities your friends and acquaintances have been to recently may not be terribly exciting – and the reverse is obviously also true.

However, a related type of fika activity is listening and comforting, which, consider the instability of twenty-something-people’s relationships and life’s general surprises, is a significant activity. And I think this is the way it should be – this is what friends are for! If anything, I think many people would be better off sharing the worries and being comforted by friends.

One of my favorite fika occupations is providing and getting intellectual stimuli. I love to explore new areas of thought, reason, discuss and debate. Listen to smart people’s arguments and accepting, rejecting or developing them, is one of the most enjoyable things I can think of (yes, yes, great food and great sex is important, but you can’t do that 24x7). And there are some people who really make me think, respond and provide me with aha experience. I love those people. (To try to counter a possible reaction: I don’t consider myself an elitist. Going to a good university is not a prerequisite for being an interesting discussion partner. On the contrary, some people who go to good university are very narrow in their interests and seem totally uninterested in intellectual explorations. But I do want my friends to be curious about life and regarding discussing as a way of socializing).

Finally, I have come to realize lately that some friends are so close you can be quiet with them. I’m not used to just being with people, except for my family and some ex-girl friends. But I do appreciate that aspect, increasingly so.

Fika insight #2: Smooth processes are important in relationships

2006-02-15T14:54:00.000+01:00

Time is even more scarce now, so these comments will be extremely short.

There are many processes, dialogues and rituals in a sexual relationships. Sex is obviously one of them. The need for comfort and confirmation could be another one, or the every day rituals of cooking. I believe it’s important for these processes to be smooth, reliable and predictable.

This may seem obvious, but a great many people live in relationships where these standard processes cause a lot of friction and agony. But I don't believe love and attraction alone can compensate the lack of smooth processes. Without that, it's hard to find happiness.

One important aspect of smooth processes is a mechanism for listening and addressing the inevitable problems and shortcomings. Another aspect is the need for symmetry: everything gets much more instable if one person is always the initiator, no matter if it’s sex or cleaning.

Fika insight #3: A perceived sense of justice is crucial

2006-02-15T14:50:00.000+01:00

The book Company of strangers was one of my favorite fika topics for some time recently, even though I haven’t managed to read more than a few chapters for some reasons. It basically deals with how we’ve managed to trust and co-operate with unrelated strangers, something which is crucial to every hour of modern life but unheard of outside mankind. The book argues that man’s ability to do cost-benefit calculations has been one key driver: people are smart enough to think and plan ahead, and realize that mutual cooperation would be a win-win situation. But it also argues that a concept of perceived justice have been essential: if you are good to me, I’m good to you; if you hurt me, I hurt you.

If you feel this way – and you know that most other people feel the same way – we have a powerful incentive structure. A sole trader approaching a new group doesn’t have to be as scared of the group killing him if their cost-benefit-analysis indicates his life is of no value to them, he can rely on them treating him well if he treats them well. The same principle also explain everything from modern game theory experiments to why people leave tips in restaurants they will never return to (and when they don’t have a companion they want to impress).

This is not purely a fika insight, but it’s still striking :)

Fika insight #4: Trainee programs > consulting?

2006-02-15T14:48:00.000+01:00

I have always thought that doing a few years with a top-tier management consultant was the quickest way to skip the lower echelons of corporate hierarchy and land an interesting manager job with profit and loss responsibility. A few recent fikas with high-ranking 40-60-year-old guys from Swedish corporate society have convinced me that that might not be the case. Interesting.

Are psychopaths evil?

2006-01-05T21:00:00.000+01:00

I recently wrote a philosophy course paper called ”Can good people close down factories?”. It discussed certain management actions from a deontological and a consequentialism point of view: is it morally justifiable to close down factories or outsource production? In fact, the paper didn’t discuss good people, it discussed good (or “morally acceptable”) actions. I ignored the difference because I wanted a more striking and not to technical title. But a discussion with my dad in the car today, while driving through the snowy and frozen landscapes of northern Sweden on the way to his “summer” cottage, made me realize the difference.

As I wrote in a recent posting, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to value an act from a moral perspective by looking at its consequences. For example, utilitarianism would consider an act morally justifiable and recommended – which is for all practical purposes “good” or “laudable” (?!) – if it increased happiness, no matter what intents the perpetrator had. Most people would prefer an action which unintentionally saved 1,000 lives to an action where a person actually tried to save those people but failed. But when we label a person good or evil, if we ever do that nowadays, we look at intentions: good people can fail and still be good, but doing good things by chance doesn’t make a person good.

Until quite recently, I disliked categories like “good people”, not to mention “evil people”. I had enjoyed black-and-white fairy tales when I was a kid, but in the last few years I hadn’t had much use of these labels. I used to argue that we are all basically just a product of the stimuli we have been subjected to, from conception and onwards. If another fetus had been subjected to the same biological and social environment, that would have been me today. And if a baby who was just like me had grown up in Germany in the ‘30s in a certain type of family with certain values, that person might have been a concentration camp guard instead of a tall and happy Swedish blogger. Since our characteristics – all of what we are today – can be attributed to genes, upbringing, family, friends and other circumstances, I used to find it unfair that a person should receive praise for a talent or a trait which she just got as a gift from Fortune.

I don’t really subscribe to this view anymore. People don’t just end up being static mix of their parents’ and others abilities and personality traits. People actually prioritise and, as a result, make sacrifices. If I spend 7 days a week during my entire childhood playing tennis and thus sacrifice all leisure time, shouldn’t I receive credit if I develop into a professional tennis player, even if I was lucky enough to receive good genes or supporting parents? In the same way, if you give all your money to starving children, I think you’re a good person even if you we’re lucky enough to have the money in the first place.

You could also say that labelling a person as “good” or “evil” is about valuing current states, not the road that took the person there. If we are to use “evil” for anybody at all, most people can agree that Hitler deserves it. It doesn’t matter whatever circumstances made him so, we can still say that he was evil. In the same way, a person that is good today is good today, no matter what lucky circumstances put her in a position to be good. This is basically in accordance with modern day penal code: barring self-defence, a murderer is a murderer, no matter what led him to commit the act.

By the way, we haven’t defined “good”. That’s the subject not just of another blog entry, but of bookshelves of literature since Aristoteles. For now, let’s assume that a “good person” generally genuinely cares about others, is aware of their needs and acts to assist them even when that means discomfort to herself (keep in mind such acts might not necessarily be “good” or encouraged from neither a deontological nor a consequentialist point-of-view).

And what is an evil person? Are all non-good people evil? That seems like a very harsh view. Maybe we can agree that evil people are people who are actively non-good: dislike other people, ignore their needs and work against their good. Of course there are quite a few interesting discussions here. For example, what is worst: just not understanding other people’s feelings and needs, or understanding them but still working against them? Let’s save this discussion for later :-)

Finally: are people born to be either good or evil? My in-the-medical-profession-dad today also mentioned that he heard at a conference that 1 % of the population are thought to be psychopaths, clinically speaking. They may be well-integrated into society and not at all interested in killing people in showers, but they share some important medical features with their fictional counterparts. Apparently there are around 12 criteria for evaluating somebody’s psychopath status, one being the lack of empathy, another being turbulent mood changes. The syndrome is believed to be correlated with a certain genetic setup, basically meaning some people are born without empathy. So, if acting out of feeling and concern for somebody else is a prerequisite for being good, psychopaths by definition cannot be good people, even if they commit good and useful deeds.

I’m not sure if this is fair. On the other hand, who promised life would be fair?

Listening, setting expectations and daring

2006-01-05T19:30:00.000+01:00

How [do you energize people as a leader]? I have a few keys. One: It’s all about listening, not assuming. I think that listening, in combination with the insight that you can learn something from every person, creates an open and good working atmosphere. Two: Be clear with expectations; explain what the target is and which role everybody has to play in order to reach it. It is also important to follow up who each person delivers on expectations.
[…]
At first, I was thinking that I had to adapt a more authoritarian leadership style. But as time goes by, I have come to realize that it’s all about building on people’s strengths, and making sure that the right person is in the right place.
[…]
One explanation [why I’ve been as successful] is that I’m brave. Being brave is all about being uncomfortable with something but still doing it. To step outside the comfort zone and say: ‘I don’t have answers to all, but I’ll try.’ That’s what I advise others to do. You find it that you actually develop. And the more you dare, the braver you get.
- Jeanette Söderberg, CEO IKEA Sweden in Diego Magazine, January 2006

I love the feeling when you read a few lines of a well-formulated insight which goes immediately to your brain or heart. It might be something you never thought of, or something that you thought about but couldn’t sum up and structure. Sometimes it’s poetry, sometimes it’s a microeconomic argument. This time it was Jeanette Söderberg very succinctly sharing some insights about leaderships. Thanks, Jeanette, for giving me one of today’s aha experiences!

4 principles + 1 theory of happiness

2005-12-30T09:43:00.000+01:00

I love applying organizational theory from business literature on myself. Many concepts, from incentives to planning, are useful both when organizing people in a firm and for managing your own life. I also love reflecting, especially on boring railroad trips and when showering and on other occasions of quality time with myself, and I love blogging. So I have decided to adopt Four Principles for myself for, ehh, the upcoming year. (I want to stress, mostly to myself, that this is not a real New Year's Resolution, that's just a neat coincidence).

However, I do not appreciate setting abstract goals which cannot be evaluated and therefore never reached. In fact, I am not sure if I like setting goals at all for myself. It seems so unspontaneous, and being spontaneous is definitely part of my self-image. However, stressing values to adhere to seems fine. Values are decision rules on the micro level, and that is manageable and immediately useful. But even values can be uninteresting if they are too fuzzy ("prioritize!", of course, but how?) or too self-evident ("be honest!", yeah, why does that need stressing?). I hope the following four values don't fall into those traps. The selection might be slightly arbitrary, but hey, this is only a Friday morning blog entry...

* Presence. I want to be 100 % mentally present in all social contexts, being able to focus fully on the person or the people I'm with. It's not just to be polite, it's because I care/want to care about people I spend time with and I want to use that time as well as possible to understand them and hear them.

* Efficiency. I think it's important to be efficient in daily life, because it helps avoiding a guilty conscience, as well as making it possible to spend more time relaxing.

* Relationships as ends in themselves. I wrote an essay recently where I compared Kant and deontological ethics with Bentham/Mill and utilitarianism, from the angle of how one would judge a certain deed from the two perspectives. I'm more of a consequentialist myself, but I liked the version of Kant's famous categorical imperative where he stressed that one should always treat human relationships as an end in themselves, not as a means to something else. People are people, and most people are wonderful in some respects.

* Dare! Most of us have some "moral compass", which gives an indication on the righteousness of an action beforehand (I just said I'm more of a consequentialist, not that I don't follow set rules). Obviously these compasses can be slightly differently calibrated, but most of us have a great many norms in common. And my experience is that the difference between doing right or doing wrong, or doing good vs doing less good, is not extra analysis or research, it's primarily about inner strength and daring. To be a bit Biblical, choosing the narrow path might be less comfortable (no drive-thru restaurants?), but often pays off in the longer run. For example, having an awkward conversation with a colleague today might save even more energy tomorrow; raising an inconvenient objection which is important to you could feel awkward but be important later on and going for a run now is surely not as fun as blogging, but it could be good for your health in the long run. Most choices are really about optimizing for the short term or optimizing for the long term, and I want to move somewhat towards the latter end of that spectrum.

So, assuming that I let these values guide my choice of actions going forward, what about my objectives on the macro level? Even if I don't set any formal objectives, I must have some way of thinking of where I want to be in three years time?! In fifty years? This is where consequentialism comes in. Even though I believe it is useful to think about intents behind actions as a crude selection mechanism, it will not be possible to form a coherent idea of what to do without considering consequences of actions. I obviously want to choose actions which maximize happiness. By itself, this statement is so generic that it's useless. One key step is defining what makes me happy. On an informal level, this might not be impossible since my emotional insticts can probably be trusted, even if I can't quantify them. Another important area is how I weigh the importance of me being happy vs other people being happy. No sane -- or rather, no honest -- person would state an equal interest in the well-being of all individuals on this planet.

Another thing which recently struck me is that maximizing the average value of happiness might not necessarily be optimal. We need to look at the standard deviation as well, that is, how happiness fluctuates. Maybe it's better to be very happy 1 day and be unhappy 1 day than to be "normally" happy 2 days? It could be that we weigh above-average happiness very heavy, or that shifts in happiness by themselves are good because it helps us recalibrates our sense of happiness. Put another way, if don't know what being unhappy is, we won't appreciate being happy.

Is it reasonable to focus on "selecting" a level of standard deviation of happiness we can stand depending on preferences for risk aversion, curiousity etc? Then we would aim for actions with a potential of bringing about greater unhappiness (such as leaving a not-very-good-but-still-working job or relationship, which could land us out of a job/partner) if we thought they had a reasonable chance of giving us even greater happiness later on (a great job or relationship). Our risk-taking would, once again, correspondant with how much fluctuation in happiness we dare stand at this time of our lives, and this might well vary.

Is this more reasonable than aiming for "maximizing" average happiness without considering ups and downs? I don't know. But I do know that I have to start doing things which are slightly more useful in the short run than blogging, for example packing for my upcoming trip to Gotland, the largest island in the Baltic Sea, where I'm going for a New Year's Party. Happy New Year!

The art of developing others

2005-12-30T08:24:00.000+01:00

People influence each other. Obviously, my parents have played a huge role in making me who I am. So have friends and people close to me, in recent times especially my former girlfriend Anna who I lived with for 3,5 years. And every now and then, you run into people who you don't really know but who still manage to influence you. The process is sometimes mutually beneficial: apart from the obvious advantages of developing yourself, the odds are that the other person is flattered by the insight that she had something others desired, which she could teach. Also, you tend to hang out with people on a similar level which you can both inspire in some respects and be inspired by in other cases.

I want to mention a guy called Tino Sanandaji here. He's a graduate of my uni, and we have had many long debates about politics and society on the students' online community. He holds libertarian beliefs which I don't share, he subscribes to a rather black-and-white world view, at least in rhetorics, and his fierce and aggressive style of arguing makes some people unable to take him seriously. But he has taught me, indirectly, some very valuable lessons, concerning both rhetorics and thinking.

One is the importance of stringent arguments: if your logic is not impeccable, somebody will point out the flaws sooner or later. Another is the insight that arguments supported by statistics and studies weighs significantly heavier than just plain reasoning. Additionally, he has made me realize the hard way that if you reconsider your stand on some issue without saying so, your inconsistency is likely to be revealed. He has also made me see some issues from a new perspective, for example that bashing the political regime in USA with emotional rather than coherent arguments seems very fashionable right now, and that we seem to place demands on the American administration that we would not place on our own executive branch.

He has also helped me see clearer that behind every "structure" in society is a vast amount of individuals, who all make decisions on a micro level, and that it is the aggregate of their behaviour which forms "society" -- obvious enough, but worth reiterating. (I know that there is an opposing sociological theory, but this one seems plausible to me). Finally, he has reinforced in me the key academic principle that there are several aspects to a problem, not all of them obvious.

For that, I'm grateful. Thanks, Tino!

Even if person A highly values one of person B's certain characteristics, person B might not be aware of that. This entry is an attempt to alleviate the information asymmetry in this one particular case. After all, society is just the sum of a great many cases.

A tragedy in 0 acts

2005-12-26T20:55:00.000+01:00

I like reading plays. Maybe it’s because they focus on content and don’t overload the story with too much descriptions about the scenery. Since it’s Christmas and I have loads of spare time and got inspired by some other stories I heard, I thought I should start on a play of my own.

But, unfortunately, I’m too impatient to be a good playwriter and not creative enough to construct an actual dialogue. So I will start – and end – with introducing the main characters.

The setting is a sculpture’s studio in Rome during Nero’s reign. It's a large and successful studio, but the atmosphere is gloomy and morale is low and sinking.

The characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance with actual living people are purely coincidental..

Eam, master sculptor. Notorious for his inability to speak the truth. Responsible for bullying at least one of his men enough to make him quit. His leadership style is very much influenced by the fact that the concept of “incentive structure” has not yet been invented. Can, however, be very reasonable for those who fawn on him, and is himself good at fawning on the financial sponsors who support the studio.

Nodus, his nephew. Often smiling, but as trustworthy as a wounded lion on Circus. Infamous for interrupting the work and hurling abuse at apprentices in front of their dumbfounded comrades. Motto: the whip > the carrot.

Oro Ad, head of the workmen’s guild. Used to be painting nudes, but changed careers to sculpturing a couple of years ago. Gossip around town suggests that the change was prompted by him being more interested in assessing the anatomy of the subjects than actually painting them. Actively trying to oppose non-guild members.

Arma Angli, in charge of the younger apprentices. Was as an instructor thoroughly despised by many pupils due to his Draconian style of teaching. Nowadays as despised by his colleagues after he insisted that they cannot leave the studio during the day.

Well, how’s that for a start? I’ll continue to develop this framework some day. If I get more inspiration.

3 minutes a month of bitterness?

2005-12-14T01:11:00.000+01:00

I constructed this entry in my mind earlier today. It was to go like this:

"Being bitter is not a perceived as a becoming trait. Being aware of that intellectually, as well as agreeing emotionally, I try not to. But sometimes, I think it's fair to feel bitter. Surely 3 minutes of being bitter every month would be socially acceptable? Today, for example, I would have needed these three minutes. I was in an exceptionally bad mood for various reasons (OK, not so various, but they are not important to this story). I was supposed to attend a Lucia concert in the Cathedral here in the Old Town, a magnificient show with young singers in a choir dressed in white dresses and carrying candles. And then the friend who I was going with fell ill, and couldn't make it. Which was not a problem in itself, it can happen to anybody. But at that time, mainly because of my mood, I felt that I did not want to go there byself. So I called a few people, less than one hour before the event was to start. Nobody could make it. At that moment, I could easily have forsaken all those hundreds of people I know and say hi to most every day for one (1) person to go the concert with me. Intellectually, I realized that could happen to absolutely anybody -- most people don't have strategically located friends in every block waiting to accompany them should they be needed. But at that moment, I felt that life ought to provide me with a fellow concert-goer."

Obviously, having constructed this text in my mind, I couldn't discard it. Maybe I should have. Because once I got to the church, the feeling totally disappered. There was a line of people waiting outside to buy tickets, and I was immediately able to sell my spare ticket to a middle-aged man. He was (obviously) seated next to me, so we chatted about church architecture, Gothic style and Sagrada Familia. And the music and the lights in the darkness of the imposing church interior was wonderful and really striking. And all those 3 minutes of bitterness was gone, and replaced by a warm feeling of the excitement of talking to strangers in unexpected situations.

I don't really want this blog to be a diary. I want it to be a venue for me to discuss thoughts, ideas and arguments. This is the direction for future entries. I guess.

Multiple-choice tests and me

2005-12-08T16:44:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a bad day. Well, for me, at least. I'm positive it was a brilliant day for a great many people on this planet. One generally negative thing is that I spent far too much time trying to read a new acquaintance's mind. Due to my lack of supernatural powers, I didn't succeeded, which created some unhappiness due to the 1) the added complexity in my life 2) the increased risk of certain processes developing in a way which would, if the worst happened, be utility-decreasing for me.

Also, I got to know that I was not chosen as the project leader for the Nobel NightCap event. It's a magnificent party taking place on the evening of Dec 10, 2006 for all people attending the Nobel banquette in the Stockholm City Hall. One student from my uni was to be chosen as the project leader by the Board of the Student Association (not my homies, our successors). I spent a lot of time thinking whether to apply or not -- all my close friends were initially negative and thought I should look at the opportunity cost of spending more time on student projects -- but then I decided that it would be the most fascinating and interesting project I could spend time on during 2006. So I applied. And was turned down. It hurt. For some time. At least yesterday.

Today, a couple of good things happened. So today has been a good day. It's interesting how these things change in 24 hours. I'm not better at mind-reading today, but I worry less. (Not sure if that's totally a good thing, though..). And a well-known management consultancy wants to meet up with me for interviews. And I am going to meet up with the guy who was chosen as project leader and speak to him about potential roles in thirty minutes.

And I did a multiple-choice test for a 2-day seminar at consumer goods company P&G, which I think went very well. I finished ahead of time, and even spotted a flawed translation in the Swedish version (it said "should exceed the purchase price of $360", when the English version was "should exceed the purchase price by $360", which is obviously not the same thing).

I find it slightly hilarious that I'm so good at these kind of analytical tests (tables and charts, logical problems, reading apprehension). I seem to fail miserably at getting great scholarship for summer courses at Harvard, McKinsey trips to the Mediterranean and Goldman Sachs awards (always close, but being close doesn't kill the hare as the Swedish proverb goes..). But I seem to succeed well at these kind of tests. The ironic part is that I've been trying for the last five years to stir away from my programming/analyzing background by running a company, doing marketing & sales, going to business school and leading projects within the Student Association.

I'm not ashamed of my track record at those occupations. But at the end of the day, maybe figuring out whether the increase between y1 and y2 was 15% or 20% is my core competence? Maybe I should be a professional multiple-choice test attendee? Or maybe I should spend my life as a programmer, getting aha-experiences from analytical challenges rather than leadership opportunities...?

Henry Kissinger and me

2005-11-27T01:32:00.000+01:00

The door at the main entrance to my business school is quite heavy, and there is always a risk that you push it too hard when you try to open it. The other day, I did just that. I was late, and I pushed the door open and run through the gateway. Imagine my surprise when an elderly gentleman, probably pushing 80, appeared just inside the door and, having narrowly escaped getting the door in his face, shouted "Murderer" at me. (However, he didn't seem too upset because he smiled a bit). When I apologized, I saw his name tag. It said "Sverker Åström".

Mr Åström has been of the most influential figures in Swedish foreign policy in the 20th century, having served as both ambassador and undersecretary of state for foreign affairs. He is also quite outspoken, and still often makes his voice heard in the public debate. I can imagine him calling Pol Pot and people like that murderers, and probably also Henry Kissinger, since I believe he fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War.

It's not every day that the Swedish nestor of foreign policy implicitly compares you to an American secretary of state like Henry Kissinger. I guess it could be seen as a compliment somehow?!

Where did the autumn go?

2005-11-11T00:47:00.000+01:00

I just finished my (second) "summer" internship. And when I got home today, I noticed that somebody had erected a Christmas Tree on the square outside my flat. And I haven't even rolled about in the heaps of leaves yet.

Instead of having a Personal Trainer: a Personal Idol

2005-11-05T14:14:00.000+01:00

Today's paper contained an article about Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish guy who was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1953 to his death in 1961. He seemed to have led a very interesting life: "His silent diplomacy, Swedish efficiency and moral compass enabled UN - and the world - to survive the Cold War". The journalist praises his leadership ("first the downsizing of the bureaucracy, so smooth that the staff almost didn't notice it themselves, then the spectacular successes in the negotiations with China in 1955 and during the Suez Crisis in 1956"), his vision and his pragmatism (a pragmatic visionary?). He was not only a diplomat but also a writer and an economist, two trades which very much appeal to me. And he seemed to have some perspective on his life. This is from his diary:

A modest wish: that our doings would have a greater impact on life than what you can attribute to a tuxedo when it comes to digestion. And yet, a good deal of what we describe as our contribution surely remains only a garment with which we on festive occasions try to conceal our nudity.

I believe it's useful to have heroes who can inspire you and be a person for you to model your life on (although I don't fancy having my aircraft shot down, as happened to Dag). So therefore, I hereby declare that I have chosen Dag Hammarskjöld as my new personal idol.

Being Jacob Stedman, 16

2005-10-31T02:00:00.000+01:00

When looking through an old bag under my bed, I found a binder with diary notes. The entries were made during 1992 to 1995, when I was 13 to 16 years old. It wasn't really a proper diary (there is no way a 15-year-old guy could keep a diary, right?), but rather notes scribbled on paper sheets. For some months, I wrote a (terribly cluttered) comment every day, but also wrote some minor essays on subject which were of interest to me (read: girls).

Normally, before you expose somebody's life, it would be proper to ask that person for permission. I ran into a slightly confusing situation here. Because Jacob Stedman, 16 is no longer. So who should I ask? Even though I do feel kinship and do care about this person, it's not really me. We don't have the same problems, issues or ways at looking on the world. Maybe it's like a separated-at-birth identical twin? Well, anyway, I don't think he would mind if made some of his comments public. I think it was a fascinating read. But maybe that's because I knew him.

So, some random cuts:

"Problems/reason for depression 8 Nov 1992 [was 13 here]:
1) Microsoft - couldn't come [2-week work placement in junior high school, "prao" in Swedish]
2) TBV - only one course [worked as a study circle leader, teaching children computing]
3) Mikrodatorn - not that interested [computer magazine, probably sent them some article draft]
4) Age - no moped, ... [a lightweight low-powered motorbike, 15 years age limit]
5) Length - 30 cm more than humanity
6) Private [no idea what this was]
7) Stressed up - school projects / CAMP-AD [some freelance work I was doing as a programmer]"
Dreams 21-22 Sept 1993: "1. Cinema with Karin, she offered me sandwich, she got large chunks of it. 2. Went to see Paulina, met most of her dad's family but not her, Coke for 10 kr (?) [about $1] a lot, but only half the bottle" [very confused myself. any dream interpreters out there?]
Saturday, 15 Jan 1994 [just turned 15]: "Balders.. [local disco] pre-party at the ice hall sauna + 15 cl, Ken 2 4.5% beer (12 kr each!!) + a half 5.5% beer + some vodka shots + ca 5-7 drinks of gin (Waden's). Was quite fuzzy, never felt so 'unreal', was humming around the first hour, said hi to everybody, Marie got there nevertheless, she spent some time with Ken :-(, spoke to Mattis, danced, Anna seemed to be happy to see me"
Sunday, 5 Jun 1994: "OH GOD... Natural Science Party [students of all years on the Natural Science Program], borrowed Tias' bike, went down to Bökhult Beach - quite enjoyable, grilling, drank, talked, good participation first year and third year students, was talking to Marie, Cissi got really drunk, I stayed at Jeppe's place, puked on this coach, somebody stole Tïas' bike. And the day after: Went down to Bökhult in the morning, found my lost wallet, to grandma's, puked, slept till 11, puked, went to school, Jeppe had told everybody I puked (even Social Science Program knew...), had German class, last Technology class but went home. Slept half the day. Got 28 out of 32 on the Technology final".
Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994: "Work work... Said hi to Matilda in year 1. The bird situation feels a bit hopeless right now."
Friday, 12 Dec 1994: "Natural Science Party!! We arranged at the Motor Society, went well and was fun (I made the rice). Repeat: Never hit at Cissi when she is drinking, never works .. never .. Puked for the third time in life due to alcohol, but without being drunk. Tias really loaded."
25 Dec 1994 [just turned 16]: "Time was running out, and around 1am I started to worry that I wouldn't get the opportunity to dance with Anna. She didn't seem tired, and when the slow songs started, I asked her for a dance. I don't remember which song it was, but it didn't really matter. We talked a bit during the dance, but then I tried to hold her hard. She she had had fun, I said I had too, and then she said that she wouldn't be going to the Square Dance Hall for New Year's, she was going to Osby?! Some dance club? Don't know. I said something like 'If you miss a few locks of hair, it's only me who have eaten them', she removed her hair from her cheek, it fell back, and I continued pressing my cheek against her soft hair. I didn't caress her back, it didn't feel right, but I held her and hoped it was a long song. I said something, jokingly, that the next she was unhappy for some reason, she could call me and I would definitely cheer her up. We were rotating round, round, and I held her hard. Well, not that hard. I didn't attempt to lower my hands over her bottom, I was too gentlemanish for that."
17 Feb 1995, "Matte and Desse and me at least, and maybe some more was there dancing when I noticed the Eneryda people were there. [...] I said something to Desse that there was gonna be a fight, and then I looked at them and turned my back on them. I might have danced into them once or twice. And -- bam -- I was lying on the floor, just like that, next to the loudspeaker. Wet from some fucking beer I took down with me. I never saw who pushed me, but I was so extremely pissed that I almost hit the the person helping me up. I probably still have a red little mark where this very group pushed me into a railing at Balders one or two years ago. That time I didn't do much, went away more or less, but no fucking way I was gonna do that now. I had proper backup if necessary, Wärn and Desse was there, Nicke and Salle and Hörberg hopefully somewhere on the small dance floor. But you don't think about these things when you're in the middle of it, you just get really really pissed."
25 Feb 1995: "NN [keeping it a bit secretive, since we're actually still friends] I love you do you know that? Well, I guess you do. Too bad. But I like you still, you should know that. AAh, NN I want you. Understand that. Don't be so damn shallow. Fuck it, why can't you smile when you say hi. I want you to. Fuck, it's sooo pathetic writing shit like this. Well, I'm gonna erase it anyway. Wonder why? You have a nice body, you're pretty, you're definitely not stupid, you're fun, and ... i don't know but I'm just in love with you" [like the last part: "bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, ... and i don't know BUT I'm just in love with you]
Summer 1995, the Hultsfred Rock Festival: "[...] Woke up when it was dark outside. Puked. Noticed I was without my glasses. Paniced for a second, searched the area, aided by Skralle who just happened to be passing by. Thought I would find them tomorrow. But nope. Checked the glade and around, and asked those nearby. Nobody had seen anything. One guy asked if it was me who had been sleeping in the cavity, which seemed probable. [...] Damn bad luck. I knew mum had signed an insurance which covered these things, but I also knew that the excess was about a 1000 kr."
28 Jan 1996 [just turned 17]: "I'm thinking about stopping to write this. It doesn't feel motivating, more of a burden. The really interesting part, feelings and so on, is too hard and time-consuming to write down anyway..."

Even if they are selected at random, the entries should give a pretty reliable idea of the life of Jacob Stedman, 16. It was mostly about booz, friends and girls, and some mentioning of studies and work.

Maybe life hasn't changed that much in 10 years after all...

The science of flirting

2005-10-30T02:26:00.000+01:00

Have a bad conscience for going out too much instead of studying? Think again:

"According to some evolutionary psychologists, flirting may even be the foundation of civilisation as we know it. They argue that the large human brain - our superior intelligence, complex language, everything that distinguishes us from animals - is the equivalent of the peacock's tail: a courtship device evolved to attract and retain sexual partners. Our achievements in everything from art to rocket science may be merely a side-effect of the essential ability to charm."
- Social Issues Research Centre, Oxford University

The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Senior Consultant Intern

2005-10-19T23:55:00.000+02:00

I really ought to stay on this consulting internship. Apart from the fact that I really like my role, my tasks, the responsibility and my team mates (...), there are at three even more solid reasons why I ought to stay at least another week:

If I stay another week, I'll fly with Scandinavian Airlines in Economy Flex / Business once more, which would get me a SAS EuroBonus Gold card! They have this special offers about getting a 1-year Gold card if you do 10 flights in Economy Flex / Business in Q4, and I have done 9 including my last flight tomorrow... Argh!
If I stay another week, I would get a chance to talk more to that cute waitress at the café just down the road from the office who smiled and waved at me today and ask her out for a drink.
If I stay another week, I would once be back at the Marriott. Maybe not in the Royal Suite this time, but maybe at least a room with a one-person jacuzzi?

There are more to life than a plastic card (which I won't have any use for anyway). But the more I think about it, I realise it belongs to one of the first levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maybe not a physiological need like eating and drinking, but ... well, actually I would probably sacrify ... one of my daily cup's of coffee to get one.

"It's not my fault that the truth makes you sad"

2005-10-19T07:00:00.000+02:00

When I was in London this summer, I went to see a good play called "The President of an Empty Room". Since it doesn't seem to be on anymore, I dare telling you the end. The Cuban cigar roller Miguel has been abandoned by his love Alexandra who has gone on a boat to Florida, together with a man Miguel assumes is her new lover. He curses the couple, a storm breaks out, and the boat sinks. Once she's dead, he finds out that the man on the boat was in fact her father. What's the morale? Even if you have a perfectly good reason for being mad, you don't have a right to behave towards others in any way you want.

Another example is given by the following story from our friends with four legs in the forests: Once upon a time, there was a rabbit and a hare which were friends. The rabbit was also friends with the lovely Miss Deer. Then one day, the rabbit had a Carrot Cake Party and invited his two friends. And as chance would have it, Mr Hare and Ms Deer seemed to be getting along quite well together. Very well, in fact. Soon, they were hanging out a lot. Often they did invite the rabbit, but sometimes they went to have a sip in the forest lake together without asking their mutual friend. This made the rabbit angry and sad, not because he always wanted to hang out with them, but because he felt excluded. He got so sad that his tail lost all of its former polish. And because his sadness management skills were quite undeveloped, he became angry and had a go at his friends for enjoying each other's company. They were surprised, because they didn't think they did anything wrong.

The next time he threw a Carrot Cake Party, neither of them dared to appear. Even though all of them had only done what they intuitively felt were right, they all lost something in process. The hare missed the rabbit, and the deer missed the rabbit, and the rabbit missed both of them. Life moves in mysterious ways in the forest. Even if you have a perfectly good reason for being sad, you don't get any benefits from behaving towards others in any way you want.

It's a bit tricky. Obviously, everybody will hate you if you act like a jerk without having any reason. But how far can you give if you have some reason for being sad, or even angry? One can understand that Miguel was pissed that his love left him for America and some supposed-to-be new lover. And it's natural that the rabbit got sad. But what good came out their reactions? In the case of Miguel, Alexandra might have let him down in a way, but wishing her death was a totally unproportional response. He is the one behaving unacceptable, to a larger degree than her. In the case of the rabbit, the deer hadn't even promised not to sip water alone with one of his friends, so had he any right at all of being angry?

That being said, both Miguel and the rabbit had the right to feel sad. Feeling sad is many times unavoidable, and probably useful. But what's an appropiate response? Do Miguel and the rabbit have the right of blaming anybody else for feeling miserable?

Three things come to mind. The first is Baz Luhrmann's song/speech Everybody's free, which I hear is part of his Romeo & Julia: "Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself." The second is the Dutch proverb "Life is sweet, life is bitter", which I learnt this week-end when I was in The Netherlands (thanks, Carolien!). And the third is "It's not my fault that the truth makes you sad", which somebody says to Miguel in the play.

It's a good point. It's even a very, very good point. Of course, if somebody's interests conflict with yours and that person goes after you, you owe it to yourself to fight back. If somebody causes you harm unintentionally, it might still be a win-win-situation to let that person know that. But if things just don't go the way you want them to go, let it be. Let it be. It's not anybody's fault that a person, an employer or even Faith itself don't seem to like you enough.

The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself. And even if you desperately have to race against other people, the race is still long. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.

A generation of young people

2005-10-10T06:30:00.000+02:00

An entire generation of young people has been wiped out in the areas worst hit by a massive earthquake, according to Pakistan's military spokesman. The maximum number affected was schoolchildren. BBC reckons that at least 20,000 people have been killed, with some reports suggesting the toll may double. In some villages there are no survivors at all. In the Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani part of Kashmir, there are no families "that have not suffered the loss of loved ones".

Allt är mitt, och allt skall tagas från mig,
inom kort skall allting tagas ifrån mig
Träden, molnen, marken där jag går
Jag skall vandra - ensam, utan spår
(Pär Lagerkvist)

In comparison, my everyday obstacles and nuisances seems minuscule, incomprehensible, non-existing. Life is so fragile. At least in other parts of the world. Why was I born in a safe part of the world (and time period)? Or, more specifically, why has my individual self-consciousness which I am experiencing developed in a person who happened to be born in under decent conditions? Obviously, it's not possible for me to comprehend the fact that each and every one of those children who were killed had his or her own self-consciousness, feelings and plans for the future. Just trying to think along those lines is extremely depressing and painful. Maybe I'd better focus on my everyday obstacles and nuisances.

En gång skall du vara en av dem
som levat för länge sedan
Jorden skall minnas dig
såsom den minns gräset och skogarna
Såsom myllan minns
det multnade lövet
Och såsom bergen minns vindarna
Din frid skall vara oändlig
såsom havet
(ibid)

Thinking-outside-the-box Tourists

2005-10-04T00:31:00.000+02:00

These are questions that people actually asked of Park Rangers around the U.S. (Excerpted from Outside Magazine, May 1995, pp. 120-121)

Grand Canyon National Park
Was this man-made?
Do you light it up at night?
Is the mule train air conditioned?
So where are the faces of the presidents?

Everglades National Park
Are the alligators real?
Are the baby alligators for sale?
Where are all the rides?
What time does the two o'clock bus leave?

Denali National Park (Alaska)
What time do you feed the bears?
Can you show me where the yeti lives?
How often do you mow the tundra?
How much does Mount McKinley weigh?

Mesa Verde National Park
Did people build this, or did Indians?
Why did they build the ruins so close to the road?
Do you know of any undiscovered ruins?
Why did the Indians decide to live in Colorado?

Carlsbad Caverns National Park
How much of the cave is underground?
So what's in the unexplored part of the cave?
Does it ever rain in here?
How many Ping-Pong balls would it take to fill this up?
So what is this -- just a hole in the ground?

Yosemite National Park
Where are the cages for the animals?
What time do you turn on Yosemite Falls?

Yellowstone National Park
Does Old Faithful erupt at night?
How do you turn it on?
When does the guy who turns it on get to sleep?
We had no trouble finding the park entrances, but where are the exits?

(In contrast to most things in this blog, these questions are not my own creations. But I chose to include them here because they are more hilarious than anything I could ever intentionally come up with myself)

Like a bird-watcher

2005-09-30T08:03:00.000+02:00

Last night was amazing. It was very memorable. Let me put it this way: I know quite a few of you boys out there would have done anything to change places with me. And it all took place in a quite unremarkable place: the boring suburbian hotel where I was staying.

And no, you won't guess it. I didn't go back and forth to Rio in the client's private jet. I didn't invite my closest 500 friends for a helluva party. I didn't do truth-or-dare with the Norwegian group which was staying on the same floor. I didn't pick up any lonely female business traveller in the piano bar.

I just slept. And slept. And slept. And slept some more. In total, I think I slept almost 10 hours.

The outcomes of this "getting a full night's sleep" experience are mindboggling. I feel so ... awake. I don't have to concentrate to open my eyes. There is no small red sleep devil behind my forehead who wants me to close them again. I haven't sneezed yet, as I usually do in the mornings (can you be allergic to fatigue?). Colours around me seem starker. I can even hear birds sing again. As some British would-be hairy hippies put it almost 40 years ago:

There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No I never saw them at all
Till there was you [i.e. Sleep Personified]

2 m Jake, 200 m2 room, 20,000 kr bill

2005-09-22T23:05:00.000+02:00

Openly and honestly sharing materialistic experiences with others have at least two pitfalls. First, you run the risk of sounding too shallow and consumption-oriented. Also, displaying genuine joy is hard to combine with the always-trendy "I've seen it all" attitude. Nevertheless, I will now share a very materalistic experience. I couldn't possible do otherwise.

I enjoyed the most fabolous hotel bliss ever on Tuesday night. Due to room shortage a colleague and I were staying on the city's most expensive hotel, Marriott, which was promising in itself. (I very very rarely go to these kind of places otherwise. When a man dressed in red started unpacking our luggage from the cab's trunk, at first I thought he was some local thug trying to steal it.)

I had actually been there the night before, so the staff in the reception recognised me and greeted me like some regular. And because they messed things up yesterday - they gave my room away to somebody else, so I had to go to another hotel - they wanted to make amends. So they upgraded me to a room on the executive floor, which turned to be ... The Royal Suite.

I didn't catch the name of the room, I just got the key card and a note saying it was room 1114. When I got there, I was slightly intriged since there were only 1101-1113 ... and then a couple of unmarked doors. I eventually tried one of them and ended up in a nice and quite room. After a few seconds, I realised that was only the hallway. The suite itself turned out to be basically a 170 sqm apartment with a living room, a dining room, a workplace, a bedroom, a kitchen and two bathrooms.

Unfortunately, since I checked in at 1.30 and got up at 6.30, I didn't have much time in the room. But I couldn't resist spending some time playing with the intelligent room lights&sound system, taking a hot jacuzzi bath and just lie awake and look out at Copenhagen by night through the 8m panorama window in my bedroom...

The room is apparently priced at 18,000 Danish Crowns normally (22,000 SEK). When I left, I promised myself to return within five years. So I guess that means bye-bye to any remaining Foreign Ministry / United Nations plan ;)

Confessions of a Bookvampire (sure sounds cooler than bookworm)

2005-09-17T14:37:00.000+02:00

I reckon myself to be a fairly rational, albeit spontaneous, person. True, I've had my share of, eh, deviating from reason when it comes to crushes and affairs, but that's almost by definition. But in everyday life, I consider myself to be able to make rational choices. For instance, a couple of years ago, I started buying almost all books as paperbacks. After all, I argued with myself, it was all about contents, not form, right? I could suddenly buy three books for the price of one, and I was able to shelf three books in the space of one. Sometimes when I gave my parents paperbacks for Christmas, they would mumble something like "what happened to decent-looking books with French binding?". But in general, I was happy with my paperbacks.

When I was at work Monday or Tuesday this week, after about 10 consecutive hours of Excel formulas and PowerPoint charts, I decided I deserved a 5 min break. A book review at DN's (the major Swedish daily's) web site caught my attention. It was about three young, apparently quite disillusioned, people in Paris and their life and relationships and existential angst. The review said the book was about the question "is there a life after the first kiss?" and "if so, dare one dedicate oneself to this life?" It seemed all good to me, and since I knew I would never think about it again if I postponed the decision, I went ahead and bought it.

But it was a newly published book, and therefore only available in hardcover. I was annoyed for 3 seconds, accepted my fate and forgot about it. Until today, went I left my room at Shoemaker Street at noon, walked by the Chocolate Cup cafe on the Grand Square, walked down on Slammer Slope, navigated through the tourist crowds on the West Long Street and picked up my package at the local post office at Large New Street. For some reason, I unpacked the parcel in the post office, and went out on the streets again carrying the book.

And I suddenly understood what my parents had been talking about for the last 25 years. There's something special about a printed book. A few years ago, I could have promised to give up printed books altogether for e-books, if there had just been a suitable high-quality device for reading them. But I was overcome by my hereditary book fetishism. (Some googling for the correct spelling of "fetishism" taught me that the word derives from French "fetiche" and Latin "facticius", and means "natural object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular a thing created by people that has power over people". Books have power over people.)

Maybe I had it coming. After all, even after I embarked on my paperback strategy to save space and money, I had continued to buy, nay, collect books (and I'm usually the first to argue that collectors are uninteresting single-tracked people without a broad perspective). Occasionally, I would still buy books even if I knew there was a small chance of me reading through it, just because I wanted to have that book in my bookshelf. I possessed, and possess, a trait which is common amongst more humanities-oriented students, and slightly less so amongst business students: the belief that "you are your books" (business students might, stereotypically, be more inclined to go for "you are your night club" or "you are what you wear"). So I am interested in the culture of old Egypt, I will make damn sure I have a book about old Egypt.

And from now on, if that hereditary hardcover gene wins out in the long run, that book might be a hardcover book about old Egypt.

"Cabin crew: disarm slides, cross-check and report"

2005-09-09T21:40:00.000+02:00

After wondering about it on quite a few flights, I finally had to ask a cabin staff what they actually said in the loudspeakers just after touch-down. It turned out to be along the lines of what I thought, but it still didn't make a lot of sense.

I could have imagined the PA announcement at a management consultancy a couple of hours before The Important Client Meeting. Disarming PowerPoint slides was probably a metaphor for "find the template with all the dummy charts, challenge it, conquer it and use it". And you obviously wanted to cross-check the data before reporting it, that is, delivering the completed presentation to your superiors, or maybe even The Client. But how could this possible apply to cabin staff? It all became a bit clearer when they explained that the large plastic yellow (I envision them to be yellow. Or maybe red) helter-skelters used for embarkments after suboptimal touch-downs are refered to as "slides" and "disarming" just meant that they are deactivated so the doors can be opened for normal exits...

When I researched the phrase for this blog, google told me of an air steward who once saw a somewhat confused elderly passenger who asked for the toilette just after landing, being inprecisely directed towards the tail of the plane, and by mistake opening the emergency exit door instead of the toilette door, activating the still armed slide... Slightly embarrassing.

Speaking of google, I seem to end up as senior google operator pretty much everywhere I go. When I did my internship in London, I googled for help every time I had a question my busy team wouldn't have time to explain, or when I need to get some data. As is the hierarchy within an investment bank, my team members came to me with requests about minor things they didn't feel like doing themselves, which was alright, since it was all new and exciting to me. If it hadn't been for Google, I would probably still be there, calling librarians asking for hard-to-find documents.. And now, I'm doing an internship with a management consultancy, and I have assumed the role of the Googly Guy. When somebody wants to find China's country code, or the number to the local pizzeria, or know how ROCE is usually defined, they ask me. And I google. Googito, ergo sum. Let me know if I can do any googling for you.

Some of my avid readers (hello...?) might be a bit confused by the fact that I'm now doing a internship which is not the same as the internship I was doing last week. Actually, I'm slightly confused as well. So to set the record straight: until Friday a week ago, I was in London, doing an internship for an investment bank. I was one of the few people I know at banks who didn't work silly hours. Which meant London for me was a lot about researching financial institutions (my team's coverage area, basically banks and insurance companies) and learning models, methods and ways of working in a large organisation; but it was also about buying absurdely expensive drinks at posh clubs, walking for hours in parks, dancing in carnevals and having drinks with really funny and interesting people. I lived with five mates in an old chocolate factory (not, not an abandoned factory, a renovated one..) and I had wonderful time.

I came back to Sweden Saturday a week ago, had summer holidays on Sunday and started my second internship at the management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton this Monday. One day later, I was staffed on a project taking place in Denmark, and flew there the day after. The last few days have actually been more hectic than most days at the bank. But I have gotten a lot of responsibility and my team treats me almost like any other team member, which is stimulating and slightly un-bankish...

And I have to admit, in a childish way, it feels a bit cool to stay at hotels with marble bath tubs almost the size of my dorm room, to make the taxi wait while you rush into your menswear store to buy a new shirt, to give the x-ray staff at the airport the "I'm a business traveller and I have done this exercise more times than you guys" look or the fact that the client staff assume that I am a Swedish supply chain management expert flewn in just for them.

On the other hand, the days have basically consisted of 16 hours in front of Excel and Powerpoint, and my only view of central Copenhagen has been through the taxis' windows. And, yes, I know that some people might consider spending 16 hours in front of a keyboard, ehh, sub-optimal. Even though I can too think of other leisure pursuits, it's actually quite interesting when you constantly learn new things about the client's situation and how to tackle it.

So, to sum it up, London was great, both when it comes to having fun and learning and developing. And consulting looks very promising, interesting and stimulating so far. However, now is not the time to spend more time in front of a keyboard. Now is the time to put some socks on and go see a friend. Good night, bloggie blog!

7 million Londoners, 1 London

2005-08-26T20:07:00.000+02:00

I heard that Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, said that London is "the whole world in one city" in some interview recently. I was a bit annoyed, since it's actually my expression! You could almost say is part of the standard Jake in London Q&A. Whenever somebody asks me what I like about London, without hesitating I press a mental 'play' button and tell him or her that "Well, umh, you know, London is the whole world in one city, and I think that's quite cool". And that person usually nods solemnly and agrees that it is indeed cool.

And now the mayor stole my line. He must have overheard me. Well, I suppose I should feel flattered.

A tear a day keeps the doctor away?

2005-08-26T20:04:00.000+02:00

I recently came up with a drawback of living in a country with 60 million inhabitants: there are enough people that some will always suffer from grievous misfortunes on a daily basis. You may argue that 365 people suffering in 10 countries is just as bad as 365 people suffering in 1 country. And I can see where you are coming from.

But imagine what happens when these 365 people do live in a single country. The morning papers know you feel attachment to others based on physical and cultural proximity, right? That means that you are bound to get news every single day about strangled small cute boys, raped and tortured teenage girls, terminally ill young mothers and whatever horrible news you could possible imagine. In Sweden, there simply isn't enough sad and spectacular "local" news to fill the morning papers every day with these horrifying stories.

I usually read the free morning paper on the tube. And since I'm a slightly emotional person (if I worked as a proper viking in the 9th century, I would be probably be labelled "hysterical") I've got into the habit of involuntarily producing a tear or two somewhere between the train stations Shadwell and Westferry. It's hard to feel like a macho banker going to work in your skyscraper with tears in your eyes. On the other hand, I heard that tears are good for the lubrication of the eye, especially if you're wearing contacts. So maybe I should just accept it as a way to keep my body in shape? Sort of like going to the gym.

Guys with wigs

2005-08-23T20:43:00.000+02:00

I read in the newspaper today that a some business man in a suit who picked a fight with, and seriously injured, another business man in a suit was sent to jail. When he delivered the sentence, the judge said that he "took no pleasure in sending a man of such usual good character" to prison.

I thought the idea of justice was that you were sentenced based on criminal acts you have committed, not your personality? Sure, personality, track record etc might be useful to assess the probabilities of whether a person actually committed a certain crime. But that wasn't an issue here: the guy had pleaded guilty. And if a person almost kills another person, it shouldn't really matter that he usually possesses "good character" (is a murderer who is nice when he doesn't kill people a nice murderer?). Or, on the contrary, if a person with an extensive criminal record does not commit a certain crime, hopefully the judge won't take any pleasure in sending him to prison..

I'm not saying that the perpetrator's character actually influenced the sentence. But I think it was an odd comment.

To text or not to text: that is the question

2005-08-11T22:29:00.000+02:00

Once upon a time, there was a boy who had a mobile phone. His friends used to send text messages to his mobile phone. The text messages were usually about common things such as when to meet or what to eat tonight. The boy liked to receive text messages, so he was happy whenever his phone said 'bling'. When he woke up in the mornings, he would eagerly check his phone to see whether somebody had texted him when he was asleep.

One day, on a perfectly ordinary morning, he was checking his phone as he did every day. Then he saw that a girl he knew had texted him. That wasn't surprising, since she often texted him. But the contents of the message were slightly unusual. The girl wrote that she just wanted to tell him, for no particular reason, that she didn't want to see him anymore. The boy was a bit confused, a bit surprised, and a bit sad. The morning passed, as mornings tend to do. As did the afternoon.

Then in the evening of the same day, the boy's phone said 'bling'. It was a message from another girl. That girl wrote that she just wanted to tell him, for no particular reason, that she was really happy she met him and that their friendship meant a lot to her. The boy was a bit confused, a bit surprised, and a bit happy. And the evening passed, as evenings tend to do. As did the night.

And the boy lived happily ever after. He still likes to receive text messages. But now he knows that one single text message might be a small step for the mobile network, but it could be a huge surprise for a boy.

THE END.

Chocolate Studios + nightly texts => Jamie

2005-08-09T00:50:00.000+02:00

Three amazing things which happened today:

* All my flat mates were present at the same location, awake, at the same time. First time in six weeks. We had dinner to celebrate Jesper, one of the guys, who just turned 24.

* The loaves of bread and grapes which we can see through a window from our yard, after entering through the Chocolate Studios gate, turned out to belong to Fifteen, Jamie Oliver's restaurant, featured in a docu soap, where fifteen youngsters from unprivileged backgrounds trained to become "the next generation's star chefs". It's sort of the only restaurant in London which I had heard about, and it turned out to be literally next doo.. window. (Minor related point: we found a giant white stretch limo outside when we left. The rich and beautiful apparently like to dine at restaurants famous for its ex-street kids chefs).

* One of my flat mates left a note Saturday lunch a week ago to the girl working in a small coffee shop a 100 m from home, asking her to come to our party that evening. No response. This Saturday lunch, he left another note, urging her to come to that week-end's party. She didn't come, but he received a text from her later that night. They have barely spoken, and she seems keen on meeting up with him anyway. Impressive. It's one thing that people pick up other people in night clubs at 2.30 am without really speaking. But picking up people at 2.30 pm on a Saturday afternoon in a busy coffee shop is more of an achievement.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front?

2005-08-07T19:33:00.000+02:00

A) "Over the last decade Russians have become accustomed to tales of woe emanating from the navy. [...] In 1995 a nuclear submarine came close to meltdown when an electricity company cut supplies to a naval base in a dispute over unpaid bills, and the submarine's cooling system ceased to function." (BBC) I bet that the submarine commander must have been a bit sceptical about the wonders of privatisation...

B) When he wakes up, one of my flat mates sometimes yells at one of the guys who sleeps in his room: "Per, are you finished with the reports? You promised to look at them as soon as possible." He only sleeps 4-5 hours on a normal day (and spends the remaining 19-20 hours in his office), so you can't really blame his brain for confusing Per who sleeps next to him in his bedroom at home, with that colleague who sits next to him in the office..

C) I saw "Batman begins" last week and I liked it. In fact, I think that doing an internship as a super-hero would be even more challenging and interesting than working in a bank. True, the renumeration package might not be as generous, but there is certainly a steep learning curve, great fringe benefits (marrying the grateful and beautiful girl), a high-paced environment and an opportunity to meet and interact with influential figures and "clients".

And I like the conclusion from Batman's training programme: it's compassion that differentiates between the good and the bad. I think it's very true. You can't really look at means to judge whether an act/person etc is "good" or "evil". Being killed by a US military bomb isn't any more enviable than being killed in a paramilitary mujahedin attack. And it's hard to compare different types of ends or purposes, and say without hesitation which one is most admirable. But it's a sure thing that if the perpetrators lack compassion, empathy and respect for human life, it's unlikely that their cause is worth fighting for.

Clubbing, comtemplating and catching-up

2005-07-30T19:08:00.000+02:00

I have had so many great nights out recently. Yesterday, it started with an old uni friend and me having fantastic steaks at a small Argentinian restaurant in Clapham, southern London. Later that night, I ended up with some other friends at a cool, very run-down and somewhat indimidating bar in Shoreditch. A guy with arms the size of my legs tried to sell me some coke within thirty seconds of me getting there..

The night before, a Thursday, some of my intern friends and me went to a Mexican restaurant close to Long Acre and Covent Garden. I think the barman made some mistake when summing up the tab, because we got five-six rounds of Coronas and tequila for just £15 per person. Then one of my flat mates asked me to be his "wingman", because he was meeting up with a girl he met earlier the same night on some sale, and he needed somebody to talk to her friends. For some reason, the place they agreed to meet turned out to be a gay club, and her friends turned out to be all male. But I had a great time while my flat mate commenced on his, ultimately successful, efforts to pull the fit shop assistant he had met. A colleague of hers brought me a drink and gave me his phone number. Not sure if that was before or after I danced against the pole (since I didn't know any people, and isn't really in the business of picking up male strangers, a metal stick wasn't that bad a company..) or before or after the four girls (about the only girls in the place) surrounded me and started rubbing themselves against me from all directions while I was dancing (why does those things never happen in non-gay clubs?)...

On Wednesday, we had a "networking event" at work. It was actually bizarrely boring since I ended up at a table where everybody was talking about trading strategies and share prices for hours. It felt even worse when I realised that people from all other tables seemed to be having a really good time. After the dinner, however, we went for for a couple of pints, fun as always. Then I went to see my friend Louise who works in a bar in Soho, and we had a lock-in lasting till three o'clock. We finally left when two of the five people left started fucking in an adjacent room, and the remaining person, except for us, started talking about Black Magic and how some criminals in South Africa were able to walk through walls...

Other recent highlights include the British girl who invited three Swedish friends and me to her parents' nice flat in Kensington after the club closed last Saturday, and tried to pull one of my friends after constantly refilling our wine glasses for hours.. She got really irritated when we eventually walked out. Or the day before that, when several fellow interns and me got into the LSE Crush party, downed an extensive amount of £1.90 drinks, and danced samba with Georgian girls until we were properly dehydrated. (One of my mates couldn't think of anything else to say when one of the girls told him she was Georgian, so he replied "Oh, Georgia, really, aah, interesting, ehh .... well ... isn't that where Stalin came from?")

Speaking of something else: recently, somebody used the expression "we have some catching-up to do" and it got me thinking. Clearly, if you haven't met a friend for some time, you're curious what he or she has been up to, and hopefully the other way around. But the phrase somehow carries the implication that meeting friends is only about sharing information on what you do inbetween your get-togethers. And clearly, sharing what you've been up to is a very basic human need, but it would be a shame if it stopped there. Sharing information is nice and interesting, but doing things together and getting common, new experiences is better. As is talking and gaining new intellectual insights. Which you can talk about the next time you and someone else does some catching-up...

The blue shirts and the white shirts

2005-07-20T00:45:00.000+02:00

I attended a meeting today. That is, we're talking 11 shirt-and-tie-equipped men and two women, circling a small table on the bottom transfer floor, 15. Seven of the shirt-wearers had more or less blue shirts, the rest were white. It was a pretty interesting meeting: we were talking about a certain client, the services we were delivering to them, and some operational problems we have in delivering these services. However, during two hours of mute listening, you have a couple of seconds to think about other things, like:

* Sleep. Why is sleep so important? How come you sometimes can't keep your eyes open, no matter how hard you try mentally? Even if you try to imagine that someone is gonna cut off your arm within ten seconds if you close your eyes, you can't stop yourself. The insight that your boss is looking disapprovingly at you may enable you to keep your eyes open a few seconds more, but that's it. But sometimes the sleepiness pass and you feel totally awake and refreshed for the next couple of hours. Why is that? And is there any way I could avoid having to crash in the men's room for ten minutes every now and then to stay focused?

* Girls. What makes me fall in love with a girl? I realised I fall in love with enthusiastic girls, who have energy and care about many things in life. And I fall in love with talented, smart, fascinating girls with drive which I can be impressed by (in different ways). And I fall with girls who are ... physically attractive (!). I also realised that things which I thought were really important, like mentally connecting with a person or the person being independent, maybe aren't that crucial. Necessary, yes, for a sustainable relationship. But not for falling in love. I think.

* Leadership. I admired the way the chair of the meeting were handling the people in the room. They came from different divisions within the banks, and things were a bit tense at first. But he was able to understand which issues were important, communicate that to the people, and make them give their best. He did have a technical understanding of the concepts and the business systems, which was crucial for him being able to direct the meeting. But he was a brilliant communicator, and he understood the participant's needs and he acted on them and tried to reconcile them. I was impressed. (And no, I wouldn't fall in love with him.)

* Nodding. We had a phone link with some people in the bank located in India. It looks quite silly when 13 smartly dressed people in a room are sitting in silence, looking at a small black box on the table, listening to a not-present person and eagerly nodding simultaneously.

A Jake's adventure in the cafeteria

2005-07-14T10:29:00.000+02:00

Jake update: I just went down to the cafeteria on floor 15 to get some breakfast. I was sooo happy I had finally managed to pronounce latte grande in English (sort of the total opposite of the Italian word for "milk", you just say "laaaaaaaaatte" and then "large" instead of "grande" to be safe). But nothing lasts for ever, especially not bliss. Imagine the shock as I saw a 3 dl glass of orange juice falling off the "bar" towards my almost white shirt... I did a jump backwards which would hade made Spiderman look handicapped and actually managed to avert 97 % of the orange juice. And after 10 minutes with soap and water in front of a mirror in the bathroom (which also made me realise I need a haircut), the remaining 3 % gave in and disappear.

Exciting morning, uhh? And then I haven't even said anything about this new Excel spreadsheet which I'm working on...

Magic drums and unicorns in the night

2005-07-13T00:47:00.000+02:00

I'm really enjoying my internship. Most of the assignments are quite interesting, and I do learn a lot all the time about the insurance industry (my team's focus), multinational client companies, the workings of a large organisation, what working in the UK is like and what the financial services industry actually do. Also, I get to know a lot of interesting and friendly people (today my manager took me out for lunch, my first £100-for-two-people lunch ever...). So I'm basically very happy about my internship.

But even though I'm enjoying my internship, I'm able to enjoy other things in life too (unlike most of my roomies who spend all their time at their desks, in their beds or in cabs going inbetween). Other things, like Paris. I went there last Friday to see a friend and we had two really great days walking, talking, sightseeing, watching, going around in merry-go-rounds and eating crepes & icecream & more crepes & more icecream.

And yeah, the Eiffel tower was impressive. And Montmartre was cute. And French people were surprisingly friendly even to English-speaking people ;) And I really really liked the garden between Louvre and Place de la Concorde. But there is one moment which stands out. It because it was so magic.

It was close to midnight on Saturday when we passed by a large building just by Seine and the street. After ascending some stairs, we saw a large pond and behind that stood several tall and magnificient neoclassic stone pillars, who were slightly alit in the dark. We could see more than ten people throwing, juggling and rotating burning sticks, and sometimes doing some fire-eating. Once, one guy did some magic with his burning stick, creating amazing fireworks. In the background were the rhythmic sound of bongo drums. It was almost dark and the city seemed distant. It don't know how long we sat their just watching. The stress of everyday life seemed so uninteresting and irrelevant then. It was a magic show and it made both my friend and me keep our mouths shut for some time, something which happens rarely to one of us, let alone both.

I like cities where you just run into magic shows in the night.

Au revoir, Paris.

NY 11/09/01, Madrid 11/03/04, London 07/07/05

2005-07-07T23:37:00.000+02:00

I had so many things I thought I should write about. My new work, my new mates, my impressions of working in a big organisation, the 3h meeting recently when I was tired I had to pull hair from my legs to stay awake, all the interesting discussions I have had recently, the greatness of London, ...

And now it all seems like minor things. But on the other hand, I think I try to avoid thinking of the events of today. It's a bit too hard to take in, even though I've been watching Sky News all day. And, as the home secretary put it, "The aim of the terrorists to try and stop us leading our lives as we best can and I think our responsibility is to try and get on and live our lives as we can." I agree. But I dwell upon this subject for a few more paragraphs.

I left home around 7.50 this morning and got in around 8.30. I live quite close to Aldgate, but I didn't pass exactly that station, and anyway it was about 30 minutes before the first bomb went off. I remember enjoying the ride to work, since I found free seats both on the tube part and on the DLR (commuter train) part of the journey. Some routines tasks at first, like responding to e-mail, some internal banter going around amongst us interns -- we were having the business area summer party later that evening, whichwould feature dragon boat racing; I was to row, but I had no idea what a dragon boat actually was -- as well as talking to a new member of the team for the first time.

At 9.37, somebody sent a message to the entire business area, saying there had been a "tube crash" which resulted in some stations shutting down and that we should expect some colleagues to be late to work today. I remember feeling uneasy about it, and I sent an internal e-mail to some intern friends about the crash and wrote "At least I hope there weren't any casualties". Then a got a message back saying there had been some explosion on a train.

At that time, I still hadn't got my external web access, so I inquired for more information, while getting my 2nd coffee for the morning and continuing to read up on cash management. We had an "important" meeting on the subject tomorrow. Some time later, the guy behind me had been looking at some news site, and then the events started to unfold. Within minutes, everybody around me was looking at Sky News live on the internet and heard the report about multiple bombings. People grew more quite and reserved, and the word "terrorism" was mentioned for the first time. Some time later, the skyscraper's Crisis Group go on the PA system and recommended people to stay in the building for the time being.

I remember feeling really uneasy, the events of 9/11 going through my heads over and over. I did think about just leaving everything, taking the lift down and walking out of the building, but since nobody else did that, I didn't really dare. My desire not to make a fool of myself was stronger than my (rational) fear of death, I suppose.. I heard later that another team's secretary had phoned her mum to tell her how much she loved her. The guy who told me that thought it was very funny. People were scared, but not that scared, more uneasy and shocked.

The Swedish girl on my team, Anna, suggested I should call home and I did place a few phone calls. After calling my dad, mum and sis to say I was alright, I called a close friend who happened to be doing an internship with a Swedish business daily. The I'm-OK-no-need-to-worry call turned into an interview, but I don't blame her. She later said she was horrified by the excitement the news prompted amongst her colleagues.

I spent basically all morning calling, texting, watching Sky News and talking to people around me. The second largest headline of BBC was that the markets went down upon receiving the news, information which I found really provocative. Blair deliver a short speech at midday, but people were kind of cynical about it ("oh, you say these are acts of terrorism, no shit?!"). I eventually got hold a friend, who was a bit worried about me, because he thought I had been taking the tube around the time of the explosions.

At 12.30, a few of us interns went for lunch, just like any other day. I started talking to a stranger in the line when waiting for food, something which wouldn't have happened on a normal day. I heard some rumour that somebody had been shot, possibly by security, in the Wharf, and also that management had sent for 5,000 sleeping bags since they wouldn't be able to get everybody home now that the tube and buses had stopped operating. My intern friends really thought I should seek permission from my MD (managing director, head of my sector team) about participating in an interview, but he was perfectly cool about it.

Actually, Nick, our MD, seems like a genuinely nice guy who cares about his staff. He held a meeting later in the afternoon and urged people to team up to get home, and said we could leave now if we could possibly get home. If we didn't leave close by, we wouldn't have to come in for work tomorrow. It was a strong contrast to what I heard from other banks. A interning roomie's MD said something like "well, it's really too bad all of this, but after all, we are just bankers, whahaha, and I want this pitch book done by 5 pm as agreed". Another roomie, who was at home sleeping in in the morning since he had been pulling an all-nighter, was told by police to stay at home, but that was later overriden by his team, who told him to come to work anyway "because they needed him". When I writing this at 1 am, neither of these two guys are home yet. They are working on the Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations as if nothing ever happened. And I guess the spreadsheets and presentations will look just as neat as if thousands of people hadn't been through this ordeal earlier today. The financial world is surely disconnected from the real world, sometimes.

Two other interns and me left around 3 pm, because we weren't really working productively anyway and we wanted to get ahead of the other 80,000 people who are working in the Wharf. We thought about taking the riverboat to the City, which was still operational, but the lines were endless. Ironically enough, most of the people waiting patiently in line where professionals who probably never waits on anything. They seemed to be handling it quite well. We decided to walk, however. It was a about 45 minutes to the Tower of London, and then about as much time to get home to Old Street. Really didn't mind the walking.

I remember my shock and grief after learning about the WTC collapse, and the bombs on the commuter trains in Madrid. I remember crying and thinking about friends who were around, as well as all those people who lost their lives and their future, and others losing a child, a mate, a boy- or girlfriend or somebody else they deeply cared about. After first learning about the "incidents" this morning, I was more scared and concerned about my own security than actually sorrowful. But as the hours went by, and I realised I was quite safe in my skyscraper, my thoughts went to all who weren't as lucky. A friend's friend was in the train behind the one that exploded near King's Cross. She was naturally totally horrified. I wonder if she is ever going to be able to use a tube again. Terrorism leaves so many wounds even amongst people who weren't there. I just hope my friend's friend, and everybody else, will be able to go on with their lives.

"The aim of the terrorists to try and stop us leading our lives as we best can and I think our responsibility is to try and get on and live our lives as we can."

A tiny group of well-connected individuals

2005-07-03T20:51:00.000+02:00

We may never see its like again. Two thirds of the world's population, watching it live, on television, on the internet, listening on the radio - united for a few delirious hours in a great act of mass compassion.
Yesterday they bonded in their billions through the planet's lingua franca of pop music to register hope a new dawn for the world's most brutalised continent.
(...)
How did it happen? (...) It can be traced to a tiny group of well-connected individuals and an understanding that, even in a world fed on a diet of 24-hour news and wearied by broken political promises, humanity could still identify with the suffering of a continent. (...) the true story behind Live8 belongs to three friends. Two who always believed it could work and one afraid it never would.
(The Observer)

I don't that much time wondering about my future, but obviously I do sometimes think about what I will be doing for a living some day. And maybe I shouldn't say this now, since I'm doing an internship with an investment bank (which I am indeed very much enjoying so far), but I don't really know what I want to do in the future. But I'm sure I couldn't think of anything more interesting than organising such an event. Working in project teams with other dedicated people, finding and recruiting the right people for the job, co-ordinating enormous amounts of people and tasks, working for a just cause, ... I'll try to make sure that future jobs give me that kind of stimuli.

Read more about the inside story in The Observer.

La più grande audience della storia

2005-07-02T16:47:00.000+02:00

The largest audience ever in history, as Corriere della Sera put it. Paul McCartney and Bono started off Live 8 with Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and its classic "It was twenty years ago today" (Live Aid took place in 1985). I wanted to be there so badly. I love concerts, I love good music, I love crowds (most of the time) and I love people fighting to eradicate poverty.

In fact, I almost got a few tears in my eyes when reading about the background to the event. As the main organiser Bob Geldof, and his team put it, "Just as people demanded an end to slavery, demanded women's suffrage, demanded the end of apartheid -- we now call for an end to the unjust absurdity of extreme poverty". And I believe he's true. They want to influence the G8 delegates to change their countries' position on trade barriers and aid. And of course, the delegates views are strongly influence by what [they think that] their constituencies think. If they don't seem to care, or if some highly visible special-interest groups press for the opposite development (e.g, French farmers), clearly mostly political leaders wouldn't make the issue a high priority. If people do seem to care, politicians will eventually listen and care. Bob Geldof and his crew have given people a way to show that they care. If I was into having idols, he would be one.

Carrots & whips

2005-06-22T15:04:00.000+02:00

There are few better things in life than aha-experiences. Sure, going to sleep when you're really tired, having wonderful Italian food or a brilliant shag are also important sources of happiness. But experiencing the mental 'aha' reaction, when you suddently realise something and see patterns in the muddy fields of knowledge (and say/think "aha, that's how it works!"), is one thing which makes me tick. Since I'm lucky enough to have many friends who stimulate my thinking, from different backgrounds and with different interests, I do get these aha-experiences quite often (probably more often than a good night's sleep, wonderful Italian food and brilliant shags :)). Actually, I'm thinking of dedicating this blog to my aha-experiences. Some people collect stamps, why shouldn't others be able to collect aha-experiences... ;)

Today's aha-experience was about two types of ambitious people . I had lunch with a girl from my school, Sanna, and we were chatting about many different things, many of them connected to ambitious people. She told the story of a mutual friend who maxed his Swedish SAT (Högskoleprovet) in his freshman year in high school, which meant that he knew from the start that he would get in everywhere he wanted. He still went ahead and studied hard to get top grades in all subjects in high school (20,0 out of 20,0). A related case is all those military interpreters in my vicinity. It's an elite military training for about 20 young Swedes a year who learn Russian (in case the Russian bear would once more rise...) by attending a very ambitious up-or-out training programme during a year. I was never able to focus suffienctly on boring subjects in high school, and I know I wouldn't have been able to spend one year revising Russian words 8 hours a day. I just don't have that self-discipline. Still, I'm described by many people as having 'drive' and being ambitious. How come?

My key insight today was that there might be two sorts of performers. Some react well to whips. If they get into something, no matter what, they will endure physical and mental suffering and finish. I'm like that too, but only to a certain extent. I think others, like me, respond much better to carrots. If I find something interesting (and I find it easy to find many things interesting, bar revising Russian words), I'm able to focus very intensely on that. I think that's one explanation why my high school studies were less successful than my current business school studies.

OK, OK, this is black-and-white, and clearly, most people respond both to whips and carrots. But I still found it interesting to separate these two factors. I would appreciate if anybody were able to prove me wrong; that my model doesn't add any value. That would be an aha-experience in itself...

Ceremonies and armed 18-year-olds

2005-06-20T23:35:00.000+02:00

Since I happen to live 200 m from the Royal Palace, I pass by some Royal Guards almost every morning and night. I'm really intrigued by all their ceremonies and rituals. Today, I witnessed a mini-changing of the guards, when four guys came to relieve another guy from his duty. The incoming and the outgoing guard were standing in front of each other for seconds, moving in complicated patterns (a bit like a kata in karate, but without the brightly coloured belts), saying ceremonial lines to each other (I presume, maybe they were discussing the latest gossip from yesterday's pub crawl?) and finally the new guy assumes the duties of his colleague.

I find it really interesting how ceremonies, rituals, myths etc help create a certain atmosphere and culture within a group and towards other groups in society. The rituals made me think of a book I read about the mafia, and their rituals and ceremonies. In both cases we're dealing with armed 18-year-olds who obey certain rules, customs and traditions because they are told it's the honourable thing to do. Admittedly, the mob don't wear as cool helmets as the Swedish Royal Guards.

The Stedman (2005) Relationship Entrance Model

2005-06-20T00:16:00.000+02:00

Just got in. I've been out on the square outside my house for some time, reading a book called "Dr. Glas" by a Hjalmar Söderberg. It's set in early 20th century Stockholm and tells the story of a physician who falls in love with the young and beautiful Helga, who is trapped in a hopeless and loveless marriage. Helga is married to a repulsive old priest who abuses her, and she asks the physician to help her out. The books deals with the question of whether you have the right to kill a person to save another. I just bought the book yesterday, but it looks promising. And I love Söderberg's simple but beautiful language. And I also love sitting on "my" square (Stortorget) reading on a warm summer night...

Speaking about love, I spent a couple of hours earlier tonight having some beers and chatting with a friend about which factors cause people to fall in love, and how they are related. I have had these discussions so many times -- since entering and exiting relationships seem to be a major pastime of many young people -- so I thought it was time to do some modeling and try to extract some generic insights. ;)

So, voila, I hereby present the Stedman Relationship Entrance Model which tries to explain why two people enter (or do not enter) into a sexual relationship. I'm talking about proper official exclusive relationships here, not, for example, just people who have sex now and then because they have nothing better to do. And credits to you, Louise, who were a good devil's advocate and helped me sharpen the model..!

There are some fundamental prerequities for a relation (according to us). They are (more or less) fixed for a certain combination of two people, no matter when and how they meet. They include the ability to establish a strong mental bond, that is, the ability to "connect" intellectually, understand each other, share the same humour, values etc. With sense of unity, we mean the need to feel that there is something special about "us", that both parties care about communicating with the other. Physical attraction is exogenous in this model, although you could argue that it is affected by other factors.

There are also context-related factors. Whether A and B becomes A&B obviously depends a lot on timing issues (for example, is A already married?), which affects their mindsets. Finally, the process is shaped by the two people's mindset, as well as the fundamental prerequisites. But whether A and B will actually fall in love in the end depends a lot on the dating process itself, for example the flow of initiatives and responses (i.e, don't be too eager).

Have I/we missed something important, or totally misunderstood some basic aspect of love? Let me know! ;)

Does it seem pretentious (or unnecessary) to introduce a model to structure what most of us know instinctively? Maybe, but it was fun developing and discussing it! :-) And if you think this adds little value, you should hear some of the discussions I have with some friends about using macro economics models on labour market participation on relationships...

If you haven't studied these models in economics, this paragraph will seem excessively incomprehensible/nerdy to you: For example, these models could help us differentiate between the structural unengaged who remain unenganged because they don't contribute enough value to the relationships market to offset the downside of being in a relationship with them, and the frictional unengaged who just yet haven't found the ideal partner due to matching issues. And don't get me started on relation finding rates, relation separation rates, the value of flexibility on the relationships market to prevent people being locked into relationships, the issues of imperfect information, a downwards quality limit on relationships (like minimum wages), etc ... :-)

(Just to defer some likely comments, I'm honestly not at all bitter about the way these things work. In fact, I think it's quite fair, and it's obvious that most of us find love and meaningful relationship quite often. But I think it's interesting to understand how this very fundamental human process works, and, well, you become a little bit geeky about models after studying economics...)

"We Have All Been Embryos"

2005-06-12T14:55:00.000+02:00

I read in the papers about the referendums in Italy on assisted fertility. They are about a couple of different questions, but one is about whether to keep the ban on research using embryos. The Pope and his crew are, not surprisingly, in favor of keeping the current ban. One of their catchphrases has been "We Have All Been Embryos", which is of course very true. But it's also grossly misleading. Not all embryos become people, so even if all Y's have been X's, not all X's become Y's. And just because X is a potential Y, X can't have the rights of a Y. If a politician running for parliament is a potential MP, s/he can't have the rights of an MP until s/he is elected. Even if an embryo might become "one of us" one day, that doesn't nescessarily mean it should be enjoying our rights today.

I have to admit, it seems possible from a Christian standpoint to want to ban research on embryos, that is, if you perceive human life as a "sacred gift from our Creator". But I think it's valid to question whether a secular state should base its policy on Christian ideology, in contrast to rational lines of argument. Because it's very hard to defend the ban on non-religious grounds.

From a utilitarian standpoint, there isn't really any discussion at all: the potential advantages of medical breakthrough which could cure many people are greater than the side-effect of destroying some embryos which nobody will miss. And even if you share the "all human beings has a right to life" value, I think it still makes sense to accept research on embryos.

A case study: Back in 2001, US president Bush dismissed the utilitarian argument and said that human life is "something precious to be protected", and since embryos are human life, that should apply to them too. But why is human life per se so precious? Every year, millions of embryos die for purely natural reasons. For every child that is born, one or a couple of embryos are lost without the woman even noticing. And most frozen embryos in fertility clinics are destroyed anyway. If each embryo is "something precious to be protected", shouldn't we fund research to stop this ongoing holocaust? It doesn't seem to be a priority. Bush also said that each embryo is unique, "like a snowflake". But that is hardly an argument to preserve it per se: we don't preserve snowflakes. Another argument is that human lives should be protected, since they are different from other life forms. The non-religious argument here is that human beings have superior mental capacities: a sense of being and and a capacity to see that we have a past and a future, something which make it reasonable to argue that death is a greater tragedy to us than to small pets. But embryos don't possess these mental capacities. And even those newborns don't either, they are still loved by their parents and considered precious to them, which embryos are not. Did Bush want to protect potential great-mental-capacity human beings? But, again, just because X is a potential Y, X can't have the rights of a Y. To sum it, from a secular point of view, it's hard to argue that human life is valuable (or more valuable, than, let says, adult gorillas) until it has developed some mental capacities or is loved by somebody.

This line of reasoning comes from an interesting book by the philosopher Peter Singer, called "The President of Good and Evil - Taking George W. Bush Seriously". It is an assessment on the values and ethics of the American president, and an analysis of his [lack of] consistency. For example he supports the death penalty because he believes it saves innocent lives (a belief not held by many social scientists). But there is nevertheless also a risk of executing the innocent (even a pro-death-penalty study shows that 1 out of 200 of people sentenced to death was innocent). Bush are clearly in favour of executing these innocent people to save other innocent people. But even if that might be defendable on utilitarian views, Bush has repeatly stated in other cases, for example on the issue of stem cell research, that he is absolutely against that sort of argument.

He has also repeatedly talked about the importance of trusting individuals and a federal government that doesn't interfere with people lives. But when the people of Oregon wanted to be able to let physicians prescribe lethal doses of drugs to patients who are terminally ill -- it's hard to think of a decision that a more tied to individual's own values -- the federal government stepped in to stop the new law. He has been reported to be almost childishly honest and sticking to black-and-white principles on what's the right thing to do, but was then able to more or less intentionally mislead the nation and the world about WMD's in Iraq. He talked about the importance of "leaving no child behind", then cut taxes and decreased the possibility to do anything about the problems. Singer argues, convingly, that "if we what need in a president is, as Bush himself said in November 2000, a consistent message, then George W. Bush is a conspicuous failure".

I find that sort of critique much more powerful and interesting, then the Bush-bashing or America-bashing that you often stumble across. America has to act differently from other nations, because it's in a unique position in the international system (so would other countries, if they held that position). And if the American public, who elected Bush, feel strongly about some issues, it's hard to blame him for acting based on that. Also, the American government has an extreme complex set of issues to prioritize and handle, and it's natural if some results are suboptimal. But I still believe it's possible to, rationally and fairly, critize Bush for his black and white views on some issues, especially when he fails to adhere to his own values on other occasions.

Nothing much happening in the world?

2005-06-11T16:41:00.000+02:00

A couple of recent placards from major Swedish newspapers:

(HOW INTELLIGENT IS YOUR DOG? Do the expert's IQ TEST.)

(OLINDA (a Swedish C-list celebrity) gives men orgasm in ILLEGAL SEX HYPNOSIS)

I guess you should be happy that no major shit is happening in the world...

Or, on the other hand, a lot of bad things are obviously happening all the time, so if you want to get philosophical, you could argue that it would be better if people knew about different wars, famines etc rather than being able to test their dogs' IQ..

"Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth and the Shift from the Managed to the Entrepreneurial Economy"

2005-06-10T11:39:00.000+02:00

If you have any pressing questions about Sweden's economic development during the 19th and 20th centuries, how economic incentives affect entrepreneurship, or how to explain intraindustry trade, do ask me. But please ask as soon as possible, since I have a steep forgetting curve.

I had my last exam for the semester yesterday, and I spent the night learning acronyms. For example, you want to know which policy changes took place during the 90's which would have improved the incentives for entreprenurship? FEMHAK (a club which stays open until five o'clock) Fskattekultur Entreprenadtjänster Marginalskatter Hushålldiskriminering Avregleringar Kreditmarknaden. Or you want to know what Myhrman says about the Swedish model of labour regulations? KK-ROLF (a guy named Rolf which you fuck regurlarily, although he's more of a friend) Kollektivavtal Konflikthantering Rationaliseringssamsyn Organiseringsrätt LO Fredsplikt. Or if you don't remember Baumol's description of Schumpeter's views on innovation, think of an Italian vampire called VAMPIRO (Varor A/ Marknad Produktionsmetoder Innovationer Råvaror Organisation). Actually, there are 27 more of these. But unfortunately, it's too late, I think I have forgotten them already..

Now, the total opposite of memorizing acronyms: 12 hour 1000 guest summer party coming up in 5 hours...Yeeeeeha!

Vade in pace

2005-06-06T02:58:00.000+02:00

Assorted thoughts:
* Acta est fabula, plaudite!
* Adversus solem ne loquitor
* Est queadam fiere voluptas
* Moritorus, te saluto
* Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim
* Qui vir odiosus!
* Si vis amari, ama
* Spectaculorum procedere debet
* Transit umbra, lux permanet (?)
* Venienti occurrite morbo

Helena Charlotta af Ugglas (1786-1828)

2005-06-04T12:12:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening, I was out walking with a friend in a beech wood 20-30 km north of Stockholm, near her parents' place. I enjoyed the feeling being out in the woods, except for the mosquitos, it felt so ... natural and non-urban. Lots of flashbacks from my childhood (we lived close to a beech wood too).

Just when the sun had started to set, we found a memorial stone. At first it was a bit uncanny, especially since we had just been walking about Blair Witch Project and getting lost in the woods, but when I read the text, I was really touched. It said (Swedish):

Sannare tårar än saknaden egnar hennes minne
uttryckte aldrig mennisko hjertat,
ty huldare maka,
säkrare vän,
ädlare människa än hon
har jorden icke burit

A clumpsy translation:

Truer tears than what the loss devotes to her memory
was never expressed by the human heart,
because a more loving wife,
a more trustworthy friend,
a more noble person than she,
has not been borne on this earth

The stone was erected six years after her death in 1828 by her husband.

I think I was a bit surprised, and moved, that the husbands of the early 19th century had -- or rather, expressed -- such feelings for their life companions. And I liked to the "human" angle, she was not just his wife or the mother of his children, she was his best friend and a human being which he deeply admired. Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked by this, but I was.

I would so very much want to listen in on a typical private husband-wife discussion from 200 years ago. It would be extremely interesting to see what was different -- if anything but on the superficial level -- back then.

18,000 Swedes in a tent

2005-05-28T01:27:00.000+02:00

18,000 fellow Swedes and me spent a couple of hours this evening listening to the Swedish pop band Kent playing in a (large) tent just outside the city centre.

Brinn pengar brinn
Jag lovar du betyder nånting
Du orkar ta dig igenom det här
Du räcker till, så var den du är

Brinn pengar brinn
Jag vet att du är värd någonting
Du är hoppet i ett IQ-fritt land
Du är drömmarna jag drömmer ibland

Visst känns det som att kärleken väntar
Visst känns det som att kärleken väntar

Brinn hjärtat brinn
Du vet du kan förändra allting
Det blåser genom staden i natt
Hör du sanningen, den lät som ett skratt

Brinn hjärtat brinn
Vår fiende är rädd om sitt skinn
Det räcker med en gnista ett bloss
Dom skulle vilja vara som oss

Visst känns det som att kärleken väntar
Visst känns det som att kärleken väntar

I didn't know all the new songs, but they played a lot of old (from the 20th century...) songs which I did know. Wonderful experience. I really love concerts, being there in the crowd listening and dancing/jumping to the loud music is so amazing.

Conquer adversity?

2005-05-21T16:11:00.000+02:00

I'm actually studying for the upcoming exams today. Always an interesting, and actually rather enjoyable, experience ;) Feels rather relaxing just sitting down reading books. If I could just concentrate a bit more...

Read an interesting quotation in a text book about operations management and leadership: "Put another way, the skills required to conquer adversity and emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make for extraordinary leaders". People who are able to learn from all kinds of experiences -- including negative -- often seem to exhibit good leadership skills later on, according to this guy's research. Interesting. And makes sense, I suppose.