Deep thought as a luxury

Daniel Kahneman described it brilliantly in his 2011 seminal book "Thinking Fast and Slow": conscious thought is a slow and costly activity, so most of the time we base our decision in heuristics, impulses and biases which, while sub-optimal in the context of one individual decision, save us a lot of time and effort in daily life. I was wondering if perhaps that is the reason why people are so comfortable with putting labels on themselves: once they have a tag, they just have to follow the handbook corresponding to that tag, killing two birds with one stone, fulfilling their need of belonging and saving them the mental effort of making their own decisions.

A couple of years back we were visiting a former teacher of Karen's whose husband had just ran away with his lover after years of cheating. Their children were schoolmates of Karen, so the teacher had become a friend of her family. Initially, the situation was a bit tense, but reminiscing about Karen's time at school eventually loosened the atmosphere and we ended up having a laugh together. However, in a given point the teacher remembered her situation and murmured "Why am I laughing if I am an abandoned wife?" and immediately killed the good mood. After a bit of conversation we manage to lift her spirits again a little bit, but what struck me as totally odd was the cognitive dissonance that she experienced because laughing was not appropriate in her circumstances. She was laughing wholeheartedly because we had managed to make her forget her miseries, but instead of enjoying the moment while it lasted, she fell back to the role she was supposed to play (the abandoned wife) and all her suffering came back like a tidal wave. From my point of view it was easier for her to follow the role than to decide, for each action, if it was appropriate or not.

Photo: An Min from PxHere

Recently I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is very interested on self-discovery and, as I mentioned last week, is having her astral chart calculated to "know herself better". One of the techniques that she has found really helpful in trying to understand herself is the Enneagram of Personality developed by Bolivian pyscho-spiritual teacher Oscar Ichazo. The system is not much different from any other psychological evaluations: you answer a test about your preferences and the result tells you which one of the nine personality types or "enneatypes" represents you better. This must be an important reference in her way of thinking, because in response to one of my comments she mentioned "you are so 5 in the way you ask your questions!" (type 5 is the investigator, the observer), so I decided to make a short test to see what results I got. Thinking about it, at least the results are linked to your answers, not just to the date and time you were born as in western astrology, so the chances that it would reflect my personality to some extent were... above zero.

The result came out with over 90% in three of the types: the investigator (5), as expected, the enthusiast (7), who hopes to enjoy his time and have adventures, and the challenger (8), who stands strongly for what he believes. My immediate reaction was that the test was not very helpful in pointing out that I showed predominantly three of the nine possible types, particularly considering that all the three were almost equally high. On the other hand, the test was based on the impressions I had of how would I react (the so-called "declared" preferences) and not by observing me react in that situation (the "revealed" preferences). All in all the experience only helped confirming the self-knowledge that I already had, but did not seem to contribute much. However, the effect might be different for other people.

I have no means to judge how common my level of self-knowledge is, but I suspect that many people are not able or trained in reflecting on themselves, so defining themselves could be difficult, in the same way that most of us have a good command of our mother tongue but not many are able to explain the nuances. The big majority have just learnt it by heart and they can tell what is right or wrong, but not why. In this sense, being able to put a name on their personality traits can be helpful. Furthermore, once they are label with certain type, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby they might be inclined to act more frequently on the directions that their type predicts, while avoiding (as in the case of the teacher) the responses that are in appropriate. But is it that hard to cultivate your own reactions? Why do so many people rely on a classification to decide how they want to respond?

Now that the corona virus has elicited everyone who was able to work from home to do so, it has become very obvious that being able to work from home is a luxury that many people cannot afford. Most knowledge workers have been able to continue their work to a great extent just by means of a computer and an internet connection, but anyone involved in any kind of manipulation (agrarian or industrial workers, hairdressers, supermarket cashiers, etc.) have had no choice but to go to their place of work when trying to observe the public health regulations.

Similarly, I have the impression that not everybody has the same opportunities to figure out their own reactions and might be forced to just take whatever prepacked set is available to them. In the middle ages, the first son of the blacksmith was destined to be a blacksmith too, helping his father at the forge first and inheriting it later. They just were not at liberty to choose their job. My impression is that many people today are not at liberty to choose their reactions and have to live just following a label.

In the end, this kind of reflection is an exercise in deep thought and, as in many other activities, our performance is a combination of innate ability, instruction and practice. The most privileged among us will probably have had not only a good genetic starting point, but a rich education and even plenty of opportunities to but our brain to a test. The rest of the humanity, however, is trapped in a hamster wheel, having to work from sunrise to sunset, occasionally two or three jobs to make the ends meet, and in the case of many women, having to take care of the household too. It is no surprise to me that they seldom find a chance of engaging in deep thought, and labels become really helpful to spare that effort. 

And the coming of internet has made the situation only worse, with our cell phone constantly demanding our attention in 15-second long bites. But that is a discussion for another day. Emjoy your evening.