Nature

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: the origins of your emotions and emotional system

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Know thyself. As with every system to improve your life I know, I consider knowing yourself fundamental. Today's post shows how recent science -- evolutionary psychology -- lets us know ourselves better than any humans could before. Evolution tells us our roots beyond our childhood another billion years.…

September 16, 2011

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: emotions in more depth

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Continuing to look at elements of the Model in more depth, after perception and belief comes emotion. Emotions lie at the core of the Model, as they should, since emotions, awareness of them, and the ability to bring about the ones you want lie at the core of…

September 15, 2011

The Model: environment in more depth

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: environment in more depth

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Continuing the series on the Model from last time, let's look at elements of the Model in more depth. The elements are environment, perception/belief, emotions/motivation, behavior, and reward. We'll start with environment today. An emotional cycle's environment includes everything outside the cycle that affects it. The most obvious…

September 13, 2011

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

Shortcomings of cognitive behavioral therapy and remedies to them

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday we looked at cognitive behavioral therapy. Today we'll consider some of its shortcomings and why those shortcomings excite me about my Model. Shortcoming 1: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy doesn't motivate its model I believe the therapy will help best to the extent people understand why and how it…

September 9, 2011

The Model and cognitive behavioral therapy

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model and cognitive behavioral therapy

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] If you want to improve your life, you should know about cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT has a lot going for it, but if, like me, you don't have mental problems and diseases you should know its shortcomings too. I'll describe them after describing it. What is it? The…

September 8, 2011

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature / Tips

The Model: our emotional system is outdated

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] I think everybody knows the following, but I have to say it anyway just in case. The human emotional system evolves at the rate evolution acts, whereas our environment over the past few tens of thousands of years has changed faster than evolution can act. This difference results…

September 7, 2011

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature / Tips

The Model: your emotional system is consistent and predictable

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] The Model predicts the human emotional system to be consistent and predictable. How so? People often contrast emotions with reason, which they consider systematic and predictable. By contrast, they consider emotions illogical, unpredictable, and unsystematic. People are used to understanding how someone reasons from one point to another.…

September 6, 2011

The Model: emotional reward differs from the emotion that brought it about

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature

The Model: emotional reward differs from the emotion that brought it about

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday's last example illustrated an important distinction I left implicit so far: the feeling of reward or punishment is independent of the emotion that brought it about. This distinction helps you understand the Model and bring about the emotions and reward you want independent of the situation you're…

September 4, 2011

The Model: examples of emotional cycles

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature

The Model: examples of emotional cycles

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] In our Model, each emotion you experience manifests itself in the emotional cycle of the model. Example 1: let's consider an example of hunger in the Model. Say someone puts a mango in front of you (environment). You see it and expect it to taste good (perception/belief). Since…

September 3, 2011

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature

The Model: where emotional cycles came from

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] We've presented all the elements of the Model, barely scratching the surface of what it all means or how to use it. Let's start by understanding where our emotions come from. We don't have our emotions for the fun of it. Our emotions motivate our behavior. Each emotion…

September 2, 2011

The Model: adding reward

Awareness / Evolutionary Psychology / Models / Nature / Visualization

The Model: adding reward

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] So far the Model comprises cycle of environment, perception (subject to belief), emotions, and behavior. Its last element represents how it regulates itself: reward. When this Model refers to reward, it means emotional reward, not something like financial reward, treats for dogs, or food pellets for lab animals.…

August 30, 2011

The Model: adding belief and perception

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: adding belief and perception

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Our Model so far comprised a cycle of your environment, emotions, and behavior. We're still building. We don't develop motivations based on our environments directly. The limitations of our senses mean we never know the full story of anything. The limitations of our memory and mental processing power…

August 29, 2011

The Model: adding emotions

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: adding emotions

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday began the Model with the foundation of understanding yourself as someone who exists in an environment and behaves within it. Unlike many simpler life forms, people don't merely react reflexively. I don't know how bugs and lizards live, but they don't seem to reflect much on their…

August 28, 2011

The Model: environment and behavior

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: environment and behavior

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Today we'll see the first part of the Model. It comes from evolution in general and the burgeoning forefront scientific field of evolutionary psychology. Let's start with your behavior and environment. Like all life, you exist in an environment and you behave in certain ways within it. You…

August 27, 2011

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: why

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Why create a model? To know yourself better despite your complexity. Every system of self-improvement, at least that I know of, has some concept of increasing your self-awareness, your knowledge of yourself. "Know thyself." Modeling the part of you that creates value, importance, and meaning helps you understand…

August 26, 2011

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: models in general

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Before talking about the Model in particular, let's talk about models in general, a fundamental and incredibly useful concept in its own right. I've covered them before in this blog from several perspectives. Models are simplified representations of something for a purpose Models are simplified representations of something…

August 25, 2011

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] What goals do we have in life if not to understand what makes life good and how to make our own better? By good I mean by the values of the person living that life -- not by some abstract standard. I want to distinguish the following from…

August 24, 2011

Three little birds

Another beautiful day in Jefferson Market Gardens across the street from my apartment, as pictured here. I videoed three birds taking baths in the fish pond there. Sorry about the camera-phone low quality video. Why not take a minute and a half to watch them relax in the summer weather, then listen to Bob Marley's Three Little Birds? https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/jefferson_market_birds1.avi "Don't worry about a thing, 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right. Singin': "Don't worry about a thing, 'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!" Rise up this mornin', Smiled with the risin' sun, Three little birds Pitch by my doorstep Singin' sweet songs Of melodies pure and true, Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:") Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing, 'Cause every…

August 21, 2011

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Nature

When 100% orange juice isn’t: Pepsi, Coke, and agribusiness turn fruit into chemical concoctions

Today is another pause in my series on exercises on communications skills, based on some posts I read on orange juice and how agribusiness processes it. Do you love orange juice? How could it not be just squeezed fruit juice? I love fresh squeezed juice. Fresh squeezed orange juice is one of my favorite things on earth. Growing up we got it from concentrate, I guess because we couldn't afford not-from-concentrate. Once on my own, I switched to not-from-concentrate. I never moved up to fresh squeezed for two reasons -- it was too expensive and it would go bad before I finished it. So I stuck with not-from-concentrate. But wait a minute. Why didn't the not-from-concentrate go bad? How did it differ from fresh squeezed?…

August 1, 2011

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

Calling emotions positive or negative doesn’t help — it hurts

Emotions are how your emotional system reacts to your perception of your environment with motivation to behave. In every culture around the world, in every language, essentially all of us share the same emotions. This commonality is not an accident. Human behavior is driven by human emotions and our behavior is what made us so overwhelmingly successful in population and geographic spread. Our behavior and emotions didn't come out of nowhere. They evolved, as in every other species. Our would-be ancestors who behaved less effectively in their environments didn't have as many children and we didn't descend from them. Our ancestors who behaved most effectively had the most children and we are their descendents. You may say you feel good when you enjoy ice cream…

July 16, 2011

Blog / Creativity / Education / Nature

Fun to imagine

Has anyone ever told you you were thinking about things too much? Was it an annoying thing for them to say, perhaps dismissive? When someone says that to me I usually point out how I like to play with ideas. Ideas to me are like blocks for a kid -- I like to put them together in different ways to see what they look like together, I build structures with them, I look at them from different angles to see what they look like, I share what I've come up with with others to get their perspective, and I'm curious what other people have come up with to expand my repertoire. To me playing with ideas is fun. Someone saying I'm thinking too much is…

July 12, 2011

Awareness / Blog / Nature

Travel and developing empathy

Yesterday's post on developing empathy started with me writing about traveling, which ended up being today's post. Nearly everyone tells me they love to travel. The top reason they give for it is to experience new people, places, and cultures. I get that appeal, but my goals are different. My main goal in life is to continue improving it. My travel goals are to contribute to that goal. Learning about differences doesn't serve that goal so well. My main goal in traveling is to see how similar people are despite their different environments, not to see how different they or their cultures are. I find that finding commonalities improves my life more. This goal comes from applying yesterday's exercise on people in new places. People…

July 4, 2011

Awareness / Blog / Nature / Tips

Exercise: how to improve your empathy

Here is a mental exercise I like and find effective in learning to empathize and understand people better. It costs nothing and requires no preparation, but it can be personally challenging, but it develops you as a person. The exercise is to see how diverse behavior in others you can explain without relying on saying someone else has different motivations than you do. The more you can explain their behavior, the more you have in common with them, the more you understand them, the more connected you will feel, and the better your life. It can be difficult at first when trying it on people who behave differently than you ever would have but gets easier with practice. Eventually you internalize the skills and instead…

July 3, 2011

Rock Star Dream

Continued Fraction

Awareness / Blog / Creativity / Education / Nature

Rock Star Dream

With my ability to announce my posts blocked by the Chinese government, now's my chance to indulge in a selfish post without destroying my modesty, since fewer people will find out about it. A few months ago I had the most amazing dream. It even impressed me. Somehow I dreamt about this: It's called a continued fraction. I know I'd seen the fraction before. I don't remember if anyone showed me how to solve it. I know I hadn't seen anything about it in years, maybe over a decade. The mildly rock star thing in my dream was that I realized how to solve it. I'm impressed I remembered it at all. I have no idea how my mind came to be thinking about it.…

July 2, 2011

Blog / Fitness / Nature / Tips

Best solo workout I know

I've been loving the rowing machine I bought last fall, but I've been waiting to use it six months before posting about it to make sure its value endured a reasonable time. I'm going to write about my experience with it, but if anyone has other experiences, please let me know because I'm still new to it and would love to learn more. This is the one I bought (used, half price, on Craig's List). I normally don't endorse workouts or machines -- I've never bought one before -- but I am happy with this thing and the workout it gives. If your gym has one and you don't use it, give it a shot. Even if you do something else to keep in shape,…

May 28, 2011

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