Brothers – Serenity Through Sweat

Mistakes

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. In the last few months, I’ve been reading more about investing (as well as watching old seasons of ‘billions’ on Prime video), and I wanted to share something that stuck out to me.

I came across this quote from Warren Buffet from his 2023 Berkshire Hathaway investor meeting. It reminded me of advice that my mom has been giving me for the last three decades.

“Thanks to the American tailwind and the power of compound interest, the arena in which we operate has been – and will be – rewarding if you make a couple of good decisions during a lifetime and avoid serious mistakes.”

From the investing standpoint, you want to maximize your upside potential, while also minimizing your downside risk. The problem is, those two things are often not possible simultaneously. Generally speaking, in order to have a large potential, the risk is inherently greater.

Making a mistake in that risk/reward equation, or in the way you evaluate an investment, will have monetary consequences. If you can learn to impartially evaluate those mistakes, to make sure they are small mistakes, not life changing ones, there are incredible lessons to be found.

If you can learn from those lessons and at the same time avoid the big mistakes, you are probably going to pretty well for yourself. In investing and in life.

Mistake in this context casts a very wide net. It can be moving your body incorrectly, and having a jui jitsu move not work. It can also be moving your body incorrectly, having a jui jitsu move not work while also tearing your knee apart. The tricky part about a lot of mistakes, is that it is hard to fully comprehend the potential outcomes before you are already committed.

Mistakes are an interesting subject. They are a critical part of the learning curve. Our brain needs to understand the wrong way to do something (the mistake) in order to properly wire in the correct process. Small mistakes create neuroplasticity and learning.

As long as those mistakes are not catastrophic, they are an important part of the process. (Doing the BJJ move wrong 5 times before getting it right the 6th, while avoiding that whole tearing your knee apart thing)

But what about mistakes of omission, or mistakes of substitution? What we’ve talked about so far is investing in the wrong company or moving our body in the wrong way. What about things we opt not to do, or things we should do that are replaced with so thing else?

We all know we should eat healthy and move more. Skipping your morning workout or walk and replacing it with idle scrolling would hardly be a “serious mistake” in the sense that Buffet or my mother cautioned about.

That kind of choice, (replacing healthy movement with idle screen time) certainly wouldn’t have the catastrophic effect of tearing apart your knee or drastically altering your family finances.

But, what happens when that small mistake becomes a habit. When momentum shifts from healthy choices to frivolous ones.

I’ll admit I’ve felt a bit stuck in this loop. Building momentum in healthy habits, only to falter back into less productive choices. What is the cost of these mistakes? Are there enough good choices and tailwind to stay ahead of the consequences?

The magic of compounding is dispassionate and directionless. It can work for you just as easily as it can work against you. How long before those small mistakes compound into a serious one?

Most small mistakes, especially in a first world country, are relatively harmless. They are also easily dismissed, and almost mindless. It is precisely these qualities that make them so dangerous. You ingest the poison without any immediate or significant consequence. By the time the dosage has built up it is too late.

As I write this on my phone, I know that the same device is a large source of my small mistakes. Rushing back for innocent seeming dopamine hits, while neglecting the things that truly matter.

Worse still, my limited ability to recognize this mistake. My occasional stumblings into a more mindful existence, leave me feeling ashamed and guilty rather than refreshed and relieved.

I know that this is a natural human tendency to focus on the negative over the positive. To be ashamed of the mistake rather than celebrate the recognition and correction of it. Again, a loop I am often stuck in.

But that’s the battle right. To identify those mistakes. To fight in order to shift the focus from the guilt to the mindful acceptance. To take advantage of the compounding and the tailwinds on good habits.

Avoid the big mistakes. Cut off the loop on the small ones. Establish habits that can take advantage of the magic of compounding. And, maybe find some serenity in the process.

Lots of elevation getting ready for 6gap

Thanks for joining me. Stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Frequency

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Last week I mentioned that we would be talking about the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon also known as the frequency illusion.

I first heard about the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon while listening to the freakonomics podcast. They had put on a three part series on the history and economics of whaling. Now they were noticing whaling mentioned seemingly everywhere.

Yes, I listened to a three part series on whaling. Yes, it was quite interesting. Yes, you should read or re-read Moby Dick. Yes, you should find more ways to work “Thar she blows” into everyday conversation.

Now that we got that out of the way.

The Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, also known as the frequency illusion is a type of cognitive bias.

When you learn a new word, important piece of information, or focus on a new hobby, you start to notice it more often.

You may even notice yourself noticing it more often. The question naturally arises, was this (word/thing/hobby) always mentioned this much, and I never noticed it. Or, am I aware of it now because it is gaining in popularity and being mentioned more often.

The phenomenon works through mechanisms of selective attention and confirmation bias.

Our attention is a valuable and finite resource. We have built in hardware that gives us some indication of what is important, so that we can focus that limited resource. (Not to say that those mechanisms can’t be hijacked)

Novel information tends to become a focal point for our attention. Especially if that novel information resolves a significant amount of uncertainty. (See my post on uncertainty here)

As the new focal point of our attention, we are more likely to notice the knew information, than we would have otherwise been before. Our selective attention is now trained and better able to detect it.

Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias whereby we actively seek out information that matches our preconceived ideas.

If you think pickleball is the coolest thing since sliced bread, you will find articles, people, and various other sources of information that will confirm that.

Neither of these mechanisms, or the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon itself is particularly harmful. It is just a nice thing to be aware of.

Where it can get you into trouble, is not recognizing it for what it is, and making subsequent decisions based on perceived popularity.

Investing in a meme stock that you just heard about and are now seeing everywhere. Self diagnosing with some rare disease or syndrome you just learned about. Following a new fad diet that just popped up.

These are all examples of things we may do based on their perceived popularity that can be aided by the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon.

In researching the phenomenon, I found it’s backstory interesting and worthy of sharing.

I assumed that the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon was named after a pair of scientists or researchers who either discovered or inspired the discovery.

There is no shortage of this naming convention in the sciences. The Pythagorean theorem, Bernoulli’s principle, Newtownian physics, Chomskyian grammer.

The Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, however, was a term coined by Terry Mullen in a letter to the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1994.

Terry describes the phenomenon of having printed news (in the days before internet and algorithms) reflect topics he was discussing with friends, regardless of their perceived social relevance. In this case, the Baader Meinhoff gang from west germany

From dictionary.com, “A group of left-wing West German terrorists, active in the 1970s, who were dedicated to the violent overthrow of capitalist society: Also known as: Red Army Faction”

Terry had been talking to his friend about the group in the early 90’s, (well past the peak of their activity or reporting on it) and was surprised when his friend directed him to a pri Ted news article about the group the next day.

He noticed the phenomenon continuing to pop up and coined the term using the terrorist group as the name.

There is debate as to whether or not this phenomenon has increased in its frequency in modern times. This could be due to the higher volume of information we consume. Same percentage of a much larger pie. Or could be artificiially increased by social media, data mining, and algorithms. A much larger piece or an also much larger pie.

Either way, I thought it was an interesting backstory, with actionable information. If you are aware of and seek out things that are happy, productive, and helpful, the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon says you should continue to see more of the same.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Uncertainty

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I want to revisit one of the main language characters we visited a few months back, Claude Shannon.

It’s somewhat odd calling Shannon a language character. I was first introduced to his world reading about lifespan and longevity. His work was used as an analogy to demonstrate a point, even though he did do some work in genetics.

Shannon was a mathematician, an engineer, a teacher, and a tinkerer. He is considered the founder of the modern technology age. He did work in World War II on code breaking, and on communication, but he was not a language person in the way we typically think about language.

Shannon was more concerned with the idea of transmitting and receiving messages, more so than actually constructing them. (As language folks tend to obsess over).

Shannon’s breakthrough work was the mathematical theory of communication, which broke down sending information digitally. I’m not a mathematician. Most of the original work (which I purchased) is gibberish to me. But, I can understand the concept, and it is profound in its breakdown of communication to an elemental level.

I talked about one of the aspects of his world in a post from last November (Noise). But this week I wanted to talk about uncertainty.

Shannon starts with the idea of flipping a coin. The outcome is either head or tails. This communicates to us a binary choice. The answer to the question, what happened in the coin flip, can be be expressed as a binary digit or ‘bit, one of two options.(yes the bit you are familiar with if you’ve used any computer technology in the last 40 years is Shannon’s idea from the 60’s)

Shannon quickly noted though, that the coin flip is perfectly random, unless the coin is weighted. In which case one outcome is more likely than another.

He then went on to show (all of this mathematically of course) that most of our communication is very heavily weighted. Because of our rules of grammer, syntax, phonology, and morphology, the next letter and the next word is highly dependent on the one that precedes it.

This was a highly useful realization and skill when Shannon was working in cryptography as a code breaker, but I think it means a lot to us as everyday communicators.

“for the vast bulk of messages, in fact, symbols do not behave like fair coins. The symbol that is sent now depends, in important and predictable ways, on the symbol that was just sent: one symbol has pull in the next.”

“As Shannon showed, this model also describes the behavior of messages and languages. Whenever we communicate, rules everywhere restrict our freedom to choose the next letter and the next pineapple*” “Because you’re completely aware of those rules, you’ve already recognized that ‘pineapple’ is a transmission error. Given the way the paragraph and the sentence were developing, practically the only word possible in that location was ‘word’ “

So much of what we say is predetermined, by custom, by ritual, by routine. When it is time to actually say something outside the norm, it is easy to falter. To struggle to find the right words.

As I mentioned earlier, Shannon was an engineer. He was concerned with designing a system to effectively and efficiently transmit messages. In pursuit of solving that problem, he taught us a valuable lesson about constructing messages.

“what does information really measure? It measures the uncertainty we overcome. It measures our chances of learning something we haven’t yet learned. Or, more specifically, the amount of information something carries reflects the reduction in uncertainty about the object”

“Why doesn’t anyone say XFOML RXKHRJDFJUJ? Investigating that question made clear that our “freedom of speech” is mostly an illusion: it comes from an impoverished understanding of freedom. Freer communicators than us, free of course in the sense of uncertainty and information, would say XFOML RXKHRJDFJUJ. But in reality, the vast bulk of possible messages have already been eliminated for us before we use a sentence or write a line.”

If information reflects the reduction in uncertainty, that should be one of, if not the primary focus of our communications. Especially those novel ones that break from ritual and routine.

Think about 20 different people practicing basketball individually on a court. There are bound to be some collisions, some balls bouncing off each other at the rim, and maybe even some injuries. An aviation training area can be very similar. Multiple individuals, in a confined area, with different agendas.

In aviation, we make position reports both procedurally in certain airspace, and in high volume uncontrolled areas. Those reports need to resolve a lot of uncertainty in order to avoid disaster. A good formula is who you are, where you are, and what your intentions are.

If you know John is working on 3 pointers from the corner, and Phil is practicing layups, you can now decide how and where you want to practice, without disturbing, or being disturbed by, the fellow ballers. A tremendous amount of uncertainty has been resolved. That is valuable information. Much more concrete and actionable than, John and Phil are playing baskstball.

Last few runs before returning to the Florida heat

This, of course, is a task much easier said than done. To make all, or even most, of our messages precise enough to overcome the maximum amount of uncertainty, requires a novel concept. Thinking before we speak.

What information do I have? What information does the receiver of the message need. What do they expect to hear? What uncertainty needs to be overcome?

There is no shortage of uncertainty in our world. Overcoming even a small amount of it will lead to happier humans. And I’m sure there is serenity to be found along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Backcasting

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I was listening to the Huberman lab podcast and was introduced by guest Dr. Peter Attia to a concept called “backcasting” which I wanted to share with you.

Dr Peter Attia is a physician who specializes in extending his patients’ life span and health span. He went to medical school at Stanford and worked at both John’s Hopkins and the NIH. He recently authored the book Outlive and also hosts his own podcast The Drive on health and medicine. He is a pretty highly qualified guy in the space.

During the conversation with Huberman (another very informative voice in the space of health and wellness) he introduced the concept of backcasting with the following question. What do you want the last decade of your life to look like?

This is called the Marginal decade. “Delineate the objective function and break that down into metrics that we can measure” you can set the goal posts for what you want your marginal decade to look like, and work backwards to find definable goals and measurable markers and at what ages you need to hit them

What do you want to be doing in your marginal decade? Picking up a grandchild, getting up off the floor, have an athletic hobby. Living alone. Do you want to be paddle boarding, bicycling, still driving your car?

If I ask you what is going to happen next year you can predict certain variables and make some educated guesses. This would be a forecast. The period of time is fixed and defined. You don’t know when the last decade of your life will be. Even if you did, there are likely too many variables to forecast that far out. But you can backcast.

Start with the desired outcome and trace the markers you need to hit in order to reach it. Let’s say for example you want to be able to go for a brisk walk on the beach every morning in retirement in your 80’s or even 90’s. That sounds like a nice goal and not outlandish.

“The gravity of aging is more vicious than people realize and therefore the height of your glider needs to be much higher than you think it is when you are our age if you want to be able to do the things we probably want to be able to do when we’re ninety “

Studies show that VO2Max (your ability to process oxygen during aerobic activity) declines roughly 5% per decade after 30, almost regardless of exercise intervention. As Dr Attia so eloquently put it. You need a lot of altitude for that glider flight into your marginal decade.

Changes in peak VO2 with age (left) and percent change in VO2 per decade (right) in men and women. Source: Strait and Lakatta, 2013

A VO2Max of 35-45 is considered fair to good for males in their 30s. This can be tested very scientifically in a lab while wearing a mask on a treadmill, but many running watches or fitness wearables can give a pretty good estimation for general purposes.

From there the math isn’t hard to cary out if you are right in the middle of average at a VO2Max of 40 in your 30’s, by the time you are 80 it will be closer to 30.

Murtagh et al., 2002 (4), investigated self-selected speed of recreational walkers and their interpretation of “brisk walking”.

It turned out that the self-selected speed, which was between 1.55 and 1.6 meters per second, resulted in an exercise intensity of almost 60% of VO2max and a heart rate of 67% of the maximum. A “brisk” walking speed observed was 1.79 meters per second in a parc and 1.86 meters per second on a treadmill. The “brisk” walking speed equated to almost 69% of VO2max and 78.5% of the maximum heart rate.

By your 80’s in our example your VO2Max has dropped a full 25% (and that’s likely best case if you remained healthy and active for those 5 decades). And that brisk walk you wanted to take (4mph is the conversion) was already taking up 69% of your VO2Max. That means you are going to have to slow your pace considerably or reduce the duration of you walk to meet your goal.

Or as Dr Attia told us, increase the height of your glider now in middle age. If your VO2Max is closer to 50 or 60 in your thirties, that brisk walk (all other variables constant) in your 80’s is much more attainable.

The same benchmarks can be set for strength in individual muscle groups or specific movements. Squats, pushups, pullups, grip strength. Gravity is unrelenting, as is the “vicious gravity of aging”. The Stronger you are now and the more you continue to train, the higher you can climb the glider, and the longer you can stay aloft.

Backcasting gives you the tools to set yourself up for success, once you have defined what you want your marginal decade to look like.

So stretch out those glider wings and keep climbing. gravity is thus far undefeated, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prolong, and thoroughly enjoy the ride.

Thanks for joining me,. stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Intimidation

The lights seem to pulse around me. I know this is only an illusion. The effect created by the spacing of dim lights and alternating darkness as I float down the hall.

The sweat has gone past the point of beading and running, and has progressed to a steady trickle. I can feel the gentle squish of wet socks in each step as I make my way down the seemingly psychedelic hallway.

I know my body is depleted from the training and the fasting that is now approaching twenty hours. I don’t feel depleted though. I feel light. Liberated. Unburdened.

The squishing intensifies as I start bouncing gently to the music. It is a short way around the courtyard from the fitness center to my room. The twang of the guitar and the blaring horns during the bridge of Gregg Allman’s Midnight Rider, the dim alternating lights, and the runners high work on union to transport me back in time.

The pulsing of lights, footsteps echoing off the tile floor and the walls of lockers, breaths heavy with exertion. I’m running sprints down the freshman hallway of my highschool after wrestling practice.

Sometimes with my teammates. Sometimes in solitude. Occasionally the chemistry teacher, a great runner in his own right, pokes his head out to investigate this intrusion to his own late night solitude.

The same trickle of sweat fills my shoes and bounces off the tile as it cascades off my younger self. That same liberated, unburdened feeling seeps in. The work is done, and it was done in earnest.

The moment fades as I reach my hotel room. I haven’t had a runners high like this in a while. One that alleviates and transports in such a powerful way. I spend a lot of time chasing that dragon, but it is elusive.

I’m in Atlanta and spent the morning in the simulator. Cortisol levels run high in this place. There is no way around it. Knowing it is a simulation, doesn’t take away the feeling that the emergency is real. Being a simulation, it can be reset to the next emergency with daunting speed and efficiency. We aren’t designed for catastrophe on repeat, and it takes it’s toll.

I figured after the sim was as good a time as any to try this new workout. 6 rounds of 6 minutes at threshold running pace, with 2 minutes moving rest between sets. Add in a warm up and cool down and that makes a solid hour block on the treadmill in the training hotel’s lack luster fitness center.

One of my best friends and training partners had done this workout a few times before and shared it with me. I was intimidated.

I’m not even sure what my threshold pace is but my best guess was around a 6:30min/mile pace. That is, as the term threshold might imply, right where things start getting uncomfortable. Each interval is long enough to really make you think about it. The total time in zone accumulates quickly. The rest is enough to recover, only by the smallest of margins.

As much time as I spend intentionally putting myself into discomfort, there are still levels of it that intimidate me. Places I will shy away from. Workouts that I will procrastinate or put off entirely. Or tap out from early.

This was one such workout. I had toyed with the idea of trying it for weeks. An excuse always seemed to pop up. I didn’t have enough time. I would be too depleted afterwards. The alternative I gave myself was better suited to my goals.

It is easy to convince yourself of something you already believe. It is even easier when you are intimidated.

4000′ of climbing, I finished the event but the didn’t make it to the top of the mountain. Another intimidating challenge and an excuse made.

I’m not sure what about it was so intimidating. Extended time at threshold as we have discussed can be uncomfortable. But I like uncomfortable. I know growth comes from being uncomfortable. I actively seek out those situations. This workout though was an outlier in that paradigm.

It went so much better than I thought it would. The intimidation, transformed into satisfaction and serenity. I don’t know if my initial trepidation added to the post workout sensations I described at the start. That light, liberated, unburdened state of post run serenity.

The only time a man can be brave, is when he is first afraid. But the benefits of standing tall in the face of intimidation only adds to the elation when the task is ultimately completed.

Putting in miles in my old stomping grounds

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Camaraderie

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I’m musing on our social interactions, and sometimes the lack thereof.

The last few years has seen a lot of change in the way people socialize and engage with each other. Distancing, masking, video calls, all of them remove some of what it is to be together.

It is easy to feel lonely in this profession. Lots of time away from home. A rotation of coworkers you may not even see again. Strangers with the same occupation, in some cases, is a better description.

I find beauty and purpose in what I do, and the opportunities that it affords me. But, that loneliness is one of the burdons. Always finding it’s way into your checked baggage.

This past week hurricane Ian came through the Florida peninsula. In a major shift from the early days of COVID, this was a time to rally around family instead of distance from it.

It was also a time of checking on friends and neighbors. Some that I hadn’t heard from in a while. Some that I had been meaning to reach out to but hadn’t found the time. Or whatever combination of excuse and apathy leads to old friends fading away.

Regardless phones were dialed and conversations were had. Conversations that lasted well into the night. Reviving that essential part of us that yearns for connection. That yearns for camaraderie.

The time with family. The time with friends, was good for my soul. But, it was a different scene that had me thinking about camaraderie.

Dropping off El Duderino to school and Speedy to daycare when I am home is a great privilege. I recognize there are lots of parents who must choose between time with their kids or providing for them. I’m blessed to draw balance in that regard. It is however, a bit like herding cats.

Both boys are on totally different sleep schedules. Speedy will be up most morning around 5:30. El Duderino often needs to be woken up around 7:30 so he has time to scarf something before going to VPK.

Boys day out to spooky Crayola and Waffle House

The second mommy leaves for work, she magically becomes the only one capable of solving problems. Our motley crew of misguided testosterone makes it out the door most mornings in a disheveled whirlwind of whining and pleading, with nary a minute to spare. (Despite two thirds of us already being up for two and half hours prior)

This past week after dropping off Speedy and circling back to El Duderino’s pre school, we made it to the curb in from of the drop off line right at the buzzer. The rest of the class was lined up and the teachers seemed impatient, waiting on those of us subpar parents utilizing every one of the 15 minutes in window for drop off.

El Duderino got out of the car noncommittally. I gave him a hug and put his back pack around his shoulders. The bag is far too big for him. The fact that it is nearly empty, and off balanced by the metal juice bottle on the side, only adds to the eccentricity of his saunter the 29 yards from my car, through the fence, and into the back of the line.

A beautiful day in Tucson, running the Arizona Wildcats’ stadium

Just as he passed the fence line two of his classmates broke rank. I could hear them calling his name as they ran to embrace him. Two more joined in the group hug before it was done.

El Duderino seemed very nonchalant about the entire episode. It is hard to tell his reaction because he was facing away from me. But he seemed to treat it as a normal occurrence. For me it was all I could to to keep it together watching through the windshield.

Such unbridled joy and excitement. Spectacular social connection for a boy who (somewhat like his father) has a tendency towards being a loner. It was a welcome reminder of the power of camaraderie.

Zwift Academy, getting faster and stronger

One I’m fortunate my son was able to show me, even though he has no idea.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Summer

What is a summer day made of? The dog days of summer are here. My wife is back in the classroom as a teacher for the first time since the pandemic emerged. El Duderino, my little linguistic four year old has started VPK at the school at the end of our neighborhood. I spend my mornings at home corralling him and Speedy, getting them to their respective school and daycare on time so my wife can have a sembelance of normalcy in the morning at least part of the time. When im working all of those duties fall to her.

Speedy generally gets dropped off first at a small in home daycare. “GiGi” has been as much a part of the boys life as I have. During particularly busy periods, maybe more so than me. Then it’s El Duderino’s turn. The elementary school sits at the end of our neighborhood. Maybe a half a mile following the sidewalks as they twist around gator filled retention ponds, and wind their way through suburbia. El Duderino rolls ahead of me on an aqua marine three wheel scooter with light up wheels. He is becoming skilled enough that I can’t keep up with him at just a walk anymore. Wearing sandals is no longer an option. I need closed toed shoes and a gait somewhere between a prance and a jog to keep up. Awkward enough to get second looks from the seniors and moms power walking at 8 am. But, I’m sure endearing none the less. Seeing an obviously uncaffeinated and disheveled father chasing his son down the street. Dinosaur backpack and spider man lunchbox in hand, so he can focus on the scooter.

About half way to the school he pauses to tell me this trip is annoying. I’m not sure our personal ideas of annoying line up, but I think I can empathize. The dog days of summer in Orlando mean that even this 8am short scoot to school is already sweltering in the upper 80’s. The air is sticky, and clings to you in an oppressive way. Like you owe it a favor and it is here to collect. It wont take no for an answer.

When I first started college in Melbourne Fl, around the same time of year, in the dog days of summer of 2005, I remember those same feelings. The excitement and anticipation of new adventures and opportunities. The social anxiety of a new places and new people. The growing laundry hamper as I would change my clothes after every single class. The walk from my dorm to any class and back, regardless of the time of day would leave me soaked, sweat stained, and contemplating my educational choices. I think I called my mom at some point and told her that I wasn’t sure I was up to this. I’m no stranger to sweating, but normally it is in athletic wear and a setting more of my choosing.

This morning was quite different. The dog days of summer in Burlington VT remind me of what a summer day is made of. In Fl we have it everyday, it isn’t special, because it is the norm, rather than the exception. I have grown to really like this layover, seeing it in both the depths of winter as well as the picturesque day I have enjoyed today.

The sky over Lake Champlain is that faded gray blue of optimism. Not the story book blue that looks so bold and perfect to be cartoonish. The faded and more realistic duller version. The one that inspires adventure because it is lacking in that crisp perfection. There is still room to grow. The breeze blows gently. Just enough to flitter the leaves along the running path and keep the mid sixties air from feeling stagnant. The lake and the mountains silently battling for your attention in the naturally beautiful background.

After my admittedly optimistic and subsequently failed attempt to get out and run a half marathon this morning despite not running in close to a month, I strolled down the street to my favorite local breakfast place here. I have written about it before and will do so again. Handy’s lunch is the Cheers of local dining establishments. I think I have eaten there three times, every time ordering the Chuck Norris breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee. The owner came over this time shook my hand, and thanked me for visiting again and for our last conversation when I visited a few months ago. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. It doesn’t hurt that it is one of the best breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had and I’ve accrued a serious calorie deficit either.

While sitting at the counter watching him interact with the other local, mostly regular customers. One of the men says he grew up in Buffalo. It turns out he is only a few years older than me. He probably played high school football with my step brother. We talked about growing up there and how the city has changed. We talked about high school glory days over carb laden breakfast delicacies.

What is a summer day made of? Optimism, adventure, nature, camaraderie and celebration, in my case obviously some heavy sweating. All of them important and impactful. All of them fleeting.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Chronic

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I’m finishing up training on my new aircraft and trying to squeeze in some research work I came across the concept of synchronic vs. diachronic language. It is an important distinction, and one that I wanted to share.

Last week we talked about philology. The study of language and words as they change through time. Philology has a focus on determination of intent. What did the chosen words mean at the particular time of use, and what did the author or orator intend to communicate?

Philologist are concerned more with validation and interpretation of documents and texts. Etymologists focus on the origin and development of words, which brings us to today’s focus.

Diachronic: of or concerned with phenomena, such as linguistic features, as they change through time.

Synchronic: of or concerned with phenomena, such as linguistic features, or of events of a particular time, without reference to their historical context.

Linguists have figured out (at least in an academic sense since I don’t actually know any linguists) that a word’s meaning and communication intent change over time. The same word does not have the same meaning as time flows and cultures shift.

Studying how words change through time (diachronic) is interesting. It reveals a lot about the people using those words. How their communication needs shift with new technology, cultural norms, and ideas. How those words need to evolve or be created to meet those needs.

The study of words under a synchronic frame is a much harder task if you take the definition at face value. Like taking a Polaroid picture but ignoring how everything got into place. It is studying in a time bubble.

We would never examine a person this way. If someone makes a decision or initiates some sort of action. That action is not examined in a bubble, but rather in the context of the person’s history. How were they raised? What kind of transformative experiences have they had? What kind of learning, friends, hobbies, are they engaged in? What type of people do they associate with?

The action can only be viewed effectively through these many lenses. There are so many events and factors that lead up to every decision. To ignore them and view decisions in a vacuum seems at best a disservice, and at worst an intentional misrepresentation.

But with words we have a unique ability to take a snapshot in time. Specifically with regard to communication intent. When words can have multiple meanings across multiple contexts, the communication intention is what matters in a synchronic sense.

Synchronic and diachronic language both have their place in understanding, and they are united by empathy.

“I’m not sure if that move is legal, but I also can’t count that high, so let’s call it a draw” (Speedy, probably*)

You might not agree with someone’s word choice. You may even find a particular word choice incorrect or offensive. However, without knowing the author/speaker’s diachronic and synchronic understanding of the word in question, their communication intention, you have an incomplete set of data to assess.

Empathy and exploration of their intention, finding out how they have chosen words in the past, and what they intended they’re words to convey in the vacuum of a particular communication exchange, while challenging and time consuming. Will ultimately lead to more understanding and serenity.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Paradox

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week saw less progress on my communication project than I would have otherwise liked, but life has a habit of getting in the way.

Still I managed to read another chapter out of the Oxford Handbook on the History of Linguistics and found this interesting gem.

“The history of sound symbolism is the history of the attempt to resolve this fundamental paradox: on the one hand, if sound determines meaning, we should know what a word means just by hearing it; on the other hand, the distribution of phonemes across semantic domains is not arbitrary.”

Said another way, if sounds are the only determinate of meaning, we would have one universal language. This is clearly not the case, but as some of the examples below show, there are some commonalities among phonetic sound and semantic meaning that appear more than coincidental.

“In this way objects that evoke similar impressions are assigned words with predominately the same sounds such as waft, wind, wisp, wobble and wish, wherein all the wavering, uneasy motion, presenting an obscure flurry to the senses, is expressed by the w, hardened from the already inherently dull and hollow u.”

“We need not limit ourselves to pairs, but may look for larger patterns. One tempting example is the cross-patterning of /gl/ ‘phenomena of light’ and /fl/ ‘phenomena of movement’ with (1) /itr/ ‘intermittent’, (2) /ow/ ‘steady’ and (3) /ur/ ‘intense’: glitter↔flitter, glow↔flow, glare↔flare […] as for the terminal ‘morphemes’ in the above words, we find (1) evidenced also in titter, jitter, litter, iterate; (2) in slow, grow and tow and (3) in blare, stare and tear.”

The commonality of the phonetic sounds to their meaning across multiple words is a compelling argument for sound having a significant affect on meaning. A strong case for more than words as pure abstraction to identify an agreed upon referent.

Interestingly, a lot of the study of sound symbolism examines artists and poets. Those among us gifted with a sense of the perfect word for the perfect situation. Instances where an author’s word choice invokes the desired emotion. Paints the intended picture.

The more information I consume on the topic, or off topic for that matter, the more awed I am for the complexity of language that goes for the most part unexamined and underappreciated.

It also leaves me humbled for the distinct gifts of poetry and prose that clearly delineate the artists from the aspiring.

While working my way through the handbook, I had read three previous chapters on phonetics and struggled to place their value within the context of both my own project and language at large. Sure I see my boys struggle with certain sounds, but they are 2 and 4. Barring any sort of abnormality, they will develop a suitable phonetic acumen and likely think little of it.

But reading just a few paragraphs on sound symbolism completely changed my perspective on phonetics. It has inspired me to pay more attention to their impact especially on my own word choice.

The sound symbolism paradox is quite interesting and worth exploring. It is also a testament to how quickly you can change your mind and appreciate something that you brushed by before. All that is required is a little curiosity, a closer look, and some serenity.

Montreal running across St Helens island and ile Notre Dame

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Interesting

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I continue my research on language and communication, I continue to find little tidbits that transcend communicology, and have relevance to the areas we tend to discuss here.

Obviously, the things we discuss here, (flying, fitness, fatherhood, etc…) are all things that I, and I presume at least to some extent you, are interested in.

With that in mind, the following passage from Noam Chomsky’s On Language struck me as especially appropriate.

“I think this whole discussion comes down to a confusion between two senses of the word interesting. Certain things are interesting in themselves- for example: human action. But there is another meaning of the word interesting, in physics, for example. A phenomenon in itself does not have interest for a physicist. What happens under the conditions of a scientific experiment is of no importance itself. It’s interest lies in it’s relation to whatever theoretical principles are at stake.

There are a great many things that I have read recently in the course of my research that I find interesting in the second sense of the word. Frequently, after reading some academic passage three or four times to make sure I understand it, and cursing the author for forcing me to look up definitions every other sentence, I will find a nugget (like the one above) that is interesting as it relates to my life, or experiences, or the project I’m working on.

When I excitedly share these findings with my wife, I am very quickly reminded of the difference from the first sense of the word interesting. Many of these theories, findings, hypotheses, are so steeped in academia and so far removed from real life that they are difficult to digest, much less get excited about.

But, because the have a relation to a project, or a passion, they become interesting in the second sense.

The two different types of interesting can also be thought of in terms of the way they affect people. Anything can be interesting in itself to someone without being of interest to someone else. But when it can be related in some other way it’s interest broadens.

Getting stronger with IM FL 70.3 approaching quickly

Linguistics and communicology is not interesting in itself to most people, (as I’m reminded when I discuss it with my wife). But when it can be related to a specific event/topic/situation, (see my previous post about a tough road to hoe) it becomes interesting because now there is context and real life application.

This interplay of interesting is fascinating, especially with my boys. There are some easy guesses on what they will find interesting, but other times I am surprised and fulfilled by their interests.

I recently had lunch with my wife and El Duderino on a layover. We sat down at an old timey diner burger joint. I had a little bit of nostalgia listening to the blues guitar oldies play over the speaker as our burger, fries, and shakes were brought out to the table.

El Duderino’s meal even came served up in an Old school Cadillac dinner tray, wing tips and all. What four year old American boy doesn’t love cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes? But when asked what his favorite part of lunch was, (I was sure it would be the milkshake) he told me it was playing air keyboard along with the diner music.

Layovers don’t get much better than this

You never really know what someone else will find interesting, or how what you find interesting will relate to someone else’s lived experience. But sharing our interests, and finding those sometimes hidden relations is a sure path to social connection and serenity. Thank you for sharing in some of what I find interesting.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.