previous relationship partners are educators about ourselves

in the alain de botton episode of design matters, alain dropped a piece of wisdom that has really shifted how i think about relationships. the moment is around 21:30 but here’s my paraphrase:

one of the beautiful things about people getting into relationships when they’re older is that they bring knowledge about themselves from their previous relationships. these gems of knowledge often sound like “i really like ___” or “i think about ___ like this ___” or “i am this way…” or “i really appreciate ___.” but these gems may be the lessons of years of fights with a previous partner.

this, to me, is SUCH good perspective. sure, marrying your first partner certainly means you’re “unblemished” and without baggage. but some of the hurts from my first relationships i would never want to exist around me for the rest of my life.

i think sometimes relationships are better ended and left in the past. but that doesn’t mean that they were a waste of time. our previous partners really are our educators about ourselves.

and like the johari window explains, there are some things we just can’t learn on our own; we need other people to show them to us.

in a good partnership, we are each other’s teachers (another line dropped by alain in this episode). and, for those of us who have been through school, learning is hard. so is teaching (in fact, teaching might be harder). so, then to ask someone to be a teacher about yourself… for the rest of their lives… that is a HUGE ask. the hope, i think, is that the benefits outweigh the effort, but the effort is real.

and so, the more knowledge about ourselves that we’re able to carry with us into each subsequent relationship, the better it will (or could) be for each new partner.

oh SNaP: skills, needs, and passions

at the end of my short series on jobs, automation, and the future of work, i started to map out what every individual in a society like that would need to know. my jungle partner, ross, and i think about this set of info along three axes: skills, passions, and needs. this, on its own, doesn’t solve all of our problems. but without it, we definitely can’t move forward.

in previous phases of the economy, production was coordinated between the needs of firms and the skills of workers. if a firm had a need (floor manager, engineer, toothpick shaver) they would seek someone who could fill that need.

as our economy evolves, i think two things will change:

1. coordination will have to include the passions dimension of individuals (because it’s better that way), and
2. our economy will actually get more productive, but less consumptive (less output, not necessarily less throughput… but hopefully also less throughput). 

ok so what does a snap assessment look like? here goes the first draft…

skills

• what do you think or know you’re better at than most people around you?
• what do other people say you do really well?
• what have you gotten paid for in the past?
• what activities can you do for which other people are willing to barter resources?

needs

• what do you need to live for the next seven days? month? year?
• what things would allow you to spend more time doing what you’re passionate about?
• what things would allow you to better focus on improving your skills?

passions

• what do you do when you’re bored at your current dayjob?
• what activities can get you into flow (what can you start doing and be so into it that you lose track of time)?
• what do you always want to do but instead don’t because you’re too busy?

some other details:

• every person’s snap profile is dynamic. people’s needs change over time, as do their skills and passions.
  
• all profiles are a composite of self-generated information and community-generated and community-verified information. if you think you have singing skills, but no around you does, it is unlikely that you will ever be able to use your singing to get your needs met.
• also, firms (and by firm i mean generic entity: could be a household or a company or a school district or a government or more) will need some sort of comparable profile. it probably won’t have the same metrics, but in order for the coordination to happen at all, firms (and work seekers) will need to know what they need and also have to offer.

ok so it needs work. but there’s no better place to start than at the beginning, right?

ps - i realized in the middle of writing this post that snap (skills needs and passions) is a better acronym. i went back and rewrote it after my 10 mins of writing was up.

"marriage is not a particularly kind thing to do to someone you really care about."

alain de botton’s interview on design matters was ah. may. zing. i think there are at least three different ideas i want to write about, but the first was this killer line (starts in the interview at 36:33):

“marriage is not a particularly kind thing to do to someone you really care about.”

at first, i thought… whaaaaatttttt? where in the world could this guy be going with this? but as he got into it, i really really began to believe his thinking. and mostly because it lines up with so much of my developing thoughts on love.

here are the main arguments used to get to that conclusion:

1. true, loving relationships are hard. well, if you believe love is just a feeling that happens to you, then maybe not. but if you believe that loving someone is about taking actions that support their well-being, love is hard. of course, the idea is that the benefits outweigh the costs, but prioritizing the well-being of others is no easy task. note that loving relationships don’t just exist between lovers. friends, parents, even co-workers can all be loving (if you subscribe to the action-based definition).
2. if you are in a truly loving relationship, you are constantly being taught and teaching. in loving relationships, we are always trying to help someone be better. this means telling them things we notice about them that are getting in their own way. it also means supporting them through those things. it also means they will be doing the same for us. and learning about yourself is probably one of the hardest things people can do. in fact, it’s so hard… that most people just don’t do it.
3. so if #2 is true, what you are asking of someone is that they being your teacher (about yourself) FOR. EV. ER. and some (all) of us are dealing with some deep, dark realities and ways of being. with friends and even people you break up with, if you truly love each other, you’ll be teaching each other for while… but then it’s over. if you get tired of teaching or being taught, you can leave the relationship. but with marriage… that’s it. it’s forever. supposedly…

on jobs, automation, and the future of work (part 4)

what’s my conclusion based on all this (parts 1, 2, and 3)? if we can take the productivity gains and distribute them equitably (instead of upwards like usually happens), we have a real opportunity to institute a creative economy.

so what would a creative economy look like? i don’t have a full picture yet, but some parts i can already see are:

• meaningful work for all people
• livelihood disconnected from the value of work
• low resource output lifestyles (note that this is different than low throughput lifestyles)
• prioritizing people, relationships, and experiences above material consumption

some people would call this an arts economy. a friend of a friend thinks that when the robots have automated away most labor needs, everyone should be an artist. given the way art is currently shaped in america, that sounds pretty unappetizing to me. but if the definition of art were to change, i think it could be great. i think art would need to expand to include things that aren’t just aesthetically interesting, but i’m not yet clear on what the full definition should be.

either way, i do believe that what is necessary is that people need to be able to find ways to use their time when work is disconnected from livelihood. and i think the only work that will never be fully automated is creative work. as in, work that requires the process of connecting things which shouldn’t be connected, but create a special added value and joy when they are (more on that in the future).

whatever this next phase economy looks like, i think it will require people to know their

• passions,
• skills and abilities, and
• core needs

this passions-skills-needs (psn) triangle, imo, is the one of the keys to a sustainable, livable future where people do what they love (because it’s best for the world that way), are able to develop skills that amplify their ability to live their passions, and know how to connect to other people to get what they need (probably in exchange for those skills, abilities, and passions).

this is just the beginning of a fully described system, but i think this is the seed of where we’re going.

we’ll see!

on jobs, automation, and the future of work (part 3)

please see part 1 and part 2 first. 

now the fact of the matter is that companies will almost definitely automate that which can be automated. it’s just cheaper and easier to maintain machinery than human capital. and in the long-run, machines that can learn with minimal resource inputs will outpace the productivity of humans.

now, this assessment of our current reality (which is not original) could go one of three ways (1, 2a, and 2b):

1. as a society, we could decide to prevent businesses from using machines (robots, algorithms, etc.) to replace human labor. this preserves jobs as we currently understand them. as in, you go somewhere for a prescribed number of hours per week to produce goods and services. this pathway is generally the advocated for by labor (i think).
2. collectively and legally, we could do nothing to intervene. this allows individuals and companies to do whatever is in their best interests. this will (almost definitely) result in diminishing labor needs (this is happening for fast food; farming; movie theaters [think fandango + automatic ticket machines]; even doctors; 3-d printing). with all of these changes, it’s not that jobs won’t be created; it’s that low-skill jobs will be destroyed (or driven to even lower skill level) and/or be replaced with a smaller number of high-skilled jobs (and if you read part 1 and 2 of this series, you’ll know why that creates a problem for anyone basically older than 35). from here, we could go one of two ways:
   
   (a) collectively, we could seek to create jobs. in the past, this could be driven by companies or government. however, if the robots have and are continually taking up more and more of the economy’s labor needs, government spending is the only way this can happen in the future.
   
   (b) we could redistribute the productivity gains to a group of people larger than shareholders and stockowners of companies that decide to automate away their labor.
   

now, given the way the economy is changing, the government is unlikely to ever again (unless we get some more taxes and lord knows how unlikely THAT is in america) have enough cash to stimulate the economy enough to get anything back into a state of stasis.

so we could be terrified about how we’re never gonna be able to fix this. or, we could see the opportunity here and take advantage of it:

*cue the creative economy soundtrack*

ps - there also could be other pathways out here, but i haven’t heard of them…