Monthly Archives: March 2010

It’s all too much: The war on the unneccessary and reclaiming my attention span

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This morning, while in my car moving at snail’s pace in Cairo traffic, I realized that sometimes the lack of options is good thing. My inner monologue went something like this:

“Should I listen to the playlist I spent an hour selecting songs for on my iPod, or the podcasts I downloaded to my iPhone? It’s nice and warm this morning, let’s open that sunroof! No. Too sunny, and I am getting all the traffic pollution in my lungs. Let me switch on the A.C. instead. Man, I wish my car had digital climate control, this A.C. is either too chilly or too warm. I need to call the office and let them know I’ll be late for that meeting. Where is the number? Oh, now I remember that I saved it to the Blackberry, not the iPhone. I need to sync everything when  get to the office. Where is my headset? Here it is, but why is it flashing red instead of blue? Did I forget to charge it? I have a portable battery charger in my bag, if I could only reach back and get it without rear-ending the car ahead of me. Why does the damn traffic keep moving the second I try to look for something in the car?  I might just use the car charger and speaker phone instead. Oh, I forgot to put on the music. Which playlist was I going to listen to again? The one on the iPhone? Yeah, ok just let me check my email real quick while I am stuck at this intersection.  Why is the signal here that weak? Oh well, I’ll check it when I get to the office. Now where was I? Ah, music. I am almost at the office, forget the music. I need to untangle this cable mess when I park”

It would’ve probably been a nicer morning commute if I didn’t have all this technological crap with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE technology and gadgets. Just look at some of the older posts on this blog. I just feel that I am entering a “technological burnout” phase. I am sick of screens, batteries and cables. I do not want to – and cannot – get rid of all my gadgets, I just want to trim things down a bit. In a quest to maximize my utility, I will minimize my ownership. To start using more, I will acquire less.

We have developed a weird sense of entitlement. If something does not work the way it should, even for just the shortest of times, instant anxiety and resltessness sets in. Last week I found myself complaining to about my desktop computer, saying that it “takes ages” to start. My computer actually takes about 50 seconds to start from the moment I hit the power button. Those 50 seconds, however, are spent by me staring at the progress bar on the screen, tapping my fingers impatiently on the desk and wondering if I should back up my data to a DVD and throw the damn thing in a trash can.

This is absurd.

We have also developed an unconscious “collectors” mentality fueled by the culture of availability and demand for instant gratification that we foster every day (how come do we foster such culture ourselves? Keep reading). I have 189 feeds in Google Reader. I often “star” the items that I want to read later. A look at a sample of my saved items and some quick math revealed that I have read a measly 3% of my starred items so far. Similarly, I only read a fraction of the number of books I have on my Kindle. We want to collect – to acquire -  stuff that we think that we’ll use now or later. We might, but chances are that we won’t have the time, patience or attention to use what we set aside, simply because it’s all too much.

Unless we put some kind of filter in place.

In his book (and TED talk) the Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz talks about how too much choice creates anxiety, even depression. Schwartz suggests that if some choice is definitely good, then it does not follow from that that more choice is better.

I fully agree with Dr. Schwartz in his analysis. He believes that this all boils down to the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to be “pleasantly surprised”. We cannot be impressed as easily as before. B.B. King summed it up nicely: “The Thrill is Gone

Does that mean that we have to accept mediocrity sometimes? I don’t really see it this way, but if such is the case, and only when it comes to satisfaction we gain by acquiring stuff, I’ll accept the “good enough” instead of tearing my hair out trying to decide on and then acquire “the best”.

This post is not just the result of the in-traffic epiphany I recounted above, it was also triggered by recent accounts from that echo the same feelings. Sara reflected on a similar sentiment after she had lost most of her belongings put in storage in an unfortunate and strange incident.

Regardless of income, it is no doubt that we (and when I say “we” I realize that I do not speak for all of society)  have more “stuff” and access to things, information and options than ever before. We often take this for granted. We should not.

We must acknowledge that this is a self-inflicted crime. Don’t blame capitalism. Don’t blame clever marketing. Don’t blame the Internet. It is you (and I) who seek it all out and overdose on it. We have internalized the negatives of availability and access. Once we realize the error of our ways, we must set things straight or risk becoming part of the mob.

Reclaim your attention span. Kill the distractions. Bring back the thrill.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, no you cannot have my iPhone.

Twitt

We never really grow up. We just learn how to act in public: the story of my unhealthy obsession with bikes

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The above picture is of my new toy, which I’ll tell you more about later, after I tell you how this whole cycling thing got into my head.

You may or may not already know that I have a not so mild fascination with two-wheeled pedal powered machines (aka bicycles), specifically mountain bikes.  Like many other bike-heads, this passion started in early childhood when I got my first “real” bike after the obligatory training period on a tricycle with solid rubber tires and blue bar end ribbons (I hated those ribbons). I do not have any pictures of my first “real” bicycle, but let me  try to paint a mental portrait: It was a blue steel frame, heavy as a tank, with silver and red decals. It had short, wide and slotted (for aerodynamic purposes, I believe :) ) chrome fenders, fat tires, blue flared BMX-style grips that were made out of a hellish material that made the skin on your palms and inner thumbs bleed after a few minutes of gripping those babies (imagine mixing low-grade rubber and crumpled sandpaper with copious amounts of caustic glue (if there is such a thing), putting the mix in a mould to harden, and spray painting the result and calling it a “handlebar grip”). Several articles of discarded material adorned various parts of the frame (old inner tube around the chainstay, bright yellow electrician’s tape on the handlebars, etc). It was also a single speed but the gear choice was so wrong that I spent nearly all my riding time on the streets of Cairo out of the saddle. Seated pedaling was near impossible on anything but a downward sloping street. This worked in my favor though, as I developed the legs requisite for the type of riding I now love to do. In short, that bike was a piece of #$@%, but by I loved it! I had tons of fun riding it and would spend hours on end roaming the streets of Nasr City, jumping off curbs, sessioning ramps I built out of discarded construction wood, and crashing. A lot :)

Back then (in nineteen nintey something) , and probably because the Cairo neighborhood in which my family lived was still relatively uncrowded, there was a lot of kids on bikes during the summer months. And I mean a lot. Most of the kids on my street were older than I am and usually went on “long rides” to other neighborhoods. The bigger kids, naturally, scoffed at the younger ones trying to join the fun on grounds of peer superiority, or something. One time there was this guy on an geared road bike who asked me if I wanted to swap rides (“tebadel 3agal?”). Compared to my bike, his was almost featherlight and I had severe distrust in the skinny wheels and tires it rolled on. It was a few frame sizes too large for me, of course, but I just lowered the saddle, climbed over it (not on it) and started cranking the way I am used to on my bike, and the thing flew! A few blocks down the guy who had my bike called out, red-faced and panting like a squirrel who’s been made to run on a wheel for hours. He dismounted a few meters down, left my bike on the curb, walked towards me while glancing back at it in horror. “Enta beterkabha ezay de??!” (how do you ride this thing?!). A puff of adolescent pride filled my chest.  Other older kids tried to show him what a wimp he was, but walked away to their bikes as my horrible gearing crushed their egos. From this day on I think all the older kids secretly called me the dude who rides the devil’s bike.


Fast forward to my high school and college days. I played competitive handball for close to 12 years, rowed on my university’s crew team for a couple years with a short stint on the basketball team and even tried archery (loved it, still trying to get back to it…in my backyard). I started looking for something that doesn’t require a team and/or special facilities or sports courts (I was graduating, could no longer compete, and “Nostalgic basketball Thursdays” as we came to call them were getting less and less regular as many of the participants got sucked away by the blackhole of life known as “marriage”. I needed something solo and with a bit (or a lot) more excitement than morning jogging around the neighbourhood and gym sessions. How about a bike?


Bought one a few years back and next thing I knew I was back to jumping curbs and (secretly) sessioning makeshift ramps I (secretly) built out of discarded wood. I was also crashing a lot (not so secretly, though). Ahh, long-lost joys of childhood, it is so good to see you!


Road/urban riding in a place like Cairo isn’t that great. I started taking the bike off-road in Wadi Degla. The more I rode there, the more I fell in love with the place. A vast trail network that makes for super fun desert riding.


On the solo weekend rides, I  noticed that 99.9% of the people on mountain bikes were gringos. How come more Egyptians don’t do that?! Well, a dearth of suitable equipment is one thing, but not that much of a hindering factor, I suppose. I whipped together a website with whatever information I had/found on mountain biking in Egypt. Egyptian riders started trickling in. Two years ago I either went riding solo or had one other friend along. Last Friday a total of ten riders showed up for the morning ride! To put this number in perspective, try telling a random Egyptian “let’s wake up really early on a weekend morning to go ride bikes in the desert!”. You’d get a blank stare, if they were polite. In all seriousness, this is proof that it is mostly a matter of information availability and community-building than access to equipment and locations. Egyptian youth (or many Egyptians in general, regardless of age group) WANT to do things like that, but either don’t know where, how or with who. But I digress.


With the help of an amazing team of volunteers, I organized two amateur mountain bike races in 2009, the first of their kind in Egypt. We even have our own custom jerseys, like a real mtb team and everything :)


The sport is still obscure (not so with the road cycling, where there is a national squad and even a junior league). Accessible trails are limited but we’ve got this great, massive trail network right outside Cairo. Time allowing, we would venture out to the Sinai for some epic riding.


As infinitely fun as it is, you can hurt yourself mountain biking a lot more than you can hurt yourself playing, say, basketball (although I seem to hurt myself doing anything, including a basketball game a couple months ago where someone busted open my right eyebrow. Hell, I even spilled my own blood opening my car’s trunk!). This is not a general rule, but remember that I told you that I had fun jumping curbs and makeshift ramps? Well, I have even more fun dropping off rocky ledges and hauling ass through off-camber trails strewn with sharp rocks. In 2009 alone I bruised, cut, sprained and scraped myslef more than any other time in my life by just riding my bike off-road. I have pictures for some of the injuries but want to keep this blog R-rated :) . I am not extreme or anything, I just like to do stupid things with confidence, and crash in style :)


Coming through customs in Cairo airport two years ago with a large cardboard box, the customs official had this big smirk on his face that silently said “You are going to pay through the nose now for bringing this big ass TV over from abroad!”. As he opened the box, his facial expression changed to thoroughly confused and looked up to me for explanation. “It is a bicycle“, I said. He waved me through with a look that said “What a moron. If he’s gonna haul a box THAT big from abroad he might as well have bought a big-screen TV!”


What he didn’t know is that bicycle probably costs more than many big-screen TVs. If he knew that he would have thought that I am an even bigger moron for buying it.


As a side note, I don’t own a TV. The reason why will be told in another blog post. I am sure you’ll be hanging on the edge of your seat until then.


Where was I? Ah, I was telling you about bikes and biking. To me, it is a combination of childhood-esque pure, clean fun (not so clean if you ride in the mud like we did a few weeks ago), the feeling of accomplishment you get from  endurance sports, the great outdoors and macho big-boy fascination with big-boy toys like high-end bikes and components (or cars or motorcycles or game consoles…it’s just what you choose to spend your money on. I choose to spend it on something that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases and gets the blood pumping :) . Ok, enough of the environmentally sensitive and health conscious B.S., I can almost hear you say it!).

Twitt

Developmental alchemy: Why modern development thought should shed its (obsolete) legacies

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Image source

The ancient alchemists sought means by which common metals could be turned into precious ones. They drew upon the primordial forms of modern chemistry, devised ingenious but questionable apparatuses, and used some magic. No evidence exists, however, of anyone succeeding in transforming (significant quantities of) lead into gold with the application of such methods.

Development thought hit an impasse largely because development theorists and practitioners were trying (and arguably, are still trying) to do something very similar. They were drawing upon primordial forms of development theory, suggesting interesting but questionable/incomplete assumptions about history and its connections to the present/future affairs, and depending too much on..well, not magic, but conditional aid money.

The ancient alchemists thought there was only four elements (and later, seven), and that – using the “right methods” – any substance can be made out of those four elements. Modern chemistry came about to tell us that that we have 118 chemical elements, and that theoretically, any substance can be made using those elements. Theoretically is the key word here, because for this to be possible, the right conditions must exist. The right conditions are not always practically feasible. As I have suggested in a previous post, the issue becomes less epistemological (what elements can we use to make X?) and more practical (How can we create the right conditions so that we can combine A & B to make X).

Traditional development practitioners and theorists thought that there is only a limited number of development paths (like alchemists theorized that only a handful of basic elements exist) that nations can go through and that history has plateaued. As development thought matures, I believe we will see that we have a multitude of paths, just like modern chemists have plenty of elements to play with. What we have to do is find the right conditions for the optimal paths.

Like ancient alchemists, old school development practitioners – as I will henceforth call them – are trying to turn something undesirable into something desirable, but their methods – also like alchemists – are obsolete. They have become the old school of development like alchemists have become the old school of chemistry.

I am not a chemist, but I do believe that – metaphorically speaking – lead can be turned into gold from a developmental sense. Only if we shed inherited assumptions about how to do so.

Twitt

Grassroots movements and the self-imposed tyranny of collective apathy: Part I

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How many times did you hear someone talk or read what someone wrote about the need for “tangible, positive change”, or something along those lines?

I am not talking about “radical” or “revolutionary” change. I don’t mean the type of change that we read about in history books, attributed to gifted visionaries or charismatic leaders, often brought about in a forceful wave that wipes out the unfavorable status quo. Rather, what I am talking about here is the type of systematic, purposeful and incremental transformation in the current unsatisfactory state of affairs towards a better state of affairs.

Read that last sentence again. The operative words are systematic, purposeful and incremental transformation.

How many times did you actually see someone trying to induce “tangible, positive change” by  “systematic and purposeful means”?

I believe grassroots movements are the coming agents of change. The literature is abound with explanations on why this is the case, but it mostly boils down to the fact that the traditional power hierarchies are being broken down by technological enablers and accelerating rates of change. Power (or the power to bring about change) is trickling down and being spread faster than ever. The main bottleneck for grassroots movements is no longer epistemological (as in knowing how or even why to act) but organizational (as in building up and sustaining initiative and action).

Education. Technology. Activism. The three corners of the grassroots triangle.

The problem with a systematic, incremental transformation, however, is that it is a long-run strategy. Long-run strategies have an inherent problem: They are boring. Human nature generally tends towards instant gratification. Patience is for hermits and monks. We want change now or soon, or why bother? Also, and unfortunately,  In the long run, we’re all dead. A Kynesian truism.

The good news is that a systematic, incremental transformation does not necessarily require gifted visionaries or charismatic leaders (although their help would be definately nice). What it does need, in my opinion, is:

  1. Collective awareness: We can’t figure out how to go if we don’t know where we are or where we want to go. There must be a general collective agreement on the broad-brush aims

  2. Initiative hand-over: Any movement will have an initiative, but not any initiative survives. So many grassroots movements die because those who kicked things off stepped down (for some reason or another) but no one stepped in to carry the torch. Not because no one was willing, its just that they were never asked! Initiative is the first spark, but the fire must be kept on burning by actively transferring organizational responsibility.

I have more brain dump on that subject, just not in coherent form yet :)

Twitt