This was written in April 2014 or so.
I went for remedial training yesterday. I had to do it because I missed my IPPT, and now I have 3 months to do 20 sessions. I spent the first half of the month waffling around, but I went for my first session yesterday and I’ve scheduled the remaining 19. Last year I missed my IPPT altogether and only was alerted about my RT when it was too late. I went for about 7 sessions, the window expired and I had to go to MINDEF to explain myself (marriage, new job, new home, changed phone number, etc).
I was hoping to get my IPPT done this year, and made some vague plans to train for it. I went for one session and failed on the pullups (which I used to be really good at =/). And then I allowed myself to slip. So here I am. I am determined to complete my RTs this time, and use it as a proxy to get fit.
Picking the right narrative: Vanity, health, fun
It’s occurred to me on a couple of occasions that I have an unhealthy or suboptimal model in my head about exercise, healthy eating, reading, sleep, hydration, all that good stuff. I had room for a few parallel narratives in my head, all oversimplistic, none particularly helpful.
The first is vanity-centric, and this was my dominant narrative as an adolescent. I was skinny and gangly and I wanted to be fit and muscular to earn the approval of my peers, and to be marginally more attractive to girls. At least, that was the hope and the plan. I was a slow gainer with a terrible diet, and made very little progress- and I was never able to sustain it for long. I knew deep down that being physically beautiful was a losing game. Your body will eventually atrophy and your looks will fade. Besides, my main source of social capital was my intellect and my ability to express myself. As long as I didn’t look horrible, that would be enough, no? I don’t know. Whatever the case, it didn’t work for me, at least not by itself.
Another narrative- and this was probably the best one- was fun. This was when I used to play basketball, or go to the gym with friends. Or do pullups during recess in secondary school. This too depended on peer approval, but it was easier to stick with it. The peer pressure is immediate. This can be really powerful stuff. I smoke a lot more when surrounded by smoker friends. I smoke maybe 1% of the time when hanging out with my colleagues. You really are the average of the people you hang out with.
I think this is a strategy for lifestyle change that works. But you have to find the right peers- people who are committed deeply and aren’t likely to flake on you. Mentors.
Projecting narratives on others
Another narrative I painted for others: obsessed, holier-than-thou. That was how I made sense of the mega-meatheads in the gym and the crazy ultramarathoners and the like. I convinced myself that these people must be really neurotic in some way and they have something that they desperately want to prove to themselves and/or others. (I am guilty of this myself, which is partially why I’m writing this). And so I put them in the Other box. Weirdos. I realize now that we’re the same. We’re all just pleasuring ourselves, one way or another.
Pleasure & Play
And here is where I get to my main point. Living well is pleasurable. It can be intensely pleasurable. I was used to this idea where exercise and healthy eating was a slog, a sacrifice that you have to make. Dues that you have to pay. I still see this narrative being featured on fitness blogs and Tumblrs. “I paid my dues. I made no excuses. I battled my demons and I won.” That sort of thing.
I realize now that that narrative will never work on me. I hate work, I love play. The challenge for me is to turn everything into play. I’m not talking about gamification here. Gamification can make things stressful by getting you obsessed with one thing or another. Metrics. Winning. Keeping up. You get caught up with the scoreline and forget to enjoy yourself. Enjoy the glorious pleasure of being alive, of playing, of pushing yourself. I much prefer this flavor of narrative.
Exercise should be fun and for its own sake, that’s my view. It can be serious business and all that, and it’s okay to want to show off, but most fundamentally of all, you gotta enjoy it… or you might as well do something else you enjoy. I’m writing this partially because I committed myself to writing, but also because it’s a delight to play with ideas and perspectives and sentences and thoughts. It’s a joy. It should be the same for music, for programming, for learning, dating, sex, marriage.
Of course, it won’t always be. It’ll also be a struggle and a slog. And it’ll hurt. But I’m not talking about how, or what. I’m talking about why. I always need a good reason. And pleasure seems to be the best reason. Helping people is a joy. It’s also noble and merciful and will get you to heaven or whatever, but if I do it I think I do it because it gives me joy.
I wonder how this applies to the rest of life. Quitting smoking might be difficult and painful, but it’s also the pursuit of the joy and pleasure of being healthy.
2048
I thought I’d just write this for fun. I first stumbled upon 2048 as a submission to Hacker News. I assumed it was some sort of dystopian novel, an updated version of 1984. I made a mental note to check it out later. I didn’t until I saw people in my newsfeed talking about it. Turned out it was a game! A really simple, easy-to-learn game. I spent a few minutes mashing the buttons randomly. I might have gotten to maybe the 64 tile, or 128. I thought hm, kinda fun, but I’m done here.
Then I saw that a couple of people on Hacker News had completed it, and a bunch of my friends on Facebook were struggling with it. With renewed motivation, I got back into the game, developing a strategy of primarily using 2 directions, the 3rd when necessary, and the 4th only when truly forced to. This got me up to the 1024 tile. I got my colleagues started on it, and my wife. My wife got our housemate started, and I amusedly watched her go at it for hours.
I finally got the 2048 Tile after maybe a hundred games, maybe more. By then I had developed a ‘feel’ for the game. I was aware of the ‘bigger picture’ around the tiles, thinking several moves ahead, planning in real time how to set up the board for later-game wins. I started to experience flow playing the game.
The optimal mindset for me is to focus almost entirely on getting rid of each new 2 block as it appears, and concentrating all of the numbers into a few big blocks. (Having multiple 64s might seem like a good thing in the mid-game, but you have to combine them or they’ll choke you to death.) Perhaps a simpler heuristic is- get rid of every new block as fast as possible and keep the board as empty as possible. In that regard it’s almost a little bit like tetris. Avoid setting up big chains unless you really know what you’re doing.
I was pretty surprised to discover how effective the “get rid of the 2s” mindset works. In my earlier playthroughs, I obsessed about getting bigger numbers. I obsessed with making the 1024 block without paying attention to the rest of the board. I was choked, over and over again. On the flipside, when I focused on getting rid of the 2s, the larger numbers emerged naturally. When I finally got my 2048, it almost felt deceptively easy and effortless. I was just focused on getting rid of 2s.
Reflecting on that fact is what prompted me to write this. I wonder what else in life am I being choked by because I’m focused on the wrong thing? At work I tend to plan and obsess about grand ideas and big pictures. But that’s like obsessing with the 1024 block and ignoring the board. What I need to do instead is to just methodically, systematically, ruthlessly, efficiently get the small stuff done.
Of course, life is not as simple as 2048. In 2048, every move introduces a new element. In life, sometimes you need to create the 2s yourself. While it’s good and sometimes necessary to think about the picture, it also makes a lot of sense to focus on getting the little niggling tasks out of the way.