The Friendly Anarchist

How to Change Your Life

So you want to live an interesting life. But right now, you’re sitting in a cubicle in Columbus, Ohio, and it’s 24 degrees Fahrenheit. There’s icy cold water dropping off the roof in front of your office window. The sky is grey, as it has been for the last four weeks. As it will be for the next three months. And that’s if you’re lucky. You still have to buy Christmas presents, but you will probably delay it – again. Delay it until it becomes a real pain in the ass. You would like to leave and bake Christmas cookies with your children or your friends, but you can’t, because your boss ordered you to finish that totally important (and totally boring) presentation.

You look at the dripping water. There’s already an icicle forming. At this moment, just like in any moment of your life, you have two choices: You can either stay in your office, prepare that presentation, accept the upcoming three months of overcast days, stress out over Christmas presents, and forget the faces of your friends and family until things get better (i.e. never). Or you can change the rules.

Changing the Rules

Friendly Anarchism is all about changing the rules in order to live an interesting life that fits you. It’s not about adopting my rules. It’s not about “no rules at all”. It’s about looking at whatever situation you find yourself in, considering the rules you are currently playing by (Hint: They were probably not made by you!), and then dismantle them and change them for good.

Unfortunately, change doesn’t come natural to us, and resistance against it can be strong. So before we look at the strategies to make change real in the next part of this post, let’s just take a moment to understand why change is so hard for us.

Opposing Change

Human beings are a strange breed. As we saw in How to live an interesting life, we may live a life of worries and boredom for decades, and never get our shit together and do something about it. The reason for this is homeostasis. Originally, homeostasis refers to the body’s automatic efforts to maintain a constant, normal state of the blood stream. At a psychological level, homeostasis is our resistance to change. It is something inherently human, just like armpit hair or dental caries – and just like armpit hair and caries, we don’t have to accept it.

Change costs energy. It’s bascially a trade-off: We accept short-term losses (less income, anxiety) for long-term benefits (being our own boss, traveling the world). Unfortunately, there’s a part of us that doesn’t like this. This part thinks that energy is better used to maintain our current equilibrium – so if we start to change, there will always be some internal restraints against it, trying to backslide and keep up the status quo.

What’s worse, as changemakers we not only have to fight homeostasis within ourselves, but also in our environment. None of us exists separated from a system of people, institutions, and all kinds of external influences. Be it a president trying to change his country or us trying to become a vegetarian, there will always be external forces trying to prevent it. Just as we have to win against internal resistance, we also have to consider these environmental factors.

The Wake-Up Call

It looks as if we needed a wake-up call in order to change. Once we feel Death’s embrace, we seem to finally understand what’s at stake. And if we survive, we change: Jonathan Fields became an entrepreneur and writer after almost working himself to death as a lawyer. Will Steacy became a fine art photographer after surviving an armed robbery at the sneaker store where he was working at. And there are hundreds of examples like this. Once we honestly accept that the whole “Life is short” story is for real, we are ready to bear the consequences.

Unfortunately, we aren’t taught this stuff at school. “Memento Mori 101″ could be the most useful course we’d ever get. ((The entheogen ayahuasca supposedly teaches people how to die. Sounds tough, but also quite intriguing. Definitely on my bucket shortlist.)) But as this doesn’t happen, we have to understand it on our own. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:

Life is short. If there’s something in your life that sucks, you can change it – right here, right now. All you have to do is get clear about where you want to go, and use both your emotional and your rational side in order to get over homeostasis. (I will explain how to do this in detail in the next part of this post.)

Anatomy of a Changemaker

My friend Rudi is a changemaker. He wouldn’t admit it, because he’s too humble, but he basically sees a thing that calls his attention, dives into it, gets great at it, and then he either keeps doing it because he enjoys it so much, or he drops it for something else.

With this attitude, he has left behind his original job as a shop assistant and done all kind of interesting things. In order to flee compulsory military service, he left behind his mother country Italia. (He doesn’t like to be pushed around.) He became a hospital nurse, a photographer (doing his own lab work and prints) and a social worker in Latin America. Then, he specialized in intensive care and aroma therapy. He is a gardener, an art collector, and the best cook I know. (He once wrote a book about how to make a perfect tomato sauce.)

When the intensive care job became too stressful, he reduced it to 15% and got his general qualification for university entrance at the age of 35. Now, he’s enrolled at a renowned university in Vienna, Austria, studying landscape architecture.

The great thing about Rudi is that he is just an ordinary person. He is no Time Lord that can regenerate twelve times like Dr. Who. What’s more, change scares him shitless. Last year, when he was about to enroll for university, seeing himself becoming a student again, he almost got paralyzed. Almost! Because Rudi is a stubborn guy. And he did it anyway. He isn’t perfect – but he is a perfect changemaker, because he understands that his life is short, he wins against his worries, he motivates himself, and he takes a crystal-clear direction to make change real.

Look at your surroundings. How many Rudis do you know? I bet there’s at least one of them amongst your people. The lesson: Anybody can change. You only have to want it. And once you become a changemaker, you can be and do whatever you want.

How Change Works

Change has been a recurring theme here on The Friendly Anarchist. Yet until recently, I didn’t really get a grip on it. Sure, in the blogging scene there are many good thoughts on how to change habits, change your diet, change your job. But what was missing was the big picture, the panoramic view of how to change. As long as we don’t understand the whole process, it’s no wonder that change fails.

I decided to consult the experts, and I found my answers in the brilliant book “Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard,” written by the brothers Chip and Dan Heath. ((Hat tip to Derek Sivers for pointing me at it!)) “Switch” provides a framework for making change real. It can be used in pretty much any change situation: Be it in a company, in our personal lives, or on a societal level. And while there are other models to follow, the worst thing to do when confronting change is to overanalyze – so I’d like to propose you to give this model a try. ((I also recommend reading the whole book because it provides a myriad of studies and best practices in a very accessible and entertaining style. The strategies described by the Heath brothers saved the life of 100.000 persons in the USA in the course of 18 months and helped building companies like Rackspace.))

Basically, any change situation is controlled by two main systems that I already mentioned above: Our emotional self, and our rational self. The Heath brothers use an analogy to describe these systems, that was originally created by psychologist Jonathan Heidt in his book “The Happiness Hypothesis“: The emotional side is the Elephant, and the rational side, the Rider.

Now, the Rider generally holds the reins and decides where to go – but if the Elephant doesn’t move, the Rider will be powerless. (Ever tried pushing around five tons of Elephant?) So the Elephant has to be in agreement with the direction proposed by the Rider – and, to add a third element, they have to move on a Path. The Path stands for the process of change, and this is key to understand: Profound change doesn’t happen in one single step: It’s a process, not an event!

The Rider, the Elephant, and the Path

As our rational side, the Rider represents the part of us that likes to analyze, plan, and focus on long-term benefits. It’s probably quite active already if you’re considering to implement a big change in order to live an interesting life.

The problem with the Rider is that he not only likes to think and analyze – he overthinks, and he overanalyzes. This can lead to decision paralysis, and that’s what we have to avoid in order to make change real.

But even if the Rider is clear about the change we want to make, the Elephant might see it as a task too big or too uncomfortable. And if the Elephant doesn’t move, change won’t happen. Everybody who has ever procrastinated on an important issue knows what I mean. The Elephant focuses on short-term pleasures rather than on long-term benefits (Buying that new computer now instead of reducing living costs and being able to travel next year). But he isn’t the bad boy. The Elephant stands for love, compassion, sympathy and loyalty – and once he’s motivated, he’s practically unstoppable.

Wherever Rider and Elephant want to go, it will be easier the less obstacles there are. At best, the Path to walk on will be a downhill road. Tailwind and several gas stops providing fresh coffee will help, too. In order to make change real, we have to think about ways to shape the Path ahead.

Mind you, shaping the Path isn’t just for people doing ordinary things! Even if you are about to create a completely new Path on your own, you can do several things to make it easier to walk on! Compare it to bringing a machete into the jungle over being stuck with nothing but you hands to get through the brushwood.

Coming Up

To make change real, the Heath brothers present nine strategies to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path. I will outline them for you next Tuesday. This will be your key for making your interesting life real and getting out of that cubicle in Columbus. Be sure to check back in, or subscribe for free via RSS or e-mail!

The illustration uses a beautiful photo CC (BY-NC-SA) by Valerie Chiang. Thanks!

Survey Love

As a former telephone pollster, I know one thing: We all love surveys! Seriously, I remember how delighted people were that my bosses considered them sufficiently stupid to not remember which car model they had bought only two weeks earlier.

As a consequence, I had to read a large list of all the models the respective car company was offering at that time to my interviewees – from subcompacts to SUVs. You can imagine that people were thrilled to spend their precious time like this, and I doubt they ever accepted doing another survey again.

Even better was the huge survey we did for a German department store chain. It was so “well” designed, that they obliged us to ask every contestant about his opinions on every single department, even if they had never visited it in the the first place. Asking 80-year old men about their thoughts on the lingery section was always great fun. A complete interview took about 45 minutes, and I would like to use this occasion to ask anybody for apologies who actually played the game until the end: You helped me pay my rent for the three months I worked with those idiots, before I managed to find a decent student job. I owe you a coffee!

Now, because of our inherent love for surveys, I decided I’d do one. It’s not a 45-minute department store marathon, mind you – and there will be no questions about your car model. It’s actually totally friendly anarchistic, and it will take you between 4 and 5 minutes (I just stopped it and it took me only 3; but then, I invented the questions).

What’s more, there’s a free bonus: If you nice people answer my questions, I will answer yours. And provide you with a bucketload of new and interesting content here on the site during the upcoming months. I have almost a hundred post ideas outlined, and those would take me about two years to write and publish. So I’d like to prioritize!

Thus, I’d really appreciate it if you took the time to answer my questions here. (I’ll owe you a coffee, too!)

(The survey is now closed. Thanks to all participants!)

How to Live an Interesting Life

When I felt two guys trying to grab stuff from my pockets for the fourth time in a row, this year’s fiestas somehow lost a bit of their appeal.

Sure, everybody knows that the main event of Cartagena’s independence celebrations can get a little chaotic at times: People throw firecrackers, cornflour and blue dye powder; they dance, they push, it’s crowded.

But that’s really part of the fun. So I really had a great time throwing firecrackers, cornflour and blue dye powder myself. Unfortunately, I had lost my group after a couple of hours, and while most Colombians in the crowd were great people as always and eager to invite me for a sip of rum, four attempts of aggressive pick-pocketing kind of ended the fun. I got out before anybody could take anything from me, but I still felt a little duped. In retrospect, though, it was certainly an interesting experience. ((Seriously: Four failed pickpocket attempts in one day? That’s probably Guinness record. I will check with the committee. (It’s also a sign that the thieves where either really drunk already, or total noobs. Probably both.) ))

“May you live an interesting life,” a Chinese curse goes. ((It’s not really a Chinese curse. It doesn’t even go like that. The beauty of writing for the internet is that I can just make these things up and nobody will notice!)) And it’s true: “Interestingness” is a dangerously broad term. Having a chronic illness can be interesting – I’ve been there – but it sucks. Wars, violent uproars, burning cars on the streets can be interesting – but they suck even more. And maybe you too have used the classical “It tastes … interesting”-excuse when your dinner host didn’t really have a clue about cooking. Not as bad as wars and chronic illnesses, but still kind of sucky.

The thing is that interestingness in general is a lot more positive. Interestingness is making experiences that shape us as human beings, and enjoy them to the max. What we really don’t want is the suckyness. The bullshit part of life.

As far as I can see it, most of us want to live our lives something like this:

Sure, a bit more interestingness would be nice, but let’s be realistic, right? At least, we’ll avoid the bullshit.

Or that’s that we think. Because when we want to avoid bullshit so hard, we decide to play it safe. The problems start once we “play it safe” too much and become dominated by routines:

Play it safe is what keeps us in our boring job. (I avoided that one.)
Play it safe is what keeps us in our houses. (I struggle with that one at times, even though I travel a lot and love to walk the streets of new cities.)
Play it safe is what keeps us from building a business. (Hello, that’s me.)
Play it safe is what keeps us from writing about controversial topics. (That’s me again.)

We end up with a pretty normal life. But we won’t ever get rid of bullshit a hundred percent. Even if we play it safe and skip chaotic independence celebrations, there will still be some issues: Stress at work, a flooded house (my windows aren’t the best, it seems), a stolen car, a break-up after a long relationship – we just can’t avoid these things completely.

But because we try so hard, because of attempting to “play it safe”, we unintentionally drown our interestingness levels, and end up with a life like this:

From Wonderland to Worryland

There’s a thing to consider when looking at our bullshit quotient. The problems that really happen in our lives don’t account for the full 20% of bullshit. Realistically, it’s more like 2% bullshit and 18% worries: ((Disclaimer: I know that some people have a tough life and bullshit levels may be a lot higher. Often though, they only seem a lot higher. Now, I won’t fight for a percent or two, but if you look at the average Westerner’s life, there probably won’t be more than 4-5% bullshit.))

It’s not losing our job, it’s worrying that we might get fired.
It’s not really the house that gets flooded, it’s worrying that it might get flooded; and then, worrying about what insurance to get, and where to earn the money to pay for it.
Will the same insurance cover the car? And should we really park it in that dark alley, or rather take it to a supervised parking lot, paying $5 an hour for someone to look after it?
Yup, that’s more worries. Not to count the worries caused by us mindlessly fighting with our loved ones. Even more worries. Even more bullshit.

Worrying too much is like leading the war on bullshit, with the collateral damage being the interestingness of our lives.

Of course, this is not “bad”. Not “bad” in the sense of building a dirty bomb in your basement. It’s just not helpful. Especially if we consider that we’ve only got this one life.

If you think that’s affecting you, I feel you. I am great at this. For example, as a dogsitter I permanently worry that one of the dogs could get seriously ill. Even though these worries are exaggerated, I’ll be happy once my wife comes back to look after them again. ((Fair enough, one of the puppies indeed got sick about four months ago and would have died if I wouldn’t have taken her to the vet at 3 o’clock in the morning. Since then, I worry a lot more about ticks. D’oh.))

As kids, we still play freely and explore the world as if it was a big and beautiful Wonderland (if we have parents that aren’t too paranoid, that is!). Sometimes we fall down, sometimes we rip our clothes, sometimes we scratch our elbows. And still, we continue to explore, we continue to live an interesting life.

But then, over the years at school, we become more and more serious. And worried. The older we get, the more we learn to focus on avoiding bullshit and becoming upright citizens. Normality grows, worries grow, interestingness almost disappears. We go from Wonderland to Worryland.

Do things have to be like that?

Living an Interesting Life

I have some friends who live a very different life. I live it myself at times, and I see a couple of people on the web that seem to be living it, too. This other model looks something like this:

You see this? That’s a 50% increase in interestingness! Bullshit levels are down, as is normality. And while normality makes us comfortable, it also leads to the boredom that maintains our society in a state of coma, passivity and consumerism. So if we ever feel that there’s a bit too much normality in our lives, we could maybe learn something here.

What are these people doing differently?

The mistake when trying to find out about interestingness is to look at what interesting people are actually doing. Because this only leads to even more passivity on the side of the spectator:

“Oh, Tyler Tervooren can jump out of an airplane, but I couldn’t possibly do that because I don’t fly. Climate change is more important than having fun.”
“Oh, Sean Ogle is traveling to South East Asia and checking off the points on his bucket list, but I couldn’t possibly do that because I love my home and wouldn’t want to leave.”
“Oh, Karol Gadja is building a business around his Ridiculously Extraordinary blog, but I couldn’t possibly do that because I haven’t got any idea of internet marketing and writing.”

One thing is for sure: You will always find reasons not to do something interesting, even if other people are doing it. Often enough, these reasons will be pretty good. Sometimes, they won’t. But you’ll definitely find some!

I believe we have to look at what these people are not doing. And then we have to stop doing that, too. For example:

Stop worrying 18% of your life.
Stop overthinking everything.
Stop remaining seated comfortably.
Stop accepting things as they are, even if they suck.
Stop taking the path of least resistance.
Stop living the life other people planned for you.
Stop worrying 18% of your life. (This comes twice, as it’s really the basics.)

Interesting people get rid of unnessary worries – and accept that a little more real bullshit might turn up in their lives once they start stepping out of their comfort zone. If you do a lot more interesting things, from time to time you risk a bit more bullshit. Just think of the pickpockets.

The Anxiety Indicator

The good thing is that interestingness doesn’t always have to be confronting pickpockets or jumping from airplanes. It may be small things:

Buy unknown food at your supermarket (or an Asian / African / Latino shop) and try to cook something tasty with it. ((This will fail at times.))
Go to a new bar / restaurant instead of always going to your old favorites.
Watch a recommended movie from a genre you normally ignore.
Engage in a street fight.

It may be big things:

Quit your boring job.
Write and publish that novel you’ve got inside.
Sell everything you own and travel the world.
Have and raise five children.

And it’s really your personal choice. Each of us is different, each of us has different ideas of how to live an interesting life. (If you’re not sure, there are a bazillion great ideas on living interestingly here, here and here.)

There’s one thing interesting things have in common, though: They make us feel at least a tiny bit uncomfortable. Anxiety is the perfect indicator. Instead of worrying about or trying to ignore it, maybe we should let it be our guidance. This is not about becoming an adrenaline junkie, though. It’s not about extreme sports, about permanent travel, or about becoming an entrepreneur. It’s about taking the direction that you want to take in order to make your life more interesting.

My personal next steps (and the Change Challenge)

My next steps towards a more interesting life will look something like this:

Get back on the road again within 50 days. Next destinations: Bogotá; a new place somewhere in Colombia (the local military airline flies pretty much everywhere); Europe.
Become a more active photographer again.
Adopt a Yes-Policy (a great idea by Joel Runyon).
Write more “from-the-heart” content for TFA.
Use more footnotes. ((I’m just kidding!))
Build a no-bullshit business that actually makes enough money to sustain me, like described in Walk With Flowers.

Living an interesting life isn’t a one-step solution. It’s permanent inquiry. Because we like normality. We like routines. We like comfort. But often enough, normality, routines and comfort just won’t be too interesting in the long run.

At one moment in our lives, we escape. We travel, we paint, we sing in a punk band, we become professional schuhplattlers. We conquer Las Vegas. We enjoy every second of our lives.

But then, normality creeps in. We begin to suppress the anxiety that’s indicating us the way. And we get bored. Bored and worried. This is the moment to take the plunge. This is the moment to pause for a moment, listen inside, and readjust. It’s the moment we have to embrace change.

The Change Challenge: Make change real. More on that and how to successfully embrace change in the next week. Be sure to grab the RSS feed or subscribe by email and you’ll get the upcoming posts right into your inbox!

Good Reads, Winter Season Edition

Winter is beautiful – on photos. That’s what I thought when I heard that it snowed for the first time this winter in the city where my parents live. A good reason to stay in the Caribbean for sure (despite the rain here). But also a good reason to look into my archives and find a couple of pictures from the past winters I could take before my fingers froze. Together with a hot cup of coffee (or tea, Michael!) and a couple of highly recommended good reads a decent way to spend a Saturday afternoon – wherever you are in the world!

[¶]

“But, here’s the thing: as much as saying so pisses anybody off, I think the topics we’re NOT talking about whenever we disappear into Talmudic scholarship about “full-screen mode” or “minimalist desks” or whatever constitutes a “zen habit”—those shunned topics are precisely the things that I believe are most mind-blowingly critical to our real-world happiness as humans.

In fact, I believe that to such a degree that helping provide a voice for those unpopular topics that can be heard over the din is now (what passes for) my career. I really believe these deeper ideas are worth socializing on any number of levels and in many media. Even when it’s inconvenient and slightly disrespectful of someone’s business model.”

(Gotta love Merlin Mann. This article is long and twisted and it’s worth every minute you spend on reading it. Seriously, this is right to the point in a “not right to the point” kind of way. Love it.)

[¶]

How to be interesting: (via)
“Cultivate at least one paradox or contradiction in your life. The best example of this one that I can think of comes from my friend Mark McGuinness. As he said on Wishful Thinking, he writes sensitive poetry yet he’s a huge football fan. Sure seems like a contradiction to me [sounds of bones crunching on the television]. However, these contradictions are made of the stuff that interesting comes from. In other words, contrasting to extremely different interests makes for good conversation.”

(I always felt that I was interested in interesting thing. That’s my passion, I suppose, apart from light. What to make of it? Who knows, but I’ll publish a post with my point of view next Tuesday. Hope it will be, well, interesting.)

[¶]

Overwhelmed With Projects? Declare Task Bankruptcy: “A pile of papers to read on the side. A stack of notes for several unrelated projects. Assignments to prepare. Questions to answer by email. Inbox full of unclassified mails. Lectures to prepare. Cluttered office desktop. Cluttered computer desktop.

A few weeks ago, Friday, this was what I saw when I looked at my office desktop. And I decided it was too much to bear and filed my first Task Bankruptcy.”

(You know Ruben Berenguel from the friendly anarchistic comment section and from his recent guest post. He publishes a fun blog on maths, LaTeX (not the sex fetish kind of thing, mind you), cooking and productivity. I love it because it’s such an eclectic mix. As far as I am concerned, much more interesting than these hyper-focused money-making blogs out there. (There: Interesting! I said it again!))

[¶]

“Writer Robert Anton Wilson, self-described as “agnostic about everything” is fond of saying “The universe contains a maybe.” I think that’s a good motto. There is an interesting paradox: whenever you state a fact, qualifying it with a “maybe” instantly makes it more accurate.”

(David Cain on how to be right all the time. His blog Raptitude has become a favorite of mine since I discovered it a couple of weeks ago. Brilliant content, but not for quick scanning. You actually need to read what he writes. (That’s why I like it so much, probably.))

[¶]

DIY Marketing for the Lost but Ambitious: “Turn your focus into a laser cannon! … Don’t become the dopey Alice who gets lost in the magic kingdom. Know exactly where you want to go and what to aim for!”

(I try to ignore marketing blogs as good as I can. But Mars Dorian just writes too entertaining to be ignored for a long time. How’s that for a plaudit? :))

[¶]

The passion is in the risk: “We work through the fear that everyone feels. Fear is a very uncomfortable emotion. Most people feel fear and move away from the thing that made them feel fearful. Or they work to contain the process or action that caused the fear. Some work through the fear to feel the love. The work is the love. The process is the fear, The fear is the risk. And the risk is the thing that artists embrace. And that’s what makes the best work work. Knowing that you might fail. … There’s no way to inspiration other than to wake up and want. And to be willing to accept the risk that creates the passion. And that’s why it’s worth it not to copy anyone else but to create your own art and take your own risks. ”

(Kirk Tuck. Wow. I could actually quote the whole thing, and it’s rather long. A must-read for photographers, but also a recommendation for open-minded artists of all sort. Really good stuff, as always.)

The Other Side

The story goes like this: A class of seventh graders travels from Bogotá to the Colombian Amazon and goes for a hike. Before leaving, their guide advises them to respect the indigenous elders and the spirits of the forest. Everybody nods when listening about the gruesome creatures, just one boy laughs. It’s the same boy that almost wets his pants at night when sleeping outside in the jungle, terrorized by a gnome in a tree, watching him. Only after the indigenous elder arrives and does some arcane ritual, the gnome leaves and the boy falls asleep.

Most of us will smile about this story. Childish imagination goes a long way when you’re camping far out in the jungle, having nothing but trees and birds and strange insects around you. And yet, it’s not the only one I’ve heard.

There are the three guys who went to spend a night at a canyon in Southern Colombia, known to be a place of the Dead. Before dawn, all three of them felt the irresistible urge to jump down the abyss. Two of them did and died, the third one survived to tell the story.

Then, there’s the German professor that goes to China to work. After a couple of weeks, his wife suffers from a strange illness, and his job is jeopardized. Problems accumulate until at last they follow their neighbors’ advice and contract a shaman to do a week-long cleaning ritual at their house. Immediately after that, the professor gets promoted and the illness goes away.

Good luck? A shaman with close contacts at the local university? I’m not sure about it. Sometimes, rationality limits our worldview. I say this as someone who was denied membership in the protestant church as a school kid – while the alleged reason was a bureaucratic error, I still believe that they didn’t want a member who would probably criticize more than pray. And while I never was a good natural scientist, I generally felt comfortable defending a position of healthy agnosticism.

My personal vision changed when I was invited to a chief’s birthday in the rain forest and saw a witch sitting up in a tree, looking at a few of us while we were chilling out under the star-lit sky. I would have blamed the coca-chewing and the tobacco-sniffing, but there where no psychedelics involved. What’s worse, the guy next to me saw her, too. He even described her the same way, and somehow I just won’t believe that the chief had prepared a wily video installation in the middle of the jungle only to fool us.

What should we make of this?

Your conclusions, as always, are yours to draw. As for me, I believe there is another side to things, a side that science cannot describe, measure, and analyze – yet?! Maybe so. Maybe one day we will find a tool in order to do so.

Until then, I prefer not making fun about the gnomes while I’m in the jungle, and get my house unhexed in case I ever move to China. The cost of doing so is low, and the benefits may be quite big. As far as I’m concerned, this is practical economics applied to real life.