Brady Helps

When the mind wakes up at 4:30am it has ideas, aims, and dreams. The body follows.

Now, two hours later, I still can't think of what to say.

Smidge : Another form of "smidgen" which means a small amount of something.

Smidgen, in the United States, dates back to the mid-19th century. And that word is likely related to the Scottish word "smitch" or "smutch" meaning a small amount or a slight stain/smear. Essentially, small or barely noticeable quantity.

Erica, a dear friend, asked me if I could move a coffee date a smidge later. I've now learned that a barely noticeable quantity of time is approximately 1 hour.

Brian, a friend, told me his desire is to have a butterfly effect on people's lives through his work. If he's doing his job well, perhaps his clients could achieve better work-life balances, treat people better who then treat others better, and the ripples extend and extend.

I never heard of the butterfly effect. I didn't look up the word, I liked how I heard it from Brian.

We need more humans that think like Brian thinks.

Yesterday, my mom and I spoke about resilience — and what it means to have it. She was commenting that a mutual acquaintence didn't exert much resilience during a difficult life experience as evidenced by their poor behavior. I said perhaps we don't have as much resilience as we think we have. I thought about it more, and I think we were both wrong.

Resilience : The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

The history of resilience:

1. Etymologically, resilience is derived from Latin, resilire, meaning to "leap back" or "recoil."
2. In the 17th-19th, engineers used the word to describe a material's capacity to absorb energy when deformed and release it upon unloading, like a sponge that recoils when you stop squeezing it.
3. In the 20th century, resilience found a new home in psychology, referring to a person's capacity to adapt to stress ,trauma, or adversity without long-term dysfunction.

My issue with these definitions is not the definitions themselves; it's how I see people interpret the definitions. And the interpretation that I frequently observe is: "someone is resilient if they show steady stoic-like responses to hardships." Well, withstanding or recovering don't have to imply "stoic-like" response to tragedy.

Here's how I think of it:

• Capacity is like a container — there's a limit to how much can be in the container before it overflows. Capacity requires self-awareness.
• Withstand or recover quickly — can mean "stoic-like" response but it can also mean to return to a pre-hardship state, or persist in a weakened state before total collapse, or something similar.

Therefore, I prefer this interpretation of resilience: being so self-aware of one's capacity to endure hardship before they totally collapse that they're not at all surprised by their reaction to difficulties. Said more simply: not being surprised by how one reacts when shit gets real.

Under my interpretation, there's no expectation that you be "stiff upper lip" when life gets tough. My interpretation requires you to develop self-awareness for your capacity to endure hardship and to be mindful enough that your reaction doesn't surprise you.

It's easy to act like nothing's wrong when the world is on fire. It's much harder to be self-aware that the world is on fire, you're on fire, and you're not surprised that you're in shock.

"The beginning of the path to finding God is awareness. Not simply awareness of the ways that you can find God, but an awareness that God desires to find you." - Fr. James Martin, "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything"

At last night's gig, a gentelman named Bobby stop me. Bobby spoke about how he observed people sit back and relax in their seats when we began to play. He said that he could feel energy from the bandstand to him, almost inviting him to find joy. Bobby spoke that we're all on a journey, and the journey is made brighter by our music.

In my journey to find a state of life where I can express my heartfelt benevolence for people to achieve their maximum possible fulfillment from the music we make, I believe I've also learned that those people I seek to serve want to find me.

I bet the same is true for me.

I notice that when people enter zoom rooms or get on telephone calls they ask each other about the weather. When I lived in Florida, my mom would tell me "make me jealous, and tell me how warm it is" and then would laugh. I don't understand — why do we care about the weather and why is it funny?

File this under "things David doesn't understand about how and why we do the things we do" file.

I caught myself the other day asking a co-worker in Nebraska if they received snow. I then asked myself why I cared, I didn't. I then asked myself, then why did I ask? I didn't have an answer other than "social lubrication" which I probably need more of than less of.

I don't mind being asked about the weather. I don't mind talking about it. So what's getting me bent out of shape? Dear reader, I'm trying to understand that with you now.

I often think there's so much more to notice in the world and about people. I often find myself on calls asking about someone's interior decor, or a fact they've told me about themselves, or to point out how well matched they are outfit-wise. These types of observations seem remark-worthy and therefore remarkable. More remarkable than weather, most times.

I think the answer is not if I care about the weather, but if the weather is then worth being remarked on, and if there's something more worthy to remark about.

Perhaps the disconnect I'm seeing is that there's so much about humans that's worth remarking and querying on; and climate is just one small part.

Noticing the whole elephant has its pros and cons.

While walking the other day I came across another walker. When they noticed me they began looking in every direction but towards me. Walking towards each other — I looking at them to see what they would do, them looking in any other direction but towards me. We pass each other — no acknowledgement from each other and only me noticing them and them doing what they could to not look at me. Or so it seems.

Perhaps the other walker really enjoyed looking around. Maybe they wanted a solo walk and to feel cut off — I get that, I love that too. Perhaps I am hideous and imposing — I'm big, I have a prize-winning RBF, I'm dark, I've got facial hair... I get it... I am the face of Pascquale from Chuck-e-cheese driven childhood nightmares.

An hour later I walked into a coffee shop. I noticed someone walk in — they looked at me standing away from the register, looked at the register, looked back at me, and then looked at the register. I said, "I'm not in line." They looked away and walked away.

After leaving the coffee shop, in the parking lot, people walked from their car towards the door. I noticed them and smiled, they immediately looked away.

What social contract am I breaking? Is there a norm I wasn't taught as a child?

I'm trying to think if I actively look away from people when I approach them. I can't easily recall a time, though I'm sure I do. Generally, I'm more interested in seeing if and how people recognize me.

Maybe I'm a victim of noticing.

Almost a decade ago I would say often that music is not self-service. A decade later, I still believe that's true, but I will go further.

Now, when I play I feel detached. I feel that my mind is not contained within my physical body. I perceive my self, the part of me that's not connected to the body, interacting with the other musicians and the audience. I feel the other selfs interacting and engaging with me. In my mind's eye I see ths big ball of light form and pulse. I feel the music is a creation of the whole, not a work of one.

After the show is over, audiences and musicians alike look at each other as if they were in on the mystical experience. They give the approving nod, fist bump, and smile.

I find work outside of music similar, but perhaps not as mystical. People's energy interacting and engaging with one another trying to solve a problem or make something happen. The more positive (read literally) energy in the zoom room, the more likely we'll be productive.

It's easy to sit here and waive my hands about mystical experiences to you. I want this to be a generous post, and I want you to walk away with what I think makes this happens.

1. Intent. An earnest intent that what you are about to do is not about yourself, and it's for others.
2. Hang. Musicians use the term "hang" to mean what it's like to be around someone; you need make a good hang happen . Use humor, take an interest in someone and ask about their life, share something, or whatever you can to make the experience of being around you warm and welcoming. People won't open up if they don't feel comfortable around you.
3. Humility. Open yourself up to what happens. Be ready to admit when your idea doesn't work. Be open to ideas of others. Be open to the ideas that make no sense at all — sometimes those are the best. Be humble about yourself and the process.
4. Willingness. A willingness to act on ideas, even if they appear silly or nonsensical. If you're not willing to act, then it will be impossible to create something meaningful.
5. Humility (2nd time). It's not about you and it never was. It's bigger than you. It's beyond you.
6. You are not your mind. Remembering that what you think is not who you are, there's an observer behind what you're thinking and doing — that little voice in the back of your head or your "gut". Listen to it!

Looking at the six points above, it would seem these experiences have more to do with your mindset than anything else, and perhaps that's the point. The mysticism of the arts and a great team is not in some "method" or "best practice" or in the Harvard Business Review. That this would seem mystical is a paradox — it's unintuitive to have such a practical intuition-centered method to get to a place that we humans have been getting to for a very long time.

Perhaps what's hard is to accept that you might be the problem — your mind that is. I imagine that if someone were to present a rigorously peer-reviewed randomized control large sample sized trial which major media would then pick up and popularize would make the materialist-oriented mind feel more certain. I get that. I think tons and my mind often gets in the way, and that's when I make mistakes.

And perhaps I'm overthinking now... but I don't think so. This feels right.

The Law of Large number tells us that as we increase the number of samples, the average becomes more reflective of the population. The best way to explain this is to talk about a coin flip.

I asked a three people to suppose there was a coin between. I prompted: suppose I flip the coin, what is the probability the coin flip results in heads versus tails? All three responded with 50/50. And I could imagine most people might think that. However, the answer is wrong. The answer is technically $50% \pm 100%$ — which is the same as saying "try it and find out".

The Law of Large Number tells us that we need close to 1,000,000 coin flips to occur before we could say with high confidence that the result of a coin flip resuling in heads is 50/50. I'm not spending my time flipping coins, so the next best thing is to assign an amount of precision — or confidence.

I won't belabor the post with math; you can search on google or with an AI tool to learn more. The point is: precise beliefs about what might be true or happen require large amounts of data. As the amount of high quality data comes in, so to can your confidence in the belief; little-to-no data should translate to "it's nothing more than a coin toss at this point, let's see how it pans out."

I use this thinking as a mental-health improvement hack My views on the world tend to feel more or less certain by the amount of quality data I collect and analyze. My confidence in a restaurant being good may be informed by the number of reviews, a claim about world events being true may require to source news from multiple differing sources, that a musical idea works needs multiple performances and validations each time. As more data comes in, confidence in my beliefs about the world rise. Paradoxically, it's that lack of confidence in my beliefs that reduces anxiety, reduces perceptions of being slighted or that I'm being attacked, and enables me to feel more grounded and content.

Yes — as I become less and less certain, I become more and more grounded. I am not a contradiction. I am simply not large enough, and if that realization isn't good for my mental health, I don't know what is.

Suppose a friend approaches me and asks for advice. The friend is going to have dinner with a family from another country. The family will treat my friend to food and traditions from their country. My friend doesn't want to offend and asks for advice. Here's what I would say:

Rules to Guard Your Mind

1. Citizens of a country are not a monolith. Not every Filipino loves adobo, and not every American likes country music.
2. Humble yourself — remember you don't know as much as you think you do and you're probably wrong.
3. Listen with every sense!

With the rules in place, I would then prescribe a set of actions.

Do This

1. Listen with your eyes — watch how people interact in this home, and do as they do. Don't be bothered if you're told what to do.
2. Listen with your ears — listen to the sounds, television, music, cooking, and how people talk with another and how people talk to you.
3. Listen with your eyes again — watch how people conduct themselves around you and reply in kind. If they put a hand out to shake your hand, reply with a hand out. Mimic.
4. Listen wtih your mind — gather as many inputs from your sense and imagine yourself mimicing them and doing as they do. When in Rome!
5. Listen with your mouth — eat what they want and how they eat. You don't have to like the food. It's better if you just enjoy the experience of experiencing it.
6. Listen with your heart — at the end of the day, these are people just like you who are trying to love others and be loved themselves — enjoy these people, they are perfect as they are and they don't need to change for you to extend them love.

I might be wrong about all of this; I'm happy to be humbled. It's been my experience that listening first and mimicing to fit in have helped me crack more culuture codes than any other method — even more than learning a language.