Random Rewards are Powerful... and Dangerous

 There’s a proven psychological effect in which a randomly-issued reward will generate a stronger “reward” impulse than a consistently-provided reward. Even if the consistent reward is more frequently provided and the rewards dispensed by either method are identical.

This is an important thing for all humans to understand. It’s

Important for introspection and reflection on the behaviors of others as individuals and on the flow of society as an aggregate of individuals.

It’s important to understand this effect and how it drives impulses in us, and around us. It’s important to understand how it alters our behaviors because, in my, granted very limited in scope and depth, observation is that people who understand and move through life with purpose tend to be more successful.

It doesn’t matter how one measures success - whatever goal you are seeking is more achievable when you understand yourself, understand the path between where you are and the goal, and when you understand those with whom you will interact along the path. 

The question then becomes - does their purpose align with their happiness or not? This is not a question that can be answered by anyone other than a person’s own internal emotional barometer. Those closest to them can, surely, identify when things induce unhappiness but the inner peace of happiness can only be identified and differentiated from contentment and inert apathy by the beholder.

Which brings us back around to the specific psychological effect of random rewards. If one is on their journey toward success and that journey is contra to their own happiness then the intermittent positive rewards along the path will induce a form of short term happiness that can be deceptive toward the long-term health. These short-term flares of dopamine can seem greater, and truly be more addictive, than a sustained level of happiness brought forth by a parallel journey whose goal is happiness.

It’s important to understand this effect on psychology and how it can alter your own views on the world to bring you short term positive feelings but it’s also important to recognize how it can undermine your long term well-being.

The classic example of this is an experiment with rats. Rats were given levers. One lever did nothing. One lever always dispensed a treat. One lever would randomly dispense a treat. Rats literally worked themselves to death pushing the random lever to get the next treat instead of just going to the treat lever.

A more overt and obvious analogy to the rats and the levers can be found with humans and slot machines. The “the next pull is a winner! I can feel it!” concept is this physiological effect working on the mind of the one playing the machine.

But overt gambling isn’t the only place this happens.

One example can be found in friendships.

A long, sustained and constantly-positive friendship is a valuable thing to have but they are often pushed aside when one of the friends gains a new romantic partner because the NRE (new relationship energy) is a disruptive, randomly-presented reward that gives a similar emotional comfort to the long-term relationship. 

It’s normal for NRE to disrupt a person’s life and existing relationships in almost all ways. Eventually the NRE interactions settle down into a “standing wave” of predictability and the psychological effect of randomness in the reward ceases, allowing the steady positive interactions to become ingrained in the return to normalcy. 

There are, however, people who get so distracted by NRE that, when it starts to become supplied regularly, they lose all interest in the steady-supply and MUST chase the “high” of the next random provider of attention.

This is a detectable pattern and one that can cause harm to everyone involved, hence the reason why it’s important to understand this psychological effect when it is present in others…

In a milder relationship example this can be found when an individual finds that they are always the one reaching out to others and that their efforts are often left unanswered for days or weeks at a time but, when the party finally reaponds, they feel obligated to keep trying; to keep the thread of friendship alive because the random responses push those psychological buttons.

This is why it’s important to understand this phenomenon in ourselves; we need to know when to let go of people who are nothing more than random reward distributors to us. We need to have the strength to see imbalances energy and walk away from it when it is unhealthy to us… and, in extreme cases, we need to be able to see a random reward giver as the abuser they are (not all random reward givers are abusers but it seems to be a psychological tool that all abusers instinctively know and utilize to their benefit). 

I want everyone I know to find their path to success and I want them to find a path to happiness and I desperately want for those paths to not conflict. I want them all to understand their own reactions to stimuli so that they can navigate our world and the interruptions to the paths we walk in the best way possible.

Most importantly, I want to make sure I always understand my own behaviors to ensure I never use this trick against anyone else. I don’t want to be a villain and the things that stick to my mind the most are those when I accidentally harmed others through my own ignorance or carelessness. I hope that being aware of mental processes like this one will help me better-attain that which I want from life while also allowing me to be a better person overall.

And no, despite the content about relationships, there is NOTHING in this post related to my relationship with my lovely wife. We’re good. I just think a lot about a lot of things and sometimes have to write them out to ensure they leave my squishy skull fat’s priority processing queue.

Life, Death and Lost Opportunities

Recently someone who was starting to become more involved in my social circles passed away suddenly.
This was not a case of the person having had a known disease that could have taken them at any time nor was it a case of the person being old and dying of old age.
This was a case of an unexpected stroke followed by a long period of time without any care and a hospital stay leading to slipping away.

Many who know me will attest that few things affect me emotionally. Most of the things tat do affect me in a manner that is unpleasant. Those things tend to increase my blood pressure and wind me up; those things make me angry.
Few things actually make me sad. Few things actually make me grieve.

This is not one of those things. My emotional disturbance over this was not due to my direct loss but due to the pain of the people whom I know who were left behind.

It has, however, generated a considerable amount of introspection on the part of my subconscious. That has, at this point, crept its way into the foreground of my thoughts.

I know Dave and I could have been great friends. I know this because of whom he was friends with and the common interests and knowledge bases we shared. I also know this because our personalities were similar enough that we would understand motivations and expectations of each other.
I know this because I am an introvert and my observations and experiences of Dave were that he, too, was an introvert.
Introverts, contrary to many non-introverts' belief, are not anti-social. They like people they just like their people. They take time to allow people into their circle and to generate friendships.
The problem is that this takes time.
The problem with that is that time is not always as plentiful as it seems like it would be.
The problem is that sometimes time is cut short. Cut short and cut unpredictably. Cut short without any ceremony or opportunity to rectify.

The reflection has generated some thoughts on what I want to change about myself and how I intend to change those things.

First - I realized that the missed opportunity to be better friends with Dave is mine (it is also his, but I cannot change another person). I could have reached out more. I could have generated more interaction. I could have invited him to things. I could have added him on Facebook sooner. Lots of things I could have done to generate a stronger friendship in the time that was there.
Would any of those things have saved him? Probably not. I cannot take any responsibility for the manner that he died nor for the events that led to it. Those events happened. If my friendship had altered that course it would have been only slightly and probably not enough to have made a difference to his survival.

What am I doing about this?
I have decided that when I see people whom I have good reason to believe I will get along with and whom I might be able to build a good friendship with I will do something about it.
Before I would wait and watch. I would engage in conversation when there was something relevant to talk about being discussed which I could weigh in on. I would evaluate the conversation and words used by the others and make a decision based on that. Then I would wait some more. I would repeat this until I felt as though the person might have an interest in allowing me into their lives AND that I had made the determination that I would like to have them in mine.
I am deciding from now on (I have actually already started doing this) that I will be a bit more cavalier with whom I allow into my life via social media. I will be more extroverted (it's easy to be MORE extroverted when one is as introverted as I am.... I will still be introverted) when it comes to adding people on facebook. People whom I have spoken to once or twice whom I may enjoy the company of I will add with less reservation. People who I know, but just barely, I will add. I will allow facebook to be a conduit to gaining a better understanding and knowledge of people whom I may be able to become friends with.

I will seize the opportunities presented to me rather than let them quietly slip away.

I understand that this will be hard work to maintain and it will have more failures than the path I ran before. I understand that those failures will feel difficult. I understand that I will have to generate interactions and that I might even make people uncomfortable in my feeble and awkward efforts to interact in a manner that I am not accustomed to. I also understand that my quiet looming may also make people uncomfortable in a non-threatening way.
I also understand, now, that missing an opportunity and losing it is just a failure in disguise.
If you don't try then you ALWAYS lose.
I don't like to lose. I, especially, don't like to lose when I didn't even realize I was playing the game.


Second - I realize that anyone can be taken at any time. I, like everyone else, knew this before but the harsh reality of someone closer to my own age and with a similar lifestyle in many ways to one I have led dying in the manner that Dave died drives this point home.
I intend to try and make sure people whom I know who matter to me know I am here and know they matter to me.
This will not take the form of always saying "hey, I like you; you're important" but, rather, it will take the form of seizing the opportunity for harmless frivolity and fun. It will take the form of joking with people who I care about to generate positive interactions with them. It will take the form of "liking" things they post to facebook when I like them. It will take the form of telling them jokes. It will take the form of spending time with them rather than being a lazy bastard on my couch. It will take the form of talking to them.
It will take the form of being there.


Sometimes life is mean to us.
Sometimes life is mean to others.
Sometimes life is unpredictable.
Sometimes life is lonely.
Sometimes life brings us pain.

Sometimes life seems dreadfully long.
But one thing we often forget when life does all of those things: our time is short.
We are insignificant to life. We are insignificant to time. We are insignificant to space. We are insignificant to the massive horde that is humanity and even more so to the gulf that is the history of civilization.

We are not, however, insignificant to each other.

Remember this for yourself.
Remember this for your friends.
Remember this for your loved ones.

Remember that, despite all the insignificance in the greater picture you are actually more significant than you know to those you know.

Do something about it.
Let them know.
Joke with them. Tell them stories. Listen to them. Let them know, by actions, that they matter to your world.

Don't let yourself, or those you care about, find themselves in a position where they are saying "if I only...." with respect to people they may care for....

On the flip side - accept people whom you care about interacting with you for what it is - an effort to show you they care or that they need you to care about them.

Our time is fleeting. Tomorrow is certain but our ability to experience it is not.

The Eternal Toy

When I was a kid I had LOTS of legos.
I actually still have nearly all of them but instead of being spread out over my bedroom floor they are in a trunk in the basement.

I went through phases where I preferred other toys, but I always went back to Legos.

There were many years that the Legos slept, quietly, waiting for my return but I always returned.

(This is NOT a non-sequitur, I promise) Another item that has influence my life greatly is the Star Wars world of science fantasy.

Things like this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/7-13-years/d473/ bring out my inner child. I want to spend money on this, and all of the other Lego sets that blend my love of Legos with my loves of other things from my childhood.

One a tangential note: I think that my love of Legos is derived from the same part of me that forces me to do what I do for work. I figure out solutions to problems all day long. Some days those solutions are looking to ensure that a computer is plugged in and other days those solutions fill a 4'x8' whiteboard in my office with theoretical infrastructure models that I want to make a reality. But the one underlying piece is the need to imagine something and then work through the problems to make it a reality. I think that is why Legos are the eternal toy for any engineer and why engineers do what they do.