The Surprising Thing About Goldilocksing
By: T.J. Storey
Tags: Culture, David Foster Wallace, Millennials, Self-awareness, Sociology

Photo by Anatoliy Gromov on Unsplash

It might sound like the emphasis in Goldilocksing would be to get things juuust right or pretty perfect. Or it could seem like it’s another boring repetition of “finding balance”, but it’s really not.

It’s more of a way to counteract an attention bias we have for the new or the edge so that we can focus on what we’re really hoping to achieve -sustained happiness and wellness for ourselves, others, and future others.

Haha, that doesn’t seem like what we’re after? I know it doesn’t; and am I bad for mentioning that it sounds a little dull compared to the market of things and ideas we’re used to?

Don’t worry, this isn’t a new Should to pile onto the dozens of others we all encounter in a typical day. It’s more of an observation that I’ll develop further here in a few posts.

And Goldilocksing isn’t necessarily about material things, or getting by with less, or settling, or finding middle ground in our social apocalypse. It’s really a pretty abstract idea — stoner talk you might even say, like a lot of what I write about.

Our attention bias toward the new, or the edge, has been useful. Without it, we wouldn’t have developed the means we have now for getting the essentials of life for large populations.

It’s an attention bias that occurs in us individually, of course, but it’s reinforced through the larger culture by way of marketing and social proof -our tendency to do what others (sometimes just certain others) do.

That’s So 50,000 Years Ago

Well, I mean some of the wiring that got us here isn’t great for current conditions. It wasn’t meant for that, just like other parts of our wiring or programming that were meant for an environment of scarcity make us fat or foolish in the modern world.

If you’re old enough and nerdy enough to remember the DIP switches on electrical devices, we could really use them in our brains. They allowed the user to change how the device functioned depending on the environment or other inputs. Oh sure, we have truly cognitive areas of our brains which theoretically could override these impulses, but we all know how that works -intermittently at best.

We’re definitely in need of Advanced User instructions at this point, since we don’t have the DIP switches to change the true Boss of Us -our limbic (“emotional”) system.

Yes, we can fight about what’s the latest in Good and Evil, what “true stewardship” is, the role of government, how to judge judgment-judging, etc., but there’s something to this Goldilocksing thing I’m trying to get to here.

This is not political -yes, that is possible if you’ll allow it. It’s about intentionally not focusing on the edge, the front, the new, and instead looking toward a present sort of middle for what you’re seeking -long term happiness for you and others.

What’s the Surprising Thing About Goldilocksing?

It’s that even though our wiring pushes our attention towards the edge of innovations in the conceptual and concrete worlds, maybe by looking instead toward the real goal, human flourishing (for ourselves and others), we’d find more satisfaction and success. Our cognitive biases are always a sort of default or auto-pilot for a particular set of circumstances -many of which (not all) are in the past.

I’m certainly not arguing for an end to innovation. That’s not desirable or even possible. But the emerging surprise is that our culture, our economy, and we as individuals, seem to be better off (happier, healthier) by choosing deliberately from what we already know rather than running toward that mirage of moist grass, or the perpetual cliff, with the other bison.

If you read my posts regularly, and that puts you in a very very select group, you’re probably familiar with Meta-Mulling, Walking in The Brain Forest, and how our markets and culture create solutes in The Water that David Foster Wallace mentioned (and that pretty much creates your world and your life, especially if you’re a blue pill type -I’m truly not judging, blue pill people are often more fun). That background is not necessary here, but it’s part of a series my friends might refer to as There Goes Tim Again, lol. I hope you’ll join me.

I’m mostly normal. My sort-of vocation since leaving teaching is restoring very old windows, helping with restoration projects, pushing towards more alternative agriculture, and talking up relocalization in general. I’ve referred to my general focus as Urbal Remix (urban-rural re-imagined). If you’d like to visit our website and learn more, it’s ReGroup.Farm. Thanks for reading and I really hope to hear from you.

More soon.

Tim