Every year the same procedure: people make New Years Resolutions and pretty quickly fail them. Stop Smoking? Get fitter? Get smarter, nicer … whatever …

It’s basically willpower versus habit.

But most of us have not especially well trained mind or huge amounts of willpower to overcome intellectual, emotional or physical bad habits or even addictions.

The old mental image of the well trodden path is the best way to explain why resolution most of the time fail.

Bad habits as well as good ones are psychic or physical patterns we repeat. The more established and familiar the pattern is – the easier we can repeat it.

I will change … of at least I’ll try and fail like last years and the year before … 

It’s like any skill or behaviour: the more you practice that habit the deeper it is ingrained in your psyche or body. Like reading or throwing a Frisbee practice makes perfect or creates a hellish habit that is harder and harder to escape.

Often we follow these well trodden paths on auto pilot. We can observe ourselves often doing stupid or terrible things to ourselves – often in full knowledge and awareness that we are doing it RIGHT NOW.

The bad habit has embedded itself so deeply into our psyche or body that we can follow it blindly and are zombies of something we more and more hate.

Do you really think you simply can stop such a bad habit but saying to yourself I will change? You already have the awareness you are doing something bad while you are doing it – and you are unable to stop yourself while doing it!

The strategy to simply make a resolution will mostly fail. It is the wrong "tool" to escape from the "bad path" in your psyche!

How will escape a bad "path" if you don’t have a new one?

So you failed again? Understand the power of bad patterns before you try to change …

Imagine being a Jogger and you have a course you have been running for years. You know every inch of the way, the timing, your own capabilities and each obstacle. But also the pleasure of that very course …

A new course is to be learned through practice and experiencing it again and again. The same applies to retraining new patterns in your behaviour.

Instead of wasting a lot of time and energy to fight a bad old pattern, pour these resources into creating and strengthening a new one. It will help your "self improvement" more to experience (small) successes instead of constant and well ingrained failures.

Be patient! Be persistent!

Oh sweet sweet fucking success!

To build new patterns takes time. Failures will happen and that’s a good thing too. You can use these "failures" to measure how well the new pattern is already established. Obviously over time you should less and less fall back to bad old behaviour …

New York Times: How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

The article above confirms my personal observations: it’s not always an advantage to think "straight" or be normal.

Paradoxes and "weird stuff" are good for your mind. It helps to brain to find new approaches and brings inspiration.

So crazy humour is as good as zen koans or mad art to get you "thinking" in new ways. Our minds need to be rattles once in a while to get out of it’s usually patterns and look for new ones …

You make mistakes, I make mistakes. Mistakes are essential for learning and especially curious or laborious people make many of them.

But how to handle mistakes – especially those in a public situation?

The first question what this mistake means to yourself: did you repeat an old mistake or indulge a bad habit? In that case the usual reaction is anger or frustration with yourself. This is of course the wrong way: you should rather ask yourself what is the "motivation" behind the "repeat". Unless you know what drives you to do the same mistakes over and over again than you can’t change …

Was the mistake unpredictable? Than have a laugh and try again.

But what if it was predictable and you just didn’t care enough to be cautions or too lazy to prepare yourself properly. Once again don’t use the "excuse" anger to punish yourself – and again ask yourself what was the motivation for your carelessness.

Social connection are usually "chains" of personal commitments of loyalty, association and love.

So if you "fail" in public you yank that "chain" – and all people connected to it will be connected.

Isn’t it strange that we are suddenly part of a failure or the blame game although we didn’t do anything?

And why does a mistake make the presence of observers, friends and enemies it even worse? Why do we gloat? Why do we feel Schadenfreude? Why do other people’s failure fill us rather with glee and happiness instead of compassion?

Watch this video and be honest about your first reaction:

Now you have been the observer, but what if that crash had happened to you?

It really depends on your independence from the crowd and self-confidence if you can shrug of the mistakes.

To feel embarrassed by your or other people’s mistake it an "emotional decision" – unlike the emotion fear it is not hardwired into our brains to protect us.

Sure – there is "stress" that is generated by a mistake – falling down will flush you with hormones and race your pulse. But still there is no need to feel embarrassed.

The same is true for anger after a mistake. Often people (mostly guys) are angry and get aggressive towards others and objects when they "fail":

Once again this reaction to a mistake could be handled differently. Because having such a lack of emotional intelligence is another social failure and can only lead to more stress.

So when a mistake happens and there is no further "danger" take a step back and a deep breath. Calm yourself if you feel stressed … take some more deep breaths in case you are flooded with stress. Give your body and your mind time to handle what happened.

Try to understand what just happened and improve the situation. Keep your composure or laugh about it.

We humans are not really brave. We do not laugh in the face of danger, we simply choose to be ignorant and hope that the problem will go away.

Ignorance seems to be a psychological mechanism to help us to cope with fear and anxiety – we simply choose to filter danger out and hope for the best.

Many personal or big catastrophes’ could have been avoided with more care or more fear. Fear is a good warning signal and fear can be overcome by being smarter and better prepared.

It makes no sense living on a volcano and hoping it won’t explode, the smart thing would be to move away. But tell that to the people of Pompeii.

There was a time in all our lives, when everything was bigger and hardly anything was made for our size.

When we grow in size and understanding when is the moment when we recognize we "fit" in and are no longer too small?

When do we see ourselves as "big enough" and "grown enough" to fill the shoes as adults?

Since modern societies hardly celebrate any rites of adulthood anymore we don’t even have ceremonial moments to mark that point in our lives.

The Beauty and the Beast.

Many so called "great people" often suffer from extreme psychological damage and deformations.

Usually the needs to be a "huge drive" in your psyche that propels you to "more" than the usual person.

Many great artists, industrialists, scientists and politicians were not driven by mere talents, but the crazy need to please their parents (like Mozart or Michael Jackson) or patch some other painful hole in their personality (like being loved, accepted and adored by everybody).

So it’s no surprise that Artistic tendencies linked to ’schizophrenia gene’ and many great people often suffered from mental illnesses like depressions or bi-polar-disorder (like Stephen Fry or Robbie Williams).

But it’s that very inner turmoil that drives these people forward to excel.

Psychological pain not always translates into creativity and so called "greatness" – many people suffer heavily form such conditions without reaping any "benefits" from them.

Our psyche loves simple solutions to nagging problems and insecurities. Mythology and fairy tales are full of miracle cures and magic items that solve any problem.

Like little kids we hunger for the Überfather or Übermother to fix the universe for us. Once we grow up many project their childhood inability to cope with reality onto a mystical being or deity and ask them to fix life for them.

Because we mere mortals can’t connect to the heavens and the gods we hope for magic items that are blessed by our imaginary friends in high places. Magic amulets or pants that protect us from harm, bones from saints and all that kind of rubbish.

It’s wishful thinking and idol worshipping at it’s best.

And if a magic item didn’t work as advertised we blame ourselves for being not "worthy" enough to invoke it’s powers.

Most people are not religious – especially religious people. Most just want to have their part and position in the Cosmic Drama. We want to matter! We want to be part of the story! We want to be seen – even by illusionary divine creatures.

Atheists like the great Mr Dawkins often overlook that most human beings are not as logical, brilliant and consequent like they are.

Therefore Atheism needs to recognize the "darker needs" of the human psyche – just like C.G. Jung has pointed out.

Most natural (sort of pagan) rituals often celebrate nature and the cycle of life without any Gods attached to them. Modern psychology, drugs and spiritual methods (like good old ZEN meditation) offers more than enough excellent ideas to give us mere mortals enough drama, excitement and involvement to calm down our little egos and feel important and connected.

As your progress in life it becomes harder to be amazed and feel "the magic of life". Sure, they all talk about their inner child and that they are "still young inside". But your brains capabilities to learn and understand already go down after you turn 30 – not to speak of each individuals personal quirks.

Plus with (bad) experience with are more more careful and are harder to surprise. And there actually isn’t that much new stuff under the sun. Especially adult cynics will it find very hard to get enthralled …

So to find something as an adult that is truly amazing and  inspiring becomes harder (unless you constantly play the "awesome" type of person").

We can’t "empty" our minds – although meditation and other techniques are nice to quiet down the "inner monkeys". But with age comes wisdom and knowledge that should be used to drill deeper and explore the complexity of life.

You won’t be so naively thrilled like a little baby about the inner workings of the Cosmos, but nature and human art offer incredible depth that is worth exploring.

Click image to watch this little paradise.

The stressed modern homo digitalis always seems to dream about escaping his environment and enter a state of eternal bliss by living on a lonely island.

Apart from lacking the skills of growing his own food and total dependency on technology what do people expect to find?

Enjoyable nothingness? No friends, no consumerism, no Facebook and no mating?

Most people wouldn’t last a month without their "normal" life in such an Island.

Instead of having such wet dreams about being disconnected people should try to evolve, learn to deal with stress and create the lifestyle they want.

And who said that life would be without stress? Especially people who have "nothing" (poverty) are the most stressed.

Learn to tame your mind and desires, reach out for emotional maturity and you will reach an inner island that is well connected, refreshing and most satisfying.

Click image for more nature.

The human desire for rituals is often amazing and equally predictable. We love grand gestures like the beginning of a new year or our birthday to "make important decisions" and "change directions" for the better.

All too human.

Yes, we all should work on ourselves and spend some thoughts on how to change (and implement that change).

But attaching ones development to silly dates is not very convincing. If you need to change – change now. Don’t wait for your birthday or new years eve. It sounds like a lame excuse.

Your life didn’t start and won’t end on a "nice & special" date.

Life is now and so is change.

Alcoholism is hardly a new problem, but binge drinking has become a serious problem in Europe. It’s almost like a sport for most young people. And it’s often supported by pubs and tourist places.

It’s a terrible thing, since being drunk and getting into alcoholism is not considered something "bad". Instead being "pissed at the weekend with your mates" is almost mandatory and hugely supported by very cheap booze.

But there is more behind it: it seems the only form of a different emotional, mental and even spiritual experience most people can "achieve" these days.

Alcohol certainly changes ones perception of reality and therefore creates an alternative reality. Escapism certainly plays a role, but also the strong sensation of a shared group experience and release of personal / social boundaries.

But alcohol is such a bad way to reach a "different state of mind". Societies should teach more mental, emotional and spiritual ways to reach different "states".

Instead of binge drinking I would rather like to see big meditation places and sacred spaces for proper orgies.

You don’t get a hangover or bad liver from a night of meditation or screwing your brains out.

It is amazing that there still is so much conformity in our modern societies.

Although we have in our western societies the highest degree of personal and spiritual freedom, most people seem "to buy their minds" from the same vendors?

But thinking, building character and even solid opinions seem a luxury these days. Sure – it all costs time and most people rather "spend" theirs on entertaining themselves.

The mass media also is too blame, but not as you might think. Especially in Europe the state owned channels were always on a mission to educate the masses. They always tried to instill variety and complexity into these heads.

But TV has an inherent systematic flaw: it repeats itself and the currently accepted "group think" again and again. So even when they show variety the most repeated version of reality will be accepted as the "best" one.

Societies have always been driven my mental, moral, religious and scientific consensus, but today’s consumerist attitude provides very poor soil for the brilliance of the human mind.

Which is such a shame – since we live in a day and age where we so many people could easily create and share great mental fireworks … 

Confusion seems to be a pretty natural state of mind for most people. Isn’t it great that our own mind can confuse itself?

But let’s look at the “confusion” from another perspective: Why does our mind (therefore you yourself) decide to confuse itself instead of operating in clarity and good spirit?

Unless the outside “stresses” us to act – there is no need to cloud our minds ourselves. 

So why do we choose to fuck ourselves up?

Is it just a simple excuse not to get things done? Do we love to be drama queens? Are we avoiding to face the real problems and make up neurotic small ones to keep us from the real ones?

Size matters. Learning matters. Learning in small steps can be as effective and giant leaps.

It doesn’t matter if you are young or old – learning new stuff is always hard. The main difference is that a younger brain is better wired for learning – but this doesn’t mean you can’t learn just because you are older. With more experience in learning new stuff and knowing yourself learning should be easier.

Isn’t it odd: sometimes our self doesn’t feel like itself. Our mind perceives itself as splintered or disconnected.

The mind has the great ability to put itself into different internal “sections” or “boxes” – for example it can put “pain” and “bad memories” away so the mind can cope with daily life without going insane.

But this also a problem – we sometimes feel disconnected from all our parts. The expression “pulling yourself together” is an universal expression and a state of mind experienced by everyone.

But where is that lever or what’s the trick to pull yourself together? By relaxing in a hot tube? Doing something “nice”? Loosing yourself in mindless entertainment?

So – what’s your trick?

You know the moment well – just before you drift of to sleep you are in a twilight zone: you normal ego is still there, but not as strong as during daytime. You haven’t drifted off into dreamland but your ego is weaker as usual.

What are you thinking at the moment? What kind of images are rushing through your weakened mind? What is it that you really want or think – now that your barriers are lowered or weaker? Can you peek behind your own mask and see your true self?

They all say be loose our innocence or something else when we grow up. There seems to be a slow transformation from a small happy camper to a miserable corporate slave.

But is it really true?

Childhoods are not as happy as they are often portrait by adults. The daily challenge of learning and being rather totally without about almost everything must be pretty frustrating. Kids are often frustrated and overwhelmed by “our” world. And being small, weak and being unable to create your own life it’s pretty unnerving too.

Plus your body and mind constantly changes, hormones drive you mad and illnesses are constantly looking out to infect or kill you. With every change and new thing they learn kids face a new thing they can worry about – and they do. There is no (mental) innocence in the life of kids, but there is a lot of stress and panic. Kids certainly can worry about as many things as adults do.

This is pure stress – so we should be rather happy that kids can have “innocent fun” and enjoy themselves by playing rather stupid games (while often still learning while playing).

What is this? Maybe just a thing? Or maybe a funny toy? Or something that can scare or even kill you?

Being a kid is a lot of stress, growing up a huge challenge without any real goal or explanation. Suddenly you are big and an adult. People demand from you that you choose your path and job for life without knowing what life is.

There is no such stages in our early life’s, when we are without stress and under constant demands from the outside to grow, learn and adapt. There is no time for innocence, nor do kids have any use for such a “concept”. They already have enough to worry about.

Life is not a box of chocolate, but a fucking long buffet – that you might enjoy or maybe not.

Only as an adult you can create your own life and your own niche to get control our your own cosmos.

But not many adults own their own life’s. Instead they develop a deep nostalgia about being innocent WITHOUT being able to control their own life’s. Many people are deeply scared by having freedom and the ability to make a choice.

WordSpy: Worry or agitation caused by concerns about the present and future state of the environment.

Care about Mother Nature? Are you worried about our environment and global warming?

Yes?

Then you are the perfect victim for eco-anxiety. A new fabulous fear that is milked by many green activists, the mainstream media and ruthless profiteers.

Now after over 20 years of constant bombardment with new terrible scientific data and insights most people are worried sick about the environment and more than willing to do ANYTHING to be greener than green.

The German word ‘Weltschmerz’ (Worldpain) comes very close to the concept of eco-anxiety – to bear all the pain and worries of the world. It’s also a very romantic and melancholic notion to it.

But all forms of fear are mind killers. Most of all it’s currently abused by many politicians and green people to ‘direct’ the fearful masses according to their desires.

Always remember the Holy Mother Church – who made a fortune and ruled a huge empire with guilt and fear. Nature needs our help – but we need to be fearless and well informed.

BBC News: Biscuits ‘key’ to clinching business deals

About four out of five UK businesses believe the type of biscuit they serve to potential clients could clinch the deal or make it crumble, a survey says.

The outcome of a meeting could be influenced by the range and quality of biscuits, according to 1,000 business professionals quizzed by Holiday Inn.

The chocolate digestive was deemed to make the best impression followed by shortbread and Hob Nobs.

Lawyers were most impressed by good boardroom biccies, the survey added.

One has to wonder: a.) how predictable we humans are and b.) what kind of stupid research our scientists do.

But nevertheless – inviting your client or business partner for a cookie or a nice lunch or a hot brothel – physical pleasures and gratifications have always helped to close a deal.

During the breakaway from religious (Christian) world many philosophers loved to compare our world to a giant clockwork driven by natural principles instead of following a divine plan.

This is attitude is quite understandable, since the new scientific approach seemed to promise an explanation for everything – everybody expected a perfect system that made sense for anything and everything.

Plus it was also the beginning of the machine age – the production and ever more precise machinery like clocks was all the rage in Europe. So no surprise that the clockwork was the symbol for science and progress – just like we use the computer analogy for how the brain works.

We humans love simplistic analogies to make "stuff" more understandable. Neither religions nor modern mass media likes complexity – they both love simple slogans.

Although Darwin has introduced us to the ideas and evolution and expanded biology into a new realm we still love our "mechanical" images to understand it. For example we love the computer analogy to explain functions of the human brain.

The idea that the universe and everything in it can be explained someday holds the eternal temptation to play Gods ourselves someday. Machines can be easily fixed – at least that implies the analogy.

Biology and Machines alike have to operate in the limited sandbox of physics. But that doesn’t make biological beings like machines. Especially random mutations and natural selection are special "mechanisms" of nature that constantly twist the rules without breaking them.

There is also the ideological struggle if the (human) mind can be explained by a mechanical rule set and recreated in form of artificial intelligence.

Some scientists believe that we humans are predictable machines: we are biological automatons (or Turing Machines) with no real free will at all.

As much as I agree that there are limits to human imagination and the so called "Free Will" – but I very much doubt that creativity and humor can be programmed or recreated.

Machines rules can be adapted to include random elements and have mutations, but mutation is not evolution – just a part of it. And rules for "playing" nice machine music or creating "pleasing" computer art is a simulation of creativity.

All these experiments to make teach machines art and creativity is the back channel: our emotions and thoughts while being artistic or watching a piece of art.

Unless machines are inspired, impressed, confused and disgusted by the creativity of others their works will only be mechanical simulations – "soulless" or "without emotions" so to say.

By experimenting with artificial intelligence we have certainly learned a lot about ourselves – so it’s worth exploring. But let’s get rid of the stupid mechanistic analogies and try to think a bit more complex.

It’s worth the extra effort.

We shouldn’t be afraid of the complexities of the universe and that there is no God or (scientific) creator behind it. Just because we don’t understand everything (yet) doesn’t mean we need to mystify it. Let’s just enjoy it the way it is – and learn more on the way …

Our science and mental models are as much driven by science as they are by our attitudes.

More? Mechanism @ Wikipedia

The ugly and poor guys only chance to get the girl is to be "funny". I haven’t figured out why, but humor and charm seems the best weapon against the wealth and higher social status of male competitors.

I am wondering why the female psyche is so vulnerable humor?

Does humor have an evolutionary advantage?

One of the greatest traps of meditation is to train your mind into thinking it is trained, while it simply stays the same, but tells you it is now well trained.

That is one reason why one should have a guru, trainer or master following your minds "progress" and check the condition it is in.

We are all lazy to some degree – and there is a reason why laziness is a cardinal sin: it kills. But there is laziness and laziness. We all have to learn to enjoy ourselves without guilt. The art of slowness and enjoying life is not laziness – and it’s doesn’t kill anyone if you clean your kitchen not today, but tomorrow.

But you also have to learn to kick your inner pig and set priorities AND act on them. After you have achieved something great or important you two can have a mud bath and enjoy each others company … AFTERWARDS.

Do you open your mind? Are you an open person? Are you open to new things? Are you well connect?

Of course you are … NOT. We are live in intellectual and emotional bubbles. Our brains are our bubbles – and how much we train, expand and use them.

The question is: even when our brains are limited how much do you use it? No, this is not about the old “we only use 10% of our brain”-myth. It is much more about training and education.

Our brain and the mind within needs to be constantly trained, challenged and cultivated. Brain scans have shown unused brain literally loose capacity and become dull. The mind needs to be sharpened by usage and challenges. Only running “on easy” will dumb you down.

So the questions is now: how much do you open your bubble to let in new, challenging, unknown, uncomfortable and complicated thoughts and tasks? Do you allow “nasty” paradoxes and even painful mind benders into your bubble that will keep your mind fighting and chewing on them – or do you limit your brain and yourself to “easy thinking”?

You have to understand that your mind is only a part of you – a part that needs training and something to challenge it. Regard as your inner dog: give him some yummy bones to chew on, some wild toys to chase around and keep him busy. He will like that!

We all dislike fighting and arguing with other people, co-workers and loved ones. But it’s a necessary part of life.

Most people are stressed out by fights and anger. But like boxing it is a skill that can be learned to reduce the stress and not to waste too much energy. It’s not about anger management, but dealing with stress during a confrontation, making proper arguments, understanding the  physical effects of stress and anger on your body and mind … and getting out of your own “hot head”.

By developing a “conflict culture” and getting to know yourself in hot situations is a benefit to yourself and everybody else. You still can be mad, passionate and intense about your opinions, but you learn how to focus and use your power in a good way to make your point of view clear.

A good fight / argument can be highly stimulation and refreshing – it doesn’t need to be a total disaster for everybody.

That commercial precisely captures two modern truths: pumping yourself up with music (via your iPod) and loads of sugar & caffeine from your local latte dealer.

Music, sugar and caffeine to make ourselves feel good and calm down our neurotic egos. We do matter! We do great stuff! We have a great job to fulfil! We are someone!

So we force our brains to feel euphoric although there is nothing to feel euphoric about. So that high that you kick yourself into is simply self-deception and worth nothing.

Stop lying to yourself and get real highs.

Poor Marilyn tried all kind of partners: the smart ones, the physical ones, the nasty ones and the famous ones. But none of these relationships made her happy.

There is something in all of us that hopes that a beloved person will complete us – turn us into a perfect being and therefore give us eternal happiness. Even after many disappointments that (romantic) promise of completion still is strong.

And it is a very alluring idea! Plug and play – and your are complete, healed, perfect, loved, fucked and cared for. A partner completes our social, sexual and emotional dualities. They are strong when we are weak, they are there to reflect ourselves and complete the whole idea of male & female opposites.

Nature has built duality into our sexuality to increase the changes of survival. With free ranging male and females there is a bigger genetic variation and therefore the species is better equipped to deal with disease.

But our psyche is not based on that principal – we need the opposite sex to make babies, but we don’t need another person to grow our inner child into an inner adult.

In our minds and from experience we know that this idea of the perfect relationship is not true. In reality we often confuse our biological urges to mate & merge with our inner processes and sense of a incomplete self.

The many pieces of you: allow yourself to be complex, full of different pieces and shapes.

But instead of “completing” our self with part from another person we need to learn and accept that this is our job.

We surely can ignore that task – dive into jobs, religion, relationships, sex, kids or hobbies to distract ourselves from being “complete” and happy.

Every day you have to look at yourself and you will know if that void is nagging in the background and wants to be filled with the right pieces of your inner puzzle. Don’t feed yourself the wrong pieces – confront yourself, grow and close the gaps yourself.

Only than you are yourself. All parts are yours and you are a free person – not depended on the love, approval, confirmation and parts from other people.

Image by Koert van Mensvoort 

Annoyed by cell phones all over the place? People talking all the time? Too bad. But we humans need to communicate for our social and individual survival. Communication is an essential part of our existence to reflect ourselves and connect to the group consciousness.

It really starts in the womb and ends with death. In between we are busy communicating, exchanging ideas, learning, archiving, expanding and revising knowledge.

At the moment the VERY painful video of Eduardo da Silva’s accident is all the rage on YouTube – and is a big hit with the kids. One has really to wonder why watching such a painful video is all the rage?

Scientists have long proven that we empathize and re-live such experiences simply by watching other humans doing (stupid) stuff. So I can only extend this idea in this way: we watch pain porn to train ourselves for such moments and try to cope with it’s consequences – even when it isn’t happening to us.

YouTube is full of fight videos that concentrate only on knock outs and bloody scenes, you can also find tons of accident and crash videos that show only the nasty bits.

Do we simply need some blood and nasty stuff from time to time? By watching terrible stuff happen to other does that help us to enjoy our less painful life?

We all know phrases like “inner child” or “being playful like a kid”. The adult mind obviously is jealous of the fun and simplicity the young mind seems to enjoy.

But it is important to understand that the young mind / brain simply doesn’t understand many things and simply hasn’t learnt them yet. So these simple minds can only understand simple fun and obvious entertainment.

Adults have the pleasure of understanding more complex ‘fun’ or entertaining ‘constructions’ of art, entertainment and meanings.

So when it comes to ‘fun’ adults have a broader scope of possibilities – it’s up to them to enjoy them.

Watching the underclass, the addicted and the stupid getting busted. Doesn’t that make you feel superior?

It is amazing how many shows there are on TV that deal with justice, law and order. It doesn’t matter if it’s reality TV like Cops or fiction like those many CSI shows (all these different offspring of the same formula are a phenomenon in itself). Each country seems to have it own mixture of court TV, forensic documentaries, lawyer dramas and car chases …

In all these shows one topic prevails: the law wins, the bad guys are caught and punished.

One would think that we would want to watch something relaxing in the evening or ignore other people’s problems – instead murder and minute details of investigation seem to be more interesting than some simpler forms of entertainment.

I’ll give you blood, you give me better ratings!

But behind all this is our natural (?) desire for social porn: to participate in what’s going on and staying informed about the newest gossip of the global tribe. It doesn’t matter if it’s a real event like O.J. Simpsons trial or such trivial crap like Paris Hilton going to jail for being a drunken pussy. We want to be informed and we want to ‘relate’ – and it doesn’t matter if it’s a petty criminal or a superstar – or even fictional character.

It doesn’t matter if it’s other humans killing each other or making love to each other – we love to watch and learn intimate secrets behind it all.

But there is another layer to this lust for justice. It’s a double sided affair of the same mechanism of ‘violence’. We all have been victims of social, emotional or even criminal violence – so we want justice, revenge or just the reassurance that we will receive justice and protection. But deep in our fantasies we are also thieves and murderers – we all had the impulse / moments in our life’s to cause mayhem to others out of anger or a simple case of road rage.

Science and bad scripts to the rescue – we bring justice on a weekly basis.

So on one side we want protection from violence – but we also love to explore and participate when others were violent or even killed. For a few minutes we can dive into the mindset of the killer, the victims and the justice system – and compare it to our own inner world. It a mental carnival in which we can play every role and explore their good and bad sides while munching potato chips.

Scientists have shown many times that we mentally and emotionally emphatize on a deep level with other people – no matter if we watch something happening in reality (like driving by a traffic accident and everybody gloats) or a fictional event (we cry when made up characters die or model our lives on their behavior).

Especially in our hysterical media world plus criminals and terrorists at each corner we welcome ’security’, ‘justice’ and ‘protection’ – even when it’s just artificial. Soothing our minds is almost as important as real justice, protection or security.

So watching violence and how others deal with it or are doing terrible stuff helps us to cope with violence in our own lives and shows us new, different or frightening ways to deal with this topic.

But real crime and real violence is no ‘game’ to explore. Especially in fictional crime the dead always return in another series and lethal injuries can be overcome with a good script. Even court TV, recreations or documentaries do not really show the blood, pain and horror or real crimes. So can’t really emphatize, we always only get a filtered nicer version of reality.

Even celebrity victims are pretty dead after being murdered by their celebrity husbands.

Before I finish the empathy aspect of the Justice Porn: it is amazing that we do not really hunger for justice. In many fictional and real stories we are rather fascinated by the dark and evil characters. Some murderers have become celebrities or have a weird cult following. It is more of a social consensus that the bad guys have to loose, not because we love justice, but because we don’t want to be on the receiving end of a bad persons action without protection and the moral high ground against ‘evil doers’.

Since we all can relate to pain and suffering we all agree / empathize that we don’t want to suffer from it. This has nothing to do with justice, this is simply egoism and self preservation.

It’s good to be the king …

One last aspect is the God-complex in all of this. Sitting there and watching the crime like God watches masturbating sinners – we ’see and know’ more than the real or unreal protagonists. We are TV Gods, we know it all – and we also judge the people in the stories and events we watch on screen.

It’s truly pornography of power for the powerless. It’s an illusion of power and simpler version of sitting on a jury bench yourself (just without any responsibility). Most of all ‘all of our couch potato opinions’ don’t have any serious consequences. The law and justice are thankfully no longer bound to popular opinions or people’s anger and rage – at least in most countries.

And that’s a good thing. Instead of ropes for lynching and stones for stonings give them TV.

Click image for a deeper look.

Why is looking ‘deep’ into another persons eyes such an intensive experience? Why is such an exchange such an intimate moment? Why is it so hard to look a stranger for longer periods directly ‘into’ the eyes?

And why can ‘excited’ eyes make us so horny and a cold look kill our desire to live?

The eyes have it – looks can kill.

It is easy to laugh about this old candid camera ‘prank’ – but it is a very good study of our social behavior and conformity. We want to fit in – and most of us do it automatically and without ‘thinking about it’.

So next time you stand in a cue, shop in a mail, go into an elevator or sit in a sauna – try to see what kind of rules are in play, what kind of consensus is silently agreed on and how you yourself comply.

BBC documentary / 50 min

Nitzsche finally freed us from God and Religion – he also deepened our understanding and horizon about personal freedom, pain and development.

BBC documentary / 50 min

Heidegger – the last of Germany’s great Philosophers and weird thinkers. Although he had some great insights – he totally failed to see the dangers of Fascism.

BBC documentary / 50 min

A great documentary about Sartre – and how he compliments Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Written by Alain De Botton / 25 min.

Part 1: Socrates on Self-Confidence
Part 2: Epicurus on Happiness
Part 3: Seneca on Anger
Part 4: Montaigne on Self-Esteem
Part 5: Schopenhauer on Love
Part 6: Nietzsche on Hardship

More? Alain De Button @ Wikipedia and Socrates @ Wikipedia

Written by Alain De Botton / 25 min.

Part 1: Socrates on Self-Confidence
Part 2: Epicurus on Happiness
Part 3: Seneca on Anger
Part 4: Montaigne on Self-Esteem
Part 5: Schopenhauer on Love
Part 6: Nietzsche on Hardship

More? Alain De Button @ Wikipedia and Epicurus @ Wikipedia

Written by Alain De Botton / 25 min.

Part 1: Socrates on Self-Confidence
Part 2: Epicurus on Happiness
Part 3: Seneca on Anger
Part 4: Montaigne on Self-Esteem
Part 5: Schopenhauer on Love
Part 6: Nietzsche on Hardship

More? Alain De Button @ Wikipedia and Seneca @ Wikipedia