The Myth of Progress
How to persist despite the ups and downs
There is an assumption that things are always getting better. Our society is based on a Hegelian dialectic of tensions between thesis and anthesis to form a synthesis that incorporates both points. The synthesis then forms the thesis to another point. Although this is a crude depiction of Hegel’s own theory, it provides the framework that we can count on to propel our society toward a better economic, political, and social future. However, that is sometimes not the case. Sometimes there are moments of drastic upset. This happens both on a societal and level. One would think after the 60s and 70s racism would be eliminated in U.S. America, that because of better education and the diversity of this country, most people would not see race as an issue. However, this has not been the case and one could argue that with every two steps forward, we are taking a step backwards. This is the same on an individual scale. People experience loss and get stuck. They seem to be making some kind of upward progress in their career and/or personal life and then things come crashing down. They lose a job, a love one, or become disabled. Some people enter deep depression and stay there, and there seems as if there is no hope. Many of us want to tell them, “It will get better,” as if it is an inevitable part of life, but sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. Sometimes there is just hopelessness.
We can think of times of depression in the U.S. and stock market crashes. The Great Recession of 2008 was not that long ago, and it affected millions of people. Many people complain about the “post pandemic” economy, but it seems that their collective memories forgot what 2008 was really like. The NIH reports that there were “5000 excess suicides in the United States” during the recession of 2008. We can compare that to the Great Depression (1929-1933), when the suicide rate was a staggering 18.0 out of 100,000 people in the U.S. in 1928 and rose to an all-time high of 22.1 in 1932. By my calculations, if that happened today, it would be equivalent to about 80,000 people per year. Ending one’s life is something one cannot go back on; there is no progress after that and perhaps that is what the thinking is when people take their lives.
Hope is hard. If one does better, it does not mean a person will stay there and maintain their level of progress. This is why most people would rather buy a book on self-development than take steps to improve themselves. With any progress there is the risk of falling back. The higher the climber makes it up the mountain, the greater the distance to fall. It’s much easier to plug into something that does not require much work. To make progress, one must take risks, do something different to expect something new, figure out a stride, a routine, a disciple.
When difficulties reach us, there needs to be “antifragile” systems that allow us to bounce back easily. I’m taking from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept that there are times that stressors help build our capacity to bounce back. In Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Taleb, a professor of engineering, shows how some things and systems can leverage disruption and disorder in order to flourish. An example is exercise, as when we workout, our muscles overcompensate for the weights and exertion we put on them. After we recover, we become stronger. The opposite is also true. When things are too good, too tranquil, it creates an environment for fragility. Things can easily crash down because there is not enough tension to create opportunities for improvement. The irony is that things like the economy, especially in the U.S., are an antifragile systems that can bounce back after a volatile upset. Even though there are years that are fragile, overall our economic system acts as an organism to correct itself after impacts. Even with the inflation of the past few years, people are doing well economically. Unemployment is at its lowest in five years, at 3.7 compared to 14.7 percent in April 2020, even lower than pre-pandemic rates. An antifragile system is like that. The rougher you are with it, the stronger it gets.
I found this tag in Paula’s studio this week. It’s was inspirational!
There are things that become more valuable and stronger with age, wear and tear, and disruption.
Real progress comes through the ability to challenge ourselves, subject ourselves to the right amount pressures and tension. It is not about self-flagellation, punishment, and denial, but about awareness, reflection, and re-evaluation. The difference between antifragility applied to a system like the U.S. economy and one that we can create for ourselves is the impact on others. The 2008 recession left many people in dire situations with the houses lost and the pensions gone. However, the people who made these important financial decisions were left largely unscathed, some even making money off the event (except for one Egyptian American scapegoat). An antifragile system should be good for both oneself and others. If I am working on making myself and our household resistant to extreme changes, it should not negatively affect anyone at in my household. This means that if I wanted to test the limits of my endurance to suffer economic, physical, relational, and emotional upset, my dog, Blondie, should never be affected (she’ll bite me if that were the case).
There are things that become more valuable and stronger with age, wear and tear, and disruption. Wine, gold, bacteria, a Navy Seal, or anything that survives the evolutionary process are anti-fragile. They endure because they have been tested, and they have been tested and that’s why they endure. They might have parts that are in themselves fragile, but overall, they bare up to the test of antifragility. My body is not made to last forever, but I can take care of it, give it the right kinds of food, rest, and exercise. It can be strengthened and conditioned so that it becomes stronger.
It has been theorized that depression in individuals is a part of cognitive evolution in order “to facilitate analytical rumination” (Hollon et al, 2021). Rumination is about going over and over the cause of the depressive episode (My friend, Quique Autrey, writes about rumination here). This “analytical rumination hypothesis” states that depression “actually facilitates thinking through whatever problems brought about the depressive episode in the first place.” So, the depressed person becomes withdrawn and seemingly stuck so that they could solve and resolve the problem. When this becomes chronic then it is a condition that needs to be treated. However, depression itself is a way the mind is trying to solve a problem. If it is successful, then that person becomes stronger because of it since the person has overcome the situation and learned from it. But if that person does not receive the help they need from others, their own spiritual and emotional resources, or through other means, then it could mean tragedy. It is not guaranteed that depression could be overcome. How can we be more antifragile, so that when problems occur that might drag us into bouts of depression, we can become better people?
One way to do this is to think of the two sides of a bar bell where the weights are. Nicholas Taleb emphasizes the middle way is not where we want to be (contra to the teachings of Buddha). The real tension comes from where we struggle the most. The way to create these times of stress is to take time off to think about our values and priorities. It will be about evaluating what is truly important in life and where to spend our time. What will we do when difficulties strike? For me, it is about figuring out how to take care and relate to elderly parents, who are resisting me taking care of them. It is about trying to provide for my future and present, doing things that are both meaningful and financially secure. It is about spending time with people who mean the most to me and not wasting time on status games or climbing the ladder. This means continuing a life of service in different ways, that are both generative and renewing. When one makes small changes to innovate their lives, then they are on the path of not only becoming more resilient, but antifragile.
So, sometimes there can be progress and sometimes not so. But we can choose to strengthen ourselves so that we can turn disruptions and stressors into ways to make us better. I would rather choose that kind of growth rather than let circumstances dictate my life. It’s better both for me and for the world.
What are somethings you might do that would build a system of antifragility in your life?