{"id":4554,"date":"2018-09-26T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T19:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=4554"},"modified":"2018-09-25T21:32:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T04:32:14","slug":"friendly-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2018\/09\/friendly-2\/","title":{"rendered":"friendly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Twain<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The mind is a very powerful weapon. I wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I just finished reading a book Spy the Lie<\/em>, which gives a system for detecting whether a person is lying.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know, right? That seems like a very useful skill to have.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the tips they shared was that, as fast as we can talk, the brain can think maybe a thousand times faster.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When phrasing a question, the interviewer should keep it very much to the point. Two extra words in the sentence doesn\u2019t make much different to the sentence, but it allows the one being questions a world of opportunity to consider the response from all angles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That’s a lot of horsepower.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I follow my own train of thought, I will not only run down a rabbit hole, but potentially dig a whole new warren.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have to keep it harnessed. Have a few ground rules.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A friend of mine said she had a premise:<\/p>\n

This is a friendly universe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have to say, at the time I was not at all convinced. The world was quite obviously out to get me, and I could name names.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was up to me to come up with defensive and offensive plans to handle all these potential disasters and outright attacks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And this is exhausting.
\nI really don’t have that much power.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I look for people who are working against me, I will find them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But if I look for people who will help, I will find even more of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At least, there is enough evidence that I could respect myself if I chose to believe that the universe is friendly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like Pascal’s wager, I am better off if I believe it than if I don’t.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It gets my powerful mind pulling in one direction at least. And I would be a happier person for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain   The mind is a very powerful weapon. I wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.   I just finished reading a book … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4555,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions\/4555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}