Angela Duckworth was teaching seventh-grade math in a New York City public school when she noticed that intelligence was not always the best predictor of which of her students succeeded. There was another key ingredient: the ability to demonstrate effort and passion over time, a quality she called "grit."
GRIT!!! heebie, how could you???????
Omg, I didn't actually remember that the article continued down below the picture, from when I first read it a few days ago. Now I remember.
2: I had thought to myself, "I wonder if heebie didn't read the whole article."
3: To be clear I didn't either -- I stopped once I got to the paragraph I quoted in 1.
Somebody with the ability to demonstrate effort and passion over time, a quality I call "grit", would have read the whole article.
I would never describe myself as possessing grit, but I do think it's possible I could be one of those people who be able to survive solitary confinement and maintain my current low level of sanity. Anyway, the prospect scares me less than being continuously surrounded by people as in a more "normal" prison situation.
I guess I think I would be ok, because I have no problem with talking to myself. I find myself quite entertaining!
7: Sometime I even surprise myself with the things I say, and the names I call myself.
But maybe I'm fooling myself -- I'd be fine for a day or two, but then I would have an itch, and I just wouldn't be able to stop scratching myself.
My grandmother was big on "grit,"* but a therapist once told me many of her methods counted as abuse. Anyways, I'm happy to tell children they're fat, loud, and useless disappointments and crying is for weaklings, where's my McArthur Genius award?
*She called it "strength."
Also, they probably wouldn't feed me well. I hate being hungry! I'd daydream about food until I fell asleep and wake up and find myself trying to eat myself!
10: Ummmm, excuse me? This thread was supposed to mimic the experience of solitary confinement.
Actually, I think you appeared just in the nick of time.
I would never describe myself as possessing grit, but I do think it's possible I could be one of those people who be able to survive solitary confinement and maintain my current low level of sanity.
I feel like if I had pencil and paper, I'd be good for a reasonable amount of time. (Not even necessarily allowing writing letters.) Without that, I think I'd be much worse off.
There was some dumb meme recently about whether or not you'd spend a month alone in a cabin with all the necessities but no electricity or cell reception for one month, and on the end of it you'd get 100,000. I can't even grasp who would turn this down.
where's my McArthur Genius award?
Maybe you should learn to spell it right, first. I hear they are sticklers about that
14
So that explains why I was rejected from Colombia University
13.last: hell yes. I think the only dividing line is probably between people who would just go for one month and people who would go for as many months as the offer was good for. If they let you out to go and walk around (as in, you weren't literally locked in the cabin) I'd go for six, easily.
One of the only things I remember from Darkness at Noon is to be sure to turn in opposite directions as you pace so you don't get dizzy over time.
That would be the best career ever, but I bet graduate school sucks.
I possess grit. We bought a large bag of it when they were predicting snow, but it didn't amount to much, so we have most of it left.
6 last is a very good point.
He survived, according to the BBC, by "taking refuge in a world of abstractions, making up mathematical problems, which he then tried to solve."
I remember a discussion of something similar in Flow.
I found this summary (emphasis mine).
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced me-HIGH chick-sent-me-HIGH-ee) was born in Fiume, Italy (now Rijeka, Croatia), on September 29, 1934. His family was Hungarian, and his father Alfred, a member of the Hungarian diplomatic corps, had been posted to Italy. Csikszentmihalyi grew up in Fiume, Florence, and Rome, speaking Hungarian, Italian, and German fluently. World War II disrupted Csikszentmihalyi's life completely. Though still a child, he was held for a time in an Italian prison camp. He fared better than many people he knew, however. By 1944, he told Dava Sobel of Omni, "Many relatives and friends in Budapest had been killed. One of my brothers died in combat, and another had been taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to a forced labor camp in Siberia. I discovered chess was a miraculous way of entering into a different world where all those things didn't matter. For hours I'd just focus within a reality that had clear rules and goals. If you knew what to do, you could survive there."
Hoping this isn't a threadjack, but any interest in talking about the recent Schizophrenia genetics paper? Pretty interesting. Schizophrenia is highly heritable, but identical twin co-occurence is only about 50%. A bunch of environmental factors correlate with diagnosis, typically symptoms first appear in adolescence.
Schizophrenia study, super-interesting analysis of two MHC loci, really nice population genetics and physiological characterization of the relevant gene in brain development. Risk of the worst-case allele still much below risk from cannabis use or migrant status though. Paywalled at Nature, unfortunately.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature16549.html
13.last: hell yes. I think the only dividing line is probably between people who would just go for one month and people who would go for as many months as the offer was good for.
I would think there's a dividing line between people who are obligated to care for others and those who aren't (I'm not caring for a parent or child but, even so, the thing that makes me nervous, thinking about the idea, isn't the isolation, but about people I'd be letting down if I was out of touch for month(s)).
One of the things I remember from looking it up after reading it was that champagne glasses are not always flutes.
Great... Some nice techniques to help you endure one common form of torture! Next up: top breathing exercises to help get you through waterboarding! (Hint: the breathing exercises work best if you have some "grit.")
21:
Would you be so kind as to email it to me?
23: I found out after an unfortunate experience, that flutes aren't always champagne glasses.
21- Public interest in that the day it came out crashed the Broad web server.
I would think there's a dividing line between people who are obligated to care for others and those who aren't
Heebie and I disagree! Okay, I know I couldn't really take off for a month. But goodness, last night no one woke up all night long and it was heaven!
13.last: What if you have over $100,000 in debt and at the end of the month you've lost your job and custody of your children?
I'm pretty sure that for a reasonable share of the $100,000, the people I'm obligated to care for would drive me to the cabin and lock me in.
The wireless at the hotel I'm staying in was just out for 24 hours. Again.* Oh, I could do it so long as someone is actually handling my various responsibilities. Competently. Not that anyone's interested in doing so. Without that, of course, I'm willing to take any measures, including waterboarding -- hell, I'd be willing to consider the rack, if it would bring the internet back.
Actually, with about 6 months lead time, I could take a month off. Where do you sign up for this?
* The explanation seems to be 'Oh, it's Italy.'
31: Sure, but for what was left of the money, would you let your son drive?
Right now I'm stuck in a developing-world airport for the next six hours with dodgy wifi, a fading battery, and no outlets in sight. Could I do this for one solid month in exchange for $100,000? Tough call....
There was some dumb meme recently about whether or not you'd spend a month alone in a cabin with all the necessities but no electricity or cell reception for one month, and on the end of it you'd get 100,000. I can't even grasp who would turn this down.
"Well, that sounds relaxing, but I couldn't afford the pay cut."
Lord the scenario in 13 is stupid. That's a vacation, not a challenge. That's describing the family cabin up near Lassen that my dad's family spent the better part of every summer at. I'll probably be up there for a week or two this summer.
When I was in the Peace Corps, I lived in a boarding school compound a couple of miles up a dirt road from the nearest village, with the other teachers and the kids who boarded all living in the compound. Every so often, there'd be a long weekend and literally everyone else would clear out, and I'd get 48 hours or so without seeing another person. That was great. Don't know if I'd enjoy it for six months, but in weekend-sized doses it was awesome.
35: When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world, the batteries just come with the scenery.
39 is great.
I'd get 48 hours or so without seeing another person. That was great.
I get that experience occasionally, and it is great.
Half an hour ago I would have said that the scenario in 13 sounds like a really tough choice. (Assuming that contra 16 we couldn't go outdoors and walk around. And likewise it would help if we got anything in addition to the bare necessities. Books? Pencil and paper? If we get that stuff, sure, I'd do it easily. If not, solitary confinement is daunting.) I'm not the most social or active guy, but one month is a long time to do nothing but stare at walls and the inside of my own eyelids. And conversely, $100,000 isn't all that much money. It would be a big raise for me but I couldn't live off it for the rest of my life or pay off my mortgage right there. Is a month that could very well be hellish worth a big-but-not-life-changing amount of income?
However, in the past half-hour I lost my job, so it sounds more attractive.
35 is the elevator pitch for the sequel to The Terminal.
Eep! That's terrible. Sorry to hear that.
43 posted before seeing 41. Sorry to hear that as well.
God, that's appalling. Did you have any warning?
Thanks, everyone. This is that sudden - I was writing the above comment and got called into the conference room with the bad news and added the new intro and second paragraph after e-mailing Cassandane. And she still has her job, and my HR rep says "The decision has not been made to terminate yet," so, you know, who knows what's going to happen.
48: Yes, but nothing definite. For those of us who were still here, things seemed normal. Maybe we should have been worried this week about the fact that the final decision was coming down to the last minute, but it wouldn't be the first time.
As has been said in other contexts, it could still fee like the first time.
Sorry to hear that too. It sounds like it's not final? Is there a chance you could still not be laid off?
53: Ex recto, I'd guess there's a 10 percent chance of a different job with my current company, and a 10 percent chance of basically my same job for the new company due to government contractor weirdness. The quote in 50 is from an e-mail with HR about insurance and seemed to be just general "it's not official yet" legalese. Based on the meeting where our supervisor gave us the news, they don't have any plans to do anything with us, which I'm interpreting as a bad sign.
But maybe I'm being too pessimistic, and putting percentage chances on either event is definitely just guessing. Anyone want to make a bet?
No bets, much sympathy. I hope it goes as well as it can for you.
Oh man, Cyrus. I'm sorry to hear that. Here's hoping you get a rapid opportunity for good work elsewhere.
(IMO even 10% uncertainty stinks because it's hard to let go psychologically of the idea of staying even when the odds are low.)
If I have books, and maybe coffee. Shelter.
Spent three weeks on a California cliff, eating every three days, reading FW and Stevens. Practical Reason.
I can't remember how many times I have gone hikikomori, or for how long each time. Months and months at a time without leaving an apartment except for food, multiple times. Pattern in the 70s was to save up six months rent, quit the job, go three months until the eviction. Sell books and records toward the end. Lose 30 pounds. Move 1000 miles.
Was able to talk well enough to get a good job and be functional in it, but never enjoyed talking and everybody knew it. Never really saw the point. Got tired and bored quickly. Just chatter. Can be flattering and fun, but still a waste. Trying to avoid interaction and engagement anymore. Doesn't mean I don't like to listen to or read other people.
As far as RL facetime conversation, spoken or listened, extending more than ritual or 25 words, it may have been a decade. Probably more. Can't remember the last time.
At core, I really do consider socializing a vice.
All about power struggles, establishing hierarchies, pleasing, manipulating, insulting, using other people in an instrumental way to improve your mood or self-esteem or gain material advantage. Dominance and submission. Persuasion is immoral.
Everybody tells me I'm wrong, but it is what I see and what I feel. Cannibals.
I've had conversations with people that I didn't subsequently eat.
60: Me too! We're probably the only ones, Megan!
I bet most cannibals were pretty social people. There was usually some kind of ceremony involved.
Cyrus, sorry to hear that about the contract.
To the OP: I sometimes visualize what solitary would be like in order to help myself fall asleep. It's very calming.
Incidentally, and article today about the use of pre-trial solitary confinement in NY.
Yet most of Hashi's time in solitary confinement occurred before he had been deemed guilty by the justice system. Prolonged isolation prior to or in the absence of trial, sensory deprivation, and a lack of independent monitoring are normally associated with the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and CIA black sites overseas. But the MCC's 10-South wing, which houses terrorism suspects, is no different in these respects. A former MCC prisoner and a psychologist specializing in trauma told The Intercept that the kind of extreme isolation imposed on defendants there can pressure them to accept a guilty plea, irrespective of actual guilt.
25 and 28: I'd really like a copy of the paper too.
I think one of the commenters already has my e-mail address, but this comment is just a link to my e-mail.
And Cyrus, I'm very sorry about your job.
Cyrus, I am very sorry to hear your news. If your employer generally survives off of government contracts, hopefully there are teams of people frantically working to line up new ones.
On the OP, I've listened to parts of the new season of serial while at the gym, about bergdahl, and one of the more interesting things was the reported expectation of military debriefers for pows - if you survive prolonged captivity with e.g. the Taliban they assume you will come out of it sane. the reasoning is that it you start to lose your grip you won't physically survive very long, so if you make through years and years then you have figured out how to stay sane. so apparently the debriefers were completely unsurprised that bergdahl came out in pretty robust mental health. but bergdahl himself asked that they remove the clock from his hospital room in Germany as after years of a distorted sense of time he found the relentless tracking of seconds minutes hours disturbing.