No B.S Friday: Sometimes emotions are just energy stories.

Are you depressed, or just resting?

Serious question.

Think about it.

Why do we describe moods as ‘buoyant’? Why do we say things like “her smile always lifts me up” or “I’m feeling down”?

Why do we think like that – like there’s some vertical scale with negative emotions down the bottom, and positive emotions at the top.

Why do we talk about getting ‘high’? (I mean, not me personally, but you know what I mean.)

Why do we give emotions this ‘direction’.

Emotions aren’t directional. They’re not going anywhere right? They’re not traffic.

But this is how we talk about them, and this is sort of how it feels.

My theory, and I’ve talked about this before, is that often when we talk about emotions, what we’re actually talking about is energy.

When we’re “lifted up”, we are given more energy. We become more energized.

If someone brings us down, then we’ve lost energy. We become de-energized.

Emotions – and maybe not always but definitely sometimes – are just the stories we tell to explain our energetic state to ourselves.

Coffee is the classic example. If I have a coffee, I start enjoying anything I’m doing. Suddenly going through the quarterly accounts is awesome. So much fun.

I tell myself a story about being happy. I like these numbers. I like doing this task. It’s nice to be working in the office.

I’m happy.

But I’m not happy. I’m energized. My adrenals are firing up to deal with the caffeine and my energy levels spike.

I’m not happy, I’m energised.

So back to my original question. How do you know the difference between being sad and being tired?

Are you depressed or just resting?

I do think these are distinct things – that they are qualitatively different states of being.

However, I think often when we’re feeling sad and down, what we’re actually feeling is tired and depleted.

And we live in a world that keeps us constantly chugging on the treadmill. We’re all burnt out.

And depression is epidemic.

I think there’s a connection there.

And I think it is useful to remember that what we really want isn’t necessarily to be happy – it’s to be energised.

A happy life is an energized life.

And if you think about it like that, then you start to get much more protective of your energies – you become much more careful about where your time is going

And you become less interested in what makes you happy, and more interested in what energizes you.

Food, nutrition and exercise is obviously important here, but so is living with purpose, having autonomy over your time, and having exposure to people and things that stimulate your soul. Things like that.

Maybe it’s not about ‘managing emotions’. Maybe it’s about cultivating energy.

So remember this. Sometimes emotions are just stories we tell ourselves to help us understand our energetic state.

But they can just be stories.

Energy has to be one of the central focuses of our lives.

JG.

No B.S Friday: There’s a lot more to this Google story than the media is letting on.

Hold on to you tin-hats conspiracy fans, I’ve got a doozy for you.

It’s about Google.

Specifically, it’s about the media reports this week that Google is threatening to pull Google Search from Australia if the government goes ahead with plans to make Google pay news agencies for content.

Check every paper in the country – whether it’s The Australia or The Guardian – and this is the story you see.

But every paper in the country is lying to you.

That’s my hot-take on it.

Let me break it down for you.

So this all comes after Google ANZ head, Mel Silva appeared before the Senate Economics Committee to talk about the governments proposed bargaining code.

If you believe the media, she chucked a hissy fit and said, “We’re not paying for their content, and if you try to make us, we’ll pick up our bat and ball and leave.”

But that’s not quite what she said. She actually said that the proposed code is unworkable and Google would have no option but to shut it down.

As she said, “It’s not a threat. It’s a reality.”

But hang on, shouldn’t Google pay news agencies for their content. That’s only fair, isn’t it.

But that’s not actually what’s at issue either. This isn’t about Google “using” their content, presenting or aggregating their content, or even presenting ‘snippets’ in search results. (And remember, if you’re using Google’s ‘news tab’, they don’t run any advertising against that.)

No, this is about whether news reports show up in Google searches.

The argument here (and I struggle to present it with a straight face, but I’ll do my best), is that when people search for news related stuff, Google presents them with links to news articles, hosted on news agency websites.

The news agencies argue that this makes Google more useful, and means that people are more likely to use Google as a result. And so they want to get paid for making Google more useful.

Think about that for a sec. Imagine someone does a search for “most awesome economist in the country” and Google gives them a link to my website. I then turn around and say to Google, “Thanks heaps for the link and the potential customer, but because I show up on your search results, I make Google more useful, and so here’s a bill.”

(I’ve looked and I’ve looked and the argument really seems to be no more sophisticated that this, though the papers are very careful to not spell it out all that clearly. Seriously, go have a read of any article on the web and see if they take the trouble to explain what’s actually at stake.)

It’s pretty ridiculous.

What’s more ridiculous is that NewsCorp reckons that these “indirect benefits” that the news agencies so generously give Google for free, are worth a cool $1 billion.  

That is, of Google’s annual revenue in Australia of $4.3bn, almost a quarter of that value comes from the fact that Google helps you find news agency websites when you are searching for news.

That is what’s known in economic terms as “taking the piss”.

But no, read every news article on the web on this topic, and this is all about Google refusing to pay for the content they “use”.

(Oh! The code also says that Google has to notify the papers about any changes to their search algorithm two weeks in advance. Their algorithm is one of the most tightly-guarded secrets in the world. Do you know how much I’d pay to have access to it – two weeks in advance!?! But no, the papers are going to get it for free! Ha!)

This is a total stitch up. The pollies are in on it. All the papers are in on it. And it’s a borderline farce.

My bet is that Google just pulls Google Search. Once they do, people will start wondering why, and when they start actually looking, nobody comes out looking good.

So there’s a tip for you: Google Search to exit Australia in March.

Watch this space.

JG.

No B.S Friday: Could things actually be a lot easier than you thought?

Ok, here’s a bit of a tortured analogy for you, but I think it’s worth it.

So imagine you’re a tennis player. You’re a good tennis player. Everyone tells you you’re a good tennis player.

You do all the things a tennis player should. You have a racquet. You hit balls with it. The balls go, more or less, where they’re supposed to go. You’re winning.

And you’ve been doing it for a long time. You’ve invested a lot in your skills and your gear. You dream about tennis balls in your sleep.

Now imagine you’re out on the court one day and someone comes along. Let’s call them, oh I don’t know, Jon.

Jon says, “Hey, you’re doing a great job of this game you’re playing. Fantastic job. It’s genuinely impressive…

… But.

But, this is not the game you are supposed to be playing. At the very least, it’s not the only game you could be playing.

You could go and play chess with the judge. You could play poker with the ball boys. That woman in the blue hat three rows back? She’d be a fantastic bridge partner.

You could, also and however, decide to not play any games at all. You could simply enjoy the warm sun on your face, the taste of the Gatorade and cucumber sandwiches, or make a fascinating connection with the old man in wrap-around sunglasses.

It is totally up to you.”

Now, are you going to believe him? Are you capable of believing him?

What I reckon is that most people simply can’t hear this message. They might get a sense that what he’s saying might be true. They might have had days where they’ve peeked behind the veil and realised that there is something deeper / more creative and wild / more expansive in possibility going on.

But they just can’t let themselves believe it.

Why?

Because they are invested.

In life we develop a set of tools and strategies. They get us through. We come to rely on them.

And we can become amazingly proficient with working our tools and executing our strategies.

And the more developed our skills become, the more the idea of giving them up becomes terrifying.

Without them we feel naked and vulnerable.

And what’s the problem with that?

Well, it’s more than a case that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat every problem like a nail.

It’s that there may not be any problem at all.

Maybe your challenge in life is not how to whack balls past your opponent / keep your heart from getting hurt / get as many people to love you / accumulate as much as you can… whatever.

The tools and strategies we develop early in life are (possibly) the right tools and strategies for a very particular set of problems.

As we grow and get older, the problems change, but often the game we’re playing doesn’t.

We don’t realise that the game we’re playing has actually changed, or that the game we thought we were playing is actually nothing like what we thought it was.

And we might be awesome. We might be formidable.

But there’s no point being the best tennis player on the netball court… or in Woolies.

The great challenge I think is to keep ourselves supple. Yes, we have to develop skills and strategies, but we need to stay open to the feedback life is giving us, and keep asking ourselves, “What game am I playing here? What game do I want to be playing? Do I want to play at all?”

Find the tools to do the job.

Don’t find the job to match the tools.

And if we can do this – if we can find this suppleness – then, finally, we might become open to the idea that it’s all a lot easier than we thought.

JG

No B.S Friday: Are we really so far apart?

I’ve been reflecting on 2020, and one of the things that stands out for me is how fractured the world feels like it has become.

This trend has been in effect for a few years now. Social media algorithms have given us thought-bubble isolation, which has created a very polarised political landscape.

We’ve stopped talking to people who don’t agree with what we think. We tend to think their idiots or just plain evil. Why would you even be friends with them.

That’s been going on for a while. But it really felt like 2020 took it to a new level.

There were people who were supportive of the Covid response and lockdown. There were people who thought it was all a massive government conspiracy.

Both sides stared yelling at each other.

The UK is rolling out vaccines as we speak. Pretty soon we’re going to have vax’ers and anti-vaxers yelling at each other, you can guarantee it.

The US election shows a nation cleaved almost down the middle in terms of numbers, and both camps seem to be living in entirely different universe, with Trump himself in a universe all of his own. There’s leather seats. You should see the leather seats. Beautiful. Everyone tells me how beautiful they are.

So far, the Australian political landscape hasn’t balkanised in such an extreme way. I think Aussies are just too pragmatic. They want to get through the Covid crisis. Politics can come later.

But you can bet politics is coming at some point. We’ve got thought bubbles in Australia too.

In some ways it makes me angry. It’s a shame that the system is set up in a way where media producers are incentivised to produce more and more partisan content, driving the wedge between people wider and wider.

It doesn’t surprise me that autocratic states like Russia and China see this as a weakness, and are happy to add fuel to the fire where they can.

A nation divided is a nation conquered.

But it also makes me sad. And it’s the anger that makes me sad.

I’m mean, look at the people who were pro-lockdown and anti-lockdown.

Are they really that far apart?

I mean, one wants us to lockdown, because they want everyone to be healthy, because that’s a beautiful thing to imagine.

The other wants us to resist lockdown, because they want everyone to be free, because that’s a beautiful thing to imagine.

They are both motivated by a vision of humans living beautifully together. They might be operating on a different understanding of how the world actually works, but when it comes down to it, they’re motivated by the exact same thing.

That’s an incredible thing to have in common, right?

So why are we yelling at each other? Why are we angry? What’s with the insults? Leave Karen alone.

Why can’t we come together and appreciate what we actually have in common, and begin the conversation there?

So I guess this is Uncle Jon’s Christmas Message.

Try not to be dicks to each other. Please.

There is so much we have in common – that every human has in common.

We are so much closer than they would have us believe.

So come back and rest in this miracle.

We are all just beautiful people, trying to make the world a beautiful place to be.

That’s something to be grateful for.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

JG.