Satori (or the Lack Thereof)

This weekend I was re-reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. The preface by Huston Smith, professor of philosophy at MIT, starts out by contrasting the "two Suzukis": Daisetz Suzuki (1870–1966), who "brought Zen to the West single-handed", and Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971).

Whereas Daisetz Suzuki's Zen was dramatic, Shunryu Suzuki's is ordinary. Satori [awakening, or understanding] was focal for Daisetz, and it was in large part the fascination of this extraordinary state that made his writings so compelling. In Shunryu Suzuki's book the words satori and kensho, its near-equivalent, never appear.

When, four months before his death, I had the opportunity to ask him why satori didn't figure in his book, his wife leaned toward me and whispered impishly, "It's because he hasn’t had it"; whereupon the Roshi batted his fan at her in mock consternation and with finger to his lips hissed, "Shhhh! Don't tell him!"

The Better-than-Average Effect

A 1981 study by psychologist Ola Svenson (PDF link) asked two groups of participants, Swedish and American, to compare their driving skills to those of their peers. They found that 93% of the US drivers and 69% of the Swedish drivers believed themselves to be more skillful than the median driver in their group.

Now it's theoretically possible for more than 50% of a group to be better than average at something, if average is taken to be the arithmetic mean. But the Svenson study was about the median, so the participants' beliefs can't possibly be true. This phenomenon, known as the better-than-average effect (BATE), has been replicated in multiple studies, and in many areas of life.

But I think this particular form of irrationality isn't limited to believing one is better than average. In my (completely anecdotal) experience, it also extends to some value-neutral domains (where there is no obvious better or worse), and at least one domain where I suspect most people believe they are worse than average.

Procrastination, I think, is an example of the latter. My guess is that most people believe they are worse than the median (i.e. that they procrastinate more than average).

I suppose you could turn it around and argue that this is just another manifestation of BATE (people think they are better than average at procrastinating). But that's just a matter of framing, and if it comes to that, most questions could be similarly flipped. For example, instead of asking drivers if they are more skillful than the median, you could ask if they are more likely than the median to cause an accident. In the second case, my guess is that most drivers would say they are less likely than the median.

BATE typically skews towards positive self-evaluations – in fact the article I linked to earlier defines it as "the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared with their average peer" – and procrastination is generally considered a negative trait. So if my hunch is right, procrastination is an exception: an example of a worse-than-average effect.

Now for the two value-neutral examples.

Consider the question of how strongly you feel versus how much you show. We might call this trait emotional demonstrativeness. For example, Chris Evert, in the passage I quoted in this post, was suggesting she was less emotionally demonstrative than Goolagong. If you did a survey, I reckon you'd find that most people think they are less demonstrative than the median.

Of course, how strongly you feel is a subjective state, so it's impossible to empirically compare emotional demonstrativeness. As I wrote in that post, "Presumably Goolagong reacted more vehemently than Evert did when she missed a volley. But perhaps Goolagong really did feel the disappointment more keenly – who can say?"

My other value-neutral example, however, is empirically testable. Variability in human attractiveness to mosquitoes can and has been studied and compared. Nevertheless, if you did a survey, I think most people would say they are more attractive to mosquitoes than the median.

Kolkata, where I grew up, and Singapore, where I live now, both have lots of mosquitoes, and over the years, I've heard many people say they are unusually attractive to them. I recently went hiking with a friend, and she said (unprompted) that she is less attractive to mosquitoes than average. As far as I can remember, it's the first time in my life that I've heard anyone say that.

Don't Call Me Kid

Sometimes people laugh when I say I like Taylor Swift; they assume I'm being ironic. Maybe it doesn't fit with (what they perceive as) my personality. And in fact, from her older catalogue, there are only a couple of songs that I like: Blank Space (2014) and Cornelia Street (2019). And not for want of trying. But I really like her three most recent albums: folklore (2020), Evermore (2020) and Midnights (2022).

As short, punchy refrains go, I think "It's me, hi / I'm the problem it's me" (Anti-Hero) is right up there with "Here we are now / Entertain us" (Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit).

Anyway, illicit affairs, from folklore, has this line: "Don't call me kid / Don't call me baby". It reminds me of a conversation with my friend. Or rather, a proxy conversation with my friend's niece.

Some background: the conversation was over text, but my friend (A) was with her niece, whom we call PoF. PoF – short for "Princess of Friendship" – is one of four sisters. For reasons outside the scope of this post, we use nicknames for the four kids: Camerat, PoF, Ladybug and Y. I've noted their age in [brackets] in the conversation below.

It all started with my friend telling me that she told PoF "I love you kid." And PoF replied, "I'm not a kid, I'm a child." The rest of the story is best told through the chat transcript itself.

Me: hahaha
so what does she think a kid is?
baby goat?

A: I think she thinks it's smaller than a child lol

Me: who made this hierarchy

A: The princess of friendship [5]

Me: Who is older, kid or child? Baby or kid?

A: She said a baby is older than a kid, a child is older than a kid and a baby

Me: did you ask her just now?

A: Yes lol

Me: Aww it's almost like me and PoF having a conversation
But a baby is older than a kid hmm. Not sure I buy that

A: It's her world, we just live in it

Me: Yes we have to accept it.
I can see why she was insulted though. You basically made her even smaller than a baby
So what is Ladybug? [3]
Kid baby or child
And what is Y? [1]

A: Ladybug is a baby
Y is also a baby

Me: 😳😳
even Y?
Then who is a kid? Incredible

A: Scratch it all, she and Camerat [8] are both kids and Y is a child

Me: Omg
It changes by the minute

A: There's no method to this madness

Me: What made her change her mind?

A: This is a mystery beyond my understanding

Bioluminescent Mushroom

I was sad yesterday, more sad than I've been in a long time. I was texting with my friend, and instead of being like "I'm there for you if you need me" or whatever it is that people say, she said, "I finish dance at 8.30 tonight, want to go to MacRitchie and look for luminous mushrooms?"

MacRitchie being a nature reserve here in Singapore.

Now these mushrooms are quite rare, and though they are known to grow in MacRitchie, as far as I know, there's no specific location where you can find them. They sprout randomly after rains, and the glow only lasts for a day or two.

At least it had rained in the morning, so there was that.

Neither of us had seem these mushrooms in the wild; we just knew they exist. So we just wandered around in the dark, without flashlights (our eyes had to be adjusted to the darkness; the glow from the mushrooms is not very bright), hoping not to step on a scorpion or snake (MacRitchie is also home to vipers, cobras and pythons). The mushrooms grow under fallen logs and other places which are hard to see from the trail. So my expectations were low; I mainly just went to spend time with my friend and see the nature reserve at night.

But then...

Against all odds, a gift from the universe to cheer me up. Just a phone pic (I went straight from work so I didn't have my camera) but it was amazing to see.

* * *

There's this part in The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth:

He goes home, seeking consolation
Among old Beatles and Pink Floyd—
But "Girl" elicits mere frustration,
While "Money" leaves him more annoyed.

But for me, ever since I discovered them as a 13-year-old, the music of the Beatles has been a source of happiness and consolation.

What do I do when my love is away?
   Does it worry you to be alone?
How do I feel by the end of the day?
   Are you sad because you're on your own?
No, I get by with a little help from my friends.

The next line goes "Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends." But I don't think it's that kind of mushroom :)

Conversations with Chinese Friends

Years ago I posted about a lawyer friend referring to Kyoto as "the protocol place". It happened again yesterday with my Chinese friend, who is an assistant professor of environmental law. This was just after she told me that she went to Japan on holiday.

Me: Oh, where did you go?

Friend: Tokyo and... what do you call that place? Jīngdū?*

Me: ...

Friend: You know, where we had the protocol!

* Jīngdū (京都), as I found out, is the Chinese name for Kyoto.

* * *

Another conversation with a Chinese friend who speaks very little English (but that's all we have, since I speak no Chinese at all):

Friend: In my province, the main... I can't remember that word. For example, Christmas is an important ___?

Me: Festival?

Friend: Yes, festival! So we can use English to learn English.

It's a form of what programmers call bootstrapping. In Bengali, we have a great phrase for it: মাছের তেলে মাছ ভাজা (literally: frying fish in fish fat). When you lightly heat a piece of fish, the fat starts to melt, and thereafter you can fry it in its own fat. I guess it works for bacon too, but Bengalis eat a lot of fish, so we have several excellent proverbs and idioms about them.

Shunbun no Hi: Bird Poop and Golden Orb

Slightly belated Shunbun no Hi (spring equinox) post this year – two spiders spotted in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Exhibit A: a giant golden orb weaver (hat tip to my friend Tomoe, who spotted it and alerted me).

Exhibit B: a type of crab spider, namely a bird dung spider – so called because when it curls up, it looks like bird poop. Here, however, it is displaying its cute little pincer-like front legs.

The Seven Precepts for Drinking Tea

Sen no Rikyū was a Japanese poet, philosopher and ikebana artist. He is most famous, however, as a tea master – perhaps the most influential figure in the history of chanoyu, the Japanese way of tea.

Recently, in a book about Zen Buddhism, I came across his seven precepts for drinking tea:

•	Make a satisfying bowl of tea.
•	Lay the charcoal so that the water boils efficiently.
•	Evoke a sense of coolness in the summer and warmth in the winter.
•	Arrange the flowers as though they were in the field.
•	Be ready ahead of time.
•	Be prepared in case it should rain.
•	Act with utmost consideration toward your guests.

I like the sentiments, and of course the economy of expression. "Be prepared in case it should rain," for example, is not just about rain, but unexpected events in general.

A tea ceremony I attended at Hama-Rikyū Gardens in Tokyo

Rikyū is associated with wabi-cha, a school of chanoyu which emphasises simplicity. Evidently, he walked the talk. In Kyoto, he designed one of the smallest tea rooms ever built – a mere 2 jō (3.6 square metres) in size. The unit jō is based on the area of a tatami mat – one for the host, and one for the guest.

Rikyū also said, "All you need to know about chanoyu is this: boil the water, make the tea and drink it."

* * *

Speaking of small architecture, last week I met a Japanese environmental law professor. When I heard that she's from Sapporo, I brought up the clock tower, specifically, its status as one of Japan's sandai gakkari (top 3 disappointments). This was news to her. "Why?" she asked, "Because it's small?"

I said yes, apparently that's one major reason.

She said "Nooooo. It's pretty because it's small."

Book Recommendation

One of the things I liked most about London is the libraries. I was a regular visitor (and borrower) at the Barbican Library and the amazing Idea Stores chain, both of which, as a resident, I could use for free. Then there were the libraries at LSE and other academic institutions, but these I used mainly for work.

Idea Stores – at least my local branch at Canary Wharf – had a shelf of reader-recommended books. Anyone could – hopefully still can – recommend a book. You had to send them a little blurb, which they would print on a card and place on a shelf, along with the book in question.

I recommended a book once, A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr – one of my favourite books of all time. I found the blurb in my old emails today, so it can have a second debut on my blog:

Summer 1920. Tom Birkin, back from the trenches, ‘nerves shot to pieces, wife gone, dead broke,’ arrives in Oxgodby, hired to uncover a 14th-century painting on the wall of the village church. Thus unfolds a story about friendship, love, missed opportunities, a way of life, and the awareness and acceptance of the transience of all things – a perfect novel which, like that perfect summer, is over all too soon. ‘We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever.’

I was also introduced to the book via a recommendation (sort of) – in an interview with British novelist Sarah Perry. And I borrowed it from Idea Store, though I eventually bought a copy for myself.

There's a city-wide network of Idea Stores, and you could – hopefully still can – request a book from another branch for free. My friend Rohini also frequented the same library. Sometimes on the Requests Shelf I'd see her name on a label, and text her to let her know her book arrived. It was like running into a friend, but without meeting her in person, just the book she was reading.

Singapore has an excellent network of public libraries too. Unlike the London libraries, membership is not free, but SGD 42.80 per year is a small price to pay for what I get out of it.

Aren't libraries the best?