We all dream of America

Friday's MLB game of choice has my Texas Rangers playing the Seattle Mariners in the first game of a four-game series. This is the game and series I originally thought would start yesterday. Duh! Tonight”s game is scheduled to start at 7:05 PM CDT. As I usually do, I'll follow the game's score and stats in real time via MLB's Gameday Service where we can also find links to the radio-call of the game provided by announcers of either team we choose.

And the adventure continues.

Image: “Mightier Than the Keyboard?” handwritten on a piece of paper with a fountain pen. Photo by: Unattributed, License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

When I started using Fountain Pens last year, I noted that there was something different about the quality of my writing. It seemed to have a different quality to it. At first, I couldn't figure out the reason for it. But as I kept writing I meditated on the subject. As I turned the idea around in my mind for a while, I came up with a few thoughts seemed to explain what I was both feeling and experiencing.

My Personal Reasoning

The first thought that came to my mind was that I had approached fountain pens from a different perspective than I had other writing instruments. I had started using them as a hobby, as a way to improve my penmanship. The point wasn't to write down the thoughts in my mind, but instead of work on better controlling the muscles in my arm and wrist.

I wanted to produce text that looked beautiful, no matter what the contents were. I was working from a workbook: The Lost Art of Handwriting by Brenna Jordan, to be exact. In the book she covers a lot of letter forms, variations, and suggests lots of practice sentences. I loved it. It required a fair amount of concentration to get some of the letter forms right, but the practice was exactly what I wanted.

However, after a while, my mind started telling me I needed to do something else. I needed to write something of substance. Something that had meaning, if only for me personally. That's when I started a journal.

Now I had tried to keep journals before, on my computer, in a note-taking application. I had taken to the idea of having a “second brain”, but not because I was sold on PKM or anything like that. My second brain experience came from a coworker from many years ago. He used to keep a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) with a ton of notes on it. Those notes were chock-full of obscure, and unusual things that we encountered working on computer systems. He carried it everywhere. We referred to it whenever we ran into a problem that seemed like something he might have seen, but couldn't recall how to resolve the issue.

I can't even being to count the number of times he found either the exact information we needed, or information that assisted us in further diagnosing an issue in his PDA. We started referring to that device as his second brain.

Anyway, while PDA's had gone by the wayside, I had taken to the idea of creating a “second brain” for myself. Saving information that I thought might be useful in the future. And, it had seemed to me, that adding a journal full of notes and ideas made sense for my second brain. Only, it had never worked. I would add my journal entries to it for weeks or even a few months, and eventually stop.

And, to make things worse, the journal entries were (mostly) superficial. The entries really only related to other things I had been obsessing over, generally about things that I had already saved in the app. There wasn't the quality of ingenuity, uniqueness, or personal observation that I had wanted to capture.

However, when I started writing a journal on paper, in a notebook, all the unique, personal observations started coming out. All the things that I had wanted to accomplish in digital form were there, in analog, on sheets of paper in ink.

Why? In my mind I found three reasons:

1. I was cut off from the rest of the information in my second brain. Sure, I could have picked up my phone, or gone to my PC to access it, but I didn't.
2. Handwriting is a slower process. It isn't like typing in that in a few swishes of your fingers and twenty or thirty words appear on the screen in a matter of a few seconds. Writing twenty or thirty words required more focus, more attention, more effort.
3. Intentionality: I had more intent in the words that I put on the page. There wasn't the easy edits to correct the words on the page the way there was with a computer. Sure, I could always cross words out, and I did that at times, but the more you have to cross out and change on the page, the more the page starts looking messier and more difficult to read. And I had initially started writing with fountain pens to produce cleaner, nicer lettering and therefore pages.

Over time, I wondered if there was anything to back up my hypothesis about why handwriting was different from typing on the computer.

Testing My Theory

So, after seeing a video from Sbrebrown: The Benefits of Taking Handwritten Notes vs Digital Notes I decided to pose the question on the Fediverse: [ Question] Study of note-taking with Pens vs. Laptops. The subject is interesting, and has been attracting a lot of attention over the last decade or so. The question that has been examined is: do students that take handwritten notes do better than students who type notes on a laptop.

In a meta analysis Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis, researchers examined twenty-four studies that had been conducted over the last hundred years. They concluded that the studies indicated that there is a correlation between handwritten versus typed notes. Note, the interesting part here is that the study includes several papers that were not conducted in an academic setting as there wouldn't have been typewriters in a classroom.

In another paper, The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking researchers concluded from four studies that students did worse on conceptual questions because they were not processing information as deeply. Instead, they were mostly transcribing the lecture without thinking about it deeply.

However, there have been some publications that take the opposite position: Don’t Ditch the Laptop Just Yet: Replication Finds No Immediate Advantage to Writing Notes by Hand. While the most deeply analytical article is one that I just barely grasp at the surface level: The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle?, which goes so far as to have conducted neuroimaging studies of the brain while writing and typing:

Recent neuroimaging studies including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and positron emission tomography (PET) have provided insights into the neural mechanisms that underlie these two forms of written expression.

And the results were quite interesting (quoting the abstract):

Results: Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing. Typing engages fewer neural circuits, resulting in more passive cognitive engagement. Despite the advantages of typing in terms of speed and convenience, handwriting remains an important tool for learning and memory retention, particularly in educational contexts.

My Takeaway

To me, the neuroscience study reinforces the second and third thoughts that I had:

1. Handwriting is a slower process. It isn't like typing in that in a few swishes of your fingers and twenty or thirty words appear on the screen in a matter of a few seconds. Writing twenty or thirty words required more focus, more attention, more effort.
2. Intentionality: I had more intent in the words that I put on the page. […]

The idea that “Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing.” would seem to be in alignment with those thoughts. There is a whole different level of thought that is going into writing in a notebook – be it with a ballpoint or a fountain pen.

But, that doesn't mean that this is settled science. In fact, science is rarely settled on finding a single conclusion. Instead, the thoughts and understanding that emerge from science tend to track with the more predominant studies of the time, however there is always room for those findings to be challenged. This can be seen in the Don't Ditch the Laptop Just Yet article referenced above.

The thing that I would note about most of these studies is they are focused on taking notes in an academic setting: listening to a lecture and trying to capture the essence of what is being said. That, I think, is the bounding point to keep in mind. Scientists could find there are different considerations in different settings, and when the objective is different. For example: writing a letter, a poem, or a novel could well be sufficiently different from taking notes to warrant further study.

As for the first item on my list? I don't think this is something that really relates to the topic scientifically. It's a matter of how I have shaped myself, the habits that I have developed over the years since I decided to start building my “second brain.” It took conscious effort on my behalf to put myself in a position where I wouldn't access all the information that I had compiled. I decided that it would be easy to get too distracted from the act of writing itself.

And that's where I think I'll conclude this: I lean towards the idea that writing with a fountain pen is fundamentally different from typing based on the neuroscience, until proven otherwise.

---

Categories: #Editorials Tags: #FountainPens, #typing, #notes, #science, #neuroscience, License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Around eight years ago I thought it would be funny to become a licensed ham-radio operator. For those who don’t know, ham radio is a hobby that revolves around radio communications. I was always fascinated by radio and I was a romantic about the idea of talking to people over the radio. The process wasn’t too hard. I learned some basic electronics and regulations around radio communications. I took a test and submitted it to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a few weeks later I was a federally-recognized radio-operator with a callsign and was permitted to transmit on a small corner of the radio spectrum. The technology was fun to learn and operate but frankly I found the company among other US hams problematic. The majority of conversations in ham radio are totally benign—just ham radio operators talking about ham radio on their radios. But if you listen long enough, the airwaves can be home to the type of talk common among conservative and libertarian voices. There were vocal opinions about the liberal forces of society encroaching upon the conservative way of life, antagonistic rhetoric toward big government, and the “liberal agenda” it was imposing on Americans.

I was scandalized by the culture when I first started dabbling in ham radio, partly because I’d never actually interacted with people outside my east-coast liberal bubble. In those days, I was a pretty mainstream liberal progressive type. I felt uncomfortable taking part in a hobby that was home to so many people I disagreed with culturally and politically. On one occasion, I heard two guys casually talking about how they felt threatened by the presence of a young black man at a fast food establishment and how they would have “defended themselves” if he had tried anything. There was open talk about gun rights at a time when anti-gun sentiment in my corner of America was riding high. I liked the hobby fine and I didn’t want to leave it because of these people so I tried to be the change I wanted to see in ham radio. I attended radio club meetings and tried to make ham radio visible to a younger, more like-minded segment of the population. I posted on local reddit forums to try to spread the word about ham radio in an effort to bring in a younger, possibly more progressive crowd. Unfortunately I found that among my peers, there was very little interest in radio communications let alone any desire to expose themselves to a culture they found distasteful. The only young people I could find that were interested in the hobby were preppers, off-roaders, and gun-people—exactly the people I was trying to get away from.

Eventually, l learned to “spin the dial”—a ham radio term for moving to a different frequency if you don’t like what you hear. I moved away from talking to people on the radio to the more fun aspect of building and tinkering with radios and antennas and contesting. I retreated from trying to singlehandedly change the culture of ham radio and instead focused on what I liked about ham radio. During this time I decided to challenge myself by getting into what’s called SOTA (Summits on the Air.) Summits on the air is a form of radio contesting where radio operators set up a station in remote places (usually summits of mountains) and try to establish as many contacts as they can from these places. It involves building a portable station that can operate completely off-grid. It’s a fun and rewarding experience to reach a designated spot on a map and transmit from that spot. After a few of these “activations” as they’re called I realized that I wasn’t just making contacts for fun. I was learning to be a fully self-sustaining unit of my own. Everything needed to send a signal from a remote area needed to fit inside a backpack that I could carry. If I forgot a critical component, the activation would fail. I was proud of my ability to be able to make a fully operational radio station in the wilderness free from the grid.

Early in my radio career I remember driving around my hometown and looking at all the antenna towers that need to be built in order for us to communicate over the phone. I realized early on that we were all using radio, but we were all relying on existing infrastructure to do so and we pay a premium to do so. Not to say that the money we pay for this infrastructure isn’t worth it. Cellphone technology is a marvel of modern communications and has enabled so much of our modern way of life. Still, I hated the idea of being totally and utterly dependent on it. I hated the idea that in the (unlikely) scenario that if all this infrastructure were to fail, our modern methods of communications would be completely lost. Over time I came to see the ability to communicate using radio as a form of self-reliance. I was taking back my ability to use wireless communication back from the government and corporate power. This in turn led me to understand why ham radio was popular with a segment of the population that values self reliance over government reliance. A lot of work goes into making a contact over the radio. Individuals in ham radio go to great lengths and build extraordinary things to simply establish a contact with someone new. Beneath the contesting, long-winded conversations known as “rag-chews”, the banal weather reports, and daily “nets” is the heart of ham radio: The ability to communicate wirelessly when everything else fails.

Societal cooperation has obviously allowed us to do a great many things, and we are all better off working together. So what if we use cell phone networks and never question our reliance on the network? So long as everyone is paying their bills, and relying on the government and the cellphone companies for the network, then everything is fine. Until it’s not. It doesn’t happen often these days, but every so often it’s ad hoc networks of amateur radio operators that are best able to respond when telecom networks fail.

My involvement in amateur radio didn’t make me into a commando, but it did open my eyes to the many ways I’d been utterly dependent on systems that had the potential to fail. Everywhere I looked I saw a system of dependencies. I had seen all the ways I and many people around me had taken for granted these systems—food systems, communication systems, healthcare systems, etc. The worst part was that many of these systems didn’t always have my interests in mind. Their interest was in revenue generation or political power. We take so very much for granted in this country to the point where we’ve lost the ability to fathom what it would be like to live without these dependencies. We assume that nothing so bad could ever happen to us where we would need to learn to navigate with map and compass because we just assume that Google Maps and all the satellites and software that make it happen will always work. We assume that we’ll never have to defend ourselves because we believe a cop will always be there to help us when we’re in danger.

Even as I evolved spiritually, I came to see dependency and community in new ways. To be a person of faith is to be dependent on a power greater than yourself. But that dependency does not mean passivity. The work of any faith begins with the individual—the prayers and meditations one performs alone, the discipline and the willingness to try something new and the accountability no one else can carry for you. The same rule applies: you have to help yourself so that you can help others. A broken vessel cannot hold water.

I honestly don’t know what I am now politically. All I can say is that I’m not what I was when I first started my journey into ham radio. To understand ham radio is to understand my political journey over the last ten years.

Some people call this paranoia. Some people outright believe it’s good to be entirely dependent on systems. They don’t see any issue with being entirely dependent on the government or on corporations for basic things. They actually believe that we should be more dependent on the government. They believe we should increase the size and scope of the government’s reach further into our lives. Instead of fostering an ability to live without these dependencies, some people look for ways to undermine those abilities. I’m not against being dependent on systems, I’m very much a creature of dependency (looking at you, Costco), but I am against not nurturing our individual abilities to help ourselves so that we can help others. We should all be trying to foster some sort of individual ability within ourselves so that we can help our immediate communities, our family, our towns, our schools, not politicians in a bureaucracy in Washington DC or some Silicon Valley corporation that only seeks to enrich themselves.

I don’t advocate for individualism. We have enough of that in the US and it has been poisonous to our sense of community. What I do advocate for is fostering and training our abilities to be able to live without these systems-level dependencies so that we can take care of our neighbors when these safety-nets fail. When the cell phone networks in North Carolina went down, following a hurricane in 2024, it was a loose community of Amateur radio operators who came together to help getting messages in and out of the immediate disaster zone. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Verizon and AT&T eventually came, but it was people who took the time to learn to communicate without the cellphone network that were able to help their community. It was an ad-hoc network of individuals who were best able to help. The federal government isn’t what makes America great. It’s the individuals and talents that form communities that make America great.

I’m close to needing to renew my radio license which means it will have been ten years since I first started transmitting. I still denounce extremist and inflammatory voices that are thankfully a minority on the airwaves. I am however, much more sympathetic to the larger philosophical view of self-reliance and resistance to big government. Ham radio taught me self reliance for the ultimate goal of being able to contribute to society instead of just taking for granted all that it gave me. It’s about empowering yourself and being accountable for the ultimate purpose of serving your community.

it comes like it or not

Different points of view.

Today I worked out with J at the new gym And I talked to two new people, they were both gorgeous women, and the second one even called to us in the parking lot and we joked around for a bit before she asked for our Instagram. I just feel a big sense of revitalized hope of meeting people, this feels like the ideal third place. I also just got back home from playing Catan with friends, and also just talking for a while. I feel really good and I’m happy with this life.

Dagen etter 22. juli valgte Aftenposten å la høyreekstreme sette agendaen for kulturdebatten. De skriver om “kulturkrigere” som raser mot “Odysseen” fordi Helen av Troja spilles av en svart kvinne. Dette er nemlig “woke”. Unnskyld meg, men hva skjedde med det gode, gamle ordet rasisme?

Når folk som Elon Musk ikke tåler å se svarte folk på kinolerretet er det ikke fordi han er “kulturkriger” og “bekymret for woke”. Det er fordi han er en åpenlys rasist, som sprer høyreekstrem og rasistisk propaganda på X ukentlig. Alle som har stukket hodet inn i det høyreekstreme ormebolet X og fulgt debatten der inne kan se at det er primitiv rasisme som har drevet den mislykkede kampanjen mot “Odysseen”.

Ord som “kulturkrig” og “woke” misbrukes altså her av Aftenposten til å tilsløre reinspikka rasisme. Elon Musk omtales som “Tesla-gründer”, men kunne like gjerne vært omtalt som “verdens mektigste høyreradikale agitator”. Han promoterer idéer som “den store utskiftningen”, antisemittisme og rasisme. Det er i denne konteksten vi må forstå kampanjen mot Odysseen. Ved å utelate denne konteksten, bidrar Aftenposten til å gjøre leserne dummere.

Det blir verre: I saken velger Aftenposten like så greit også å promotere Document, Anders Behring Breiviks gamle favorittblogg. Deres Tiktok-video der de naturligvis kaster se på den rasistiske kampanjen, blir faktisk bakt inn i saken. Gratis reklame til en av Norges største høyreradikale nettsteder der altså.

Men burde ikke Aftenposten dekke “kontroversen”? Vel, hvis denne saken beviser noe, så er det at de trygt kan ignorere slike oppkonstruerte rasistiske kampanjer. Elon Musks forsøk på å kansellere “Odysseen” har vært fullstendig mislykket. Han opererer i et rasistisk ekkokammer som er frikoblet fra den virkelige verden. Det samme gjør dessverre altfor mange journalister.

Det er snart på tide for journalister og redaktører å forstå at dersom du henger på X, så blir du manipulert av verdens mektigste rasist. Du blir dummere, og du mister kontakt med den virkelige verden. Du hadde ikke drevet god research hvis du bare brukte tiden din med å prate med folk i en nazi-bar.

City Press | 28 October 2018 | By Roger Young and Simon Doda Photos: Mpumelelo Buthelezi

---

War on Drugs Rocks Hillbrow

As angry residents attack the dealers, the police move in, take another hand-out and turn a blind eye to the comings and goings.

---

It was sometime in 1994, shortly after liberation, when Hillbrow began to change. From a well-regarded cosmopolitan but white area, a sort of Bohemia replete with cinemas, books shops, record and comic shops, coffee shops galore and a vibrant high-street culture, it became a place where white people ventured into only to buy drugs. And you could buy drugs everywhere.

Certain buildings were well known among clubbers and weekend users as places you could just pull up at and buy, mostly cocaine. But, as the whites left, the community that moved into Hillbrow solidified and so did their stance against drugs.

Community pressure saw the drug trade move to two distinct areas: The corner of O'Reilly and Fife streets, known as The Sands after a former hotel on O'Reilly, and the corner of Esselen and Quartz, known as the Cape Agulhas, after the apartment block of that name, home to dealers specialising in rock or crack cocaine.

Residents and street addicts believed the police were in the dealers' employ and so did not do anything to protect the community. All it took was about 30 minutes' sitting across the street from where the dealers plied their trade to observe police vans from different wards and divisions pulling up and receiving handouts. Duchess Court, on the corner of O'Reilly and Fife, technically in Berea, was known as a safe house for heroin dealers. They kept the drugs inside the building and sent runners inside when a client made an order.

But two months ago the security company hired to run the comings and goings of Duchess Court, 24/7 Security, left and residents employed the notorious Bad Boys Security to take over. Within days all dealers were ousted and no trade was allowed on the pavement. So trade moved across the street and all hell broke loose. The street addicts who slept rough were hustled up the road and condensed into a smaller area and the residents of the building opposite were up in arms. Emboldened by their neighbours' success, they confronted the street dwellers and dealers on O'Reilly Road on October 6. Resulting clashes between Hillbrow's self-appointed community guards, street addicts, alleged heroin and crack dealers and public order police erupted early that Saturday morning, climaxing in sorties that resulted in street bonfires made from burning street dwellers' belongings.

After the clashes an uneasy calm followed, with both sides on high alert. And although hopes were high that the dispute would peter out — with constant vigilance from community members and the dealers' representative claiming that they tried and failed to initiate talks — the feeling was that strife was imminent.

The Clashes Begin

At 7am that Saturday morning residents formed a wall at the top end of O'Reilly Road, The Sands, famous for its resilience and 24-hour dealers.

Even the World Cup clean-ups of 2010 were unable to shift its dealers and mayor Herman Mashaba's war against drugs achieved few results.

But, on that Saturday, from pavement to pavement residents linked arms and marched down the street. An elderly woman led chants of “Nyaope must fall!” and “Out with Nigerians!”.

They brandished sjamboks and broomsticks, lashing out at anyone in their path.

The street dealers vanished almost immediately. Those who remained stood behind police vans and joked with the officers.

The street dwellers who sleep along O'Reilly Road bore the brunt of the attack. They were beaten while trying to collect their things and later watched from a distance as their mattress sponges, backpacks and plastic bags of meagre possessions were piled on to bonfires and turned into ash.

By 7.30am the Hillbrow police and metro police had barricaded both ends of O'Reilly, letting no one in or out. The community members took over, but the street dwellers fought back, making quick attacks with bricks and stones, trying to reclaim what was left of their sponges and plastic bags.

Hillbrow police did nothing, relying on their presence alone to keep the violence from escalating. The community sang songs and danced in victory; their fires grew higher and so did their confidence. They sent a few impis to attack street dwellers, chasing them for blocks.

Under Attack

JB*, a Nigerian who identified himself as “one of the bosses here”, tried to walk down O'Reilly Road to see if his corner was safe.

After standing in his usual spot for “less than a minute”, a glass bottle was flung from one of the upper windows of Duchess Court and narrowly missed him.

Just after 9am a public order policing van pulled up and out jumped three policemen in riot gear, armed with teargas guns and rubber bullet rifles.

They fired warning shots and advanced on the community who stood firm. But when they fired the first hail of rubber bullets, the residents dispersed. The emboldened street dwellers began throwing bricks at those in retreat.

But then the guns turned on them. One man was left on the tarmac, bleeding from a gash on his forehead, where he was hit.

The Hillbrow police parked their Nyalas at the lower end of the street and prison vans were lined up and filled with community members, dealers and street dwellers.

The police remained all night and all of Sunday. And the community brigade maintained small groups at both ends of O'Reilly Road. They sjambokked and chased anyone suspected of coming to buy drugs.

Late that Monday afternoon, a splinter group of 15 young men led an attack on another group of street dwellers, mostly older people, not all addicts, on the “Old KFC” corner. The street dwellers were herded into a tight group and made to watch as their belongings were burned. A Hillbrow police van pulled up soon after the fire was set, but the officers didn't get out and drove off shortly afterwards. Any of the street dwellers who tried to rescue their belongings were sjambokked.

Burning Drug Dealers

News emerged early on Sunday that one of the alleged dealers was grabbed by the community group and forced into a bonfire and set alight. The face of Unche*, a Nigerian, was covered in bandages, the evidence of his fiery attack. “There was no warning. There is nothing we could do; now we must find a new place to work.”

After sunset that Sunday the warring factions diminished but did not disband.

By the following Wednesday morning they were still on patrol. All drug trade moved from O'Reilly Road into the park on Hadfield Road, a block away.

By Tuesday afternoon concerns spread to Hillbrow's other drug den, Cape Agulhas. Trading stopped. Dealers said they had to “watch out” and were “in talks”.

On Wednesday morning word was that the price of crack cocaine was up, from R40 to R50 a hit, because of the “danger”.

Cape Agulhas dealers believed the community was gearing up for a similar assault on them the following weekend and had hired private security to guard their building.

Saturday's standoff was hampered by heavy rains, but the street drug trade went undercover.

Hein*, a white street addict who was badly beaten by the community group the previous weekend, said: “You can still buy, but you have to be sneaky. They're no longer trading in the park but rather in the street. Things have changed, it's all different now.”

Last Sunday's Attack

Last week on Sunday the mob, much larger this time, attacked again.

The previous night, on the corner of Fife and O'Reilly, Bad Boys Security attacked the dealers. The guy selling cigarettes, the guy selling skants (small R2 parcels of marijuana used to make nyaope), the guy selling chocolates and tin foil, and heroin dealers outside The Sands were whipped and beaten with golf clubs. Two went to hospital.

Early on Sunday morning a group of people in ANC T-shirts stood on Soper Road, a block away from the trouble. A police Nyala stopped near them at about 9am.

The mob barricaded Primrose Terrace and began marching the three blocks to Cape Agulhas. They burnt street dwellers' makeshift camps. Among them was an elderly couple, Rasta and Nomsa. He washes cars near the Highpoint Spar; she begs, using her crutches and the abscess on her leg for sympathy, on Claim Street. Nomsa watched her papers burn, her temp ID, her disability papers, a small list of phone numbers of distant family members, lost and gone.

At 11am the mob, escorted by metro police, rushed down Primrose Terrace. The dealers now trading on lower Fife melted into CJ's nightclub. The street dwellers scattered and again their belongings were set alight, leaving 60 homeless with nothing.

On Sunday observers arrived. Two black Mercedes, occupied by well-dressed children and women in ANC headscarves, parked and watched from a distance. They ate out of skaftins, picnic-style, shouting “Hit HIM! Hit him!” when an addict was chased down the street. A young man next to me said: “I haven't seen this much action in Hillbrow since xenophobia 2008.”

Later that day boys in a red Yaris arrived to watch. And a bunch of men drinking beer in a 4x4 drove with the mob, taking pictures and shouting encouragement. The police did not do anything as people were beaten and bottles thrown. People were left bleeding.

On Sunday afternoon the addicts vanished, the dealers melted into CJ's, but still the mob ran, beating bystanders and shouting: “Why are you not running from us?” The response was: “What have I done? What have I done?” A small boy of about 11 who ran with the mob had a large gash in his arm.

The mob retreated to the back of Primrose Terrace. They hit CJ's at 9pm, quickly reducing it to ash. No more would the dealers hide there.

But on Monday morning, with most of the mob back at work, street dealing began again, further along the road. On Tuesday morning the community brigade attacked the Soper Lodge hotel, a block above O'Reilly. They looted the bar and soon the public joined in. Crates of beer flew out the door.

The police circled Hillbrow in convoys with lights flashing. But they did not do anything.

---

*Not their real names

View the full photo gallery at city-press.news24.com

Eine wacklige Lego-Brücke steht am Anfang einer Reihe psychologischer Experimente. Der Ingenieur Leidy Klotz baute sie gemeinsam mit seinem dreijährigen Sohn. Einer der beiden Pfeiler war zu kurz, die Brücke deshalb instabil. Klotz griff in die Kiste, um einen passenden Stein zu suchen. Sein Sohn löste das Problem anders: Er nahm einen Stein vom längeren Pfeiler weg. Die Brücke war nun stabil, obwohl sie aus weniger Teilen bestand. Oder genauer: weil sie aus weniger Teilen bestand.

Die Geschichte interessiert mich auch deshalb, weil ich selbst mit LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® arbeite. Beim Bauen liegt es nahe, nach einem weiteren Stein zu greifen. Jede Ergänzung ist sichtbar. Das Entfernen eines Steins wirkt dagegen zunächst wie ein Rückschritt, kann ein Modell jedoch ebenso grundlegend verändern.

Klotz untersuchte gemeinsam mit Forschenden aus Psychologie und Sozialwissenschaften, ob dahinter ein allgemeines Denkmuster steckt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen: Wenn wir etwas verbessern wollen, denken wir häufiger ans Hinzufügen als ans Weglassen. Diese Neigung wird als Additive Bias bezeichnet.

Mehr kommt uns schneller in den Sinn

In einem Experiment sollten Versuchspersonen eine Lego-Konstruktion stabilisieren. Eine Plattform ruhte auf einem einzelnen Pfeiler. Viele Teilnehmende ergänzten weitere Stützen, obwohl das Entfernen eines vorhandenen Steins die einfachere Lösung gewesen wäre. Als jeder zusätzlich eingesetzte Stein Geld kostete, entschieden sich mehr Personen fürs Wegnehmen. Das Muster blieb nicht auf Lego beschränkt. Auch bei geometrischen Figuren, Texten und einem bereits überladenen Ausflugsprogramm ergänzten die Teilnehmenden eher Elemente, als vorhandene zu entfernen. Unter zusätzlicher geistiger Belastung verstärkte sich diese Neigung [1].

Wir lehnen das Weglassen also nicht unbedingt ab. Häufig kommt es uns schlicht nicht in den Sinn. Additive Ideen sind schneller verfügbar. Wenn die erste Idee einigermassen funktioniert, suchen wir nicht weiter. Wurden Versuchspersonen ausdrücklich darauf hingewiesen, dass sie auch etwas entfernen könnten, fanden sie häufiger vereinfachende Lösungen [2].

In populären Darstellungen wird der Additive Bias gelegentlich damit erklärt, dass unser Gehirn das Weglassen nicht möge oder evolutionär auf das Sammeln ausgerichtet sei. Solche Erklärungen sind plausibel, gehen aber über die Experimente hinaus. Belegt ist vor allem eine Schieflage bei der Suche nach Lösungen: Addition wird spontan berücksichtigt, Subtraktion erfordert eher einen zweiten, bewussten Denkschritt.

Scheinproduktivität durch noch mehr Organisation

Vielleicht kennst du das: Die Aufgaben häufen sich und du verlierst den Überblick. Als Lösung bietet sich eine neue App an. Du ergänzt deine Aufgabenliste um Kategorien, entwickelst eine genauere Morgenroutine oder baust ein weiteres Planungsinstrument in deinen Alltag ein. Ich kenne diesen Reflex aus meiner eigenen Arbeitsorganisation. Wenn Unterricht, Lehrgangsverantwortung, Selbständigkeit und Weiterbildung gleichzeitig Aufmerksamkeit verlangen, suche ich rasch nach einer besseren Methode oder einem zusätzlichen Werkzeug. Das vermittelt zunächst das beruhigende Gefühl, die Komplexität wieder unter Kontrolle zu haben.

Jede Ergänzung kann für sich vernünftig sein. Zusammen ergeben die Hilfsmittel jedoch leicht ein Arbeitssystem, das selbst Arbeit verursacht. Aufgaben müssen nicht nur erledigt, sondern auch erfasst, sortiert, synchronisiert und überprüft werden. Die Suche nach höherer Produktivität erzeugt neue Verpflichtungen [3]. Die unbequemere Frage lautet nicht, wie ich alles noch genauer organisiere. Sie lautet, welche Aufgabe, Information oder Verpflichtung wegfallen kann. Eine neue App lässt sich einrichten und als sichtbare Verbesserung verbuchen. Eine gestrichene Verpflichtung hinterlässt dagegen keine erkennbare Leistung.

Warum Organisationen das Hinzufügen belohnen

In Organisationen geht es nicht nur um individuelle Denkgewohnheiten. Hinzu kommen Strukturen, die additive Lösungen begünstigen. Wenn ein Problem auftritt, wird eine Arbeitsgruppe eingesetzt. Ein Fehler führt zu einem weiteren Kontrollschritt. Für eine neue Aufgabe entsteht eine zusätzliche Rolle.

Das kann im Einzelfall sinnvoll sein. Dennoch prüfen Organisationen das Hinzufügen meist gründlicher als das Abschaffen. Wer ein Projekt startet, eine Regel erlässt oder einen Prozess erweitert, kann Aktivität nachweisen. Wer verhindert, dass unnötige Arbeit entsteht, hinterlässt weniger sichtbare Spuren.

Eine neue Regel besitzt zudem einen klar benennbaren Zweck. Ihre Folgekosten verteilen sich dagegen auf viele Menschen und über einen längeren Zeitraum. So entstehen Prozesse mit immer mehr Schritten. Jede Ergänzung hatte irgendwann einen Grund. Selten wird jedoch geprüft, ob dieser noch besteht. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung beschreibt den Additive Bias deshalb nicht bloss als individuelles Denkmuster, sondern verbindet ihn mit Bürokratie, Konsum und politischen Interessen [4].

Allerdings wäre es zu einfach, organisatorische Komplexität allein psychologisch zu erklären. Haftungsfragen, politische Kompromisse, wirtschaftliche Interessen und Machtverhältnisse tragen ebenfalls dazu bei. Der Additive Bias ist keine Gesamterklärung. Er zeigt aber, weshalb ein Vorschlag für etwas Neues häufig bessere Ausgangsbedingungen hat als die Forderung, etwas Bestehendes abzuschaffen.

Was würden wir heute nicht mehr hinzufügen?

Aus dem Additive Bias folgt nicht, dass weniger grundsätzlich besser wäre. Manche Brücken benötigen tatsächlich einen zusätzlichen Pfeiler. Eine Organisation kann unter fehlenden Regeln leiden, und ein neues Werkzeug kann eine Aufgabe erleichtern.

Entscheidend ist, Addition und Subtraktion mit derselben Ernsthaftigkeit zu prüfen. Die spannendere Frage lautet deshalb nicht, was wir als Nächstes ergänzen könnten, sondern: Wann haben wir zuletzt versucht, ein Problem zu lösen, indem wir etwas weggelassen haben?

---

💬 Kommentieren (nur für write.as-Accounts)

---

Quellen [1] https://www.boost.co.nz/blog/2021/06/new-cognitive-bias-and-agile-simplicity/ [2] https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/additive-bias-warum-uns-das-weglassen-bei-loesungen-schwerfaellt [3] https://anthonysanni.com/productivity-shorts-been-thinking/problem-solving-additive-bias [4] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/artikel/gesellschaft/karsten-wildberger-gabriel-yoran-verkrempelung-kapitalismus-additive-bias-e547325/

Bildquelle Lego-Skulptur auf dem Legocampus in Billund, fotografiert 2015 von WileyFoxes, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet.

Topic #Coaching | #ProductivityPorn

The red creature wandered through an ancient forest with its tiny sprite by its side. One day, they discovered a mysterious floating mask with one giant eye that glowed like a ruby. The mask spoke in a gentle voice and asked for help finding its way back to the Sky Temple.

Together, the three travelers crossed rivers, climbed hills, and solved puzzles. When they finally reached the temple, the mask transformed into a bright guardian spirit and thanked them with a special gift—the power to always find courage, even in the darkest places.

From that day on, their friendship became a legend of the rewards of loyalty.

How strange this fear we fondle— always heating up to quicken a pulse. Urgently magnifying every thought to lance a healed wound. Far too eager to dismiss a smoothly wrapped deception. It's as if we quake to undermine our own expression of sought acceptance. The magnitude of our intentional incompetence is an underwhelming flaw— a raw nerve dangling inept. A failure to grasp otherness. And I weep across this threshold of unraveling.

Written July 24, 2026. © 2026 AnOublietteofThought.

Jesus loves you. I have heard those words many times, but familiarity does not always create trust. A sentence can remain in the mind for years without reaching the part of us that still expects love to disappear when we fail. I could believe Jesus loved humanity while quietly wondering whether He felt differently about the person I knew myself to be.

That struggle is part of what led me to write the complete free book Jesus Loves You. I wanted to move beyond a familiar Christian slogan and look honestly at the Savior revealed in the New Testament—the Jesus who knows the whole person, enters real suffering, confronts destructive choices, forgives sinners, restores failures, carries the cross, and walks out of the tomb.

I also explored this truth through this personal Christian message about receiving the love of Jesus because I believe many of us have learned how to speak about Christ’s love without learning how to live as though it applies to us. We encourage other people to receive grace while continuing to punish ourselves. We tell others they can come to Jesus exactly as they are while believing we should repair ourselves before returning.

I know how easy it is to turn faith into performance.

Performance can look responsible. It can make a person productive, dependable, helpful, and disciplined. It can even make someone appear spiritually mature.

But performance is exhausting when it becomes the price of belonging.

You begin thinking that Jesus is pleased when you are useful and disappointed whenever you need help. You measure your spiritual life by productivity, emotional strength, consistency, or the number of needs you can meet for others.

You keep going because stopping feels dangerous.

What happens if I am no longer useful?

What happens if I admit I am tired?

What happens if the people who depend on me discover that I do not always know what to do?

What happens if Jesus sees that my faith is not as strong as it appears?

The answer is that Jesus already sees.

He is not discovering your weakness as you reveal it. He knew the complete truth before you ever learned how to hide.

That knowledge once frightened me because human beings do not always handle knowledge gently. When people know where you are vulnerable, they may use it to shame you, control you, or permanently define you by one part of your story.

Jesus does not use truth that way.

He knows the places where I was wounded and the places where I wounded others. He knows what was done to me and what I later did because I had not healed. He understands the difference between an explanation and an excuse.

He does not call every choice good.

He does not treat me as disposable because every choice was not good.

That is grace and truth living together.

I see this throughout the Gospels.

Jesus knew the Samaritan woman’s history before He spoke to her beside the well. He knew Zacchaeus had profited through a corrupt system before inviting Himself to the man’s home. He knew Peter would deny Him before kneeling to wash Peter’s feet.

Jesus was never surprised by the truth.

He also never needed shame to make truth powerful.

That has changed the way I think about confession.

I once thought confession was mainly about admitting something bad enough that God might finally become willing to forgive me. But confession does not convince Jesus to become merciful.

Mercy is the reason He calls me out of hiding.

Confession allows me to stop dividing my life into the person I present and the person I fear being known.

I can tell Jesus the truth because He already knows it and has not stopped calling me.

That does not mean confession removes responsibility.

When Zacchaeus encountered Jesus, he did not merely feel accepted and continue living the same way. Grace changed what he did with his money. He offered restitution to people he had cheated.

Peter was forgiven, but Jesus still returned him to an honest conversation beside the sea.

“Do you love me?”

The question touched the exact place where Peter’s confidence had failed.

Then Jesus told him to feed His sheep.

Peter’s failure was not ignored. It was faced, forgiven, and transformed into a place from which a humbler kind of service could begin.

That gives me hope.

I cannot go backward and become the person I might have been if I had made every decision differently. I cannot remove every consequence or repair every relationship exactly as it once existed.

But Jesus is not limited to an imaginary version of my life.

He can work with the life I actually surrender.

That is important because regret often keeps us trapped in a past that no longer exists. We replay old conversations and imagine better responses. We picture doors that might have remained open if we had understood then what we understand now.

Some regret is useful. It teaches us, humbles us, and leads us to repair what can still be repaired.

Other regret becomes a private form of punishment.

It keeps saying, “You should have known.”

Maybe I should have.

But I did not.

The question now is whether I will continue worshiping the life I could have lived or place the life I still have into the hands of Jesus.

His love calls me forward.

Not carelessly.

Not without responsibility.

Forward truthfully.

The love of Jesus has also forced me to rethink forgiveness.

For years, many Christians were taught that forgiveness meant acting as though nothing happened. We were encouraged to restore access quickly because distance appeared unloving.

I no longer believe love requires pretending trust was never damaged.

Forgiveness releases my right to become consumed by vengeance. It places final judgment in God’s hands. It refuses to let hatred become the permanent shape of my heart.

Trust is different.

Trust is rebuilt through truth, responsibility, and consistent behavior.

I can forgive someone and still recognize that returning to the former relationship would be unwise. I can care about their future without volunteering to be harmed again.

I can pray for their freedom without making myself responsible for producing it.

Jesus is the Savior.

I am not.

That sentence has become one of the most freeing truths in my life.

I can love people without holding every part of their lives together.

I can tell the truth without forcing them to receive it.

I can offer help without taking ownership of whether they use it.

I can remain compassionate while allowing another adult to face the consequences of their own choices.

This does not come naturally when being needed has become part of your identity.

Sometimes helping is not only about the other person’s need. It is also about my need to feel necessary.

That is uncomfortable to admit.

I may say yes because I love someone. I may also say yes because I am afraid of what their disappointment will make me feel about myself.

The love of Jesus teaches me that another person’s disappointment does not automatically mean I have failed.

Sometimes people become disappointed because a healthy boundary interrupted their access.

Sometimes saying no is not selfish.

It is honest.

Jesus withdrew from crowds. He did not answer every demand. He did not entrust Himself equally to everyone.

He loved without allowing human expectations to replace the Father’s direction.

I want to learn that kind of love.

Love that remains soft without becoming weak.

Love that can stay for a difficult conversation.

Love that can leave a destructive environment.

Love that forgives without surrendering wisdom.

Love that does not need to humiliate someone in order to establish a boundary.

I also want to learn how to rest.

Rest remains difficult when worth has become tied to productivity. I can always think of something else that needs to be completed, improved, written, organized, answered, or fixed.

There is always another person who could use encouragement.

There is always another responsibility waiting.

The work may be meaningful, but I am not the One holding the universe together.

Jesus remains Lord when I stop working.

He remains faithful when I sleep.

He is not waiting for me to complete enough tasks before deciding I deserve care.

Rest does not mean responsibility no longer matters. It means responsibility has limits.

I can do what belongs to today.

I can prepare carefully.

I can serve faithfully.

I can make the call, finish the work, tell the truth, and show up for the person who depends on me.

Then I must release what was never mine to control.

I cannot guarantee every outcome.

I cannot force someone to understand.

I cannot prevent every loss.

I cannot make tomorrow safe by worrying about it long enough tonight.

Jesus loves me enough to let me be human.

That means I can become tired.

I can need help.

I can admit that something hurts.

I can seek counseling, medical care, friendship, prayer, rest, or practical support without treating those needs as evidence that my faith has failed.

Grace is not opposed to help.

Grace often arrives through it.

A meal.

A conversation.

A doctor.

A counselor.

A person who remembers to ask again after everyone else assumes the difficult season has ended.

Jesus does not always care for us through dramatic miracles. Sometimes He prepares breakfast beside a lake for disciples who worked all night and caught nothing.

I love that image.

The risen Christ had defeated death, yet He still noticed that His friends were tired and hungry.

The spiritual and ordinary were not separated.

Neither are they in my life.

Jesus is present in prayer, but He is also present in the decision to apologize.

He is present in worship, but He is also present when I lower my voice during an argument.

He is present when I read Scripture, but He is also present when I put down my phone and listen to the person in front of me.

The ordinary life is where His love becomes a way of living.

I will not do this perfectly.

I will sometimes react before remembering what grace has taught me. I will become defensive, impatient, afraid, or overly controlling.

When that happens, I do not need to turn one failure into a verdict over my entire life.

I can return.

I can confess.

I can repair what I damaged.

I can ask for help.

Then I can continue.

The Christian life is not the story of flawless people who never wander. It is the story of people repeatedly returning to a faithful Savior.

Jesus loves me before the return, through the return, and after the return.

His love does not tell me that wandering is harmless.

It reminds me that wandering does not have to become home.

Perhaps that is what you need to hear too.

You may have been living like someone who must earn every place you occupy.

You may be carrying shame Jesus is asking you to confess rather than continue punishing yourself with.

You may be holding a person or outcome so tightly that control has replaced trust.

You may be exhausted from trying to remain useful enough to deserve love.

You can release the performance.

Jesus already knows you.

He knows what needs forgiveness.

He knows what needs healing.

He knows what needs to change and what burden you were never meant to carry.

Come honestly.

You do not need impressive words.

You can simply say, “Jesus, I want to believe Your love includes me.”

That is enough for an honest beginning.

His love is not a reward waiting at the end of your transformation.

It is the place from which transformation begins.

Your friend,

Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s faith-based videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

July 23, 2026

Sober Days are Better with you

Me: Three months ago I quit drinking. Remember that party we went to in Valdez? Six IPAs, two grams of mushrooms, and three shots. Wow.

Other Me: How could I forget? We woke up feeling like absolute hell, but inside, that was the exact moment something snapped. Looking back at it now, that was the peak of the madness before we finally pulled the plug. Three months clean... man, we really did that.

Me: Yeah, but we spent four years drinking almost every day. Why?

Other Me: Because back then, it was our buffer. It was how we survived the noise, the uncertainty, and the stuff we weren't ready to face yet. We thought we needed it to numb out or feel something different, until we finally realized we don't need a buffer anymore. We just want to be fully present for our life.

Me: It's easy to drink. You come home after working 12 hours, you just got divorced, and why not just have zero mental challenge by drinking? In the end it makes you tired and you just wanna go to sleep. But sleep is shitty and the next day is just ok.

Other Me: Exactly. It was the easy button. Work 12 hours, brain fried, heart heavy from the divorce, a couple of drinks felt like an instant off-switch. But like you said, it was a fake rest. We woke up with low-grade anxiety, brain fog, and just enough energy to stumble through the next day and repeat the loop. We were trading tomorrow’s peace just to numb out tonight. But look at us now. We’re actually doing the heavy lifting instead of taking the cheap way out, and waking up with a clear mind is worth every single hard evening.

Me: I like you now. I am actually in love with you.

Other Me: I love you too. Seriously. After everything we've walked through, the long days, the heartbreak, the foggy mornings, it feels so damn good to finally be on the same team. We stopped running from ourselves, and honestly? This version of us is the absolute best one yet.

It’s late again. i should probably be asleep, i function perfectly during the day. but at night, its like im applying for a degree in overthinking. and thats exhusting. work isnt the problem. it never has been, when the time comes, ill do what i always do. thats the easiest part, whats difficult is everything that comes before it. i even packed my wrist restraints. different country, same habit. i was hoping i’d forget them. instead, they were one of the first things i unpacked. thats comforting. in the worst possible way. i also brought a new perfume today. Five different people told me, “hey, you smell nice.” Five. i dont know what possessed them to start conversations with a stranger, but i escaped every single one. i havent decided if ill keep wearing it. it smells good, but apparently it attracts human interaction, which feels like a manufacturing defect. theres this new strange thing about me that ive noticed I don’t particularly like it. for years, i never cared whether i came back, the work was the enjoyable part. everything around it was just logistics. if someday things went wrong.. well, thats how games end. you either walk away or you dont. simple as that. now it isnt that simple as you can see. theres someone waiting in the future, talking about marriage, talking about one day, talking as if i’ll automatically be there to hear it. and for the first time, i catch myself wondering.. will i come back? its an irritating question. i never asked before, i never needed the answer before. now it follows me around like an unpaid intern. i dont even know if she’ll still be there by then, but i wont doubt her. I don’t know, maybe she’ll realize she deserves someone whose future isn’t a coin toss. maybe she already realized that. i wouldnt blame her either way.

I just hate that she managed to change the only rule i never questioned. i used to think the only thing worth worrying about was doing the job well, now i find myself worrying about making it home afterward. honestly, i liked myself better when i was less emotionally inconvenienced. Love is an expensive habit. unfortunately, i seem to be addicted. Because after all the anger, all the complaints, all the excuses.. its still her, and i hate that. but i adore her more, so ill wait. ill complain, obviously. but ill wait.

Sincerely, Someone who was supposed to be heartless.

I just wanted to say I saw the news of John C. Dvorak passing yesterday. I hadn't heard much from him in years and often assumed he had retired. I was first introduced to him by watching Leo LaPorte and TechTV back in the day.

I remember being introduced to Google Voice when Mr. Dvorak and Leo talked about it on a show. I can't recall the exact show or episode, but Mr. Dvorak talked about how he and his son used it to save on phone costs. If I remember correctly, it helped with long-distance charges, though I'm not certain. I also remember reading the articles he wrote for PC Magazine.

What I didn't know until he passed was that he came from a semi-famous family, the inventor of the Dvorak Keyboard (never used one).

It's getting to the point where some of the pioneers from the internet era are starting to pass, and that's a sad reality. I knew of John C. Dvorak more than Om Malik, even though Mr. Malik and I were closer in age. These losses feel like the end of a chapter.

Praying for his family to have strength and resolve.

#personal #technology