The Ruling Faculty

The Ruling Faculty

Posted on by jabittan
Marcus Aurelius placed his ruling faculty, or the conscious and rational ability of his brain above all else in his life.  He focused on maximizing his rational ability and strove to bring a sense of awareness and intentionality to all aspects of his conscious being. To him, recognizing the power and control that he held over his rational brain meant that he had the ability to shape his life by changing his opinions, ideas, perspectives, and thoughts of the world around him.  In Meditations he wrote about how one could recognize and take charge of their conscious and how one could view the world from greater perspectives.  Aurelius wrote, “What is my ruling faculty now to me? And of what nature am I now Making it? And for what purpose am I now using it? Is it void of understanding?” By framing his conscious decision making ability in this way he was able to put power for his life and his actions into his own hands, or rather into his own rational brain. He looked at the world and saw himself as the primary actor driving the decisions and actions of his life.

 

This quote is valuable to me because I often feel as though my life is being driven and pulled in multiple directions without my consent or ability to shift and change course.  In our busy worlds of 40 hour work weeks, we may often begin to feel as though our routine is set with external forces determining what decisions we make and how we realize those actions.  Throughout Meditations Aurelius writes about the importance of being aware of our actions and retaining control over our rational brain, but in the quote above he shows us exactly how he practiced developing a rational brain.

 

Simply asking ourselves questions and focusing on ourselves wont create the lives we want to lead, but if we can build Aurelius’ questions into every fabric of our being, then we can begin to morph our lives into something greater.  Recognizing that we have the ability to be rational beings and that we have the ability to control our lives through the thoughts and perspective we adopt, will help us to build powerful habits that allow us to constantly grow.  The self-awareness that stems from the constant questioning of how we are applying the rational faculties of our mind will slowly allow us to ensure that we are always making decisions for reasons that are deliberately judged and not based in impulsivity.

Turning Words to Action

Posted on by jabittan
In Meditations, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius shares his thoughts on how to live a meaningful and purposeful life.  The book is his collection of self-reflections on not just how to succeed in life, but how to take advantage of the time we have on this planet, and how to live a life that lets us feel complete.  One of the themes in his book is connecting our beliefs, thoughts, and words with our actions. He encourages us to reflect on our lives and be aware of the ways we think that we and others should behave. If we can be honest with ourselves and recognize wether or not we are truly living up to those standards then we can always ensure that our actions align with our beliefs and that we are moving in the right direction for the right reason.

 

In a short segment in Meditations, Aurelius writes, “No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.” To follow through on this advice requires self-reflection and self-awareness to measure our actions against the ideas we have for how  we should live.  Recognizing the areas where we do not act in accordance with our beliefs is not difficult, and we will have no shortage of excuses for why we do not act the way we know we should.  Once we can understand the excuses  and accept our own shortfalls we can begin to enact Aurelius’ advice, and we begin to see that our lives become more fulfilling as we live with a greater intent. Rather than wishing for our lives to be different, we can recognize the changes we want to see, enact them, and putt power and control over our lives back on within our own hands.

 

When we spend time focusing on what a good person should be without looking first inward at ourselves, we abandon hope of living our life with intention, and risk becoming increasingly judgmental of those around us. Cynicism builds in this situation, and we fail to take action to change the world in the direction we want. Instead, we see the negativity around us, assume ourselves to be a beacon of moral righteousness, and fail to improve our life or the lives of those around us.

 

We do not need to speak to others about what we all should expect from life, society, or ourselves, but our actions should define our expectations. When we fail to build our words and thoughts into our daily habits, others will take notice, and our words will become hollow, leaving us increasingly frustrated at our inability to advance and create the change we want to see or expect to see in ourselves and others.

Risk

Posted on by jabittan
Joel Achenbach explored what went wrong on the Deep Water Horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico the night it exploded and left an open gusher at the bottom of the ocean. He found that there was never one major mistake or any serious oversight that catastrophically caused the collapse of the system and the blow-out of the oil well.  What happened on the well was an accumulation of risky decisions, a failure to observe small and nonthreatening warning signs, and a cluster of poorly designed, or poorly integrated, back up systems. Everything played together to make it hard to determine the exact conditions on the sea floor, and mislead the people who had the power to stop operations. Each indicator of a potential problem on its own was insignificant, but taken together they lead to a total catastrophe.

 

“When doing something risky, remember that risk builds like plaque.” Achenbach wrote in his book, ‘Make sure that your back up plan is really in back and won’t get blown up out front along with your plan A.”

 

What Achenbach is encouraging us to do is to take the time to plan out our back up and understand how seriously our entire operations or systems could fail.  If we look for the best possible back up plans, and put in place real stop guards when the information we receive is potential damaging then we have a head start for preventing a disaster. The more we understand our warning signs the better we will be able to adjust and make decisions that minimize risk.

Bargains

Posted on by jabittan
In his book about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, author Joel Achenbach explains the steps that were taken by both BP and the United States Government to solve the problem of the broken well leaking oil thousands of feet below the surface.  Our government eventually established a think tank task force of the best scientific minds in the country to address the problem in part by viewing it from new and unique perspectives.  One of the scientists brought on board was Dr. Steven Chu from Stanford University, and Achenbach explains why he was such a good addition to the team by referencing a graduation speech from Dr. Chu that outlined the way he thought about interacting with others in  the world.

 

In his speech Chu said, “In your future life, cultivate a generous spirit. In all negotiations, don’t bargain for the last, little advantage. Leave the change on the table. In your collaborations, always remember that ‘credit’ is not a conserved quantity. In a successful collaboration, everybody gets ninety percent of the credit.”

 

I really enjoy what Dr. Chu states in his quote and I think our society would benefit from hearing his quote more often. Whether it is scientific discussion, presidential politics, business negotiations, or marriage, trying to win any negotiation and take 100% of the credit will cut out some of the people with interest and input in the discussion.  Trying to instead find the best path to move forward while presenting an honest and valid view of world will help all parties advance.  Dr. Chu was invaluable to the BP oil spill team of scientists because of the way he could help arbitrate discussions and ideas for shutting the well. He was quick thinking, witty, encouraging of discussion, and also had everyone’s best interest in mind.

 

What the BP oil spill crisis showed was that no one could take 100% of the blame for the disaster, and that no one could take 100% of the credit for its solution. When we narrow our view of the situation we start to look at the problem in a black and white view, and we instantly start to assign wholesale blame and complete credit to single actors. We are much better off if we learn from the mistakes and see the ways in which everyone shared in the decisions that lead to the disaster, but also recognize the ways in which everyones’ actions lead to a joint solution.

Crisis

Posted on by jabittan
In his book, A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, author Joel Achenbach explores the 2010 disaster of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  He examines the decisions that were made leading up to the night the well broke open, and how a solution to the worst oil spill in history was reached.  What he discovers in writing the book is importance of keeping our world’s experts engaged and connected when moments of disaster or crisis emerge. In regards to crisis management he wrote, “A good rule in a crisis is , at the point of attack, keep the professionals in charge. This is the battle cry of competency. Don’t let a crisis put you off your game. Don’t rush, don’t panic, don’t deviate from best practices.”

 

In the section I pulled this quote from, Achenbach is explaining the way that engineers with BP and scientists brought in by our government approached the broken well.  The experts for deepwater drilling continued their work in a practical and pragmatic way, with extra brain power and assistance piling on to try to find, research, and understand novel solutions to the problem.  From the outside, the world was going mad in a desperate frenzy to see the well shut off, but for those who must think about, manage, and design solutions for the problem, the top people were kept in charge and provided the resources necessary for a solution.

 

This approach to a crisis reminds me of stoic philosophy which calls for tranquility and clear thought in times that are challenging.  Reactionary behavior and frenzied emotions will pull us in many directions and encourage us to make hasty decisions based on half formed thoughts.  During a time of crisis and during our most challenging moments a clear and consistent thought process may seem maddeningly slow and tedious, but it will serve us better in the long run as we keep ourselves from making rash decisions with unknown consequences.

What is in Crude Oil?

Posted on by jabittan
When we think of crude oil we probably don’t think of much unless we are somehow connected to a science or oil career.  Our image of pumping oil from the ground or from the ocean floor probably involves some sort of pipe with black sludge flowing out of it.  What Joel Achenbach explains in his book A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea is that the oil, and the process of pumping that oil, is far more complex than what we imagine.  To help us understand what happened during the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, he spends time detailing what exactly comes out of the ground when pumping oil, and what must be sent back into the ground to replace what comes up.  We don’t just pull up oil as we drill, but we get gas, water, sand, and more, and the men and women working on the oil rigs must account for everything that comes through the pipe.

 

When it comes to the crude oil itself, Achenbach writes about what actually composes the sludge. “There is no single hydrocarbon molecule named “oil.” There is, however, benzene, toluene, m-Xylene, n-heptylbenzene, indene, indan, naphthalene, tetralin, biphenyl, acenaphthylene, flourene, pyrene, chrysene, benzopyrene, pentacene – these just being a partial list of typical aromatic hydrocarbons found in crude oil. There are also hydrocarbon cases: predominantly methane, but also ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, and heptane, and there are other gases mixed in with the hydrocarbons—gases that have more than just hydrogen sulfide, and helium. One also finds traces of phosphorus, iron, nickel, and vanadium.”

 

He details the contents of the crude oil to show that what we pump from the ground is incredibly varied, and hard to predict because of the wide array of compounds often contained.  When BP and scientists around the world raced to close the well in the Gulf of Mexico gushing oil into the ocean, they had to consider the nature of the oil.  Understanding what is in the substance helps us know how it will react to specific situations and how it will behave under different conditions. It also helped us to better understand what the oil would do when it diffused into the ocean.

 

I like the quote above about the oil because it serves to show how large of a disconnect exists in our world between insiders and outsiders when it comes to things like science, technology, and industry.  Achenbach’s book is full of examples of the complex process and nature of drilling for oil that the general population is not aware of.  I spend a lot of time consuming science podcast and blogs, but even then I have only a superficial understanding of any scientific field. Our experts know increasingly more about how our world operates, but that knowledge is increasingly hidden from the general public who is too busy, too stressed, and too preoccupied to learn and engage in scientific studies that use complex language and focus on seemingly obscure subjects. What we must demand as a population is better science communication to help us understand how our engineered world operates.  We must find time to focus on understanding at least part of the complex world around us, if for no reason other than to appreciate the work of science. It may never help me to know that there are so many varieties of contents in crude oil, but it may help me better understand the science that goes into refining oil, and it may help me accept the prices that I pay when I  fuel up my car.

The Gulf

Posted on by jabittan
Joel Achenbach explained the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in great detail in his book, A hole at the Bottom of the Sea. He explored what went wrong on the oil platform that exploded and what was done to seal the well at the bottom of the ocean.  Achenbach also explored why we have so much oil off the coast of the United States and Mexico in the Gulf and he wrote, “The gulf has always lacked the deepwater circulation of open ocean. Bad circulation means lots of anoxic layers, dead zones, places where there’s so little oxygen that organic matter doesn’t decay.  That’s great for the eventual creation of oil and gas fields.”

 

His quote is explaining the long history of the Gulf of Mexico and hinting at the dangers that lie in the future for the gulf.  We are currently doing a lot of damage to the gulf, and not just from our oil explorations. Every day we send large amounts of phosphorous and nitrogen into the gulf via the Mississippi river.  Run off from farms and farm communities all along the river lead to a high level of nutrients in the water of the Mississippi river. Our fertilizer intended for our farms and produce eventually washes into the river and all the way down past New Orlean’s into the Gulf of Mexico.  When the large amounts of nutrients reach the gulf we see massive algal and phytoplankton blooms that can be visible from space.  When the blooms die off after absorbing all the nutrients they fall as a giant mat to the bottom of the ocean where they are slowly decomposed in a process that is very oxygen intensive.  The process continues until the water has become depleted of free oxygen, meaning that shellfish, fish, marine mammals, and life in the affected areas of the gulf cannot exist.  Life is smothered by the algal blooms the way that a fire is smothered by a large blanket.  Oxygen is denied from the fire preventing it from continuing to burn, and oxygen is deprived from life inhibiting cellular metabolic functions.

 

This process in the past created situations where lots of carbon based life forms coagulated along the sea floor and became covered over by marine snow, dirt, and debris.  Millions of years after the blooms first appeared on the ocean they are miles and miles below the sea floor in the forms of various hydrocarbon molecules.  We have the ability through complex machinery to drill out the hydrocarbon shells of these million year old algal blooms, but our actions in the United States that feed into the gulf, and our actions in the gulf, put the region in a new type of danger.
Achenbach raises the question in his book of whether we should be pursuing oil in more remote and hard to reach places. We may have the technology, and we may develop the means to reach oil quickly and safely, but it is also possible that our actions and missteps along the way could be incredibly threatening to not just the survival of animals and ecosystems, but also to ourselves. Ultimately, the Gulf of Mexico is a complex ecosystem that we have come to dominate through new technology and ever advancing engineering. At a certain point it is worth recognizing the power we wield over the land, and asking ourselves if we should progress unchecked in our battle against nature to further develop the fuel for our relentless engineering and technological progress.

Saving the Country

Posted on by jabittan
In Joel Achenbach’s book, A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The race to Kill the BP Oil Gusher, we are presented with a reality that is very concerning about the designed, engineered, and increasingly complex world that we live in. Our systems today are so well connected and include so many different moving parts that it can be nearly impossible for any single individual to fully understand how everything functions together.  When one, or multiple, parts of a system fail it can have catastrophic and unpredictable results that challenge even those who built the system. Achenbach however, does not look at our world with fear because it is not just our systems that are increasingly interconnected, but also our smart people. Toward the beginning of his book he writes, “You never know when someone’s fantastically esoteric expertise may be called upon to help save the country.”

 

As our problems have become more complex we have developed higher education and research opportunities for individuals  to specialize in increasingly narrow fields. A common refrain heard on college campuses is that as one advances through multiple degrees they know more and more about less and less. Their focus shifts from a broad knowledge base to an increasingly narrow, specific, and complete understanding of a single subject. What this means is that we have many experts in single areas who understand the problems and science related to their field in truly profound ways.

 

When disasters arise and systems fail, which Achenbach believes may happen with increasing frequency in the future, we don’t simply need to rely on the on the ground and local experts, designers, and engineers who built the system that is failing.  Those who may be able to help save our system could be spread across the world and their fields may seem to distinct and far apart to be useful, but Achenbach believes that everyone can combine their individual expertise in novel ways to solve the most complex problems that arise.  As our research grows so do our social networks and our opportunities to combine research in new ways. We may not think that any single piece of research is too critical for our planet, but each scientific view that can be combined increases our perspective of a problem and increase the creativity which can be brought toward our solution.  In his book Achenbach shows the way that scientists from different fields were able to pool their knowledge and perspective to find a solution to a problem that threatened the entire Gulf of Mexico.

Activity Versus Passivity

Posted on by jabittan
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius believed that we existed on this planet to be active, creative, thoughtful, and engaged with the world around us.  At multiple points in his book Meditations he reminds us the value of action in our lives and the value of striving to work toward something.  Toward the end of his book brings up the idea directly stating, “Not in passivity, but in activity, lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity, but in activity.” In this short quote he is showing that on our own and without engaging the world our existence is a void. His thoughts in this quote can be better understood when looking at his view of the work we do (regardless of what that work is) which is summed up in a previous quote that I wrote about, “In the morning when though risest unwillingly, let this thought be present—I am rising to do the work of a human being. … Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed clothes and keep myself warm?—But this is more pleasant.—Dost thou exists then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? … and dost thou not make haste to do that which is according to thy nature?”

 

Combining the first quote from above with Aurelius’ outlook on work and human nature helps us see that he believes we are destined to be engaged social beings that strive to accomplish the work that is in front of us and asked of us.  We are not meant to simply keep our bed warm and to exist in isolation in our own comforts.  We may be unwilling to take action in our lives and may simply want to enjoy passivity, but we will not find our meaning in passive moments.  We can build ourselves up in a positive manner only through action, Aurelius explains, but our action also presents the option and chance for negativity.

 

Aurelius interestingly seems to favor the chance for us to be evil and to face danger and peril as opposed to being comfortable and disengaged from the world while passively lounging in our bed.  In his explanation we simply do not exist, neither in good terms not bad, when we don’t engage the world. We don’t have the ability to show the world our virtue if we don’t engage, but we also hide the parts that are evil. Keeping any part of ourselves to just ourselves and not the world, Aurelius would argue, is selfish and against human nature. In his view we should strive to fulfill ourselves as humans by action, even if that produces both positive and negative results. I think Aurelius would further develop the idea of our action leading to both good and bad by encouraging us to focus our thoughts and reflections back upon ourselves, so that we can understand whether we are using our talents in a positive way for ourselves and society, or if we are simply advancing ourselves at the expense of others.

The Consequence of Doing Wrong

Posted on by jabittan
Looking at good and bad actions in terms of self-reflection, Marcus Aurelius in his book Meditations provides us with a clear view of the good and bad acts that we do.  “He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly himself, because he makes himself bad.” In this simple quote Aurelius gives us a powerful reason not to do bad acts, and he reminds us why we must build honest self-reflection and practices of self-awareness in our lives.

When we do not take the time to honestly assess ourselves and evaluate our lives we allow ourselves to live in a world where we see ourselves as always correct and always acting in the most logical of ways. If we do reflect on how we behave and the decisions we make, it often does not take long to peel back the gilded surface and recognize our flaws.  We may tell ourselves that we are always nice people who treat others with respect and give them the benefit of the doubt, but just under our surface we may see that we yell at people on the highway, tailgate, or have particular driving habits that are meant to simply annoy someone around us.  A small dose of honest self-reflection can help us see these areas where our behaviors do not align with our self-talk and our beliefs about the people we are.

Aurelius’ quote takes the idea of self-reflection beyond the easy to find reflections of why we should be nice while driving on the freeway, and extends it to areas far beyond. He argues that we should strive to be cognizant of the negative aspects of our life so that we can change them. When we allow our shortcomings to exist, we allow ourselves to be bad people, or at least not the best version of ourselves.  Recognizing when we have an opportunity to do bad, and understanding how our bad actions are diminishing, even if they don’t harm others, can help us grow to be more aligned with the views that we hold or wish to hold about ourselves.