Justice

In the previous weeks, I have routinely asked myself the coming virtues were to better gauge my adherence to them leading to their specific weeks. I admit that the latter half of Franklin’s virtues are tricky to keep in mind for two reasons.

1. The first half of them provide noise to remember the remaining.
2. The definitions for the second half of the virtues were not as obvious or concrete for me.

Aristotle describes justice in a hierarchical fashion: general (or external) justice above all, special (internal) justice below and which is subdivided further into distributive justice (equity) and rectification justice (equality). General justice concerns the overall welfare, or well-being of people or persons as a whole while special justice of the concerns particular virtuous acts between people.

It’s a little confusing.

Moreover, I feel like I am a just individual, it is a particular trait that we discuss amongst managers at work regularly, though indirectly (1). But I don’t really have a consistent concept for it. It’s only fairly recently that I feel as if I’ve gotten a better grasp of it in light of numerous discussions online and with friends regarding race relations in America after Ferguson and GamerGate.

This image summarizes it well:

When one has more and that more detracts from another having any; that is injustice. Franklin was more concerned with this sort of equity than justice, I think. He desired to do no wrong to people nor deny them their due. In the practice of justice, one must understand the differences between people in each situation and do what is fair for it.

Equal is not always fair. The easiest example I have is work - my team has people tenured between 6 months and 17 years. It is not fair to assign work equally between them for a deadline. My longer-tenured people are faster, more efficient, and more knowledgable. They can get more done in a day compared to the less tenured people and, if the goal is to test everything properly before the deadline while keeping levels of effort consistent for all, assigning work numerically equally makes little sense. It would drive up the less tenured members time up, increase their stress much more, than the tenured folks and that would be unjust.

So, in light of that, being just requires a greater situational awareness. Justice doesn’t need to exist without other people. If one lives alone on an island, there’s little sense in divvying up resources as if others were depending on it (2).

1. Understand that equality is not necessarily justice.
2. Recognize the abilities and contributions of people to a given situation.
3. Act justly according to circumstance and try to help others understand.

This rules are a little vague but it’s hard to pin down a system for acting justly when justice depends heavily on the situation. At work, this is certainly something top of mind, especially as we head into a deadline, but I think the difficulty for me is applying this outside of work when I it harder to have all the details.

1. Most regularly, we discus justice as recognizing the contributions of our teams. When a person does something good, you must give them credit for it or be failing in your duties as a manager. The other side of that coin is recognizing poor performance and addressing it in a similar manner. It is unjust to recognize only the one or neither or recognize them inconsistently.↩︎

2. Unless you want to argue either that you should plan as if others may appear or also be stranded. Or divvying up resources in some capacity would extend their utility for you. The former is an artificial construct that requires other people before justice/injustice exists and the latter isn’t about justice as much as rationing for survival. It wouldn’t be unjust to eat all the food quickly, just stupid.↩︎

Work Analog

From Cal Newport via Patrick Rhone:

A computer is a portal to near endless distraction. Because we use these machines for so much of our efforts, the staccato rhythm of broken concentration they generate begins to feel natural — as if this is the necessary experience of work.
- Work Analog

This is the biggest reason I can’t work easily on my iPad - distractions (1) - even though I really enjoy writing on it. And, with the limited time I have to write, have been using Ulysses III in a dedicated space (2) on my Mac.

I am regularly looking for ways to use analog methods for idea tracking and creation and editing but continually turn to digital tools for expedience (3). I do, however, dedicate applications for certain parts of the process which helps with flow.

I find the idea of writing a book on paper a bizarre romantic ideal.

Editing a book on paper? An attainable romantic ideal.

1. And since I use scheduled Do Not Disturb settings on it, it’s hard to disable notifications ad hoc. I want a writing app that forces all notifications off.↩︎

2. Both a physical space in my morning routine - a chair as Newport uses - and in OS X. The latter I reserve only for Ulysses so when I’m there, my brain focuses. It helps with 1 above.↩︎

3. Excuses, sure.↩︎

Bounds for Sincerity

Bounds of Sincerity

When Franklin considered his own virtuous achievements in his autobiography, he only mentioned Order as particularly vexing,

“Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc., I found extreamly difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt…”

But I wonder if he had an unrecognized problem with sincerity. Franklin, held in the common wisdom as a lecherous man, was a flirt (1). The most famous of his flirtations was with Catherine Greene (nee Ray) which started in 1751 (2). Franklin played a sharp edge between fatherly and flirtation in almost all his letters. in his first, Franklin asks of Ray to “…preserve a cautious Conduct, and put no Confidance in Men. Be prudent, …for which End it is necessary to shun Men, and take care to guard against their Deceits.” In his second (3) letter to Ray in 1755 however, Franklin just… well….

”But since you promis’d to send me Kisses in that Wind, and I find you as good as your Word, ’tis to me the gayest Wind that blows, and gives me the best Spirits. I write this during a N. East Storm of Snow, the greatest we have had this Winter: Your Favours come mixd with the Snowy Fleeces which are pure as your Virgin Innocence, white as your lovely Bosom…” - Letter to Catherine Ray, March 4th, 1755

Quite the difference in tone and it impresses upon me curiosity over Franklin’s beliefs on sincerity. He states that sincerity in business is the best way to conduct as an honest and forthright engagement in business engenders trust and begets further business. One cannot exist in a society bereft of trust lest ill-intended men take advantage of the multitudes (4).

What I did not note before is that he relates sincerity to business with men specifically. And I tend to believe that Franklin, who made his life, fortune and fame with words, does not choose his words, even in personal correspondence, lightly. So, given the state of equality in colonial America and assuming we can agree that Franklin as purposeful in his words, this can mean a few things.
1. He uses the facile, and still frequently used, idiom for “men” to stand for people. 2. He believed that sincerity only mattered in business. 3. He really did just mean men.

I fear that “men” as synecdoche for society was less about men representing the whole but more than men were considered the whole itself. It may be idiomatic, and likely was in the 18th century too, I just think leaving out women was specifically intended.

That leaves the possibility that Franklin considered sincerity only useful or necessary to moral perfection in business and/or that sincerity was only to be applied to men. And I think both of these are true. Throughout his letters to both his wife and Ray, Franklin alternates from father to flirt to feint-less critic but rarely interacts with them in an equal way. It is as if he is presenting a role, or separate face, in his writings to women.

But, concurrent with this, Franklin did hold his wife in esteem as a business partner, “she proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavour’d to make each other happy.” Though these words are part of his autobiography, the beginning of which states,

“I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favourable.”

Ye who writes his own biography may correct your own faults.

Which, further, makes me wonder at sincerity in his whole biography.

Still, if is virtue had boundaries, that is his own choice. Personally, I have extended sincerity to all my interactions as best I could this week. There’s an interesting dilemma in sincerity as one relates to one’s self that I’v been attempting to unpack, maybe more on that later; but in short, this virtue has been the most impactful one in this project.

1. A well documented one at that. He wrote hundreds of letters over the years, many to young women he befriended and, a good set of those, tried to bed while still married to his wife. There is also no evidence that he ever hd an extramarital affairs even while surrounded by fawning French nobles.↩︎

2. Franklin was 45 and Ray was 20.↩︎

3. Published. The first letter was in 1751 then a gap of 4 years before this letter. Who knows what palpable prurience was lost in those years?↩︎

4. See oh-so-sly reference to modern politics in my introduction to Sincerity. ↩︎

Sincerity

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly (1).

Sincerity today is used more to mean “earnestness” rather than honesty with ones self or others. When describing interaction , we attribute sincerity to the strength of belief behind an individual’s speech - they really mean that, they are being authentic. Not necessarily honest, but a person is representing their feelings with appropriate emphasis.

Earnestness is an intensity that invokes an angle or intent - persuasion. It smacks of an attempt to make another believe you. Speaking in an earnest manner is not about what you believe but is about what you want others to believe (2). Earnestness is certainly useful, especially when trying to persuade people, but it is a more a tool than a way of being. One who is being earnest is not necessary one who is being honest

Earnestness is not necessarily truth or integrity.

I grew convinc’d that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life; and I form’d written resolutions, which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived.
- Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, chapter IX

Where are we when we can no longer trust other people to have integrity (3)? The root of sincerity is honesty. One who is sincere is being truthful and genuine in their approach to life. The sincere person says what they mean, follows their own directions, and understands their motivations for their thoughts.

1. Be honest in thought, speech, and deed.

I think Franklin touches on this in the second part of his description for sincerity: think innocently and justly. He’s saying that we should believe that others are being genuine too, that we must assume that a person is acting in accordance with their best interests. Where those best interests seem to interact negatively with ours, it is our duty to understand the justness of those actions.

2. Believe that people speak and act in their best interest.

If what a person is saying or doing seems un-thruthful or unjust, the sincere person will seek to understand rather than assume what they are interpreting a person’s motivations is truth. The reality is that we are not mind readers and we cannot know what a person is really thinking without asking. When presented with an action we do not understand, the sincere person seeks to understand first before forming conclusions.

3. Where speech or action seems unjust, seek to understand motivation including your own.

If we would just stop and ask people what they mean or why they’re doing something, interaction would be so much easier. Actions that appear unjust may be reasonable if you understand why a person is doing it. An action me be unjust until a person understands what effects it may have. People don’t have all the information in all situations and we cannot assume for omnipotence. Further, an act that provides a person some gain is not inherently unjust if it does not provide you with equal gain. Actions can be mutually, and unequally, beneficial without diminishing a person (4).

So. Sincerity is more complicated than straight honesty. It’s being honest with the belief that people are inherently good and who are not seeking to diminish you. In the event that it feels like some one is not being honest or is trying to harm you, it is integral to understand that motivation before drawing conclusions.

Sincerity is being honest while understanding people are human.

1. The qualification of “hurtful” deceit bugs me. The implication is that deceit that does not hurt a person is no problem suggests that honesty should have limits in application. Honesty is more important that situational utility. ↩︎

2. Modern politics are about earnestness more than sincerity. Sincerity loses races because politics isn’t about what you believe in as much as it is about a party’s platform. ↩︎

3. See 1 above. ↩︎

4. Equality is not justice nor do all things need to be equal when thy are unequal to begin with. ↩︎

Industry ’n Frugality and Checking in on all this Virtue

Industry and Frugality

Grids for Frugality and Industry. Fitting that both I remember to post the previous forgotten one in my week of “be always employ’d” but also that these two should go together.

The heart of Franklin’s beliefs on the goodness of a person lies at the crossing of Frugality and Industry. An industrious and frugal person can and shall have a free life.

“…For Industry pays Debts, while Despair encreaseth them, says Poor Richard. — What though you have found no Treasure, nor has any rich Relation left you a Legacy, Diligence is the Mother of Good-luck, as Poor Richard says, and God gives all Things to Industry.”

• Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth(1)

Debt corrals freedom. You can’t be your best person when you are beholden to others for all that you do.

Frugality

My week with Frugality was fine. I became much more aware of the frequency with which I spend money when I needn’t - I am a fan of tacos on nights I get home late. I use take out food as a mean’s to easier relaxation in an evening. A late night at work, a long gym session, bunch of errands or Bunny Rope tasks and the last thing I want to do is cook for an hour and immediately go to bed.

I’m stuck on the utility of that use case. Ultimately, it doesn’t really affect my budgeting. Alyska and I got our spending pretty well in order last year as we reviewed our budgets to better accommodate her health insurance needs. We don’t spend especially frivolously - between us we have the mortgage, my car loan (2), and maybe a few hundred dollars on credit cards that we pay off monthly (3).

Ultimately, I do not stress my spending habits too badly. We are careful with important purchases and save most of our money up front. That’s probably a different discussion but automating savings makes everything much easier to manage

“If you would be wealthy, says he, in another Almanack, think of Saving as well as of Getting: The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her Outgoes are greater than her Incomes. Away then with your expensive Follies, and you will not have so much Cause to complain of hard Times, heavy Taxes, and chargeable Families; for, as Poor Dick says,

Women and Wine, Game and Deceit,
Make the Wealth small, and the Wants great.

• Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth

Industry

I’ve never been one to work constantly - I have a very well understood threshold to overwork - and am generally good at relaxing when stressed. This week helped me recognize how much being engaged in a task can make that task refreshing.

I spend much time at work distracted lately. I am in a meeting not being in the meeting but either working on other things or at least thinking about them. And that’s not good for my productivity, utility, or sanity.

I think my mantra for the near future needs to be:

“Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.”

• Ron Swanson, Parks & Rec

Take the task before you and do it well, not while thinking about everything else. My week on Industry helped me realize the virtue of doing things besides working too.

And this is going to sound silly…

Bunny Rope doesn’t feel like work when I’m doing it. Though it is a business and has responsibilities, I find many of the components of it refreshing. In the previous week while doing the last set of things for MTKF, I realized how satisfying it can be. I like the handwork and the solitude it provides. Scheduling a small set of tasks for it in the evening - like breaking a bunch of lengths, or tasseling hundreds of feet - is becoming fun. Like I’d almost rather do that on a Friday night.

Further, exercise keeps me engaged. Getting my body moving and my mind away from work makes managing all the things that much easier.

Writing that it feels like a No Brainer. Research abounds about the mental benefits of exercise (4) but I feel like I finally noticed how that contributes to focus on tasks.

Virtue

The question I am asking myself now that I’m half way through this phase of the project: Am I a better person for it?

When I am sticking to the virtues, yes. I feel happier, less stressed, more in control, and better engaged in all the things I do.

When I am not sticking to the virtues, no. And the delta between the two is growing larger.

That is, when everything is off the rails, I feel crappy but it isn’t much different than it used to be. But, when I am sticking to the virtues, I feel happier than before.

And that’s certainly interesting (5).

1. Written as Richard Saunders in the introduction to the 1758 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack. ↩︎

2. I’m actually paying that off a year early later this week because we have good control of our outgoes. ↩︎

3. I will admit I did incur some credit card debt in January because of some unexpected expenses but that will be gone by the end of this month. ↩︎

4. • http://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/Abstract/2005/03000/Exerciseandwellbeingareviewofmental_and.13.aspx
   • http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2004.00751.x/abstract;jsessionid=F78F6D53CAF4D63E49C486DB82BF82BF.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
   • http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00702-008-0092-x#page-1
   • http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1992.74.1.79?journalCode=pms
   This was what I found in a very brief search of Google Scholar. ↩︎

5. It also seems like it shouldn’t be this complicated. Being mindful of 13 virtues is hard and I am still not convinced I’m tracking transgressions against them as well as I could or should be. ↩︎

Industry ’n Frugality and Checking in on all this Virtue

Industry and Frugality

Grids for Frugality and Industry. Fitting that both I remember to post the previous forgotten one in my week of “be always employ’d” but also that these two should go together.

The heart of Franklin’s beliefs on the goodness of a person lies at the crossing of Frugality and Industry. An industrious and frugal person can and shall have a free life.

“…For Industry pays Debts, while Despair encreaseth them, says Poor Richard. — What though you have found no Treasure, nor has any rich Relation left you a Legacy, Diligence is the Mother of Good-luck, as Poor Richard says, and God gives all Things to Industry.”

• Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth(1)

Debt corrals freedom. You can’t be your best person when you are beholden to others for all that you do.

Frugality

My week with Frugality was fine. I became much more aware of the frequency with which I spend money when I needn’t - I am a fan of tacos on nights I get home late. I use take out food as a mean’s to easier relaxation in an evening. A late night at work, a long gym session, bunch of errands or Bunny Rope tasks and the last thing I want to do is cook for an hour and immediately go to bed.

I’m stuck on the utility of that use case. Ultimately, it doesn’t really affect my budgeting. Alyska and I got our spending pretty well in order last year as we reviewed our budgets to better accommodate her health insurance needs. We don’t spend especially frivolously - between us we have the mortgage, my car loan (2), and maybe a few hundred dollars on credit cards that we pay off monthly (3).

Ultimately, I do not stress my spending habits too badly. We are careful with important purchases and save most of our money up front. That’s probably a different discussion but automating savings makes everything much easier to manage

“If you would be wealthy, says he, in another Almanack, think of Saving as well as of Getting: The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her Outgoes are greater than her Incomes. Away then with your expensive Follies, and you will not have so much Cause to complain of hard Times, heavy Taxes, and chargeable Families; for, as Poor Dick says,

Women and Wine, Game and Deceit,
Make the Wealth small, and the Wants great.

• Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth

Industry

I’ve never been one to work constantly - I have a very well understood threshold to overwork - and am generally good at relaxing when stressed. This week helped me recognize how much being engaged in a task can make that task refreshing.

I spend much time at work distracted lately. I am in a meeting not being in the meeting but either working on other things or at least thinking about them. And that’s not good for my productivity, utility, or sanity.

I think my mantra for the near future needs to be:

“Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.”

• Ron Swanson, Parks & Rec

Take the task before you and do it well, not while thinking about everything else. My week on Industry helped me realize the virtue of doing things besides working too.

And this is going to sound silly…

Bunny Rope doesn’t feel like work when I’m doing it. Though it is a business and has responsibilities, I find many of the components of it refreshing. In the previous week while doing the last set of things for MTKF, I realized how satisfying it can be. I like the handwork and the solitude it provides. Scheduling a small set of tasks for it in the evening - like breaking a bunch of lengths, or tasseling hundreds of feet - is becoming fun. Like I’d almost rather do that on a Friday night.

Further, exercise keeps me engaged. Getting my body moving and my mind away from work makes managing all the things that much easier.

Writing that it feels like a No Brainer. Research abounds about the mental benefits of exercise (4) but I feel like I finally noticed how that contributes to focus on tasks.

Virtue

The question I am asking myself now that I’m half way through this phase of the project: Am I a better person for it?

When I am sticking to the virtues, yes. I feel happier, less stressed, more in control, and better engaged in all the things I do.

When I am not sticking to the virtues, no. And the delta between the two is growing larger.

That is, when everything is off the rails, I feel crappy but it isn’t much different than it used to be. But, when I am sticking to the virtues, I feel happier than before.

And that’s certainly interesting (5).

1. Written as Richard Saunders in the introduction to the 1758 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack. ↩︎

2. I’m actually paying that off a year early later this week because we have good control of our outgoes. ↩︎

3. I will admit I did incur some credit card debt in January because of some unexpected expenses but that will be gone by the end of this month. ↩︎

4. • http://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/Abstract/2005/03000/Exerciseandwellbeingareviewofmental_and.13.aspx
   • http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2004.00751.x/abstract;jsessionid=F78F6D53CAF4D63E49C486DB82BF82BF.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
   • http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00702-008-0092-x#page-1
   • http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1992.74.1.79?journalCode=pms
   This was what I found in a very brief search of Google Scholar. ↩︎

5. It also seems like it shouldn’t be this complicated. Being mindful of 13 virtues is hard and I am still not convinced I’m tracking transgressions against them as well as I could or should be. ↩︎