So, I was particularly intrigued when I read “First Person Plural” by Paul Bloom

An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness becomes even trickier. Can one self bind” another self if the two want different things? Are you always better off when a Good Self wins? And should outsiders, such as employers and policy makers, get into the fray?

There are several concept in this articles that are interesting, offering many cues that can be useful for a team leader, a martketing responsible or simply a person that want to imprve the relation with himself and the others.

1) What we remember and what we experience can be different. Our working time can be less stressful than a sunday spent thinking about monday morning, and reaseraches evidences that people asked to randomly record their activity and mood each time they hear a beep were on average “happier” in working time than in vacation. Paul Bloom gives more evidence of this inconguence of memories.

Personally I believe that too ofter the working envioronment doesn’t allow to express all the different personalities of us as human being, and this is a huge loss of potential both for the indivual than for the organization.

Self and others acceptance, the incentive to express completely going sometimes outside the borders is a practice that should be encouraged especially a team level.

2) Absoulte coherence is not necessary a value.

The idea is that instead, within each brain, different selves are continually popping in and out of existence. They have different desires, and they fight for control—bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another.

” Walt Whitman gave us a pithier version: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Our different personalities may have different point of views, that can be experienced and understood  while these personalities are expressing themselves. Communication between our different selves, and the persistence of the stimulus in different occasion of our life make this internal dialogue easier allowing to express our inner wealth. On the other hand, a censure on opinion change can create barriers between our different point of views.

3) We can experience outside “real life”

After all, the most common leisure activity is not sex, eating, drinking, drug use, socializing, sports, or being with the ones we love. It is, by a long shot, participating in experiences we know are not real—reading novels, watching movies and TV, daydreaming, and so forth. Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life.

There is a great opportunity offered by Internet and especially by the virtual immersive environment as Second Life, Play Station Home and the constantly increasing virtual worlds: being an active player in a fiction environment.

The sociologist Sherry Turkle has found that people commonly create avatars so as to explore their options in a relatively safe environment.

By this perspective, the ideal virtual worlds is the one that allows to express inner-self potential and experiment situation that can be useful in day-by-day life.

Some interesting evidence can come from trends in virtual worlds creations. A useful map by KZero shows how VW for adults are mirror worlds and  the ones focused on socializing and content creation.

There is a debate on the effect of virtual worlds on behaviour and personality development. In a safe environment people can adopt unusual behaviours, personalities and way of interacting in a quasi-real, where experimenting different selves

The process of self-binding happens when one self can predict that it will later be dominated by another self, and it can act to block the crossing—an act that Thomas Schelling and the philosopher Jon Elster have explored in detail.  This is, for example, one of the process that can be overcomed in a virtual environment with (almost) no immediate consequence for real life.

Can it be a good opportunity? That depends by the virtual social environment: on how violence or abuse are judged and on the value schema that is created to drive participantrs to self-improvement. I have experienced by myself how healty relations created in virtual environment cah be traslated into real life. Balancing the 2 aspect is of course foundamental, but there are many evidence that Virtual worlds can enhance and increase our potential as individual and teams.

4) Self-binding can be a good strategy or a risk

Blooms goes deeper in the analysis of the long-term and short term self and in the implications of self-binding, increasingly used by the goverment to regulate peoples behaviour. While this latter is actually worring, self-binding can be a useful strategy when we want to overcome critical aspect of one of the our-selves.

Thinking yourself as a community of peers can help self-improvement, self-consciousness and relation with others, and in this meaning might be more useful to “convince” your different selves instead of binding…

In these sense, Bloom’s closing is a good hint:

The community of selves shouldn’t be a democracy, but it shouldn’t be a dictatorship, either.

Da perlopiù perfetti sconosciuti siamo stati in grado, in soli due fine settimana, di instaurare un rapporto di empatia che fa sì che quando siamo insieme i meccanismi di interazione siano fluidi e ciascuno metta in gioco i propri talenti, senza la paura di sbagliare ed essere giudicati che così spesso permea i contesti tradizionali. Ed ecco che, come per magia, si realizza una alchimia individuale e collettiva che valorizza il singolo e il gruppo, che diventa uno specchio che riflette e amplifica la scintilla di ognuno.

E’ incredibile quanto si possa imparare guardando gli altri come parti di sè: in ognuno qualcosa che mi appartiene, ciascuno contiene una immagine che recepisco amplificando la reazione che ho verso i miei stessi pregi e i miei difetti, che vedo rispecchiati.

Ringrazio Mattia per la riflessionee l’augurio che segue, che pubblico qui affinchè rimanga parte dei miei ricordi.

“Il prossimo autunno, quando vedrete le oche selvatiche puntare verso
Sud per l’inverno in formazione di volo a V, potrete riflettere su ciò
che la scienza ha scoperto riguardo al motivo per cui volano in quel
modo. Quando ciascun uccello sbatte le ali, crea una spinta verso
l’alto per l’uccello subito dietro. Volando in formazione a V, l’intero
stormo aumenta l’autonomia di volo di almeno il 71% rispetto a un
uccello che volasse da solo.
Coloro che condividono una direzione comune e hanno un senso di
comunità, arrivano dove vogliono andare più rapidamente e facilmente,
perché viaggiano sulla spinta dell’altro.
Quando un’oca si stacca dalla formazione, avverte improvvisamente la resistenza aerodinamica nel cercare di volare da sola, e rapidamente si rimette in formazione per sfruttare la potenza di sollevamento dell’oca davanti.
Se avremo lo stesso buonsenso di un’oca, rimarremo in formazione con coloro che procedono nella nostra stessa direzione.
Quando la prima oca si stanca, si sposta lateralmente e un’altra oca
prende il suo posto alla guida. E’ sensato fare a turno nei lavori
esigenti, che si tratti di persone o di oche in volo verso Sud. Le oche
gridano da dietro per incoraggiare quello davanti a mantenere la
velocità.
Quanti messaggi mandiamo gridando da dietro?
Infine (e questo è importante), quando un’oca si ammala o viene ferita
da un colpo di fucile ed esce dalla formazione, altre due oche escono
insieme a lei e la seguono giù per prestare aiuto e protezione.
Rimangono con l’oca caduta finché non è in grado di volare oppure finché muore.
E soltanto allora si lanciano per conto loro, oppure con un’altra formazione, per raggiungere di nuovo il loro gruppo.
Se avremo il buonsenso di un’oca, ci sosterremo a vicenda in questo modo.”

Il Carlo di cui si parla, che si è guadagnato il terzo posto sul podio dei più letti del mese, è Ancelotti…

Preso da un certo sconforto (con pensieri del tipo “ma dove stiamo andando a finire…”), ho guardato le notizie più lette di oggi. Con quello che sta succedendo in Israele come prima notizia del giorno da una settimana, immaginavo qualcosa di molto diverso da quello che ho trovato: