Sometimes Tracking Progress Can Ruin Things | Jonathan Pageau

The clips on this channel are selected and compiled by certain members of the Facebook Group (linked below) and not by Jonathan Pageau himself.

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[Trifacta]

You could say that Mental Health diagnosis are the perfect example, if you meet the “criteria” then you crystallize it into your life and feed into the label instead of allowing the possibility of fluidity to always be present in your life.

[peteroleary]

Not everything that can be counted matters. Not everything that matters can be counted.

[josephtravers]

Very good observation. As a musician, there is a sense that one can kill creativity by trying to label or over-analyze. Same is true of any type management. Creativity can be killed by micro-management. Nature abhors a vacuum - Aristotle.

[dmitrypetrouk]

I hope Jonathan will talk more about it, cause that seems like a widespread thing in our times

[ojophoyimbo]

For another example of measurement causing harm, see fetal heart rate monitoring. During a perfectly normal delivery, the pressures on a fetus - perhaps necessary for preparing the lungs to breathe air - can cause the fetal heart rate to decrease radically. But measuring this can cause people trained to medicalize a non-normal heart rate to panic into unnecessary intervention, which invariably increases fetal and maternal mortality. Certainly, the monitoring can help in some cases, but we can't easily or accurately say whether the monitoring provides a net benefit; it might do net harm. (Be wary of many flawed studies when reviewing the literature on this. Luckily, many reputable doctors and journal editorials point out these flaws.)

[leondbleondb]

"Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast"

[TheElkadeoWay]

Also related to the idea behind killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Trying to get in there and account for how the goose lays its golden eggs will actually just disrupt the goose and kill it.
It's a similar pattern to the work of a taxidermist trying to make an animal appear life-like. You may start with a genuine living animal, but in your desire to give it that life-like appearance forever you end up taking it about as far away from living as is possible.

[ByGraceThroughFaith]

Thank you for putting it that way. I feel the same way. It's like you turn the accounting of progress into this monster that makes you hate the actual job. Some other is needed tho, but the minimum amount necessary to accomplish the task, not more or you procrastinate with the tracking app when you should be working.

[Sokofeather]

I really want to hea more about this - Micromanagement and the Beast. I've heard Jonathan talk about it before and it was like a glimpse into something enormous that needs to be more fully illuminated

[vangoghsear]

This reminds me of something similar when writers/musicians/creative types will engage in too many interviews and release online content that spoils their work because so much becomes predictable. It makes their endeavours seem repetitive.

[ayeeniko]

To add to the construction metaphor, were you to enact this process, your men would undeniably use fewer screws because of the hassle of it all. They would form precepts like ‘two screws to attach the stud to the header, and one screw on either side of the fire blocking’. This would also not make for a very sturdy house if the project ever did finish.

[henrikibsen]

"You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table/
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done."

[johnnulf]

Our brains are kind of like computers. We have lots of storage in the subconscious but the data isn’t quickly accessible and manipulatable. We can load it into RAM, which is our conscious thought, but, to make it fit in such a small storage space, we must compress it into a rigid logical framework that is simple enough for us to operate. We lose a lot of detail upon doing so, and when we do it with something like ethics we end up with very inflexible and fallible systems of pursuing good that can easily become counterproductive, favoring legalism over the spirit of the law.

[DeonDonDotCom]

He said "Sometimes" many times Tracking things can be great.
Don't stop tracking your reps at the Gym! ;)

[Sprite]

I actually track reps, weights, rest times when I workout, makes me able to do a little bit better than last time and it motivates me.

[NikkiH]

In Luke 14:28 Christ tells believers to “… first sit down and count the cost…” so biblical counting is to do what Jesus would do. ❤️🙏🏼

[eeros]

I think you can destroy the essence and meaning of something by counting it.
Like if you constantly and meticulously count every cent to make sure you are even with friends when buying drinks and food etc., you mess with the reciprocity and generosity in it.
Or an anorexic counting calories of every meal destroys the meal as a whole while focusing only on some of its quantifiable aspects.

[Cyrus_II]

What about the counting in the book of numbers?

[KizaWittaker]

How does this work with the symbolism of the tabernacle and the temple, where there is a million tiny little details accounted for?

[gmjsimmons]

Having been a behaviorist in the 1970's, I've done all the behavior counting, I have ever wanted to do. Psychology used to be in the philosopy departments of universities but John B. Watson wanted it to be a measurable science. So we got behaviorism, a science that disconfirmed that humans actually had any cognitive capacity--despite the common sense understanding that we did. So it took about a hundred years for common sense to break through the science. But we can scientifically measure behaivor: so what.