Human nature - isn't it weird?

Mum rang me yesterday morning. She was fed up with the golf club (a few years ago I didn't think that would ever be possible) but most of the conversation revolved around me. Mum made a comparison between me and my brother - he's more resourceful, more resilient, can handle "situations" more easily than me. He'll just "get out there and do things". Gah. "But it's not your fault that it's harder for you - that's just the way you're made." Right. As I see it, the difference is that my brother's "situations" are precisely that. They come and go. And he's got friends, connections, supports. My problems are a way of life (and the money thing just adds an extra layer).

As usual on a Saturday morning, there were some interesting programmes on the radio yesterday. One was about the rise of China. It was interesting talking to a Chinese woman at one of those meet-ups. She said that for centuries China had a collective culture, but in urban centres this culture has been overhauled by an each-man-for-himself culture that's (scarily) far stronger that we have in NZ. She was interesting to talk to; I later emailed her asking if we could catch up, but she ignored or deleted or didn't get my message or it went into her junk. Or something.

Later they interviewed Gary Greenberg, author of The Book of Woe, which talks about the DSM (the mental health manual if you like). It's fair to say he's not a fan of the DSM, which seems to be driven by big pharmaceutical companies. In the latest version Asperger's was controversially removed from the list of diagnoses, with all kinds of ramifications for people who had previously been diagnosed with the condition. Luckily for Kiwis we take less notice of the DSM than they do in America.

Yesterday was a bright sunny day and in the afternoon I sat on the freshly-mown bank of the Basin Reserve and read. A few others were doing the same. One bloke was practising his guitar. The groundsman was hammering in the advertising boards that had come down in the storm. I was attacked by a big bumblebee and didn't mind: it reminded me of when I was a kid - bees were more plentiful and life was simpler. (In China they don't just have bees; they have killer hornets.)

Work last week was tolerable. On Friday afternoon there was a scare as a suspicious white powder was found on the 18th floor. There were cops and people in orange hazmat suits. I was hoping we'd have to evacuate and could all go home. People get louder as the weekend approaches - Friday afternoon is the time I least enjoy being in the office.

My cousin's youngest boy has turned five and started school. Private school. The same place his older brothers go, although they just went to the local state school until they turned eight. I'm not convinced it's the right place for the little one. He's not academic like the other two. My cousin's husband said he never would have sent any of the boys to private school, not that he has anything against it, it just wouldn't have crossed his mind. There was a similar situation in my family. I went to a private school (public school as they illogically call it over there) from 11 to 16. I sat the entrance exam, the idea being that they'd only send me there if I got a scholarship. I passed the exam OK, but didn't get a scholarship, so that was that. But then Mum decided to stump up the money (she made all those kinds of decisions - paying for education would never have entered Dad's head), knowing that my brother sure as hell wouldn't pass the exam if he were to take it the following year. To me it felt like a giant waste of money. The school - which for so many parents was all about image - didn't do much for me.

I was thinking how much I'd like to get into psychology (although how could I study that at the moment?). It's something I've been interested in for years - far more so than goddamn life insurance. As Tracy has alluded to on occasions, if human nature isn't natural for you, and you have to learn it, you become an expert in it (it's a bit like when you learn a foreign language; you often end up knowing more about the structure and grammar of that language than your mother tongue). I don't think I'm an expert at all, but I do think my Aspie tendencies have helped my understanding of human nature. If it seems really bizarre that people happily pay a dollar more for the milk with the fancy label than the one without, even when they know both bottles have come from the same cows, you'll make a note of that. Or that if you can't remember last night, you must have had an amazing night. Or that you'll happily vote against something at a body corp meeting even though it doesn't improve your lot at all, it just makes someone else's lot a bit worse. The list goes on, and for me it's fascinating. (Occasionally I've been able to take advantage of other people's "weird" human nature, online poker being an example.)

In a few minutes I'll be going to Karori to play badminton.

I could do with a dose of Dunning-Kruger

After a pretty dire first half of the week I'm better again now. Last night only three of us attended the depression meet-up - two new faces and myself. One of the guys looked 25, wore a wedding ring and a thick black Krapmandu jacket, and promptly announced in his Aussie accent that he worked for Telecom. So I clearly had nothing in common with him at all. Except we got chatting and he turned out to be 34 and have rather similar experiences with depression and social anxiety as me. The other bloke was in his early fifties and his battle with depression wasn't too dissimilar to mine either.

I've almost finished Bad Science. It's all fascinating stuff, and it's presented in an entertaining and accessible way for people like me who aren't medical graduates. I find the Dunning-Kruger effect intriguing and very believable: basically it means incompetent people overestimate their abilities because they're too incompetent to recognise their incompetence! Competent people, according to Dunning and Kruger, tend to assess their level of proficiency more accurately. I think the reason why competent people estimate their level of competence more accurately is very simple: by and large people have quite high levels of self-confidence (I never cease to be amazed by just how self-confident some people appear to be). Most people tend to rate themselves as being above average at any given task (80% of people think they're above-average drivers) so those who actually are above average are justified in their assessment. I also reckon an element of "the more you know, the more you know you don't know" plays a part.

By the way, I'm one of the few who don't think their driving skill is above average. There a only a few things that I think I'm any good at, and those tend not to matter very much.

Work is going OK. I rate my level of competence in my job as average at best. I still despair at some of the letters we send out to our customers especially when we ask about medical conditions. Many of the letters are poorly written and show a distinct lack of sensitivity. However it's 2012 so nobody cares how you write as long as you get the message across, and in a large company it's best just to follow the process and not to ask questions.