Thoughts on Reading Business Model Generation and a Note on René Descartes

I recently re-read Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. The book is available on Amazon.com, and you can currently download the first chapter of the book here. The goal of the book is to provide a useful framework and set of techniques for developing new business models. Reading it this past weekend also led me to reflect on the relationship between innovation and systematic approaches to business. As I have reflected on before, large corporations are often torn between two extremes: on the one hand the best way to control risk, to manage a large corporation, and to form incremental improvements is through systematization. On the other hand, such systems tend to reaffirm the status quo, and thereby stifle genuine innovation.

Business Model Generation is an attempt to develop a system that can lead to more innovative business models, and thus bridge these two extremes. The system the book presents is outlined in the first chapter, and it involves separating a corporation or business into 9 key components: a value proposition, key activities, key resources, customer relationships, distribution channels, customer segments, key partners, cost structure, and revenue streams. The different components are arranged on a "canvas" in which the value proposition is front and center, and it is possible to chart flows between components. The "canvas" helps one visualize different business models.

But the real value of the book is that it begins to augment this framework with actual examples of innovative business models and explains the trade-offs of each, and when it outlines design techniques that can be used to create new ones. The examples come from a wide range of industries. One reads about the contrasting approaches of the Maerki Baumann and Pictet banking institutions, how Telco unbundled the components of its infrastructure in order to better align its capabilities, how Lulu changed the publishing model, how Lego experiments with user-generated content, and how Nintendo Wii re-imagined the video game model. Apple and Google both have their requisite due. Metro's publishing model is explored. Red Hat is used to introduce the fremium model and Skype and Amazon are discussed. P&G's R&D gets significant attention, as does the classic Gillette bait and hook. All of these business models are related to the canvas developed in the first chapter, and it produces a type of alignment that allows one to see each innovative model as a general type. The presentation of each  business model is entertaining and insightful.

After this rich list of examples, the book turns its attention to more in-depth discussion of some aspects of the design approach to business including brainstorming techniques, how to gain customer insights, the importance of storytelling, and ways of analyzing markets for strategy. All of these topics are covered in more depth in other books, and serious innovation designers may find them old-hat. However, as with the canvas developed earlier in the book, having all these techniques in one place, with quick efficient overviews can give even an experienced innovation designer a nice bird's eye view of the business model landscape.

When all of this is put together the team responsible for Business Model Generation has created an ideal way to get a quick overview of cutting-edge approaches to business design. I have actually used the book on several occasions now. It has helped me and a group of colleagues understand our own business much better than other techniques we have used. But the understanding is peculiar: I have found that although Business Model Generation is a useful read, the practical utility of the "canvas" presented in the beginning can be somewhat limited. The divisions that the 9 components of business force on a particular case can often be too restricting and feel unnatural. This effect oddly reminds me of David Trood's famous National Geographic photos in which David uses hundreds of photos to produce unified images. In both cases the resulting products end up giving you a general picture from which you can glean some insight, but one is struck by how much is lost in the resulting image. As in life we often learn more from differences than similarities.

The limitations of the framework reminded me of a philosophical work I studied in graduate school. René Descartes once set himself the task of providing a unified system for developing new ideas. He called it his Rules for the Direction of the Mind. At the time Descartes was already an accomplished mathematician and had solved several problems that had baffled mathematicians for centuries. He did this by developing new innovative techniques for solving problems, including imagining the line of a curve to be traced by a complicated mechanical machine. The results of such thought experiments were not immediately accepted by the mathematical community, but in a suitably translated version they became the basis for much of modern mathematics. (The best account of Descartes' mathematics is Henk Bos' Redefining Geometrical Exactness: Descartes' Transformation of the Early Modern Concept of Construction.) Having been extremely successful in mathematics, I assume Descartes thought it would be easy to develop a formal approach to creativity that could be applied in all instances. However, he soon abandoned his work, and left the book incomplete. Many theories have been offered for this, but I think it is very likely that he realized at a certain point that truly innovative solutions could not be codified or mechanized in such a formal manner. One has great difficulty formalizing the process of innovation.

Llull developed a random idea generation machine.

I bring up the case of Descartes, because I think a similar phenomenon occurs any time one discusses innovation. A creative process generally ceases to be innovative the moment it is codified and mechanized. Even a system designed to produce random results, such as that of Ramon Llull,  is rarely as effective as someone thinking creatively outside of the rules, whether it is through analogy, brainstorming, or applying an example from a very different domain. The best that one can do to capture this kind of innovative thinking is to review examples and develop rough techniques for thinking about problems.

To Business Model Generation's credit it is pleasantly situated between the extremes of random creative thinking and a mechanized and codified process that stifles innovation. It provides enough detail to stimulate thought, but does not attempt to develop it to the level of being a formalized and unresponsive framework. This means that the reader has a loose and flexible tool that she or he can use to think about their own businesses, and perhaps stumble on an insight that will lead to new, truly creative developments. But, it is important to understand that having a framework is only the beginning of the road to innovation.

P.S. I should add that one of the most fascinating aspects of the book is the innovative way in which it was written. You can find more on the book website here.

Montaigne and Lake Michigan

The holiday season is here, and I've decided to do something curious, to turn my blog into a book. No, I didn't land a contract from a big publisher, or come to think of my work so highly that I think everyone should read it. But then these have never been my aims in writing this blog. I admit that I've never been entirely clear about what my aim actually is. It's true that when I first started this blog I had all the usual reasons: I wanted to share my adventures with my extended friends and family, I wanted to explore my own thoughts, I wanted others to see the pictures I had taken. But at a certain point in this process you realize that there's a bit more to blogging than that. And no, I'm not necessarily referring to a latent prima donna complex, or some innate desire for quiet people to become extroverts. For me, the fact of the matter is that a blog is a form of media like no other. There's no other form of communication that so readily incorporates text, pictures, and sound, that is so conducive to interpersonal communication, and yet preserves the deeply personal nature of journal writing. It has very little precedent. Like the advent of printing, we're embarking on a brand new type of literary work.

Well, it occurs to me that although the format may be new, it's not entirely without precedent. For instance, the personal journal or diary definitely figures in its development. And yet, the transition from self-communication to communicating to the world is not insignificant. In fact, if I had to find a precedent for blogging, I'd probably instead point to a single work first published in 1580: Michel de Montaigne's Essais. Now Montaigne scholars may role in their graves at the suggestion, but there are many reasons to think of Montaigne as the first blogger.

Superficially, this can be defended from the standpoint of content. Probably no person had ever written for the public with the personal style and breadth of Montaigne until the advent of blogging. Not only did Montaigne write about philosophical topics, and interesting facts about education and social mores, but he also wrote about such uncouth subjects as indigestion and the best time to use the toilet. And one characteristic of bloggers - although perhaps not of this blogger - is the openness to such unusual themes. Further, the style of writing that Montaigne developed, mixing serious philosophical subjects with witty asides also finds many parallels among the more successful bloggers. Finally, the manner in which Montaigne approached his writing also draws many modern parallels. He claimed to have written down everything as it occurred to him, and he claimed never to have struck out a passage that had been sincerely written, even if that would reveal contradictions and errors in his own views. What Montaigne has thus given is a true picture of himself, and many of today's bloggers have similar aspirations.

But from a more philosophical standpoint, too, it seems that Montaigne dealt with many of the same philosophical puzzles that loom in the background of blogging life. For, most bloggers are caught in the same position that Montaigne was: writing deeply personal things, but recognizing that a larger impersonal audience would be reading those thoughts. Much of Montaigne's unique style seems to have developed from a mixture of these two conflicting forces: the force to be true to oneself, and the force to present this self to the world.

But perhaps this is not the best way to describe what's going on either in Montaigne or in a blog. For this way of speaking seems to suggest that we have a self that is independent of the world around us. But who we are is defined by that world. It's thus not the case that our personalities are so fixed. In fact, perhaps a better way of describing what's going on when we embark on a project like a blog is that we are fostering new aspects of our personalities, aspects that we may not have been aware of beforehand. Although I've gestured towards this fact in an early blog, perhaps it's worth going into this in a bit more detail again. I think it should be fairly obvious that we act differently around different people. Even if we're not aware of it, the ways that we respond to our father or mother are very different from the ways that we might respond to our auto-mechanic or boss. Each of these people stands in different relations to us, and who we are is in part how we respond to those different relationships. In each case there's some give-and-take, so to speak: the way we respond to those people determines the way that they respond to us, which in turn helps redefine the way we respond to them. And this obviously happens at the most individual level too. And there are many complexities. For instance, some people may always have bad interactions with their auto-mechanic, and the mood that this experience puts them in might cause these same people to act differently later to their husband or wife. Or we might meet someone who gives us a new way of looking at the world, and it might permeate all our relationships, such as when someone has the calling to become a priest or a monk. I mention this since I know a few people who have done this, and had to break up with their girlfriends as a consequence. There's a tough alteration.

I personally like this dynamic way of looking at ourselves. Maybe an analogy might be useful. It's as if each of us are cities being built in a particular place. Now there are limitations that nature imposes upon us, our underlying psychology, if you will. In the analogy we might think of this as the topography of the landscape. If there's a mountain in the middle of the city, we may build around it, we may try to tunnel through it, but we have to deal with it somehow. Similarly lakes will require bridges, and so on. We probably cannot alter some features of our psychology, but we can find ways of working through them, or overcoming them. And we each have individual limitations imposed upon us by the talents we have, or the peculiar set of natural abilities that we develop. In the analogy we might think of this as the limitations of our township, perhaps a lake or an impossible to pass mountain pass. If we now take this analogy as our basis, one way of looking at doing something new like writing a blog is that it is like building a new neighborhood in our city. Yes, it will be confined by our underlying psychology, it will have the same limitations that we have, and so on, but it is something new, and it has new challenges: new contracts have to be negotiated, new decisions and allocations need to be made. And although it may seem like a isolated appendage, the whole structure of the city may change in response to the addition: the traffic patterns may alter, some parts of the city may become neglected, other parts may suddenly seem very important.

So when Montaigne wrote his Essais, it wasn't just that he was merely presenting his preexisting self to the world. Rather he was developing a new self, a new facet of his personality, and it's this newly constructed self that he was showing to the world. In a similar manner, I think I am - and indeed all bloggers are - building a new self through this exercise. Of course, this isn't limited to blogging, almost any activity does this, but there are different decisions that have to be made when one blogs. For instance, there are parts of myself that I've chosen not to share with the world in this blog: for the most part I don't name people or discuss the many small problems and pleasures that I might experience from day to day. Perhaps someday I will be more open to this sort of thing, but at the moment it doesn't seem a natural part of this facet of my personality. If one is a psychological reductionist, you might explain the fact that I don't discuss things like when I use the toilet, or the moments when I might manifest a latent Oedipus complex, as so many attempts to misrepresent my true nature. That is, often in the psychological literature there is the thought that our underlying desires and emotions are our "true self" and so far as we try to appear different from this universalized set of features and relationships we are somehow not being true to ourselves. But this is to mistake the landscape for the city. It's true that the landscape will always be there, but it's only one part of who we are, and we don't even need to understand it as the most important part. To be "true to yourself" is to build a representation of who you are that you can accept and embrace.

And in the end, perhaps the most remarkable thing about Montaigne's writing is how rich and interesting a representation he made. He managed to leave behind something that tells a lot about who he was. A desire to leave been part of him behind was probably part of his motivation, as he alludes to explicitly in his "To the Reader." I suppose that ultimately I too share his desire to leave something of myself behind. And what could be more natural? This thought is at least as old as Aristotle, who claims that human beings have an innate desire to strive toward the immortality they cannot have as mortal beings. We either do this through sexual reproduction, a way of leaving an image of ourselves behind, or as I might add, by putting our words down on paper or some other medium. Actually, if you think of it, these two ways of striving towards immorality are not independent, but each relies on the other in a significant way: in order for our words to be read in the future we need future generations, and in order for these future generations to understand who we were we have to tell them. It occurs to me that one of the reasons why I know so little about the daily lives of my ancestors is that they lacked the second of these two components. They obtained one half of what it means to have human immortality, but unlike Montaigne's family, there was no means for them to tell me about themselves. How fortunate to have an ancestor like Montaigne!

Now that I think about it, perhaps it's possible that future generations will have to deal with the opposite difficulty from this dearth of information I'm describing. Perhaps with all the blogs, recordings, pictures, videos, and so on that we have today, future generations will have information overload, and the quest for them will be to find a way of piecing the pieces together, or they'll just throw their hands up in the air and choose to ignore us completely. But since so little remains from my ancestors, and I experience that as an unfortunate loss, I can certainly be excused for leaving a little bit more of myself behind. So, with this caveat, I don't feel guilty for any self-indulgence I have granted myself in writing this blog, or in turning it into a book through blurg.com for my family and friends, even if it's not as significant as the tome a lone Frenchman from the seventeenth century has left us. This blog is still a piece of who I am, and for this reason it seems important for me to leave it behind. And I still have one advantage over that Frenchman: I have photographs.

Well, after this set of thoughts, I should say that my intention is to end my book of recollections of 2006 with photographs, so my blogyear will end in this way as well. Living in my new apartment, with a fantastic view of the lake, I've been privy to some remarkable sights over the past few months. It's true that some friends have been able to share in some of these moments, but no one has been able to appreciate all the changes that I've seen, or the different images that have been conveyed by means of water, light, and sky. I think the most remarkable thing about my view is the fact that it changes so often. It's not just that no two sunrises are identical, or that the 2 PM today looks slightly different from the 2 PM yesterday. But these small differences are also parts of a much larger progressions that is always on parade before my windows. I hope that the accompanying photographs can convey some important parts of this parade.

But even though a picture is worth a thousand words, it's worth taking a few words to describe the variety that I take to be apparent in these photographs. For starters, since my apartment faces due east over the lake, the sunrises are absolutely spectacular, and I've even moved my bed near the windows so I never have to miss one. And I value the moonrises - perhaps because of their less common nature - even higher. And then there are odd moments in the day, such as the time when a low western sun happens to reflect off the adjacent building and casts my entire hallway in a deep yellow glow. And there are the changes of the season, from the summer when the lake is nearly covered with sailboats as far as you can see, to the autumn, when only a few boats venture out in the stiff breezes, to the winter when the lake is completely empty save for the occasional white crest of a wave. There was even a remarkable few days when the water must have been close to the air temperature, and swirls of mist raced across the surface of the water towards the rising sun. And then there are the changes that are the result of Chicago's variable weather patterns. For instance, on clear sunny days you can see as far as Michigan City. On other days low and repressive clouds remove the light of day, such as the afternoon when all the tornado sirens in downtown Chicago went off. Sometimes there has been a soft, light gossamer mist that covered all the tops of the nearby buildings, and which draped across the pier like a piece of fabric.Sometimes, when a storm is passing far out on the lake, you have an unobstructed view of the lightning and passing rains. And the moon at night is truly spectacular, especially when there are enough clouds to cast moving shadows down on the water. Although perhaps the most amazing view that I've seen is one morning when I didn't see anything.The fog was so thick everything was hidden: the lights on the pier, the building across the way, the boats, the lighthouse, everything. The only thing I could see that morning was a plain untextured whiteness. Anyway, you can look at the accompanying photographs if you would like to experience a little more of my view. They may not have been parts of who you are, but they can be now.

Hmm, that leads me to ponder another great advantage of sharing our lives with others: the ability to enrich their lives. This need not be seen as an altruistic process, since we gain advantages from it as well, but there are certainly altruistic components. Whether these altruistic components are accepted for what they are or whether they are seen is a sort of intellectual colonization project perhaps ultimately depends on the whims of chance.

And it is a whim of chance that led me to combine Montaigne and pictures of Lake Michigan in this final post of my 2005-2006 series. But after thinking through the line of reasoning above, perhaps it's a fortuitous combination, and perhaps it reveals something about the facet of my personality that I am building through this blog. Although the reasons why I say this may have to be deferred to another post, I'll leave that last observation for my reader to judge.

Happy holidays!

Chicago and the Thumbtack

One of the memories I recall often is a fairly ironic one. Before I went to graduate school, before I even went to college, sometime in high school I remember having a giant map of the United States and Canada on my bedroom wall. One day, in Muncus Agruncus fashion—"And on his desk were the maps and plans/For the next time he might find some time on his hands."—(a good children's book, if you ever have a chance to read it - as a young child I memorized it), I had some time on my hands and I decided to mark all the cities I had visited, and to figure out all the places in the United States I wanted to visit at some point in my life. Every city that fell in either of these two categories was marked with a thumbtack. New York was marked, as was Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, New Orleans, Vancouver, Montréal, Toronto, even Denver and Albuquerque were marked. I saw Los Angeles on the map, and experienced a little conflict. I don't feel a special bond to Los Angeles, and in fact, to this day I still haven't been there. The smog, the temperatures, the gangs, the lack of a downtown (Although apparently Gehry's working on that, see NYTimes April 25th): it just doesn't seem like a particularly satisfying place. I'm probably wrong about this, it probably has many redeeming characteristics, but I can't recall them off-hand. I suppose most of our media comes from there, and there's the film history, and those are interesting things. Anyway, I remember finally deciding that I should at least visit Los Angeles for a few days, to do touristy things like visit Hollywood and so on. So Los Angeles got a tack. And then I remember noticing that Chicago wasn't marked on the map. I felt at that moment that I didn't have a particular desire to ever visit Chicago. I had even less inclination to visit the place than Los Angeles. No second cities for me. I did have an uncle there, however, and he might be worth visiting. Holding the tack over the city, I finally decided that on some flights I'd probably have a stopover in Chicago anyway, so I might as well extend the stop-over by a few days and visit the place. So with a little rationalization, I managed to convince myself that I wasn't being irrational when I put that last tack on the map.

The irony is that I ended up going to graduate school in Chicago, and I've now lived in the city I never particularly wanted to visit for almost a decade. A whole third of my life! It's funny how fate sometimes can produce these twists. I have to say that when I first arrived in Chicago I didn't like the place. I arrived in the city after almost 30 hours on a bus (with a stopover in Tennessee), and two suitcases. One was full of clothes, the other was full of books - something that neither I, nor Ms. Wright, who was kind enough to help me move those suitcases through New York's subway system, are likely to forget. Despite the fact I had an uncle in Chicago, he couldn't meet me at the bus station, so I had to make my way over to the University of Chicago on my own. I arrived in the housing office (having finally been assigned an apartment two days before), got my key, and then went to my apartment in the city I didn't even want to visit. My first time ever in Chicago.

Although my first apartment wasn't great it had some pluses. For one thing it was located immediately adjacent to the Midway park, and so in the afternoon after class I could collapse on my sofa, with the windows wide open and listen to Louis Armstrong on the stereo while looking across a tree-lined corridor at the front facade of the U of C. That was nice. What wasn't nice was the fact that there were almost never any people on my block (the buildings below 60th were far more isolated back then), and the garage in back of the building was given the ominous title of "the garage where people get shot." Crime was a bit of a problem back then. The area was getting better at that point in time, but shootings were still routine. Well, for the shooters and the police I guess, certainly not for the victims. I remember getting a ride from a woman one night during that first winter, and she asked me how I liked Chicago. I said that I was getting tired of the gray cold winter days, and that I was looking forward to spring. She told me not too hope for spring, "People don't hang out on the streets in the wintertime," she said, "they only do that in the summer. So when the temperature rises, you are more likely to be shot. If you know what's good for you, don't wish for summer." She was speaking from a bit of authority because someone she knew, was actually shot dead on the Midway when he made the mistake of walking between two rival gangs. But, even though this was the case, I still think the routineness of things was perhaps a little too overstated even back then. Yes, there has always been crime in Hyde Park - the side effect of having a prestigious and wealthy school, and one of the more wealthy neighborhoods surrounded on all sides by extremely poor and struggling neighborhoods, but it's not as bad now as it was in the 80s/early 90s. Even so, when I had to cross the Midway at night I did choose my course quite deliberately. I'd walk along 59th until I saw a section of the park that had no people on it, and then in a quick dash I'd make for the shadows and disappear into the darkness before emerging on my street corner. With all the negative publicity, each midnight crossing felt a little like an adventure.

Needless to say all this talk about crime, getting shot, not wishing for summer, and the emptiness of my block did not make me feel especially warm about Chicago. I mean, I enjoyed my time here even in those years - I did have some great friends and I loved taking classes at the U of C - but I didn't have any inclination to stay in the city longer than I had to. This was further emphasized by my forays in the downtown region. Not knowing about the Northside, all my intuitions about the city were determined by the "Loop" area. And these were not good intuitions. For instance, I discovered that it was impossible to get a decent cup of coffee in the evening, since everything seemed to close at 6 PM. Even the Starbucks joints were unavailable after that time. The only people downtown were businessmen in suits and naive Midwestern tourists that had the annoying habit of always stopping suddenly and unpredictably on the sidewalk.

But, I have to admit that over the years Chicago has grown on me. Part of this is the result of changes in Chicago itself, the most striking change being the construction of Millennium Park, which I think has been one of the city's greatest successes. Now, it is not uncommon to see crowds of people downtown at 9 or 10 at night, dancing in the open air, or listening to music and so on - I mean, nothing compared to New York, but it's progress. There are also coffee shops open in the area, and there is always a wonderful green space to collapse and listen to free concerts by the CSO and other world-famous ensembles. There is nothing quite like collapsing on a lawn listening to Dvořák and looking around at the fabulous architecture, and even seeing a few stars. Even the tourist crowd seems to have become far more interesting and multi-national. I mean, there are still hordes of Midwesterners who stop suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, but now there are German and French - and I think that was Finnish? - people doing the same thing. I suppose we've always been an international city, but it is only recently that everyone has begun to congregate outside of the ethnic neighborhoods.

Besides these changes, part of my increased appreciation of Chicago comes from a recognition of how many great things the city has to offer. The first of these things is the lake. It's so wonderful to wake up in the morning, and to run along the shores of Lake Michigan. It just helps alleviate the sort of claustrophobic feeling I get in Chicago when I think about how far it's from the ocean. I suppose I have an unusual connection to the ocean. I grew up on a house immediately adjacent to Provincetown bay - it was a hotel that my parents ran - and the water after a full moon was literally six or seven feet from where I slept. Actually, as an aside, the house could be sort of frightening in a storm. When the waves hit the concrete embankment just outside my bedroom window, the spray would actually make it over the five stories of our building, and flood the street on the other side. My mother even remembers one Christmas when they almost abandoned the building because of a storm. This wasn't an irrational fear: about a decade before we moved in the water had flooded the entire first floor to a depth of three or four feet (there was a mark next to the front desk to indicate this).

Lake Michigan is not an ocean, and it won't give you that wonderful salty spray, and you're not likely to see whales going by. But it's also not a mere lake, not only because you can't see the other side, but also because it sort of has a very strong personality, complete with moods. Sometimes it appears to be the most wonderful happy blue, and beckons a day of pleasant sailing. Other days when it is more reflective, it seems clear and flat like a mirror. But it sometimes wears a quirky shade of neon green, or it becomes rough and gray. Or on a few occasions after some especially violent storms it is s tumultuous brown, and everyone knows not to mess with the lake on that day. All these effects are just changes in the lighting or the turning up of the bottom in a storm, and so on, but they do make the lake interesting, and the "mood" metaphor soon seems a rather good way of describing the changes in the lake. In the past few years, my appreciation for the lake has grown as I've discovered the joy of sailing on it. Yes, you can sail in other cities, but there is something rather incredible about leaving Grant Park harbor and being out in a beautiful expanse of water, and yet having a completely unobstructed view of the entire downtown. It can be a particularly inspiring view at night.

Another thing that Chicago has going for it is its city architecture. Emporis recently gave Chicago the distinction of having the fourth greatest skyline in the world based on the number of buildings with an index for the height of the buildings. It has only been exceeded by New York (number 3), Seoul (number 2) and Hong Kong (number 1). All of these cities have far more high-rises than Chicago, but what Chicago lacks in numbers it makes up with in quality. Yes, a lot of cookie-cutter skyscrapers have gone up in recent years, but buildings like the Hancock Tower, the Sears Tower, the AON center (my favorite skyscraper in the world from its exterior), the Monadnock building, some of the finest examples of van der Rohe architecture in the world, Koolhaus buildings, dozens or Frank Lloyd Wright structures, and perhaps even a Santiago building in the near future give Chicago a distinctive look.

And then there are the wonderful public spaces. Like the parks along the river: unlike cities such as New York that are actual ports, Chicago's lakefront is entirely devoted to recreation. Chicago has miles and miles of parks along the water, including basically a single waterside park running 16 miles from the south side up to Evanston. In addition, there is Millennium Park, Grant Park, various smaller parks spread out throughout the city, and the old Meigs field that is being turned into a park with grounds set aside for migrating birds. And with two firework shows every week during the summer, bike paths, free concerts, free outdoor movies, music festivals, and so on, Chicago is a wonderful place to be during the summer, and few cities can rival it.

So, now after spending almost a decade in this city I didn't even want to put a thumbtack into, I can say that I actually like the place. This is not to say that I still don't have complaints. In particular the dating scene sucks compared to New York - well, at least for the sort of people I'm attracted to. It's also so difficult to do things late at night. Yes, there are places on the Northside one can go to, but in New York you can almost always count on being able to get a wonderful pizza or sandwich delivered from one of the pizza joints, or from the all-night delis: concepts that seem to be almost completely lacking in the 9-5 culture of Chicago. And that really is the culture here. I mean, I've recently been doing work downtown, and have been a part of the morning rush, and it really is incredible. It reminds me a little of what New York was like during the subway strike. But then at 5 PM everyone disappears.

It occurs to me that I also live quite a distance from downtown Chicago. I live in Hyde Park, which although it's a great neighborhood (modulo the comments above), it's still about eight miles from the Loop. I often wonder how much more enjoyable Chicago would be if I actually lived in the heart of the city? Actually, I'm seriously considering moving downtown this summer. I suppose part of it is that I just need a change. Eight years in a Ph.D. program begins to wear one down a little. But part of it is also the fact that I think I'm getting a rather poor deal with my apartment. Although $800.00 a month is far cheaper than the $1200.00 is costs to live downtown, the difference in locale might be worth the difference in price. Actually, in my apartment hunting so far, I've learned that $1200.00 is sort of a magic number in Chicago. That is, if you want to live downtown that's what it costs to get a studio or a one bedroom. And it doesn't matter where the studio is. If it's in an old building that's falling apart with no amenities, and minimal services, it's $1200.00. If you want a studio in a swanky apartment building with swimming pools, saunas, air conditioning and heat, wireless internet, free cable and a balcony, it's $1200.00. I take this to be a sign of a young housing market. For the fact is that Chicago has seen lots of construction over the past few years, and barring any dramatic bursting bubble this will continue in the future. In one year I think something like 14 high-rise apartment buildings were built, and I'm talking about 40 story buildings - and the buildings keep coming up at a maddening pace. But I also note that things are getting a lot more expensive from month to month. It may be that the magic number will have gone up to $1300 in a month or so. Anyway, I have narrowed my decision to move down to two buildings, and am just waiting for an opening. So, hey, if any of you all want to visit Chicago again in the near future, you might want to wait until I find myself a new pad right in the heart of it all!

Yes, I have complaints about Chicago, but on those days when the sun is bright in the sky, when a gentle breeze is blowing across the lake, and the sounds of a concert drift in from the distance, and you're reclining on a beautiful grassy space beneath trees and surrounded by freshly planted flowers, Chicago is pretty damn cool.

Of Dinner Parties and Dating

One of my favorite things to do is to host dinner parties. It's probably one of my favorite activities of all time - so much so that it is difficult for me to explain the extent of my enthusiasm for them. But to give you a clue, I often think that one of the best presents anyone could give me for a birthday or another gift-giving holiday would be the combination of an unlimited supply of groceries with forced manual labor in the kitchen. This is because I love to cook, and to spend a whole day in front of a stove preparing appetizers and entrées for people that I care about is complete bliss. Or another clue: when Babette Harsant wins a sizeable lottery in Babette's Feast (Babettes Gaestebud), and decides to spend all the money she won on a single extravagant meal, which she cooks almost entirely herself, I can't help but think, "Man, what a reasonable way to spend one's money!" Although I admit that if I won a $10,000,000.00 lottery, I wouldn't spend it all on food. But the only things that would stop me from dropping down the full check for groceries is my knowledge that (1) I don't find it enjoyable to cook for more than eight people without some assistance, and (2) a dinner party has to be the proper size, and although extravagance is permitted, it has to also be limited to the proper level for the occasion. I only do perfect dinner parties.

What is the proper level of extravagance? Well, it varies from party to party, but I'd guess that my average grocery bill would be about as much as it would cost to take the same amount of people out to eat at a nice restaurant instead, and some people can't understand why I go the hard route. "Why spend the whole day leaning over a stove when you could just go out to eat?" Well, the first response I have is that I love to cook, and until my fame enables me to walk into the kitchen of a restaurant and take over the operations of the place (I think Alain Ducasse has earned the right to do this), dinner parties have a distinct advantage for me. I suppose my love of cooking is rooted in my experience with my father, who was the chef at several restaurants, and so he spent most of his life cooking food. My mother did most of the cooking at the house, so I probably learned some inspiration from her as well. Further, I've worked on farms and handled fresh produce, I've been a dishwasher, a prep chef, a waiter, a caterer and even a sommelier at various restaurants, and so I've constantly had my love of cooking reinforced, especially as I learned new things at every job I worked at. I suppose my perfectionist tendencies also have had a role in my love of cooking. I am not a relentless perfectionist, but there is nothing I like more than tweaking a sauce to get just the right flavor to compliment the main dish, or to pick out the perfect wine to go with the appetizer, and so on. In short, I think of cooking as one of the fine arts, and don't consider it one step below painting, sculpture or music.

I also thrive on complexity when I cook, on the sorts of decisions that are usually left to the discretion of the kitchen in most restaurants. If I have a five person dinner party and someone can't digest gluten, another person is vegan, a third person doesn't eat pork, a forth person is allergic to peanuts, I think of it as so much more fun than a simple, "We'll eat anything you cook approach." Because under the former circumstances, I get to experiment and figure out things like the right proportion of corn meal, rice flour and baking powder to achieve the particular effect of wheat flour I require, or how to achieve the flavor of a rich beef stew with only mushrooms, seasoning, and wine. Anyway, for these reasons, it would be worth paying extra money to be able to cook the meal, so restaurants and dinner parties don't compare.

They also don't compare since the goals, and the teleology of both activities are so different. If you go to a restaurant, it may be that all the parties involved have the same goals in mind, but often they diverge. For instance, in a restaurant you might have the goal of lingering over the meal for the evening, but that isn't what your hosts are necessarily counting on. Their goal may well be to maximize the turnover of the tables, so the restaurant and the staff could make a decent profit that evening. Who wins this conflict? It's really up for grabs, and frequently your dinner will be down to two hours tops. But at my dinner parties, part of the goal is to keep people there having fun as long as possible. If the party starts at 7 PM, it should end around 1 or 2 in the morning. It is not unheard of for people to end up staying the night in my neighborhood in order to make it to the end of a dinner party. Of course, the goal isn't just to make the party last long, but to maximize it’s length in order to keep the conversation flowing, to keep everyone learning new things about food, music or their personalities, and to make the festival as memorable as possible.

Now, it takes a bit of skill to direct a dinner party to achieve these ends. You don't just have a pile of courses lined up in the other room and expect the party to work out. At each stage of the process the diners have different expectations, different goals, different ways to approach what they are doing. All these things have to be taken into account. Maybe it's worthwhile going through typical components one-by-one. Keep in mind that I don’t mean the following to be the way every dinner party should work out: it’s equally important to add variety and spice (as we shall see), but nonetheless, it is possible to discern a general framework that repeats itself often. This framework involves seven different components.

(1) Hors d'Oeuvres. When the party is beginning, it is inevitable that everyone arrives at a slightly different time. The quorum hasn't been assembled. Hence, I find my goal at the beginning of a meal is to provide sustenance for whoever is there, without depriving the people who aren't there of anything special. If there is wine, it shouldn't be the best of the selection. If there is food, it should not be filling enough to deprive people of their appetites, and it should also be of the nature to be consumed either over a long-period of time, or over a very short time, and there should be enough available so that late arrivals will still get a taste. Finally, since the chef is probably still cooking, the dishes should be self-sufficient requiring minimal specialty work to serve. It is convenient if it can all be prepared ahead of time.

(2) The appetizer. After everyone has sat down at the table, it’s time for me to make my first impression. And as the saying goes, you never have a second chance for a first impression. This is even more important for meals, since chances are that the first thing that is put down on the table will be the thing that people will remember most after the affair is over. Hence, it needs to be interesting, slightly surprising, and show a certain degree of cleverness that will make one’s guests feel curious about what will follow. I remember once having a dinner party in which one of my guests said that she absolutely did not like Brie, and wouldn't eat anything with it. Since she wasn't allergic to this particular cheese, I figured that it would be a worthwhile challenge to make her come to terms with Brie. Hence, I figured that her problems with the particular substance were its texture and tanginess. So I decided to produce Brie without these additions. I figured out that it was possible to whip up the Brie into a light mousse with some heavy cream, and thereby eliminate the features of the cheese she didn't like. Since whipped Brie needs a support, and preferably something with a slightly different texture, I served it on brittle crackers that I made from just sprinkling Parmesan cheese onto Silpat and baking it for ten minutes. The resulting dish had the lightness of mousse with the crustiness of hard crackers, and all without the tanginess and the strange texture Brie that is intermediate between cream and hard cheese. Of course she loved the dish and asked what it was. I was happy to announce that it was in fact Brie. For me, that was the perfect appetizer: it was light, challenging and interesting, and at the end of the evening it was one of the things that she, as well as other guests remembered most. All of this serves the purpose of the appetizer, to please the palate and to make everyone just want more.

(3) The pre-entree course. After the appetizer, it is customary to have some sort of pre-entrée course. Options include soup, salad, or a light entrée. The goal here is to take advantage of the increased expectation of what is to come next, and to provide something satisfying and slightly filling, while at the same time, not achieving the absolute creativity of the appetizer or the nearly absolute filling-ness of the main entree. Soup and salad are nice here, because they generally have reliable textures, and a certain straightforward appeal that contrasts nicely with the surprise and indirect manner of the appetizer. I have on occasion followed the Italian fashion and have served an entrée here, but one toned down slightly either in heartiness or size from the main course. Gnocchi is nice, as is a pasta dish, or a risotto. After the pre-entrée course, I like my audience to be slightly satisfied, and although not full, requiring a few moments to digest before the next meal comes. This gives me time to plate the main course. In short, the goal of the pre-entrée course is to keep people wanting more, while beginning to satisfy their long-term cravings.

(4) The main course. Unlike the earlier dishes, the main course should be filling and hearty. It should eliminate everyone's hunger, while still leaving just enough room for after courses and desert. Unlike the other dishes, it also should have several different components or textures so that diners can alternate between the pleasures of something crisp and something fluffy, or something difficult to cut and requiring minimal effort. At the end of the main course it is time to sit back and relax. It is here that group conversation flows the easiest. Conversations that began with small talk about the appetizers and food, that progressed to topics that were interesting during the pre-entree course, now should reach their fullness, before smaller groups at the table break off from the main conversation to talk amongst themselves. Wine should flow freely here (well, perhaps everywhere else too), and no one should feel rushed. Seconds should be available for those diners with more appetite, but there shouldn't be any felt obligation to eat more than you wish. In short, it’s important to give everyone what they want, and what is suitable for their particular bodies.

(5) The coaster. The little squares of pottery or cardboard that we put under our cups and glasses started out from far nobler stalk. The original coaster was a small silver dish that an object such as a wine decanter sat on. This item would "coast" around the edge of table like a coastal vessel might coast along the shore of a continent. The word "coast" also sounds relaxing, bringing to mind the thrill of coasting along a road on a bicycle and not having to peddle. I think that this is the right way to approach the immediate after-dinner item. This could be cheese and bread, or perhaps a salad, or some appetizer-like thing that guests can pick at. As the items make their rounds people have the chance to reflect on what they've eaten, and to begin to come together again as a group before the glory of the dessert. Perhaps a little more explanation is in order. During the main course people eat at their own rate, consuming the appropriate amount of food for their bodies and hunger. In the same way, conversations seem to break off into smaller groups as people pursue issues that have come up in the course of the night. You need to have some little something that can enable people to continue on their separate ways before the final pièce d'résistance lands on the table. Of course, it’s unnecessary to have food here: the last of the wine might be sufficient, as would a good bottle of sherry or brandy (the traditional coaster). Finally, at the end of the coaster, coffee and tea requests should be taken. In my house this is generally a rather elaborate affair since I serve everything from Turkish coffee and espresso, to over fifty different kinds of tea. Hence time has to be given in order that everyone can make the right decision. In short, the goal of the coaster is to keep things alive after the excitement of the meal has passed.

(6) Dessert. Now the group needs to come together before the pièce d'résistance: the dessert. The goal of a dessert is to be the icing on the cake, the one flavor that you want to be left lingering on everyone's pallets. Sweet and pleasing flavors are great, like chocolate, sweetened fruits, or creams and custards. This is the flavor that guests will have as they either go home or continue to talk and relax. I usually go for things that are impressive, overwhelming, and intoxicating. This could be everything from a five level Dacquoise to a simple box of chocolates. In short the goal of the dessert is to leave sweet flavors lingering in the mouth.

(7) Finally, there need to be provisions for everyone who wants to stay a couple more hours shooting the breeze. In one of my best dinner parties, this is the time everyone went out on the porch to drink sherry and enjoy the stars. Sometimes, a movie might come out here (or perhaps after the coaster), or some favorite pieces of music can be listened to with the sort of concentration that only comes from sitting with dark skies. Coffee and tea are convenient because when they run out, more can be made on demand. One of the great advantages of a successful dinner party is that you have a group of happy people to shoot the breeze with.

Of course, there are other things to keep in mind. I like to approach the whole evening with some sort of theme. For instance, one dinner party had a mushroom theme, and in almost every course there was just a little bit of mushroom prepared in a slightly different fashion. In the form of a tart for the appetizer, raw and dowsed with vinegar in the salad, and the gills of the portabellas were reduced in a liquid and strained to make the background pallet of the sauce for the homemade portabella and goat cheese ravioli. Although many of my guests may not have noticed it, the whole evening was an experiment in the various different ways a mushroom can be prepared. I think of these sorts of details as the things that really elevate a meal to an art form. Other nights I've used single spices to link the meal, such as curry or pepper, and on more than one occasion it has been garlic.

I suppose that one of the other neat features of a dinner is that it is ephemeral. It is enjoyed at the moment, but like the banners that Cristo flew in New York, they are only retained in people's memories.

Now, I should say that the inspiration for today's post came from two fronts: both from my interest in cooking, as well as my interest in dating. Here’s where the real fun starts. A few days ago I was spending some time trying to figure out what sort of restaurant to take my latest date. At first I did a few searches on the best restaurants in the area, but decided that it would have felt very awkward having a first date at some stuffy restaurant where you have to sit in a particular way and thereby increase the inherent awkwardness of the first meeting. So I needed to find a slightly more casual, relaxing sort of restaurant. I then began exploring restaurants in Chicago, and I admit I got carried away. Until this moment I suppose I never realized just how many terribly interesting restaurants I haven't been to in town. And the recipes and reviews of the restaurants were intoxicating. I finally narrowed it down to a few that I really wanted to try:

Le Lan - the new restaurant opened by Arun (One of my favorite chefs in Chicago whose Thai recipes are so good that not even Charlie Trotter messes with them when he uses them in his cookbooks) Anyway, this one of the restaurants I'm most curious about.

L'Etoile's emphasis on seasonal foods, prepared in a style that really brings out the inherent qualities of the ingredients.

Blackbird- one of the top 50 restaurants in the United States, but not quite as expensive or snooty as Trotter's or Everest.

North Pond - a really pretty little restaurant on the north side of Lincoln Park, which has the attraction of adding moonlit strolls to a satisfying meal. I have to say that if the reviews of the place are correct, the dinners there must be truly inspired, because the head chef combines things I would never consider combining! (e.g. venison can work well, but do you really need to add a chickory coffee reduction?)

At the end of the search I was ready to pick one of these places, and then I realized that in coming up with this list, I completely forgot about how important it is to pace a relationship, since just like dinners, it’s possible to take a relationship a little too fast or a little too slow. But it struck me that the analogy with a dinner went even further than this, and that I was about to make the mistake of replacing what should be an appetizer with a main course. Perhaps parallel to the seven stages of a dinner, there are the seven stages of a relationship? It seems to be a thought worth exploring. So let's give the analogy a try.

(1) The hors d'oeuvres. It occurs to me that the part analogous to the hors d'oeuvres are the initial moments of contact. These might be the telephone calls you need to have in order to set up the date, or perhaps a posted profile on an online dating site. It’s important to know that this is not dating in a proper sense, but rather the first few off moments that you and your date will share before meeting one another. Hence, these first conversations should be casual, and they have to fit comfortably into one another's schedules. You also don't want to reveal too much here, since you haven't even met the other person. She or he might be completely different than you imagine him or her to be, so it’s important not to be too invested in your ideal. But it's convenient if some aspects of the date can be prepared ahead of time.

(2) The appetizer. I think the analogue to the appetizer is the first few dates. Like the appetizer in a dinner this is your chance to make a first impression, and you (almost) never have a second chance to make a first impression. The whole goal is to make a lasting impression in the other person's mind, but to do it in the light-hearted, flirtatious manner. There also should be some surprise, but without too much commitment. Hence, unlike my initial inclination to go to one of the best restaurants in Chicago, I should have been aiming for something a little less: a particular restaurant that you like very much, and that you can depend upon for its food and atmosphere, and that maybe is a little quirky. I often go to first dates at the Fox & Obel in Chicago. The place consistently has very good food, but it’s presented in a rather causal light-hearted fashion. It's a café in a grocery store, after all: but the atmosphere is more like a restaurant. I suppose that in lieu of a first dinner, this might be the time to meet in a coffee or teashop. The goal is to play with those first few sentiments that each of you brings to the table. All of this serves the purpose of the appetizer stage of a relationship: to please the palate and to make everyone just want more.

(3) The pre-entrée course. Chances are that the first date or two was a little awkward. Ideally, you've gotten over that awkwardness and the two of you are off to wonderful things. Some physical contact would be nice here. I think that this is analogous to the substance component of a meal. Maybe I reveal my gender in saying this – I'm a man after all – but I hardly think that only one sex is interested in a little action here. The thing to keep in mind is that this isn’t all the substance of a relationship, or at least not all the substance of a good healthy relationship. Another aspect of the substance part of the atmosphere is meaningful interactions: you’ve got to go past the small talk. During the appetizer stage everything might have been confined to small talk about the restaurant, the location, how the two of you met, etc. But in order for a relationship to really work, the conversation has got to be more meaningful, and hopefully now that you're completely comfortable with the other person, this will be easy. Any question or issues that you think is significant or interesting in your own life can kick it up a notch. I suppose more important than what the questions are, are how they are approached. There’s got to be seriousness from time to time, the actual interchange of interesting and meaningful thought. All of this is substance. And what's more it’s at this stage, the substance stage, when the relationship seems to break free of the gimmicks that brought the couple together in the first place. No longer is it the fact that you're dating a lawyer, or a doctor, or that someone likes the Animaniacs, or that he’s just a gorgeous hunk. Now the relationship has to go beyond any particular features of you and yours. I once had a dinner party in which a guest was asked why he was dating the woman he happened to be dating, but who could not make the party. The expectation was that he'd rattle off her abilities, or features of her personality that he liked, or interests they share, all in some easy and digestible format. But he couldn't name any particular things, and was honestly tongue-tied. Many people thought that this was indicative of his lack of meaningful connection with this particular woman, but I took it to be a sign that they had reached a rather deep and meaningful stage in their relationship, and so it seemed to suggest to me the strength of their relationship rather than the weakness of it. For it was no longer the case that the meaningful parts of their relationship were determined by particular superficial features of their personalities, but it was something that transcended either of them in the strict sense of the term. This is substance. This is the first entrée. Part of the goal of the pre-entrée course is to keep people wanting more, while beginning to satisfy those long-term cravings.

(4) Main Course. So, there is already some substance, and with the main course this only grows. The couple has gone beyond the superficial he-can-do-this, she-can-do-that sort of mentality. Conversations have become deep, and perhaps the initial excitement of coming together has diffused into a background sense of contentment and belonging. But at this stage it occurs to me that the practical nature of the relationship begins to emerge even more forcibly. Chances are the couple is living together, or at least spending a lot of time at each other’s apartments. In addition to the romantic sides of their relationships, the practical nature of the relationship begins to come through. Love is now expressed in routine day-to-day activities ranging from the preparation of meals, to the cleaning of the toilet. Sure, there’s still interest and creativity, but these practical things have to be dealt with. Also, it's important for the couple to deliberately spend some time apart. Just like the conversation during the main course of a dinner begins to fragment but come back together, one's love relationship divides sometimes and comes together at others, but more on this in a moment. Things are more complicated during the main course, and the stakes are a little higher. A lot of people end up bailing at this point. Maybe they took things too fast and are satiated by the time the main course comes around. Or perhaps the flavors of the appetizer and first-entrée mix poorly? Perhaps there is another dinner party that looks like more fun? I suppose there are now restaurants that only serve appetizers, maybe some people think its better to stick with the small things. But even if the main course is a lot of work, it can keep two people afloat for years on end. In short, it is important to give everyone what they want at this stage, and what’s suitable for their particular bodies.

(5) Coaster. The first time I tried to write this post, I was thinking all big-picture, so I was looking for the coaster as an after-dinner sort of affair, and since dinner is the substance part of the relationship, the obvious place to look for the coaster were in those days after kids have left for college. That's a plausible way of pushing the metaphor. But, at the same time there are coaster moments even in the prime of one's life. That is, Bob Nozick notwithstanding, there has got to be some variety of intensity to a relationship. One can't be deeply obsessed with someone 24/7, and no matter how much two people are in love, they're going to eventually need some time apart. Often our society is structured in sort of a way that this is inevitable. Both members of the couple - or maybe in some circumstances only one - go off to a job during the day, and thereby spend some time with other people. Or, if two people are working at the same job, one has to go for a solo drive every now and then to unwind. Further, there are going to be times when other women and men begin to look interesting, or when one would rather spend a night out with the guys rather than an intimate evening with one's significant other. Successful relationships have to find ways of dealing with these moments. Perhaps it's being able to live a fantasy life through your significant other, or perhaps it's just letting the other person work things out. Don't get me wrong, when I say that a man will get interested in other women or vice versa, I'm not advocating infidelity or anything - although who knows maybe that is a real option for some couples. Personally, I find it difficult to even be attracted to someone who is seeing someone else, and I know enough about open relationships to know they aren't the ideal thing for me to be in. Anyway, blame my intuitions on my Catholic upbringing if you want. The point is that there will be times that a relationship will fragment, and each person will do his or her own thing, but it’s important to still preserve a sense of unity. In short, to adopt the metaphor, the goal of the coaster is to keep things alive even after the excitement of the meal has passed.

(6) Dessert. What is the dessert of a relationship? Well, to quote the English translation of Sex and Lucia (i.e. Lucía y el sexo), "It's full of advantages." Some of these are obvious - a decent sex life for instance - but some are not so obvious. I'll let you fill in what would be the dessert stages of a relationship. But I will add that there seem to be obvious corollaries to coasters. I mean, just as there are times that you drift apart, in a good relationship there will be times to come back together again. I remember fondly a moment when I saw someone I was dating across a lawn, and I thought to myself, "Damn, that gorgeous woman is dating me." Moments like this can keep a flame alive. In short the goal of the dessert is to leave sweet flavors lingering in the mouth.

(7) Shooting the breeze? And yes, there are moments of just shooting the breeze. I remember my parents having long conversations every night before they went to bed, which I could actually overhear through the thin bedroom wall. At the time I actually found it annoying, since despite the fact that they were whispering the conversation did keep me up. But in retrospect those conversations about a day's activities seemed an important part of their relationship, and I know that such pillow talk has always been an important part of just about any meaningful relationship I've been in. Maybe here the metaphor and the reality converge. One of the great advantages of a love relationship is that you do have someone to shoot the breeze with.

As I write this it also occurs to me that sex itself can take very different forms, and that for each of the courses of a dinner, or stages in a relationship, one might be able to find a correlative sort of sex. But, I've rattled on long enough now, so I'll leave it to you to figure out how to apply the analogy to your sex life, except to say that there definitely seems to be a difference between appetizer sex, and dinner sex, and if you can't make those sorts of distinctions then it occurs to me that you probably have a very unrealistic sex-life. But, hey, if it works, go with it.

Well, this has been an interesting little exercise in analogies. I suppose the last thing to say is that although I've described some analogies here, things almost never happen according to some exact plan, and it is far better that they don't. Sometimes I'll throw a dinner party that will be composed of a single course. Other times there may be far more than seven components to a meal. Sometimes dinners have to be rushed to make a movie, and so the sacue can't be made perfect. Similarly, some couples manage to start out in a deep and meaningful relationship from their first one-night stand, while other couples might not feel really comfortable with one another until late in life (Tevya's relationship in Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind here, "Do I love you . . .") Sometimes a couple's first role in the hay can be deep and meaningful, and sometimes the fact that it's not is the point. I suppose all of this is to justify my initial thought that when you choose a restaurant for a first date it should probably be an appetizer affair and not even a pre-entree affair. But what do I know, I'm still single. But I'm working on it. I have yet to find the catch of my days.

Astrology, Myers-Briggs, the Sibuxiang, and You

Today, I want to have a short conversation about astrology and its kin. First, I should say that I think that it is possible to do very good astrology. Perhaps this sounds surprising to those of you who know my views on the subject, but let me tell you what I think constitutes good astrology. If you ever pick up a copy of the Chicago Weekly News, chances are you'll find horoscopes by Rob Brezsny. Here are some examples I e-mailed a friend one night:


Gemini: Since your life has more than a slight resemblance to a chess match these days, I'm calling upon grandmaster Victor Korchnoi to talk a little strategy. "I like to coax my opponents into attacking," he says, "to let them taste the joy of the initiative, so that they may get carried away, become careless, and sacrifice material." Please meditate on how you might adopt this approach to use in your next gambit, Gemini. It's time, in my astrological opinion, for some smart mischief."

Pisces: Imagine that your life is a detective story. The goal is not to solve the crime, but to solve the mystery of why you're here on earth so you can carry out the special mission you've come to accomplish. Sometimes you go for months without even looking for clues. You sleepwalk through the world, reacting blindly to the tricks that the gods use to try to wake you up. Then there are those phases when hot leads and fresh evidence pop up all over the place, convincing you beyond a doubt that magic is one of the fundamental properties of reality. This is one of those times, Pisces.

Capricorn: I'm guessing that your imagination is both excited and perplexed; that your senses are heightened yet on the verge of being overwhelmed. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you're going through a phase that at its best might be called a medley and at its most challenging a hodgepodge. It has resemblances to the sibuxiang, a mythic Chinese animal with the head of a dragon, antlers of a deer, tail of a lion, hooves of an ox and body covered with fishy scales. So is there anything you can do to ensure that you use this time to stir innovative solutions to long-standing problems? Here's one suggestion: Once a day for five minutes close your eyes and visualize yourself pulling off rodeo tricks while riding an exuberant sibuxiang.

What I like about these horoscopes are how creative they are, and how they juxtapose very different ideas. When someone reads such horoscopes, they learn things like the fact that Victor Korchnoi was a chess player. Further when advice is given, it is open-ended and capable of many different interpretations, but nonetheless it provides a framework to think through issues that might arise. For instance, perhaps a Pisces will learn to see the world in a slightly different way as a result of reading the horoscope above. That in itself might make reading the horoscope worthwhile.

“But what about the actual astrology?,” you might ask. “Don't you have to bring in the stars?” I suppose Rob might in fact look to the stars for his horoscopes. But I hardly think you need to bring in the stars. I'm analytically-minded enough to be highly skeptical that it is ever possible for a star thousands of light years away to influence most of the lives of people on earth in any significant fashion. That just seems sort of obvious to me. I mean, the mere fact that so few astrologers pursue astronomy degrees certainly counts against the validity of the field. But I suppose an astrologer thinks about things more indirectly, e.g. that some force coordinates both the stars and our lives, and that by looking at one we learn something about the other. But, of course, one would want to see the evidence that this relationship actually holds.

But the evidence is everywhere, might be the reply. See, it works: you're a Gemini, and you are SO a Gemini! But here we get into a whole mess of other issues. The fact of the matter is that human beings are incredibly complicated creatures. There are so many sides to our personalities that come out in particular circumstances, and so many ways of interpreting the very same action in the same circumstances, that I bet if I were a Sagittarius, you'd be telling me I'm such a Sagittarius. Further there is the added distortion that people who actually believe in horoscopes/fortunes/astrology often only look/remember horoscopes when they apparently seem to work. If I open a fortune cookie, and it says, "You will discover a great fortune," I might laugh it off, add the mandatory "in bed" clause, and then forget about it. But man, if I came home that night to find a large fortune on my doorstep, I may well suspect a coordinated project, and I'll certainly never forget that horoscope for the rest of my life. I take this to be actually a manifestation of a more general phenomenon. Human beings are notoriously bad at producing reliable statistical inferences from small sets of evidence, at least when measured against the canons of probability theory. This reminds me of Tversky and Kahneman's psychological experiments in the early 70s, and Nisbett and Ross's experiments in the early 80s. In both cases people were asked to make judgments based on statistical data, and in both cases people in the non-control group seemed to consistently draw conclusions that were not warranted by the data. This was taken to show that human beings are naturally prone to error. Of course, the unique feature about these studies was that the statistical data that people were generalizing from was particularly abstract, and perhaps not the best indicators of covariation, as Hilary Kornblith points out in his book, Inductive Reasoning and Its Natural Ground. The fact is that we are actually pretty good at generalizing about the natural world, what we are not good about is generalizing data in strange and unusual contexts that share little prima facie resemblance with the world that we evolved in tandem with.

I think it is this very feature that is exploited by people who believe in astrology and try to convince others to do the same. For, the fact is that astrology is an incredibly out-of-the-ordinary context, since the detachment of the data from any known causal properties means that we have very little ground for detecting covariation, and the sort of faith-based acceptance just flies in the face of most of the logical apparatus we usually think with. So, almost by definition astrology is an area in which we would be prone to errors in grouping kinds. Thus by reliabilist considerations alone we should consider dismissing astrology.

But why am I talking about astrology at all tonight? Well, it's connected to online dating actually. One of the online dating services I have used from time to time now incorporates personality assessment features based on Myers-Briggs categories. People who want to look for a suitable mate log on, answer about twenty questions, and then get a listing of the people that they are compatible with. Naturally enough I'm quite skeptical about these sorts of tests, not only because it is difficult to believe that a twenty question test is sufficiently extensive to determine a Myers-Briggs distribution, but also since, like astrology, I seriously question the existence of natural kinds corresponding to the types that are identified. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do think that there are people who take a Myers-Briggs test and record such extreme scores that the test probably does indicate a lot about their personalities. I actually have gone on dates with people who swore by Myers-Briggs, and may have well made their decision to date me based on the results from their tests! But, in my own experience, I find the tests that determine Myers-Briggs categories – especially the trivial online ones - to be very inconsistent. I remember the first time that I took such a Myers-Briggs test in high school, I had it narrowed down to two questions, and I couldn't decide which way to go on either, since the phrasing of the question seemed ambiguous. So I decided I'd score myself twice and see what the results were. The scores were radically different, and depending on how I chose, I would either be an extrovert or an introvert. Of course, the test didn't have an in-between category, and it presumably wouldn't produce such decisive outcomes if it did. And even when it does produce decisive outcomes the parameters seem quite suspect to me - for instance the thinking/feeling distinction, which seems to presume that the concept of feeling and the concept of thought could be easily differentiated. Intuiting/sensing? Well, maybe all of these have technically definable meanings, but most people don’t think of their results in this way.

Maybe I need to learn a little more about the test. I admit that I've been too skeptical about the idea of personality tests in general to even do much exploration on the subject. But, as I say I do now use a dating service that incorporates mandatory personality screenings. The problem with these tests is I always come out with a different sort of personality. I've taken about ten tests in recent years (both on-line and on paper), and here are some of the results that I’ve recorded (really!):

ESFP
INFP
INFJ
INTJ
ISFP
ENFP
ENFJ

(There may be more, but the rest escape me.)

Looking over this list it seems I have been diagnosed with opposite characteristics in all four of the categories! I have been assured by some believers in this test that this weird outcome is the result of having so moderate responses to the test, and that I need to take more extreme positions to really pin down, "What I am." But that seems viciously circular: the test is not working for you, since you are not working for the test. But I suppose there may well be a difficulty based on self-assessment, and that certain aspects of my personality may not be apparent to me, although they would be apparent to other people. I'll concede that, although I refuse to admit that this "me" that other people see is more of a "me" than the "me" I see. I am an anti-reductionist after all, and I find the concept of some "real me" that I don't have access to, to be deeply problematic. Anyway, one could look at these results and assume that I'm coming closer to the ideal me. So let's generalize over the tests. I/E seem about evenly divided, and so does J/P. The only results that seem to side strongly one way or the other is the intuition vs. sensing, and thought vs. feeling. Apparently, I am a feeling/intuiting sort of guy. But even this strikes me as deeply problematic. I mean, I'm so invested in analytical arguments that I teach logic at the graduate student level, and when I’m teaching I can be relentlessly analytical. It’s true on a number of important subjects I'm more likely to follow my feelings than my thought, but on other subjects I'm strongly in the thought category. (Don’t worry, I realize the irony in my use of these concepts! – I should add that at least I’m not seeking to determine categories empirically, but only using normal everyday concepts.) Perhaps this is the ultimate problem I have with these tests: they just generalize too much. Hmm, I'm reminded of a passage in Plato's Philebus that I translated today. The argument is a little abstract, but the basic idea is that people are too quick to move to single concepts, and they don't pay adequate attention to the differences that these concepts subsume. As some of my previous posts suggest, I think this holds in a lot of areas of human thought, and personality tests don’t seem to be an exception. I’m guessing the error is often missed, because of our tendency to make erroneous generalizations from limited sets of evidence. Thus, someone will say that they are a T because a test has told them they are a T, and then will come to believe it even if they might well be defined as an F in most areas, because they just assume it must be right.

There is a further rather deep philosophical point here to. When one gets results for Myers-Briggs, what one is determining is the average response to a set of questions. That is many particular decisions are made by the test-taker, and all of these are reduced to a single parameter. But a lot is lost in the reduction. For instance, I know someone who would be the paradigm of an extrovert personality, in the sense that this particular person loves being around lots of people, telling everyone exactly how she feels, and can at times find it difficult to be quiet or alone. But this is her personality around her friends. You throw her into a situation with lots of people she doesn’t know, and a crowd with particular characteristics, and she’ll be as quiet as a church mouse. That is her “personality” can be brought out in different ways with different people. This is a very common phenomenon. A person can be an introvert with some people, and all you need to add is one person with a slightly different personality, and you’ll see the person happily and immediately become an extrovert. All of this variation, this “landscape” of the psyche if you will, gets lost when you reduce such a person to an E or an I, even with indexes of variation. I take this to be a deep point, because most people, although aware of these facts, tend to like clear categories to put people in and ignore these complications. But it seems to me that it is these complications that most clearly bring out our individualities as human beings. Like the sibuxiang, individual people are not just E's or I's but veritable alphabets of different types.

Anyway, perhaps it is a bit antagonistic for me to subsume astrology and Myers-Briggs tests under the same category. But as the discussion above shows, I think that many of the same problems exist with both. This was even made apparent to me tonight from the language employed in the results of tests. On one site, a particular characteristic "rules" the other three as one's astrological sign might be "ruled over" by a particular planet (Admittedly, it was a very Jungian site). Or, a picturesque name is given to one of the divisions, and then it is used as the subject of sentences like a Chinese zodiacal name: "The growth teacher is equally skilled . . . " Or, when people talk about the Myers-Briggs test they say things like, "You are SO a P." But despite the fact that I think that there are a lot of similarities here, and that people who get too into online personality profiles are probably guilty of the same sort of irrationality as people who are too into horoscopes, I should say that I don't think they're exactly on par. In fact, even with my skeptical leanings I've recently found a purpose for Myer-Briggs personalities. Although one can easily get personalities wrong, I suppose it is worthwhile for someone to note that at least 16 different types of personalities do exist. This is something that one can easily lose sight of, and just assume that everyone’s thoughts and motivations operate like one’s own, or at least in one unified sort of way in contrast to one’s own personality. Hence, knowing the different types may make it easier to understand why someone is particularly offended when their partner is late for an event, or perhaps one can find a way of dealing with a communication problem with a coworker by just exploring the other places that person might be starting from, so to speak. I suppose it could even help one understand what has gone wrong in a dating relationship, and what steps can be taken to overcome the difficulties.

But, this brings me to the second sort of problem I have with the personality tests on this dating service. The entire reason this particular online dating service uses a variant on the Myers-Briggs assessment is that it can be used to pair "compatible" personalities. And once you get diagnosed as having one particular personality trait, the test tells you what personality-types you are compatible with, and what personality-types you should avoid. So, with my INFP result I went down the list and sort of guessed the personalities of people I have dated, and then looked at the compatibility story. Suddenly, there in front of me was the story of a recent break-up! Every part of the problem that it described was just what happened. For a moment I was suddenly convinced, maybe I am an INFP after all! But not leaving this to chance I went back and adopted my ENFJ personality (e.g. answered a few questions I waffled about in a different way), and then I had a similar experience, a few more checks with other personality types and I realized that basically I'd have this experience regardless of what my initial personality type was. The fact was, like horoscopes, the accounts were so general, and my guesses were so vague, that it was possible to get the same feeling of affirmation from whatever personality type I started with.

Not to stay entirely on the negative, I also looked at the types of personalities I am supposed to be compatible with, and found the results very disappointing. For instance, as an INFP, I'm supposed to be compatible with someone who is all about balance, and staying indoors, and not going partying at night, and staying at home reading a book. Although I admit that I'm not entirely adverse to people like this, I couldn’t help reading the profile without thinking it was a description of BO-RING. I mean, I suppose I’m the sort of personality that likes to have things a little out of balance, a little challenging. For instance, I decided not to be an architect at one phase of my life in part because it was too comfortable. I was good at it - I had unusual abilities at the age of six, something that my teachers recognized and tried to get me to enroll in vocational school drafting courses as a consequence, and after working on it the next decade or so, I can say with very little ego that I was really good at it. I think of it as my true talent, actually. Maybe someday I’ll go back to it . . . anyway, I decided to do something completely different because it just wasn’t challenging. I mean, I suppose that if I was in some great firm somewhere like Renzo Piano's, testing all sorts of new materials and the like, I would find the challenge I was looking for. But that seemed so far from the little country town I lived in. Well, I suppose I shouldn't stress this point too much since there were other reasons why I changed professions. The important general point is that I would probably intentionally try to subvert the compatibility suggestions this dating service recommends, because “easiest” is not a synonym for “best.”

But I suppose that the problem in all of this is that, as with most things in life, you have to take what you hear with a grain of salt, so to speak. If you don't take a person's status on the Myers-Briggs scale as a definitive result, if you're willing to be flexible in your assessments, and view the world not through a single personality lens, but to see a person as composed of many different aspects – overlapping and interconnecting lenses, if you will - and to see people through all of them, the Myers-Briggs test may end up being a useful way for a person to come to understand the world in a deeper way.

But maybe this is just my P personality shining through. In the meantime, I'm still waiting for results that will tell me about famous chess players, or imaginary Chinese animals!

P.S. As an aside, in some cultures and religions astrology plays a deep and significant role within the overall framework. In these cases there may be a significant point to the activity, even though it doesn’t stand on any scientifically verifiable facts about the world, so I don’t mean to trivialize these traditions in what I said above. Further, I admit I particularly like the astrological story that is associated with my Sanskrit name, and being the sort of guy who likes to read ancient texts and to spend hours identifying stars in the night sky, I am not completely adverse to studying astrology. And I suppose there is a place for a mild bit of superstition. Many completely rational people will suddenly find themselves holding their breaths or crossing their fingers during a baseball game. Or I find that love relationships often get that little extra something from unusual coincidences that bring people together. But now a piece of the F aspect of my personality might be coming through! And this also goes the other way too: Myers-Briggs tests, accurately administered, and for the right purposes may very well be worthwhile. It is just these trivial appropriations that annoy me.