One of the things I’m deeply interested in is reality; how people really think, how people really behave.

And why would I not be? It is the natural endpoint of theory – the ideas that we weave in our minds about how things work on the cosmic to the microscopic, extending from scopious and grand laws into the tiny yet no less consequential.

For a long time, I studied theories – and in many ways and on many different occasions, I made the mistake of confusing theories with reality, never having sufficiently thought things through to really use my mind; wait.

That’s kind of a silly take – I still do study theories, and also make them – theories about how things move, how people migrated, how and why things behave; I just less frequently make the mistake of imagining that the world will fit these theories anymore…

Because actual behavior always supersedes theories, across a very wide possibility space – and I can give you a simple example.

Once upon a time, I used to hold the following mental model: Nutrients = healthy. Protein and carbohydrates are nutrients. McDonald’s burgers have protein and carbohydrates – therefore, McDonald’s is healthy. The more healthy you are, the better – thus, eat it three times a week.

Well, I guess you know what happened to my waistline.

…What’s that? You were expecting a theory about behavior?

Well… That’s a little more complex, isn’t it?

I suppose it’s also a little more fun, since this then lets us wonder about the tantalizing question of what makes people like us, buy from us, love us, wish for our happiness, support us, speak well of us to others, refrain from gossiping…?

It would be a mistake to get caught up in theories about why things are, but it would be equally wrong to throw all caution to the wind and to cast yourself as rocks on the shore in the hope that the passing tides will bring you to paradise.

I often reflect on how Deng Xiaoping had once said, it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.

The test of all our theories is reality in all its fullness, cascading qualic moment by qualic moment through the filtration of our senses, our physical bodies, our experiences of time passing through the transient in-between that lies in the interstices of the ashes from which we were born and the ashes we shall become, in the highest resolution that this world shall allow.