I was reading this series of tweets by Tim Mak (Thanks to Rich) and it struck me that human beings live in an advanced case of self-delusion.
THREAD – History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes: a thread about the **Anti-Mask League** of 1919.
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) April 19, 2020
I’m not kidding I went HAM researching this
So, starting in Sept 2018 San Francisco suffered from Spanish Flu pandemic.
Initial mask wearing was good — around 80 percent
We live in the delusion that we are in fact not creatures of habit. We like to see ourselves as free-willed, conscious beings, self-governing and set apart from other animals by our capacity for reasoning. When the opposite is in fact true. For the purposes of this argument, habit is defined as:
A skillfully routinised manner of action or thought.
What the Anti Mask League shows us is that most of the time we are in fact just reacting to the world around us in an instinctual way. Most of a person’s everyday life is determined not by their conscious intentions and choices, but by mental processes put into motion by the environment.
When those instincts are challenged and even refuted with facts the reaction can be irrational. In fact, sometimes it can get rational people to act in a way that is opposite to their best interests or beliefs. We find people behaving badly and pushing against change. All to protect the habit because the habit feels safe. The habit is what we have always done. The habit is easy. Change on the other hand is hard, it is uncomfortable and it stretches us. This virus and the lockdown are putting pressure on our habits. It is forcing us to take stock of what mental process are we running on auto pilot. Do they serve us? Did we choose them?
What this means is that there are going to be people/companies who change their behaviour and thrive and there are going to be people/companies who stick to their habits and suffer.
This is a great opportunity to stop and to ask: What will we be? What can we be? What habits do I want to invest in now? These are the questions that will get us through this cycle and the inevitable next one. Our weapon against habit is intention.
P.s. just put a mask on and don’t be a dick
I also enjoyed this message from Simon Sinek to his team:
