Friendships Are Like Trees
And a bunch of policy editorials
Welcome to another edition of The Mueller Report!
Updates
Being a successful property owner requires a certain amount of decisiveness. What ought to be fixed or improved? How can that be done? Then you must execute. Living in a different part of the country makes this even more complicated. And points of transition – preparing your house to be a rental, or preparing to sell it, multiplies the number of projects to get done.
I recently had to modify a trip to D. C. to swing by my house in NJ to get several projects done – including being present for a plumbing repair. We live in an amazing country, and the east coast is a particularly good place for getting around via train, airplane, or car. One of the things I used to tell my property managers was: Step 1 is finding someone who can get the job done (fixing, installing, or improving something); Step 2 is figuring out the most cost-effective way to get the job done. Step 1 is usually more important than step 2. It’s usually better to risk over paying, get the job done, and move on than to sit on your hands trying to get the best deal possible.
Book Corner
I haven’t finished Haidt’s The Anxious Generation yet, but I’ve made progress and the picture is not pretty. Besides most adolescents spending inordinate amounts of time on screens every day, they are also interrupted constantly. Studies of how many push-notifications kids with phones receive on average amount to about once every five minutes throughout the whole day. For those who are on the high-side tail, notifications may occur as frequently as once a minute throughout the entire day!
There are some differences in the effects of smartphones and digital technology on boys and girls. Girls are on social media much more than boys are, and boys tend to play a lot more video games than girls do. Mental health for girls has declined more precipitously than for boys – but it has declined dramatically for both.
Something I learned about, and am now noticing, is a psychological finding about how to “hook” people (or animals) into certain kinds of behavior: variable reward. Studies, first with lab rats, then with people, found that varying the kind of reward people get from certain activities increase their interest in them.
Rats were far more drawn to press a lever that gives them food periodically than a lever that gives them food every time. In fact, the rats become more excited the more they press the lever and don’t receive anything, because they anticipate that a change is about to occur. This is quite similar to how slot machines work. And it has been built into social media and other apps.
Part of why we check our apps (or email for technological primitives like myself) frequently is because sometimes it will have interesting information, but often it won’t. This holds true for news, stock prices, sports, etc. Think about any behavior you engage in frequently throughout the day, perhaps often without thinking about it, and ask whether you are drawn by a variable reward structure into that behavior.
Reflection
Kathryn and I had some great conversations about friendship with a few of our NYC friends a couple weeks ago. “Friends” is a term thrown about to describe a lot of different relationships. By “friend” do you mean “I know who this person is and they know who I am”? Or do you mean, “I like spending time with this person”? Or do you mean, “we help each other out a lot”? Or do you mean, “I feel friendly towards this person”?
We should be wary of putting too much emphasis on the hierarchy of one’s friends, as if their value were contingent on how much you like each other or how often you see one another. The problem of cliches, BFFs (best friends forever), and what C. S. Lewis described as “The Inner Ring” is quite real and can easily twist friendships into unnatural or even harmful forms.
That being said, we should still give thought to our friendships. Whom do we have friendships with? Whom would we like to befriend? How can we strengthen our friendships? Our capacity for friendship, especially close friendship, is limited physically, emotionally, and intellectually. We can’t be BFFs with everyone!
There is also the question of how one forms and maintains friendships over time. How do you become friends? How does your friendship grow and flourish over time? How can you do your part to be a good friend (as opposed to good neighbor, parent, lover, etc.)?
I propose we think of friendships as being very much like trees.
Trees are enjoyable and helpful. You can climb in them, sit in their shade, eat their fruit, lean against them, and sometimes simply enjoy looking at them. There are many kinds of trees – young saplings, old oaks, fruit trees, flowering trees, healthy trees, stunted trees, etc. And, of course, there are seeds and seedlings.
I won’t try to extend the analogy of different kinds of trees and friendships here. Instead, I want to focus on how this analogy can help us think about friendship well and be good friends. Three dimensions I want to focus on are: how “big” is a tree, what kind of conditions (soil, climate, etc.) does the tree exist in, and what resources can you bring to bear to care for and cultivate your trees?
Kathryn and I have been blessed to have some long and deep friendships. These are friendships that correspond to tall, strong oak or pine trees in a healthy climate. These friendships do not require lots of investment or maintenance, yet we can rest in their shade and rejoice in their beauty and presence. The oak tree isn’t going anywhere unless we actively cut it down.
Then there are seeds, either planted or in our hands, of new friendships that could grow into healthy trees over time. Sometimes there are simply folks that we are interested in becoming friends with. That desire is the seed. We plant it by taking steps to get to know those people in conversation. And many of our friendships are seedlings or saplings – trees that are small, young, and fragile.
But now comes the interesting part – how and why are our friendships growing or stagnating? Remember, not all trees grow at the same rate. Some grow rapidly, some grow slowly. So it is with friendship. How quickly trees grow also depends strongly on their climate. Are there nutrients in the soil? Does the tree receive good quantities of water? Are they in a place with high winds that could blow them over?
I suggest that we consider our friendships in this light. How mature or fragile are my friendships? Will they grow on their own? Will they be easily damaged by changes in circumstances? Will they wither unless I water them?
Similarly, what kind of soil does this friendship have? Is it rich? Is it sandy and dry? Sometimes we connect with people deeply and easily. Other people are much harder to get to know. We may connect on a superficial level, but not on a deep one. We might be able to converse about some topics easily but others we rarely broach.
Kathryn and I think about this regularly as we seek to get to know people in our town and in our church. Which friendships are growing well and which are growing slowly? Will some of them grow almost without effort? Which ones should we be watering and tending? What kind of pleasure, joy, and protection do we receive and offer to our friends? Afterall, we are the “trees” to our friends.
Unfortunately, many people in our culture live on plains without any large trees. Or if they have trees, they are small or stunted rather than large and mature. Men especially have been reporting in increasing numbers that they have no close friends. Understanding friendship as forestry gives us both reasons for action and a vision of goodness. It should also teach us patience – mature trees cannot simply be transplanted from elsewhere. Nor will they grow up over a few weeks, months, or even years.
But they can and will grow if we plant them and tend them. And that is a significant part of what it means to be a good friend.
Writing
I have a lot to share from the past week. I had pieces in AIER’s Daily Economy on monetary policy and Florida’s ban on cultivated meat:
I also had a piece at Fox Business on how the Federal Reserve has enabled the incredible run-up in national debt over the past 15 years – and especially the last four years:
I had a couple substantive media appearances over the last week discussing the Federal Reserve and Social Security:
Game Corner
We were visiting friends in Vermont over the last week and played several rounds of a game called Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game. It’s based on comic book characters from the Marvel universe. The game play is interesting in that there is a cooperative element and a competitive element.
To set up the game, there are a variety of hero decks (X-men, Avengers, etc.) to pick. Then there are a variety of villain and henchmen decks (Hydra, Loki/Thanos, etc.). Finally, there are different scenarios or “plot twist” elements that affect game play.
The structure of the game is a basic deck-building approach where you can purchase heroes, weaponry, and power cards or you can defeat henchmen and villain cards. Each turn a new villain card is flipped. Once you reach a certain number, additional villain cards “escape,” which causes problems for all players and will eventually cause the whole group to lose. One of your goals is to defeat villains before they can escape.
The players must also defeat a super-villain a certain number of times to end the game. Every time the super-villain is defeated, some effect occurs that usually sets players back. Besides defeating all the super-villains to win the game, players improve their individual scores by gaining certain cards (either through purchase or by defeating villains).
While this game is not for everyone, especially those who have no interest in the Marvel comic book universe, it has a lot of fun dynamics and variation. Some scenarios are far more difficult than others – so you can increase the level of challenge for the group. There are many shared elements of triumph (or loss) in the collaborative element, but there is also a way to stand out among the players in one’s individual score too.
Stay tuned for more commentary next week!