Archive for January, 2009

One morning, a casual looking guy pulls out a violin and starts busking to people emerging from a tube station to go to work. Six classical pieces and 43 minutes later, over 1000 people had passed. Would you have stopped and listened? Probably not – who does? The difference here is that the busker was actually Joshua Bell, a world famous violinist, once a child prodigy, playing on a $3.5m Stradivari, three days after filling Boston’s Symphony Hall for over $100 a seat. Its a perfect experiment to test the strength of recognition, genuine appreciation and values in a different context, with some conformity pressure thrown in too (if everyone else is passing by… then there’s no reason to stop, right?)

So what happened?

Washington Post writup is here – and well worth reading.

Derren’s Evening Of Wonders show was on C4 last night. Having seen it twice live (Plymouth and Torquay), and subsequently deciphered it to death on a little-known corner of the internet, it was interesting watching it again. The thing that always interested me most about Derren was the psychological implications of his work, e.g. The Heist had me thinking all about where to draw the line between influence and responsibility with regards to crime, Messiah had me thinking about about the fragility and self-deceptive nature of belief systems. The early stuff, those first shows on C4 which were edited into the first DVD Inside Your Mind, were just so intriguing and inspiring, and I think really did influence me into studying far more about the mind (and suggestibility).

But recently, the move into more solid, out-and-out trickery has left me feeling a little cold and conned, and not as interested as I used to be. There is less of the psychology and more of the tricksy, although the overall psychology of crafting an impression, lying, misdirection etc is still great fun and there is plenty of it in the show.

It also contains one of my favourite ever Derren moments – involving a gorilla – but I wouldn’t want to ruin it if you’ve yet to see it.

The mind has a psychological immune system much like the body. It has a whole host of tricks to keep you from feeling mental pain, which is why humans are capable of tolerating so much. Examples are denial, distorting reality to suit your ill-judged beliefs, ignoring things, procrastination, all adding up to the ever powerful inevitability of self-deception.

Which is why… if your job is mediocre but you know things could be better, you might still just tolerate it and let your potentially better life just pass you by. If a relationship is rubbish you might just tolerate it anyway. If you are putting on weight, you might choose to distract yourself onto other things and rationalise “oh well, at least I’m enjoying myself”. But when your job turns absolutely shit, or your partner starts being unfaithful or hurting you in more serious ways, or you can’t fit into any of your favourite clothes anymore, you may reach that breaking point. The psychological immune system can’t keep up. So you take action instead… something you then realise you should have done ages ago.

And then… you look back and think “well in some ways, I’m glad it happened like it did, because if it hadn’t, I might still be there now…”

Which is when really bad, is better than the seemingly not-so-bad.