Jason Fox

The Megaphone Cyclone Interview

Tell us a little about yourself!

Thank you for the invitation to indulge in the perpetuation of my own myth-making.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ:*･ﾟ✧

I am a fox-like trickster and Rogue Scholar playing the role of a metamodern wizard masquerading as a leadership advisor. I am also the author of ‘How to Lead a Quest’, epistler of The Museletter and conjurer of ‘The Ritual of Becoming’. Japes aside, I mostly work as a complexity practitioner.

What is your ideal balance of information input, among information that will stay relevant for one day, ten days, one year, ten years, the rest of your life, or beyond?

Now I am sure I am missing something here — and I suspect my answer may be disappointing, but: I don’t know if I believe in an ideal balance of information input. Or, if I did, it would be a rather fluid notion — liable to change as new information comes to light.

For example: more than a decade ago I spent many months (a year?) playing Word of Warcraft when I ‘should have’ been working on my PhD thesis. Or furthering my career, getting fit or myriad other ‘right/relevant/proper’ things. But this waste of time serendipitously served to spur the writing of my first book (something that explored the overlaps of behaviour science and game design — before ‘gamification’ became a ‘thing’). Writing this book, in turn, spurred further creative paths. And so on and so forth, free-will post-rationalisation narrative fallacy etcetera, etcetera. (~˘▾˘)~

Having said that — I really love your notion of the ten-day rhythm. Very much so. Sometime I might suspend trickster-mode for a while, and give monk-mode a go. I might even try that next month.

How do you think the world would be different if everyone had exactly the right information input for them?

Words like ‘exactly’ and ‘right’ strike me as somewhat problematic in this context. I accept that we are co-created by each other and our environment, and that notions of free will and the ‘self’ are incredible illusions (the best!). And yet we are also subjective creatures; self-organising, alive and (at least partially) aware of ourselves and our existence. So the repartee question to this question is: who gets to decide what exactly the right information input is for me? And what is the ‘right’, in this context?

If it’s up to me to determine the right information for myself then: I don’t know, hoho. How could I know? Sometimes the right thing seems wrong at the time, and vice versa. I’ll learn from the patterns I have encountered whilst also rolling with the chaos of life, embracing whatever emerges with open arms. Or at least: that’s what I’d hope to do. In this way, I am guided by curiosity, anxiety,* foresight° and whim — using any perceived ‘patterns of meaning’ as but lily pads to flitter upon as I make my Way.

* I say this in a positive light — it’s good to be at least somewhat apprehensive of our role in this infinite game we play. There’s a wisdom in the insecurity, and anxiety can be sublimated into art.
° This foresight is probably borne of a cadence of reflection and introspection via journalling — enough to notice any hidden commitments and conflicting values at play.

If it were up to someone else to determine exactly the right information input for me, then, well — I’m not sure that’s not a world I am particularly excited about. But I fear I’m dodging or misinterpreting the question again. The trickster in me doesn’t want to be pinned. But very well: I shall make a new attempt.

Knowing that we have become seemingly enslaved to our screens (a potential weakness of our species?) — I do sometimes dream of a world where access to the Internet were rationed out equally to all of us. Only 8 hours of internet access each day. Then: 8 hours of rest and 8 hours of community, family and play. That might be very reasonable and nice.

But then: who am I to impose such a vision? I would simply love it if we all cultivated a bit more self-awareness in how we interact with information and each other.

How do you think we can get there?

A world where everyone had exactly the right information input for them?

Well, there’s a cyberpunk route, wherein we leave it to large corporations to decide how information is distributed and accessed. In this world algorithms effectively make most of the default decisions for us. In time, each of us will get more of the ‘right’ kind of information (at ‘exactly’ the right dosage) to the point where we become so hooked on our tailored feeds that society itself is rendered atomised, polarised, balkanised. Naturally, this is not a future any of us would want.

So, how do we get to a world wherein we each somehow cultivate enough self-awareness in how we interact with information and each other?

Well, we couldn’t ever enforce such a notion — for whoever must play, cannot play (to quote James Carse). So instead, I would look to cultivate its emergence. To do this, I seek out the attractors — vague beacon-clusters of fluid ideals that might collectively serve us well. This interview series is one such beacon. The ‘solarpunk’ vibe is also perfect alternative narrative to live into. Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing — resisting the attention economy also offers a Way. And metamodernism + Game ~B are also vague beacon-notions that might be worth orienting to. Yet still: there’s so much more to learn.

Do you consider your part in the exchange of information symmetrically between how you want to create and how you want to consume? Or do you have different rules for yourself in one role versus the other?

I try to ensure a good rhythm of morning pages (750words.com) followed by 3–5 hours of deep work (usually research/writing) followed by client/admin work, some physical activity, a long walk and an evening of relaxed learning, cozyweb sense-making, and fiction reading. It’s fairly laissez-faire, with minimal scaffolding or distinctions between creation and consumption.

As to rules, well: as a metamodern wizard it behooves me to consider what information is shared, how it might be received, and whether it is contributing to a world more curious and kind. And, while I don’t really have rules per se, I do have fluid principles, heuristics and vague notions to guide my way.

For example, an awareness of memetic tribalism has me consider how my viewpoint might be considered through different lenses. I am aware of my own ideological allergies, and I do my best to curtail them (or at least: to be transparent about them). And, in general, I strive towards some sort of reconstructive metamodern synthesis — haphazard as that may be.

When it comes to other players in this infinite game, I try to relate to everyone horizontally — though I don’t expect many to adhere to the principles I hold for myself. We are all on our own developmental journeys. My experience as an academic, author, speaker and facilitator have imbued in me certain, uh, sensibilities regarding information and meaning — but it would be unreasonable to expect such of most other folk, even though I might sometimes wish it. Also: I have my fair share of flaws — known and otherwise.

What’s the worst that could happen if your attempts to reduce your information input cause you to miss something?

The collapse of society, mass extinctions and the end of the human project, hoho. I say this with a slightly ironic sense of my own self-importance here, but that’s probably the worst that can happen.

The likely thing to happen would be that I work hard on writing something — but (because of reduced input) I fail to realise that another person has already explored this domain much more thoroughly and eloquently. (This is probably happening right now!). Or I fail to pick up on the nuances and subtext of a topic, or that I haven’t ‘read the room’, clarified terms, or checked my privilege or biases appropriately — and thus my propositional thesis falls flat.

But this is inevitable. We are always-already going to miss out. Perfect knowledge is impossible, anyway. Probably not even desirable.

And so we simply do the best we can — stumbling forward with enough hubris, humility and humour — knowing that we’ll never get it right but that, somehow, in some way, we might just move closer to the realisation of relevance.

(Thank you for the questions! I continue to ponder.)

What questions do you want to ask the next person?

1. Hello! If you were to invent/manifest/resurrect a minor god or spirit to help humanity with our collective ‘information overload’ — what would be their Name? What form do they take? What powers would they have? And what rites would we need to observe to keep them appeased?
2. Lo! In the darkness of Whatever You Did to summon this minor god/spirit — it’s Shadowed Twin Hath Appeared. What is this antithesis to your minor god/spirit? What’s their Name, their form, and their powers? Who follows them, and why?
3. A binary proposition? Trite, I know. But… Do you think these two would ever get along? Can there be synthesis? Is there a Hidden Element at play? Or is this more a cycle/oscillation thing?
4. Nice, that was fun. Now: a self-proclaimed linkedin motivational thought leader expert guru sells you the Personalised Information Optimisation System. It’s a ‘foolproof’ system guaranteed to eliminate Information Overload — forever. What do you get? And… what do you wish you got?
5. What’s a question you wish I had asked you? Please pretend I did, perhaps beginning your answer with a compliment as to my perspicacity. ｡◕‿◕｡

About

Megaphone Cyclone is a series of interviews about information overload. We have a line-up slated, but we’re always looking for more. Please email megaphone@lot23.com if you’re interested in being interviewed. Thanks!