// When we share about things that we see

> More at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advice

I have been thinking about advice. This word, which according to Merriam-Webster dates back to the 14th century, is an integral part of the human experience, and I imagine the underlying interaction (telling another person about something that we see) exists in some form since the advent of basic language.

We have a nuanced relationship with advice, when it comes to both giving it and receiving it. For example - I normally tend not to give advice when unsolicited, unless there is a risk/reward involved for the recipient or collective that I consider to be significant. Even in these cases I will often just suggest there might be insights outside of the person's range of view, and depending on whether the person communicates curiosity, decide if I should proceed. If the response is positive (and outside of an emergency) I try to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, meaning that I'd most often share information that I think contains something the person might not be aware of (but might like to in retrospect), leaving it to them whether and how they would like to synthesize it with their existing view. When I remember, I try my best to take into account the circumstances under which the information was arrived at, our personal filters, present states, boundaries, a pinch of the norms and so on. When receiving advice, I try to be more open but apply more or less the same process.

I think one's "consumption" of advice (as a niche form of information, being targeted and having higher than normal potential of being insightful assuming this is the intention of the giver) is subject to the same process as information in general (and for that matter, food* ), which vaguely goes something like:

1. sourcing
2. selection
3. preparation
4. consumption
5. digestion/assimilation
6. integration of useful content
7. elimination of waste
8. use of gained new nutrients/energy/potential
9. adjustment of this very process based on results (or at least, of the parts that are voluntary at the time)

In some sense, I think sharing information is like providing another with nourishment** in the sense that we can ask ourselves similar questions:

• what kind of food is this?
• where did we get it?
• is it ripe?
• sure it's not expired?
• what if they're allergic?
• is it easy to digest?
• do we enjoy this kind of food? do they?
• how nourishing will it be for the recipient?
• how would we like to serve and present it?
• what is the optimal portion?
• etc

As with everything, advice has a light and a shadow side. The spectrum ranges from the best case scenario of something like "a mutually enriching and uplifting exchange resulting in a better future" to the worst case scenarios including:

• giver arriving at the information under very different circumstances, making the information misleading
• giver using advice as a means for furthering own agenda
• giver using advice to create a dependency in the receiver or confuse them
• giver gamifying (say, in an undisclosed way and against the best interests of the receiver) the unfolding of the advice over time
• giver having good intentions but no qualification
• giver having good qualification but bad intentions
• getting the quantities wrong
• receiver not being discerning with incoming advice
• receiver not having enough information to verify the validity
• receiver not being receptive to advice altogether
• receiver not attentive to advice
• receiver not being able to integrate advice with their existing frame of reference
• and so on (while we can hope some of the negatives above don't happen to us, we should be able to deal with them if they do. I think other possible examples are things that deal with the quality of information ingestion, processing and communication for both parties, as well as situational factors.)

From a certain point of view, one could say based on the above that, as with most things, there are more ways of getting advice wrong than right:

A Very Rudimentary Advice Matrix

Which reminds me of a quote.

There are many ways of being wrong, but only one way of being right.“

- Susan Stebbing

Or in this case, six ways - that need to all happen at the same time. Of course, a necessary caveat here is that there are situations where the "worst" advice can be helpful and others where even "good" advice can cause harm. Life is complex and we'll never get things 100%.

// It's something we 'have got to' do... 🙄

So, giving and receiving advice seems fraught with danger. Could we give up on it? Might it be possible to exist in a way that skips all of the above undesirable situations by just eliminating this form of interaction completely? Another quote comes to mind.

Consider that you can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and
hear less than 1% of the acoustic spectrum. 90% of the cells in your body
carry their own microbial DNA and are not ‘you’. The atoms in your body
are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you
were born with… Human beings have 46 chromosomes, two less than a
potato.
The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your
eyes; to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just
look at a rainbow, you create it. This is pretty amazing, especially considering
that all the beautiful colours you see represent less than 1% of the
electromagnetic spectrum.

- Sergio Toporek

Considering how much there is to see and comprehend and the limitations of our hardware (better than a potato, but still quite limited) and software, it seems to me totally unfeasible to try to go it without exchanging things we think are outside of each other's view.

It's something we get to do! 😁

This post is an over-simplification and there are more factors at play but I think we can see above that on one hand advice (and more generally, information exchange) is a tricky thing to get right. On the other hand, we are relatively blind creatures in isolation (relative to how much there is to see/know/understand), and I think that our highest potential lies in being able to process things together and get feedback from each other. It doesn't have to be daunting, either - I'd estimate that all of the above risk factors are mitigated in varying degrees by the act of taking a mindful approach on both parts and by being intentional with our practice/inner work. Heck, if we don't watch out we might even enjoy it in the process! 😉

There are many red and orange cells on that illustration and this can make things seem like a sort of minefield. But by practising awareness and mindfulness both as givers and receivers of advice we can make sure we relate more and more in the green cells and by virtue of this, collectively get to a better future. We also get to learn more about ourselves and each other on the way, which I think is cool.

How do you approach advice? What else do you think might be useful to consider to get this right?

* Do you agree? If yes, can you think of any other applications of this similarity between "hardware food" and food for thought?

** One difference I see is that on the mental level, when we share nourishment, our own "resource" stays the same and even has high potential of increasing. What differences do you see?