Availability Heuristic (Or how to define the new normal)
(Excerpt from the upcoming: There Is A Way: The Great Filter.)
They called it:
Availability Heuristic —the tendency to use only information that comes to mind quickly and easily to make decisions about the future.
“This is a mental shortcut allowing decisions to be made based purely on emotional cues, familiar facts, and vivid images. Any mental impression that is easily recalled. The brain minimizes the effort necessary for routine tasks. In the burnout society,” Tyler considers, “everything is routine, so: Use this.”
It’s not use unless you use it.
“What couldn’t you get used to? Talk of the new normal enough and people forget what normal ever was. People believe they know better now. People believe what they have is theirs and how they think is something special. People believe they deserve better; life can be an improvement on something. But people believe all sorts of wild things.
“The availability heuristic leads people to believe things that happen recently are more likely to happen again. Also tragic memories and really hilarious things, these become important to determining the future. These are the persistent olds: Trauma. Then there are the news, all the walking-talking heads. Everything that happens,” feeling clever, “the News.”
Tyler had a way with words.
“All the mental shortcuts, reaching for what is available. For what someone else said sometime. Who wants to think?” Tyler says, “Use it all to your advantage.”
It’s no use unless you use it.
“Memories that are easily recalled are frequently not enough for figuring out what will happen in the future, but this doesn’t stop people from thinking they know better. Consider how fear confuses, how hate breeds contempt. Consider how time heals all wounds,” Tyler smiles, “Consider me fucking you, again and again.” They pause, “And again.”
It wasn’t exactly a pretty picture. Tyler was cute enough, on camera, but there was the reality of it, regardless of what they were packing.
With butt-stuff, it could start out fun, after the nerves relaxed. You could get it going all right. Really groove. Start to enjoy yourself for a moment. Then there was poop. With butt-stuff, there was always poop, and who wants to fuck with that shit? The smell of it kills the mood. In that moment, everyone involved is brutally aware of what precisely is happening. In the light of knowing, not much looks necessary. Especially not fucking with someone else’s shit.
Best to let it all be. Every hole did not need penetration. Every wound did not need a band-aid. Every thought did not need a thinker.
Tyler says, “You need to seriously clean out your shit before you go fucking around in this world. No one wants to fuck with your shit.”
It’s no use unless you use it.
“And if they do get a whiff of it, they’re gonna keep on thinking it’s coming from you. You make yourself available. You forget to clean up your shit. People believe they can keep having you just like that, a bent-over mess,” Tyler smiles. “They keep fucking you because you believe you’re available to be fucked. Quit thinking the past and present define the future and you’ll be fine. It’s basic shit. Are you writing this down?”
Tyler wasn’t making sense. It was important to keep notes anyway. Nonsense was more important to understanding than method. With method came failure; nonsense brought everything else.
