Bad attitude towards losing

[Rami Rustom]

I just watched the first episode of Suits.

The main character wanted to quit his new job after learning that he
lost his first case (or will lose his first case). At first he said
that his reason was that one of the attorneys told him they fire
people for losing (or something like that, I don't remember). But then
we find out that he wanted to quit for a different reason unrelated to
what that attorney told him. He explained it to his grandma -- he said
that he wanted to quit but he didn't give a reason.

It seems like he sad for losing. But that doesn't add up. He's a good
learner. Somebody like that did a lot of losing in his life. He made
lots of mistakes and learned from them. Right? What other way is there
to become a good learner?

So somebody like that would have a good attitude towards losing. He
wouldn't get sad for losing his first case. It doesn't add up.


I wonder if his attitude is related to his 'caring' problem (the
episode depicted a conflict between him, the altruist, and his boss,
the "selfist"). Maybe he 'cares' about what the other attorneys think
of him (i.e. he judges himself by their standards rather than by his
own standards), and since he believes that they'll think badly of him
because he lost his first case, he's sad about his expectation of
their judgment on him. Actually this is consistent with what I said
earlier: "he said that his reason was that one of the attorneys told
him they fire people for losing (or something like that, i don't
remember)."

So does he feel bad because he has a bad attitude towards
losing/mistakes or does he feel bad because he's an altruist (i.e. he
judges himself by the standards of others rather than by his own
standards)? Or does he feel bad for a different reason?

-- Rami Rustom
http://ramirustom.blogspot.com

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 30, 2013, at 8:31 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I just watched the first episode of Suits.
>
> The main character wanted to quit his new job after learning that he
> lost his first case (or will lose his first case). At first he said
> that his reason was that one of the attorneys told him they fire
> people for losing (or something like that, I don't remember). But then
> we find out that he wanted to quit for a different reason unrelated to
> what that attorney told him. He explained it to his grandma -- he said
> that he wanted to quit but he didn't give a reason.
>
> It seems like he sad for losing. But that doesn't add up. He's a good
> learner. Somebody like that did a lot of losing in his life. He made
> lots of mistakes and learned from them. Right? What other way is there
> to become a good learner?
>
> So somebody like that would have a good attitude towards losing. He
> wouldn't get sad for losing his first case. It doesn't add up.

TV characters often contain contradictions. If the writers don't understand his history, they won't make him compatible with it. (Even if they do, they still might not, because it's not a top priority.)

>
> I wonder if his attitude is related to his 'caring' problem (the
> episode depicted a conflict between him, the altruist, and his boss,
> the "selfist"). Maybe he 'cares' about what the other attorneys think
> of him (i.e. he judges himself by their standards rather than by his
> own standards), and since he believes that they'll think badly of him
> because he lost his first case, he's sad about his expectation of
> their judgment on him. Actually this is consistent with what I said
> earlier: "he said that his reason was that one of the attorneys told
> him they fire people for losing (or something like that, i don't
> remember)."
>
> So does he feel bad because he has a bad attitude towards
> losing/mistakes or does he feel bad because he's an altruist (i.e. he
> judges himself by the standards of others rather than by his own
> standards)? Or does he feel bad for a different reason?

Maybe he feels bad because the writers don't like losing, most people don't, so it seems "realistic" to the writers and "sympathetic" and stuff.

-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/

[Rami Rustom]

I just watched a few more episodes. The creators of the show are sooo
wrong. At one point the main character was talking about how great his
grandma is/was to him -- he said that she always told him that
everything was going to be ok, even if it wasn't. WTF? How is that
good? Blind optimism? Lying? For what? Just to try to protect his
feelings? WOW!

[Rami Rustom]

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 9:12 PM, Brett Hall <brha...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/04/2013, at 11:35, "Rami Rustom" <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 6:21 PM, Brett Hall <brha...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>> On 09/04/2013, at 8:01, "Rami Rustom" <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I just watched a few more episodes. The creators of the show are sooo
>>>> wrong. At one point the main character was talking about how great his
>>>> grandma is/was to him -- he said that she always told him that
>>>> everything was going to be ok, even if it wasn't. WTF? How is that
>>>> good? Blind optimism? Lying? For what? Just to try to protect his
>>>> feelings? WOW!
>>>

>>> Wow? Really? Sorry "WOW!" Really?
>>>
>>> I'm surprised by your surprise.
>>>
>>> The saying "Everything is going to be okay" or similar is often said, at least round here, especially on tv as well as real life, to placate people in times of distress. Some people do indeed use it a lot. It does do some work...it can give people brief relief. Some people love to trust others. If a trusted person says "everything will be okay" that must feel good. I imagine. I think I felt this as a kid when trusted adults said it and I suppose I believed they knew better. Of course, if everything is not okay, then it might cause bigger problems later.
>>>
>>> You might not agree with the underlying epistemological stance - I don't either and avoid such things.
>>>
>>> But I don't think it is something that's all that surprising. Not on tv.
>>>
>>> And...I might just add...blind optimism, lying, "just" protecting feelings...yeah...all bad. Fine.
>>>
>>> But unsurprising. It's around us a lot. Is this really the first time you have encountered this? I think not.
>>>
>>> So why the "WOW!"
>>>
>>> ?
>>
>> I'm not surprised that *some* people think like this. I'm surprised
>> that the creators of the show would think that their main character,
>> who is supposed to be a great learner, would:
>>
>> - feel bad when making mistakes
>>
>> - be an altruist
>>
>> - want people to lie to him about that everything will be ok, which
>> really means that he wants people to hide the problems from him so
>> that he can feel better in his fake world where those problems don't
>> exist.
>
> Okay. Might be my mistake, I don't know the show. Is that like a main characteristic of his personality? A great learner?

In the first episode, ya that is the big take away. But they also gave
him these two qualities:

- felt sad (a lot, like he borderline quit his job) about losing his
first case as an attorney (though he's not a licensed attorney, he
didn't go to lawschool)

- cares a lot about other people, like he feels sad if they feel sad,
even strangers.


And then in like the 4th or 5th episode he reveals that he very much
loves his grandmother and the one *and only* thing that he said about
her was that she always told him that everything was going to be ok,
even when it wasn't, and he was smiling when he said this part,
indicating that he *wanted* people to hide problems from him so that
he can feel better in his fake world where those problems don't exist.


> I know I used to watch "House" about a "genius" doctor (Dr. House). He was, clearly, a "great learner" (he had some encyclopaedic type memory of disease and anatomy and used brilliant deduction to make diagnosis) and the show portrayed him as a great thinker across many subjects. But, like many such characters, massively flawed and with a huge blindspot just where he probably needed it most at times (like doing stuff which actually made him happy rather than miserable. He was all too often miserable). He'd always be getting caught in stupid, petty situations that he was unhappy with. He made life harder for himself than it needed to be.

This one is unrealistically good at remembering information, even
images of stuff. he'll enter a room for a few minutes, and afterwards
he recalls all kinds of information necessary to solve some problem
that he finds out about later in the episode, and somehow he knows to
pay attention to the exact things that he will soon need to solve the
problems he runs into.

Heh that's ironic. I'm talking about a character remembering like
everything and I don't even remember the name of the character (even
though I've watched 6 episodes).


>
> I suppose I did think, in passing, about how great his mind clearly was, but how bad his thinking could be at other moments.

Well, this character made some huge blunders. He helped out his friend
who was in trouble with some drug dealers, and got himself into the
same kind of trouble just by being associated with this friend. Doing
that could have landed him jail time, or losing his job, or whatever.
He wanted to help someone that didn't want the help, so he was
sacrificing himself for someone to get something that they didn't even
want, so really its like he intended to *force* his friend to stop
drug dealing. Helping people that don't want your help is bad. But the
creators of the show decided to have him help anyways, so he did and
they triumphed and he didn't go to jail or lose his job and somehow
they pulled out of this huge mess and the friend has turned over a new
leaf and is no longer drug dealing. [BTW, he wasn't just dealing
drugs, he owed the drug dealers $50k because he spent the money faster
than he earned it.]


> Was this inconsistent? Dunno. Maybe all people can be like this to a greater or lesser extent. Was Popper the happiest person on earth? Who has ever been the most content?

Being happy overall is a way bigger accomplishment than just being a
good learner and not have the 3 bad qualities I mentioned. There's
lots more mistakes people can make that can cause unhappiness.


>
> Reportedly, it *can* be people who go and spend their lives meditating in a cave (monks and so forth). Not something most people would want to do. And not something that takes much great thinking. Do they contribute anything to the world? Almost nada. Selfish. Ironically they speak about "meditating on compassion" and yet...they have no opportunity to show any while meditating! But they are happy (so they say).
>
> So anyways...real people seem to suffer inconsistencies in their thinking. In fictional characters, it's actually a good dramatic device to amplify this even more - sometimes. Perhaps to make the audience feel superior. If Dr. House, for example *also* was a really cool, always happy, popular, well liked and content guy...we probably wouldn't actually like him as much. In fiction, it's often useful that your heroes actually have huge flaws. There are exceptions to this, of course (Superman seems to suffer no flaws. Though we need Clark Kent to be a bumbling ninny otherwise the character as a whole wouldn't be likeable as much. Why is that, I wonder?).

I think the reason the creators made this character this way is to
contrast him with the other main character, his boss whose much later
in his career, who is also way smart, but he's not an altruist, he
doesn't feel bad for making mistakes, and he doesn't seem to have that
3rd quality of wanting to be lied to about existing problems. And I
think they are making this contrast to show that the younger guy is
better than the older guy. So they are teaching altruism.

Maybe I'm wrong about my interpretation though because they setup the
boss to be a very likeable guy even though he doesn't have the
altruist qualities that they gave the younger guy.

Oh, whats really cool is that the older guy isn't a zero-sum guy,
meaning that he seeks things he wants without infringing on the wants
of others (i.e. he doesn't take advantage of other people's
vulnerability).