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    This is the most helpful article you've read. Because it is about the benefits and its receipt.

    Her writing prompted me to communicate with the esteemed moderator of one of the sites where I am publishing. And before her - almost every comment that you leave to my articles. And in between - almost everything that I see at work every day. And before the current work - the previous one, and before it - one more, and so on to the very point where I realized that there is benefit and how to extract it.

    First and foremost


    The most important thing to know about benefits is that it is subjective, or relative.

    Now you read it, and you think - yeah, I already know that. Try to remember this the next time you write a comment such as “there is nothing useful here”, or discuss with someone the benefits of something, or even reflect on the benefits of being alone. I assure you, remembering the subjectivity of benefits is extremely difficult. It is always much easier to consider benefit as an objective property of the object of study - articles, books, films, tools, etc.

    I’m not opposing myself to you right now - it’s just as difficult for me to recall subjectivity and relativity of benefits at the right moment. We are in the same boat, and there are approximately 7 billion of us in it.

    What does “subjectivity” mean? Everything is simple. There is an object - an article, a book, a film, an instrument, a technique, etc. There is a subject - you, or I, or Gena, or a wonderful moderator of one site. And then the object met with the subject - Gene read the article. And concludes.

    The traditional conclusion of the middle Genes is that there is no use in the object. We omit cases when the Gene is not adequate for us - let him be quite a decent person, a quality subject. What is missing in the phrase “there is no use in the object”?

    Based on the subjectivity of the benefit, two words are missing - "for me." There is no benefit to me in the facility. It doesn't sound so fatal anymore, does it? Indeed, besides Gena, Vasya, Seryozha and Vika read the article. Suppose Vika says differently - "there is a benefit to me in the object."

    If the unfortunate, by a strange coincidence, meet in the comments on the object, then sparks can fly, blush minuses and transitions to personalities. And when expressing your opinion, it’s enough to clarify that there is benefit or not “for me”, as it would seem that there’s nothing to get to the bottom of. And the final verdict - whether it is useful or not - simply will not follow, because it will not make any sense.

    Of course, someone will nevertheless write that there is no use, but everyone around will immediately understand that a person simply attracts attention to himself. Because it’s not about spoiling the mood of the author, as it usually was. Man, if you face the truth, pours mud at all those present. To simplify, he says: "you are all wrong."

    After all, the contradiction is obvious. One says, “I have found a favor here for myself.” So there is some use. Another says, "there is no use here." So the first one who has found a favor is wrong.

    But what about the author? And this guy is on the side. If we look at the benefit as a subjective phenomenon, then the author does not participate in this equation at all. Yes, he created the object. But when the subject arrived, the author was no longer there.

    Of course, he may try to catch up with the setting sun, contemplating additional explanations in the comments, but this, in my opinion, is an erroneous position - the author will never learn to write good texts if the thought “sits in the subconscious mind,” well, then I’ll explain, in the comments, if anything". But this only applies to articles. Books - to a much lesser extent, because they are being edited. In implementation projects, which are also objects to benefit, the author generally sticks out for months next to the subject, helping him to benefit.

    So, the next time you reason or write about the benefits of something, try adding two magic words: there is no benefit to me in the object.

    But this is not the whole truth. Does the word “no” in the phrase “there is no use in the object” bother you? Maybe Gena hurried up?

    Extraction


    There is such a common phrase - to benefit. So common that the meaning in it is no longer perceived. Now stop and think about this phrase and what is behind it.

    For example, you read some article. You yourself know that you can read very differently. You can quickly, diagonally, paying attention only to the phrases in font. You can read all the time thinking about something of your own and not understand the meaning of what you read at all. You can read, paying attention only to the literacy of the author. You can only read to find what to catch on in your comment. You can read it thoughtfully by analyzing each example and conclusion. You can print and read with a pencil, taking notes in the margins and highlighting what seems interesting. After reading, you can write an annotation yourself, highlighting the main meaning of the article. Etc.

    What is the difference? In goals and efforts. I will not discuss the objectives now, they do not relate to the topic of the article. We assume that the reader, our subject, has such a goal - to benefit.
    Then the effort remains. Efforts to benefit. This, perhaps, is the most difficult and unpleasant thing in obtaining benefits - we must try to extract it.

    There is another common expression - "chewed and put in your mouth." If you continue this analogy, then you are your body, and the object from which you want to benefit is the food that is placed in you. Your task is not just to pass the object through yourself, but to get the most out of it - proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, trace elements, etc.

    Part of this work will be done by itself - for example, thanks to the intestinal microflora. But you will have to do most of the work. First work with teeth, tongue and salivary glands. Then the esophagus tormented for a moment. Further, the stomach will throw this mess from wall to wall for several hours, simultaneously performing chemical processing of food with gastric juice. Then several sections of the intestine will work, each of which will fulfill its function, including the physical one - to push food further. And finally, catharsis will happen.

    All that the body does with food is profit. Yes, sometimes it happens that the only benefit from the work of the body will be to quickly remove it from the body - well, there is such food. But, in most cases, you will have to tinker with it in order to benefit.

    Now imagine that you, as the human body, have stopped making efforts to benefit. We started by stopping chewing and swallowing, like people in a coma or consciously deciding to starve themselves to death. What will happen next?

    Depends on your surroundings. If there are people who want to help you, then they will either put a tube in your throat to feed with liquid food, or they will feed you by force. That is, they will make the object simpler for profit. Moreover, they will do it instead of you, because this object is no longer “over the teeth” to you. In the same way, for example, an article in the Chinese language is too tough for me, no matter what benefit there is, I simply cannot even begin to benefit.

    If, in addition to refusing to chew food, your body will turn off the other stages of its processing, then that’s all. In books, however, they say that the intestines will still work, because he has his own nervous system, but his intestines are small.

    The body makes tremendous efforts to benefit from food. No way without it. We are just used to it, and we do not perceive these efforts as efforts.

    To benefit from other facilities, you will have to make an effort. Well, that is, of course, you have a choice, unlike your body, but the formula remains the same: if you want benefits, make efforts to extract it.

    Let us return to the end of the previous section: “there is no use in the object”. Now, realizing that in order to benefit, the efforts of the subject are needed, we can modify the phrase: "I could not extract any benefit from the object." Although it still sounds soft. In most cases, it sounds like this: "I have not tried to extract any benefit from the object." Well, after that - “but I dare to say that there is no benefit there”.

    Agree, “I could not get the benefit” sounds a little different than “there is no benefit”. It seems that it’s not so absolute, tendentious and self-confident. But that's not the point.

    The main thing is that the subject of conversation, the active principle, the center of finding and receiving benefits are radically changing. Now this is not an object, but a subject. A person already speaks not about the object, but about himself, and his ability to benefit.

    Like that. Grandfather bought a smartphone. Grandfather rummaged, stumbled, and this way and that - nothing.
    In the first case, he says: pah, demonic invention, no use to him! What feelings for grandfather arise? Want to help him? What do you think about a smartphone?

    In the second case, he says: damn it, such a thing, but I don’t have enough brains to use it, it’s a pity to tears. Now what are the feelings? Want to help him? And what about the smartphone?

    For a long time, just in case, I try not to write comments like "this is useless material." The goal, one might say, is mercantile - suddenly someone thinks about the benefits in the same way as I do. Then he will read my comment as "I am an idiot, unable to understand the material and benefit from it." Many people consider me an idiot, I don’t want to aggravate.

    But, as you understand, this is not all.

    Location of Benefit


    Above, I used, in general, rather primitive definitions of benefits and their location. I said that there is benefit in the object, and the subject cannot extract it.
    But everything is somewhat more serious. Recall system thinking.

    Any system consists of objects, their properties and relationships. In our case, the system is simple - an object and a subject with their own properties, and the relationship between them. A connection arises when you study an object, and continues to live for a while. Which one is up to you (memory, interest in the material, etc.), the technique of placing an object in space (reminders of new comments, etc.).

    So, where is the benefit? If you believe what is written in this article, then a simple conclusion suggests itself: benefit is a property of the object. A static property with a certain value. But if the property is static, then it does not depend on the subject, right? For example, this article has a benefit of 100 units, whatever that means.

    Then we take our second thesis: the benefit from the object must be extracted, and the ability to this extraction refers to the subject, and not to the object. Therefore, the ability to benefit is a property of the subject. So it turns out?

    But this does not seem to be a complete explanation. We discussed above how to read an article, and how much different results can be obtained. This means that the same subject can, depending on his internal state, extract a different amount of benefit from the object. Right?

    There are two options. Either we stop considering the subject to be static, endowing him, as in the reaction, with props and state, or we transfer the previous paragraph from the subject to communication. Let the connection also have properties. So, it seems more logical.

    Communication is the way you study a specific object, the characteristics of this method, the effort that is applied, etc. The quality of communication determines the amount of benefit that you derive from the facility.

    And now we take a step to the side, and try to understand what does not fit into this model. Recall the movie “Mind Games”, which seems to be based on real events. Who does not remember, I will tell you one scene.

    The protagonist of the film is John Nash, a future scientist, but for now - a graduate student of Princeton. Trying to come up with a certain theory of equilibrium, but nothing happens. Comes with friends to a bar, girls come there too - beautiful and somewhat cute. Friends begin to argue who will look after the beautiful, recalling the lessons of Adam Smith about competition, as an engine of trade.

    On John condescending insight. If everyone rushes to the beautiful, then they will interfere with each other, and nobody will get it. And pretty girls will be offended and will leave. Guys will be left without girls. And if everyone goes to the pretty ones, ignoring the beautiful one, then everything is the gain. All the guys have girls, nobody offended anyone. Well, perhaps a beautiful one will be offended.

    After this conclusion, John jumps up, thanks the beautiful one and runs away. Beautiful, of course, has no idea why she was thanked. This situation, according to the film, helped John get off the ground and finish the theory, for which he subsequently received the Nobel Prize.

    So, back to our model. The subject is understandable - this is John. The object is understandable - girls, boys, and in general - a certain task. The connection is also clear - John was a witness, and almost a participant in this situation. And most importantly - the benefits that John was able to extract are understandable.
    Attention, the question is: where did he benefit from?

    We discussed above that benefits are derived from the object. But it is obvious that in this case there was no benefit in the object that John had gained. Let me remind you - he got off the ground in a theory that no one from the situation in the bar knew about.

    Neither the boys, nor the girls, nor the bartender, nor the bottles knew about this theory and the dead center. This information was not found in any part of the facility.

    A slippery question - was this benefit in the subject? According to various theories, the brain knows the answers to all questions. But there is no way to verify this theory, therefore I propose to assume that the information in the brain probably was, but since it was not extracted before meeting the object, it is easier to assume that it is not there.

    You probably yourself often found yourself in such a situation, and in the comments I often see this - like “it was spinning around in my mind, I just couldn’t formulate it,” or “now, this key thought was not enough to move, but I’m I knew! ”

    So, John did not benefit from the object, nor from the subject. There is a connection. Could he benefit from communication?

    It was not the first time he was at the bar, and the girls came there regularly, once John even tried to talk to them, but nothing came of it. Such a connection, that is, a similar situation, has arisen before. This is probably not a connection.

    Then in what? Back to systemic thinking, which says - hey guys, don’t try to find the answer by looking separately at objects and connections, this is not always useful. There is still such a thing - emergent, or emerging properties. These are the properties that appear in the included system, and they cannot be seen by looking at objects and relationships separately - as we examined above.

    Emergent properties, so to speak, are the properties of the system as a whole when it works. Of course, if you dig deep and thoroughly, we will find where the legs of these properties grow from. But, in all likelihood, the cause of their occurrence will be complex. It will be in the properties of the object, and in the properties of the subject, and in the properties of relationships. The stars came together, in short.

    So, the benefit came from nowhere. And this happens very often.

    You read the text about cyclists in Amsterdam, and you remember that you forgot to take a salary certificate for a visa at work — you want to go to the sea in the summer in Greece. The text was neither about a visa, nor about Greece, nor about you, nor about the sea.

    You watch the movie "The Matrix", and decide to quit smoking. No one smokes in the Matrix. No one talks about the benefits of a healthy diet - on the contrary, periodically eat cookies.

    I, along with my daughter, listen to the audio book “Dunno in the Solar City” in the car, and it dawns on me why the head of the department where I am introducing the changes is resisting. In Dunno this information was not.

    I listen to Metallica’s song “Ronnie Rising Medley” (from the tribute album “This is your Life” dedicated to Ronnie James Dio) on my way to work and decide to quit my job. And what they sing in the song - I have no idea, because I do not know English.

    You understand that in any of the examples, if you look, you can trace the chain of conclusions and understand how the source information led to the conclusion, decision or action. That is to the benefit. You can do this if you are a subject.

    In the same way, if you wish, you can build this chain in any system where the benefit has taken place. Sometimes it’s interesting, for fun, but you can’t do it all the time. Too many of these situations occur every day, including unconscious ones. Even you.

    But most importantly, the chain will be different each time. This chain is an emergent property. A unique, one-time, unique miracle. Today, an object evokes a feeling, decision, thought, illumination, and after a year - nothing, or just the opposite.

    Therefore, I propose not to search for causal relationships too often and persistently. It is better to accept and use the fact: benefit can arise even where, at least when, and at least in any combination.

    The benefit does not sit in articles, books, films, tools, techniques, companies, friends, organizations, communities, social networks. Good does not sit in you. The benefit is not in the way and behavior in which you read articles and books, watch movies, use tools and techniques, hang out with friends and companies, work in organizations, participate in communities and social networks.

    The benefit is generally not sitting anywhere. A benefit arises when an object, a subject converge, and a connection arises between them.

    It sounds kind of silly and naive, doesn't it? It seems like, the benefit is a miracle, manna from heaven, which condescends like a Bluebird, under what circumstances? What to do now? To study and wait? What the hell is going on with these systems?

    No, just understanding the benefits through the system allows you to correctly place emphasis and find leverage. Remember, after all, that system thinking is not only analysis (why so?), But also a change in systems. If the benefit system does not work, it must be changed.

    This is what we will do next time. And let's talk about the fact that there is no benefit in obtaining benefits. Perhaps we'll talk about Bruce Lee.

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