April 6, 2018

I don't know if this Japanese concept is the answer...

... but it's almost surely helpful and it certainly makes a kick-ass Venn diagram:


ADDED: I just created the tag "Venn diagram" and went into the 15-year archive of the blog to make it retroactive. 15 posts with that tag now! Interesting stuff, too. Click it. I especially like "It depends on what the meaning of 'Venn diagram' is..." — about a diagram tweeted by Hillary Clinton that failed to Venn. Also, how "that popular Venn diagram with circles for prostitutes, doctors, and TSA agents and the 'get paid to touch your junk' punchline in the center is not a proper Venn diagram." I mean, if you're going to Venn, Venn. I'm venting about Venning.

And, from 2005, "Donald Trump has some kind of neurological event," quoting the late, lamented Television Without Pity:
[I]n the Boardroom... where Donald Trump has some kind of neurological event and goes completely apeshit. And I mean to say that you have never seen this kind of behavior in your life. He first abruptly asks Clay if he's gay, acts stunned that Clay is gay, ascertains that Clay is therefore not attracted to women, clarifies that this Venn diagram excludes even women such as Alla, and then explains to us that this is why restaurants have menus: while Trump likes steak, other people like spaghetti. Later, without even stopping to breathe almost, he: asks Adam straight up if he's a virgin (he is, but won't admit it), counsels him not to be afraid of sex because it is "not a big deal," posits that Adam will ten years from now be more "comfortable with sex," shares that sex has gotten him into "a lot of trouble" and cost him "a lot of money," discusses at length whether Adam is "soft" or "hard," and wraps up by telling Adam that there's "nothing like" sex, and that he should look forward to having it one day, in the creepiest, ickiest, most pervuncular way imaginable.

40 comments:

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

That doesn't sound like a very Japanese way of thinking, to me. But I do love a great Venn.

sparrow said...

Way too positive as what you can be paid for and what you love rarely coincide. All professions have challenging unpleasant elements, even ones you're good at and enjoy most of the time. This happy set of circumstances is likely true only for the exceptionally talented. The rest of us have to make the best of limited talents and opportunities and put up with jobs that are tolerable rather than inspirational.

rhhardin said...

Needs a little cirle to the right, off what the world needs, "Commenter"

rhhardin said...

what you can be paid for and what you love rarely coincide.

Mathermatical physics.

Fernandinande said...

My favorite Venn diagram -
"hey guys lets make more venn diagram jokes"

SDaly said...

There are probably only a handful of people in the world with sufficient intelligence, knowledge and wisdom to have any inkling of "what the world needs." 95% of people struggle to know what their own family really needs.

That's why I can't stand the constant message to young people to "change the world."

Fernandinande said...

Social Media Venn

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Where is the circle for What will get you LAID?

sparrow said...

You'd get better vocational advice from someone like Mike Rowe. He's all about learning to tackle that difficult job others avoid.

MadisonMan said...

What Sparrow said. As if a job has such well-defined boundaries! (At least, an interesting job. I do recall that even people who aren't too clever can learn to tighten a nut forever, attach one pedal, and pull one lever)

There are aspects of my job that fall right in the center though.

Sebastian said...

It's a little too static: meaning also comes from moving through the regions.

Not sure the need circle is needed. The world doesn't need any of us. In practical terms, others need us as part of what we love (family) or for things we are reasonably good at that others are willing to pay for.

Fernandinande said...

I'll answer for George Soros:

1) What do you love? Money.

2) What are you good at? Making money.

3) What does the world need from you? Money.

4) What can you get paid for? Making money.

Man, that was easy. too bad he's not Japanese.

MayBee said...

The book blurb says it is about the Japanese philosophy of always staying busy. Which seems very Japanese to me.
Doing things right, and doing things for the sake of doing them right seems more Japanese than "doing what the world needs".

Also, others can speak to it more, but "doing what you love" could also be changed to "love what you are doing". Do you rake a garden because you love to do it? Or do you love raking the garden because that's what you are doing, and there is pleasure in doing it (and doing it right).

tcrosse said...

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of.

MayBee said...

My biggest problem is with the labels of the little petals surrounding the center

-what you are good at +what you love = Satisfaction but feeling of uselessness
- good at + paid for = emptiness
- love+ world needs= delight and fullness, but no wealth
- world needs +paid for = excitement and complacency (??) but uncertainty

Why, to any of those things? Seems like filler.

Wince said...

Unfortunately, there's a bubble representing a void within "what the world needs", and its rate of growth is accelerating.

And that is: "what you'll be mercilously punished for, despite (if indeed not because) you are doing exactly what the world needs".

MayBee said...

I missed a circle in each of those descriptions, but they still seem like filler. They actually don't make any sense.

Levi Starks said...

I like it a lot. It’s an acknowledgement that for each individual an ideal exists.
There’s no path shown as to how to reach that ideal, or that even reaching it is possible.
It encourages introspection.

Fernandinande said...

tcrosse said...
What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of.


Nice earworm.

SDaly said...

Also, some of the colors seem off, which bothers me a lot (particularly the middle - I don't see the combining of all of those other colors as being a dark green).

mockturtle said...

excitement and complacency (??) but uncertainty

Agree, MayBee. They make no sense. It's a lot like reading the instruction manual for a Japanese appliance.

Ann Althouse said...

Trump's theme song: "... but if you try sometimes, you get what you need."

Craig said...

That is not a Venn diagram (at least as they are standardly understood by mathematicians and philosophers and, fwiw, as it seems Venn understood them). Venn diagrams represent all combinations, but in that image, there is nothing which is only in the sets Love and Paid For. You cannot use all/only circles to construct a Venn diagram with more than 3 sets / predicates. I particularly like the flower-like ellipses for 4-set diagrams.

tcrosse said...

Trump's theme song: "... but if you try sometimes, you get what you need."

No matter what the post is about, some commenter has to bring Trump into it. Sad.

Craig said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...Trump's theme song: "... but if you try sometimes, you get what you need."

Wearing a MAGA hat when you go down to the demonstration to get your fair share of abuse.

lawyerdad said...

I'm surprised you didn't note the similarity to this Venn diagram: https://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/brilliant-venn-diagram.html

It's essentially the same as the one you posted today, minus the "What the world needs" element. And capitalism might suggest that "what the world needs" is the same thing as "what you can be paid for"...

Howard said...

No wonder the Japanese are so mental and their old ladies are shoplifting to get human contact in jail. They have set up a lotus flower of perfection and unless you get to the center, you are a failure who should consider seppuku.

Bill Peschel said...

Reading the Trump anecdote reminded me of two encounters I had with bosses. Both of them were abrupt, hard-driving, and had no filter. They'd say anything and didn't give a fuck what you thought of them. Of course, one owned his business and the other was managing editor, later executive editor and publisher, in a newspaper chain, and eventually became publisher of the Miami Herald.

No lesson to impart, except to say that Trump's "neurological event" is more common than you'd think.

mockturtle said...

Bill Peschel: A book I once read suggested there are two kinds of bosses. There is the one who tells you right off the bat that he is a sonofabitch and then there is the kind who seems very friendly and accommodating up front but you find out later--often too late--what a sonofabitch he is. The author [and I] prefer the former to the latter.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm surprised you didn't note the similarity to this Venn diagram: https://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/brilliant-venn-diagram.html"

I noted it in my head. I just didn't blog it. I do have many thoughts that I don't blog. Hard to believe, perhaps, but true!

RigelDog said...

I had a childhood friend named Venn. She was the only child of academics; they determined that they would name her Venn whether she was a boy or a girl. Very bright and weird child, like I was. It's very sad to me that today's politics are so polarized, because I would like to drop her a line but what's the point? She would no doubt think me some strange primate who should be in a cage, arms akimbo.

Phil 314 said...

Many years ago I was told (in Med School I believe):

"You're either a 'lumper' or a 'splitter'"

Venn diagrams appeal to both lumpers and splitters.

(and as I write "splitter" I bet there's a Venn diagram with "fastball", "fork ball" and "change up" and "splitter" in the area of overlap)

Phil 314 said...

Here's a funny one after our Gay/Grindr discussion.

Craig said...

I don't know how I missed this line:

"I mean, if you're going to Venn Venn. I'm venting about Venning."

Exactly, Professor Althouse: if you're going to Venn Venn!

(Or is "Venn" like "factoid" -- there was one meaning, principled and widely shared, but then the popular media folk wrestled control away, and now there is another, contradictory meaning?)

tcrosse said...

Say Venn.

Michael K said...

"fork ball" and "change up" and "splitter" in the area of overlap)

You mean SPITTER?

Howard said...

split-finger fastball. it fast but has movement. cousin of the cut fastball (cutter) made famous by Mariano Rivera

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

In Nordic countries, they have Sven diagrams, and Snow White has Sven Dwarfs.

Freeman Hunt said...

This reminds me of the funniest bad Venn diagram I have ever seen. (And I saw it only a few weeks ago.)

One circle had loving people, another had unloving people, and Jesus was in the shared space.

I guess the person thought the shared space was some kind of bridge. The idea of even making such a diagram is funny to me. Especially in a religious context!