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Duke and Amherst Pots: The Difference Between Small and Large Schools

I can’t globalize to all small, and all relatively larger schools, but I can say that Duke and Amherst are akin to plants. We, the students, are little buds growing in our pots, looking to spend time and connect with other little buds. At Amherst, they do a better job of tending the soil, making sure that sunlight hits everyone’s pot, and clustering students in pots of just the right size. And there are no “special pots.” At Duke, everyone is put in a tiny pot, the soil is a little dry, and its up to us to migrate”¦ and all around we see big pots that look really great from the outside, but a sign says “to grow here you must be X,Y,Z” So you get a bunch of little plants trying to satisfy the requirements of the “special” pots, which results in a lot of similar behavior and the sense of needing to meet certain standards. And in this rush, these buds forget to keep in check with their own sunlight, and soil.

But in getting a little thirsty, a little withered, or finally taking notice of what is directly around them, to survive, Duke pots must learn to take care of themselves. I’m not saying that this epiphany comes to everyone, but I think that adversity, or more challenging life experience, breeds greater wisdom and resilience. Timing varies, and some might never learn to take care of themselves, or never be aware of the soil they are growing in because the soil in the “special” pot looks so wonderful, but the challenge is the same for all of us. So in this light, a larger, more impersonal school might be that more challenging environment that allows us to grow as people, allows us to stumble upon self awareness. I have learned this recently myself, and am still surprised at how many people don’t seem to think about the idea of taking care of themselves.

You have to take care of yourself, because when it comes down to it, that’s what you have. If you don’t take care of yourself, it’s going to be very challenging to help others, and the idea of a deux ex machina swooping in and saving you is a lovely one, and stops there. It’s very common to point an inward finger of blame and criticism when something goes wrong, and add another layer of negativity to your situation, but do you need it there? I can also imagine being so used to having other people take care of you, that in absence of these people, you are rendered helpless. It all comes down to that idea of the balance of giving and taking energy. Not knowing how to take care of yourself and relying on others, you take too much, and not knowing how to take care of yourself and striving to impress others with hopes of filling your emptiness, you probably give too much.

There are plenty of people that might not like you, that you might not get along with, and that’s OK. There are plenty of bad days, and things get messed up every once in a while. This means”¦ drumroll that we are human. And something that seems obvious but is equally surprising is the idea that when you take care of yourself, other pots want to grow near you, and all of a sudden, you have a different perspective about those pots that seemed so special when you were just a bud.

So, might we be preparing for the real world? Without having solid roots and a sense of self, I think that it’s hard to grow at all. It is easy to think that most of what we need, what we want, is outside of our pots, and not with us in time and space. But if you look down, everything that you need is already there, you just have to really see it.

The Wonderful Things about Being Sick

Being sick is sort of like running in that it’s all about maintaining functionality through discomfort. Yeah, one minute it’s cold, and then I’m sweating… and I feel like a little monster is living in my gut with a “make Vanessa feel nauseous” button and then a “make Vanessa feel achey” lever, but sitting here, in the moment, I’m quite content. There’s really nothing that awful about illness.

I lucked out today in that my professor woke up with a migraine and canceled class, although I was already on main West and sitting through a class wouldn’t have been so bad. I passed out on some comfy chairs in the BC until the world had stopped spinning enough for me to drive back to my apartment, and then I got to sleep more.

But warm broth, when it finally stayed down, tasted really good, and there is something wonderful about lying in bed with sun rays coming in. I did some work, made the trek to fetch my finished laundry, and just sat down when a wave of anything came over me. I may have some nasty stomach virus, but given that I don’t need to move very much, that life is pleasant in the present moment, it feels more like an adventure, a deviation from the norm, than anything bad.

So why such a negative stigma? I think that sickness does have its awful moments, for example praising the porcelain goddess is an awful awful feeling. I think those bad moments are probably what stick with us when we recall being sick, and not the other 99% of the time when we were just, being, and being wasn’t so bad. I’m not saying that I would choose being chronically sick over good health, but like many things, I think that different experiences make life interesting, and that it just depends on how you choose to look at them.

Little Things I thought About Today

We live by norms of happiness instead of our own rules. Today I realized that I prefer a partially filled water bottle. I am usually inclined to fill it up to the top, or at least let the water run until it is moderately above the label. But then adding flavor to it, it becomes more diluted, and it’s has less room to mix. Personally, I enjoy the stronger flavor better, and don’t need the entire volume of the bottle to quench my thirst. And if I am just carrying around water? A half filled bottle is a lot lighter, and I can always add more. Enough with the rationalization – the main point is that many little things that we do in life have become so habitual that we pass over examination that trying something differently may be very rewarding.

So I’m not hammering down the overused phrase “variety is the spice of life!” and encouraging you to examine and tweak absolutely everything you do because it’s not OK to have ritual and habit. Those are good things, actually”¦ when you’ve identified that you love something, and that it makes you happy, stick with it. I’m talking about little behaviors and habits that are done sans thought, like filling up a water bottle. I thought that more was always better, mostly because I never bothered to think that it might not be.

How can this apply to life? Think about what is customary, or expected, of a particular situation, identify what you value or makes you happiest about that situation, and maximize that, regardless of expectations or norms. Expectation isn’t what will necessarily make you happiest. The hard part, I think, is that a lot of these norms have become some engrained in us that we just do, and don’t think. Expectations ruin everything”¦ my favorite line of my Introduction to Visual Culture class my first year at Duke. I can think of another domain for which expectations can make a good pair of teeth sort of fuzzy.

Hold the weather analogy, friendships are like fruit I used to have the expectation of a friendship being all encompassing – spending an enormous amount of time together, and doing everything from eating to running, moving watching to hanging out and conversation. You know, we’d have the matching key chains and complete each other’s sentences. Perhaps this expectation stems from the fact that I have had intense friendships like this. Friendships come in different varieties, like fruit. I never thought about the idea that it’s OK to have a friend that you run with (when I feel like an orange), a friend that you go out to eat with (sometimes I’m more in the mood for an apple), a friend that you chat with on the way to class (kumquat anyone?). Sometimes I’m more hungry for insightful discussion, and I know who to talk to for that. And sometimes I want to do absolutely nothing and laugh at “that’s what she said” jokes, and a certain fruit tastes really good when I crave that. The danger comes in having the expectation of an everlasting gobstopper, or that gum from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that turned Violet into a blueberry. One person shouldn’t, really can’t, be every fruit. Too heavy an expectation would feel sucky if you or I couldn’t meet it, and might strain our friendship. And this doesn’t imply superficiality, which is how I used to think about it, it means that we interact with many types of people, get a nice variety of flavors, and life is rich. It allows both people room to give and take, time and energy, and I think that this allows people to surprise you, be there for you when you least expect it, and I find those moments of a friendship to be most fulfilling.

Why Productivity Feels Good

On a daily basis, we do things to feel good about ourselves, to feel valuable as people. I can see some broad categories, all clustered into “relationships” and “work/getting shit done.” The relationship node can encompass any sort of interaction with other people, and I see the work node as any form of action in life that could render you “busy” or “productive” or basically not doing something (like sleep or relaxation) that might make you feel guilty for NOT working. Yes, unfortunately that seems to be a common guilt for my generation.

Anyway, feeling value is largely a balance, we dip and get fed from both wells. I like to feel valued and good about myself by both social and academic accomplishments, both large and small. And when i say academic i mean “getting myself, or my cause, somewhere” not just school work. The main difference between these nodes lies in the level of perceived control.

For me, its a lot harder to predict, and be sure of, getting social fulfillment on a day to day basis, so I lean heavily on “getting shit done” to feel valued. Over time, this can become habitual, because it is certain. I am under control of what I get done, it is up to me. But anything that involves other people isn’t predictable like that – I can’t rely on it on a daily basis for feeling good. because even if I DO get fed from this social node, there is no guarantee that it will taste good, or satiate me at all.

So applying this further, to myself, if you look at my average day, it is “inhuman” (as my mom calls it, ty mom, I know I’m an alien, but methinks you might have something to do with that 😛 ) and productive to an extreme. How would someone else feel living a day of my life? Would it overwhelm someone else? I’m not sure. It’s a question I’ve always had about myself, and other people too. But I am leaning towards the idea that college is a “loaded” environment in this sense – and that my need for busy-ness will change as time and environment changes.

The important point is that feeding the work node keeps my valuation of myself at a steady level while other influences that aren’t under my control can come in. So on days that I get social boosts, the productiveness can go down a bit, and i still feel good. But I need the work node to be full on days when there is nothing. And of course long long spans of nothing aren’t good for me either, so I keep that in mind. But on the whole, other people aren’t in my control, and I just do what I can to be around other people, and it’s exciting when I get fed/feel good from a social interaction.

I’m thinking about this now because I’ve had social situations that haven’t fed me, (it was more disappointing when I thought that it might and then didn’t), and I’ve been heavily leaning on the “work” dynamic and being busy and productive to feel good, but it’s been long enough that my stores are running low. And in this case I’m learning to be like one of my friends who is abroad for the summer, and be the catalyst to pull people together to do something fun, on occasion – I might send out an initial “poke” to some friends to go out to dinner, or invite them to tag along for a shopping trip, or something like that. I’m never sure what will come of it, but it’s usually really fun, and fulfilling, at least for me, so I think it will shift me back into balance. That deserves a good 😀 !

Unconventional Forms of Communication

Sometimes the best way to say !@#$ YOU is a smile and a wave. I am inhibited in expressing anger towards other people, so when I am. uncomfortable, facing passive aggression from someone, or what have you, I might feel anger, or just generally pissed, and at least want to resolve something I am not happy about. My inner cave woman wants to confront the other person sometimes I can dream up witty remarks, physical retaliations, and passive aggressive actions up the kazoo, but the repercussions from something like this aren’t always the best idea, especially if you have multiple interactions with said object of aggression.

So get your point across in an unconventional ways. I’m human. There are times when I want so badly to just say person’s name or hey you dude @#$% you!! But, recalling a poster from grade school, the act of swearing means that you just don’t have a better way of articulating yourself. So I don’t like to use the F bomb, I don’t want to be THAT person, it seems there are better, or at least more information-ally rich, ways of communicating something. BUT there is something lovely about the curtness, the efficiency, the compactness, of a curse word – there are times in life when someone does need to get a quick message that you at a minimum, are aware of something that they said or did, and have a strong opinion about it.

So since verbalizing “@#$% you” or saying “eat @#$% and die” is out of the question, let’s think body language. A good middle finger could work, but that can lead to the same result of making the other person REALLY PISSED and leading to bad consequences for me. So what sort of body language do we need? Something that acknowledges the other person, and wouldn’t lead to something like road rage. How about a smile and a wave? If someone is being an asshole, they are going to know it, so by smiling and waving that is a response that says “yes, i am aware of you, of maybe what you are doing,” and I’m above it, see this wave? It means exactly what you think it does!” Examples, Vanessa examples!!

Experience 1: I was finishing a run at East Campus one morning, and the bus was waiting at the stop. I was sprinting in, right towards in, in plain sight of a about half filled bus. About 20 feet from the door, it starts to pull away. That’s OK, maybe the driver doesn’t see me. It’s quite a possibility, even though as a bus driver I would be very aware of people approaching my bus upon my decision to move. So I speed up, and make myself very visual. I’m sprinting. I’m next to the bus, I’m next to the door, it’s still not going very fast, I’m waving, I see the driver, now it starts to pick up speed, and I find myself sprinting. What is going through my mind? Perhaps the driver has a strategy, or a rule, to make a decision about going and not stopping, and if that’s the case, she is allowed to stop at the next stop, which is actually very close. I start to lose distance, but I’m still next to the bus. She speeds right by the next bus stop. Finally I’m in an all out sprint and the bus pulls ahead, I’m killing myself running behind the bus, probably a quarter mile total, all around the bus loop down the road and under the bridge from East campus. She’s not stopping. The likelihood that she DIDN’T see me and NO one else on the bus did and alert her, is pretty small, and she didn’t bother to stop for me at the next stop, where she is allowed to stop. She’s obviously having a bad day, or taking something out on me, and there is no way she is going to stop. So I give up.

The entire experience really made me feel badly. it really hurt my feelings. I know she saw me, and my effort. So I start walking, for maybe 5 seconds, catch my breath, and then I feel something grow inside me. Despite my exhaustion from my already hard effort, I feel a second wind. And then I take off, at about a race pace, and I almost kill myself to make it to the bus stop on Anderson, where I would have gotten off. And since the bus loop is about half a mile longer than the straight shot, and the bus has to stop to pick up people, I beat the bus. And I stopped, and stood there to wait. Saw the bus approaching, and thought about what I might do. I could just stand there and stare, maybe put my hands on my hips, flash a quick middle finger? Did I want this to happen again, or confuse people on the bus that hadn’t seen our interaction? Did I care?

I started a big early wave, a big smile, and just held it. Looked the driver directly in the face when she passed, kept smiling and waving until the pass was complete. Oh damn, did it feel good. And I’m sure that some of the passengers on the bus going from East to West were aware of her leaving me behind, it might have caused them some discomfort, and then maybe fulfilled or inspired by my small, but impressive and inspiring motion of peaceful retalliation. I’m not really sure, but in the long run, it was a better release of my frustration then anything involving anger or even verbalization, or just keeping the feeling inside and not expressing it, because I see that driver quite frequently. And I €˜ve actually earned her respect. I wave at all the drivers while I’m running, but now she waves at me too, and I choose to interpret that wave as “damn girl you sure showed me, and you’re not so bad”

Experience 2: An individual was staring at me in the gym, in an uncomfortable way. I don’t mind harmless looking, or even a little staring, but when it gets so prolonged to the point that I am feeling violated by someone else’s eyes, that it really isn’t acceptable to me, the situation changes. It was an older individual and I might have been more flattered or at least subconsciously extended my time before feeling initial discomfort had that not been the case, but I had to let him know that I was aware of his staring, and maybe he needed to either stop, or do something more socially appropriate like converse with me. But the peeping around poles and staring thing was too creepy. So I just smiled and waved, and he went away. it was perfect, haha. Something like this works because the message of the gesture all is determined in the mind of the person receiving it, or seeing it.

So think of unconventional ways of sending a message, which sometimes requires taking a deep breath and stopping yourself from an immediate, reflex like reaction. And when in doubt, a smile and a wave seems like a good idea, to me. Gee

Inside my Head

I think that it’s harder to tell you than to just try and show you, so here goes.

This is what it’s like inside my head… go into iTunes, goto View, then “Show Visualizer” and blast something that moves you.

So this is the simplest set-up – music blasting and visual dancing as backdrop.

This is how I do school work, including studying, writing notes, reading, math/stat problems, graphic and web design, watching movies/TV shows, (used to play WoW :P) and usually chatting on gmail at the same time… all while in the gym on a bike, treadmill, or elliptical.

So that’s why I can get so much done – I’m most comfortable, happy, used to – visual, auditory, and physical overload. I’m in a hyper-productive, multi-tasking state for the majority of the day, at least 8 hours. Other time is filled with class, transportation, running, and small social-ness. And sleep? It’s pretty much minimized, but at least I still do it – I crash into my pillow like an iron horse shoe, and wake up exactly 6.5 hours later.

It’s also why I can’t or at least don’t like to stop moving, libraries suffocate me, and I’ll never be able to work at a desk.

So no, I don’t slow down. I know that other people slow me down, and give me the desire to step out of my element. I do that occasionally… go out to dinner, to a movie night, but in terms of waking up at 6:00 in the morning and NOT wanting to immediately go for my run, wanting to lie there and enjoy. something, or wanting to close my laptop to go and just spend time somewhere else? I haven’t found anything powerful enough to give me incentive to do that.

But you know what? That’s OK, because I won’t be able to, or possibly even want to, maintain this energy forever. So when that powerful something does find me, and challenges me, it’s going to be wonderful… I just have no idea how to understand that significance in this present moment in time.

Simplify Life by not Thinking about Things: The Value of Social Ignorance

I have a good friend that I often share the finest details of my analysis of people, behavior, and the social world. I throw a huge, ugly spittooee of thinking at him, reach the limits of my analysis and then the fatal moment when I’ve analyzed everything, have a huge amount of information, no idea what to do with it, and then wait for him to wipe my cognizant sneeze off of his eyes, and then I ask, “well what should I do?” And he’s told me this many times before, it’s what I come to expect, but until recently I didn’t realize what good advice it was.

“V, stop thinking”

“!@$##@#$##!! (insert squirmy-ness here) that’s like telling me to stop breathing! it’s not possible!” But when I thought about it (haha) I realized what good advice this is when you think about relationships. I think that it is more appropriate for romantic and friendship type relationships and less so family, but here is my idea.

A lot of college kids are frustrated by the absence of a deep relationships, whether that be friendship or romance, I’m sure it could be one or the other, both, or even vary by the day. In this frustration they (we) ask questions like “what is wrong with me, what is wrong with this environment so i don’t have what I think it is that I want, or deserve, and what do I have to do to get it?” Then we stumble back and forth between vows of pro-active behavior, bouts of self pity, and blaming. In the best times, I realize, I’m just distracted from thinking about it at all. Wait, in the best times I’m not thinking about it at all? So in whatever I am doing, I see a pattern of being most content when I’m not aware of my social-ness or lack of i it?? Rewind!

So how do we evaluate our relationships, how do we know where to put energy, where to hold back, and how do we evaluate ourselves as members of a social network? The answer is so much simpler than I thought possible – just relax and stop thinking about it. I know, it’s not the most satisfactory answer, but hear me out.

There are many ways you might be attracted to a person, and when I say attraction I am referring to those things that make someone else interesting, and ultimately compel us to engage them. When I think of an ideal friend, partner, running buddy, I’m pretty sure that my ideals aren’t founded on anything deeper than “well we share these interests, he’s a nice looking guy, he is similar to me,” etc. Those are really products of the retrospectoscope – us attempting to put a label on something after the fact that we probably don’t understand at all. I’m not even sure that I am capable of telling you what lets conversation flow comfortably and naturally between me and another person, or makes me want to spend time with them, and seek them out. What it comes down to is the idea that “good” relationships cannot be looked for, grown, forced, or predicted. We are going to put energy and time into people that we like to be around, that make us feel good, that we have a good dynamic with, really without thinking much about it. And if you stumble upon a two way street, you’ve probably hit gold. But in the most enduring (best?) relationships, no matter what the type, we get something out of interacting with the other person, and that positive something that we get lasts over time. And given that dynamics and people change, this something can also be lost, and that can lead to distress or despair, and confusion. But there isn’t much benefit of analyzing the black box that is this dynamic, trying to label incentives, track them, and do what I do way too much, over-think many of my relationships that aren’t the way I want them to be, and ask why.

Because you largely can’t answer that question, and more importantly, you don’t need to. The beautiful thing about this idea is the realization that it’s OK to not have yet found the other person, or other people, either friend or lover or confidant or running buddy, that might complement, complete, or fulfill you. Don’t jump to concussions, it doesn’t mean anything about you. But complete is a dangerous word, because with people, two incomplete people do not constitute a whole person. And this is exactly why it is best to focus on seeking personal fulfillment, whatever that means for you. And in pursuing what makes you happy, you will most certainly experience many types of relationships, learn from them, and hopefully find some rare sapphires.

So I started this thought by saying “just stop thinking,” but I think it’s important to still be aware- be aware of yourself, be aware of people that are directing energy toward you that you don’t know much about at all, aware of keeping in checks with dynamics that you do value, and be aware of the bases that found your relationships. This is another beautiful metaphor – the idea that friendships can be looked at like structures. Built on the wrong base, perhaps just for social purposes and lacking compassion and a connection with one another, is like trying to build a tower in a sand pit. Adding floors to that tower will be very challenging, as well as finding structural stability. This is an interesting conversation I had with another friend, actually about the dynamics of conversation. Look at trends in conversation over time, and ask if one person is simply filling in gaps with an occasional “cool, yeah, lol” when it is appropriate, and essentially adding nothing to the other person’s monologue, or does that person feel fed by what the other person has to say, and want to add something, respond, or challenge? It’s easier to evaluate yourself as a responder, listener, and contributer, than the other person, I think. So it’s interesting to think about what differentiates a rich conversation from one person telling things to another, and thinking that person is paying attention because he/she is responding at the appropriate time.

So it seems like there is a huge component of personal awareness, learning to abolish expectations, and as a result, find patience through your passions.

Time to listen to my own advice, mostly because it’s been a long week, and I haven’t done any work that I’m “supposed” to do

“V, stop thinking about it”

“Ok,”

My use, or overuse, of energy

I’ve been continuing to think about energy as a currency of life, and how it pertains to my own life. It isn’t hard for me to acknowledge that I have a lot on my plate – and I like to set up my life in this manner because I think that a certain level of busy-ness (have you ever noticed that you can write that as €œbusiness?€) equates to life richness and fullness. I like to feel productive, and needed, and that people appreciate my effort and my energy. However, this setup might be troublesome given that I set high expectations of myself, that I am hard on myself, and this is true to an extreme.

You see, I really like to please other people. I might tackle academics, social situations, all of those things with self interest and incentive, but it doesn’t feel good if I feel like I am letting other people down, or I really want people to like me. Thus, I feel like I must excel and be highly impressive in all my academic, social, and personal commitments. it isn’t OK to be average at something, or for someone to not like me, or not be pleased with me. For most of my life, it’s been all or nothing. If I am perfect and meeting the high end of the dimension, great, it feels good. If I am sub-par, it either needs to be fixed or cut out completely. Granted that it takes a HUGE amount of energy to constantly meet high expectations at everything, you might imagine that maintaining this dynamic takes a LOT of energy, probably tires me out, and can lead to emotional distress when I fall short.

So let’s think about what is on my plate, at the moment. Vanessa as a€¦ student, an employee, a room-mate, a friend, a sister and daughter, a future grad student, an athlete, and a woman. With all of these roles come ideals, and I create expectations for myself. In my mind, I must excel in class, at my job, in my relationships, with my body, and falling short even the tiniest bit feels like a failure. That’s really bad. Can I learn to be OK with being average at something, and with the idea that some people won’t like me? Is it OK with me that I might not be able to please everyone, at all times, because it feels really liberating to think that I don’t have to live with that burden.

This comes back to taking responsibility, and feeling like I must be under control. I feel like I must take charge of relationships, and be responsible for doing things so that I appeal to others, so that they like me, no matter what.

If someone doesn’t like me? I feel like it’s my fault, and I feel awful, and I think of what I might do so that they DO like me. I have to work harder to please them, find out what they want, and be that.

It’s time to challenge myself. I am going to live my life, and be me, and remove the personal responsibility for how other people feel about me. If they don’t like me? I leave it up to them to deal with that. It shouldn’t be my emotional burden to worry if I overwhelm people, or take responsibility for managing how someone feels about me. If I want to see or spend time with someone, I’m going to put energy into that relationship, but not worry about pleasing them. I will do my best at everything that I touch, but if best isn’t pleasing enough to someone else, it is their responsibility to decide how to deal with that. And I will continue to try and evaluate myself more in a currency of energy and learn to value shades of gray. I can’t be perfect, I shouldn’t expect myself to be, I only can expect myself to work hard, be squirmy, and remain humble. In doing these things, I think that I might have better relationships, and find fulfillment in this balance.

It seems so simple, but it’s going to be a challenge for me, but it’s a beautiful idea, a new perspective, and I’m excited to try looking at the world through it.

Energy: the currency of life

Life seems to be a lot less about managing time, and resources, and a lot more about managing energy. Responsibilities, and obligations, and passions and social interactions, these things all require energy. There are people that I find drain this valuable resource, and people that fill me right back up. In some interactions, energy comes or goes like a trickle from a stream, and in others it might be taken or gifted in large, potentially overwhelming amounts. Which way is to better to give, and to receive? Which way is more apparent from one person to another? The nerd in me will talk about these two doses of energy in computer game terms, two types of healing spells from Wow, or World of Warcraft. You don’t need to know anything about this game other than the metaphor: healers cast spells with mana to restore other players life, and keep them from crumping. A “Flash of Light” is a quick, tiny heal, and a “Holy Light” is a slower, but more powerful heal. The first is more of an economy heal, it uses a lot less mana, and delivers in much smaller doses. Both are important in the game, and for an interesting metaphor about energy expenditure in life.

Holy Light I can look back on my life experience, and see times when I have been given energy in large amounts, and I think that this drastic a change can produce a dangerous high, that as soon as the source is removed, leads to a greater fall. So in the examples I am thinking of, it seems that blasting someone with Holy Light for an extended period of time would be exhausting to the giver and the receiver. I think that people have a threshold for receiving energy, just like many things, and the benefits of breaking the threshold are huge, but once you break it, the affects of additional energy are marginal. And the threshold holds for giving as well. So possibly the most fulfilling life experience comes from bouncing back and forth across this threshold, as opposed to remaining constant above and below it. it isn’t the level that is very important, but rather the change in these levels.

When these gifts come as a rare surprise, it can extremely energize and impress the receiver to make the giver feel even better than had he/she tried to maintain in long term. In terms of relationships, if you think about the balance between giving and taking, this is why the tactic of being an endless well of giving isn’t very good for either side. It will ultimately drain you, and potentially push the other person away, either due to being overwhelmed by the giving and feeling guilty about not reciprocating in an equal manner, or adapting to the unmaintainably high level and being disappointed when it drops.

Like a Holy Light healing spell in WoW, the person receiving gets a lot more in that moment, but it takes a lot more mana, or energy, for the person giving it. In the long run, it hypothetically is a lot harder to maintain this level of giving€¦ it drains the giver of energy. And this is why we have a tiny, efficient way of giving as well.

Flash of Light: Giving marginally over time, to bounce into positive from negative territory, seems to be an efficient strategy for giver and receiver. The giver isn’t drained of energy, and the receiver is maintained without being overstimulated or overly energized. When I give and receive little amounts of energy from other people during the day, largely without being aware of it, i find these days very positive and fulfilling. Combine a balance of this life energy interaction with the right perspective, and the concept that good and bad days just “happen” and are out of our control is completely eliminated.

It is also important to think about how people might react differently to similar amounts of energy. Someone that is used to receiving in large quantities might not get as much out of your act of kindness than someone who is not. People might grow up with different dynamics to expect receiving a certain amount of energy and time from other people, or not expect it. Either extreme seems dangerous€¦ the people that expect it might be constantly disappointed in others, leading to a dynamic of one person exhausting him or herself trying to please the other, or the expectee being given up on by other people because he/she is impossible to please. People that expect not receiving a lot of energy might learn to exist in a hyper-self-sufficient or solitary state, and learn that needing other people could be dangerous, and be overwhelmed when another person invests in them. We like to receive something called self-verification, or feedback that the way we look at ourselves is also the way that other people see us. So one person sending the message to another that “yes, I value you, you are important,” when the second person doesn’t see him or herself as a person that is worthy of or needing value and attention, is going to lead to a turbulent relationship. On the other side of the pancake, a person whose identity is built up around greatness and being constantly pat on the back is going to feel cognitive dissonance when this constant reassurance does not come from another person, is stopped, questioned, or challenged. The bottom line is that if you don’t interact and treat me in the way that supports how I think about myself, that’s really scary.

So relationships of all types are intricate, and complicated, and too often opaque. Sharing what and more importantly HOW you think, I strongly believe, is the cement that holds us together. If I can try to understand how you look at the world, I might be able to place myself in your shoes, understand your thoughts and behavior more readily, and treat you in the best way I know how, given this insight.

What happens is a lot less important than how I choose to perceive what happens. Understanding myself to know how I might perceive certain interactions and events can let me set up my life in a way that leads me to have interactions, and a schedule doing things for myself and others that has a lot higher probability of turning into a “good” day. Other people rock my world, and I see myself as going from extremes of giving, possibly looking to receive, and then withdrawing when I feel disappointed. So here I am, briefly writing, but mostly thinking about the best ways to connect and relate to others while maintaining my own energy.

The answer then, as with many things, isn’t one or the other, black and white. We give huge spurts of energy to people that we care about when levels might be dangerously low, and then more of a trickle over time to maintain our own reserves and continue telling the other person that we care about his or her wellbeing. This post is largely about quantity and quality. An interesting question comes up about distribution – how many people we choose to invest in, and whether that number has an affect on our ability to give trickles or spurts, or potentially spread ourselves too thin, like peanut butter But I guess that depends on your preferred ratio of PB to jelly!!!

and these are hard questions, and in a discussion of energy I find my mind turning into a nice blue goo. And saying that I have an exam in 20 minutes, I better preserve whatever non-goo is left, and then go for a nice, long run and blast my brain with music, because not thinking is just as important.

Ideas that I like

Ideas aren’t so rare anymore, and information is overly abundant. It isn’t knowledge that I crave, that I find impressive, but rather how a person thinks about this knowledge, sifts and spins it in multiple directions to show it to me in a beautiful, unbelievable way.

What does the world need?€ isn’t the question to ask

Pursue what makes you happy, and electrifies you

Because when I am electrified I feel alive

And the world needs people who are alive.

It is usually when we don’t fit it that we are forced to think about how the world works.

Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.

The most solid advice that I’ve ever received, from the only person I’ve ever seen as a role model, pertained to three qualities that make a good person. Humility, never giving in to complacency, and knowing that the only thing that is certain is that I, you, we, don’t know very much at all.

and on that note, I have huge respect for those who don’t take themselves too seriously. I think that brilliance isn’t in the achievements you impress upon others, the number of facts that you know perfectly, or the goals that you value, but in the way that you think, and your openness to people that might think differently than you do.

What am I?

It shouldn’t be such a hard question, but it’s not something I’ve ever put much thought into, or how it shapes my identity and sense of belonging. I’ve always called myself a “hybrid,” although I’ve grown up in white culture, I’ve always felt somewhat exotic in my ethnic makeup. I fall in the middle of a dimension between white and, something else. I say something else because appearance wise, I’m hard to pin in terms of ethnicity – I’ve had people guess just about everything, and guesses are usually wrong. I have quite a bit of fun in hearing others guess, actually. But I can change my hairstyle – either go straight, or get my hair braided, and I move in a certain direction along that dimension. People treat me differently, I catch the eye of different guys (or at least perceive that I do) it’s quite interesting really. But when I am stuck in the middle of that dimension, it somehow feels solitary, to look around and realize that you don “˜t look like the people around you. There is a sense of belonging that comes with looking like a certain ethnic group strictly “white,” “asian,” “black,” “hispanic,” etc we apply these labels, I think, either consciously or unconsciously to most that we see.

I am thinking of race less in a biological sense and more in a social construct sense sharing a collective identity with a group of people that can add to my own sense of identity and solidarity. Having this sense of identity would add to confidence and a sense of belonging and in that line I am thinking of the song from Sesame Street “one of these things, is not like the other!!” Anyway, I can’t say I have this stability.

There is most definitely a model, or example of beauty for each type, of course propagated by the media I know that in my mind I have a solid idea of what a guy finds “beautiful” and “attractive” in a girl. The only ideal that I can come close to meeting, thanks to my running and Scrubs/gym time, is thin-ness, and nothing else about me fits any schema very well. I don’t look white, even though that is my “culture,” and I don’t look anything else either, and I can’t imagine what sort of guy, other than another confused hybrid like myself, might be drawn to me. Of course I only see out of my eyes and am unaware of my own physical appearance, so I can imagine that guys I might be attracted to based on my cultural preference would tend to not be attracted to my appearance. I just don’t know but it is clear that for the question “What am I?” I don’t have a very good answer.

Ghost Ride it!

The Ghost Rider is pretty spectacular, if not embarrassing :O)

Doing things for you makes me feel good

but if off balance, it might push you away.

The Ben Franklin Effect says that we come to like more those people for whom we do a favor. So we like people not based on the favors they do for us, but what we do for them.

I think it is key that external justification, so a reason outside myself that I am doing said action, is subtle. A good example is doing a favor for something “just being nice” versus being told or paid to do something. The person who is just being nice is going to like the receiver of the favor much more.

So in a successful relationship (of whatever type) it makes sense, then, that this give and take must be balanced. Person A might be constantly getting a high off of doing things for Person B (under the potentially false guise that doing these things is making Person B like person A more) but I would say that there is either minimal increases in how person B feels for A, or person B might not be doing favors for A, and either will feel insufficient or guilty about receiving from A, and the relationship goes off balance. Person B might learn to expect these favors from A, and take things for granted.

So what does this mean for good relationships? It means that one sided relationships only feed one person, and might even have negative consequences for the other. Both parties, to make themselves feel good, should do things for the other. The hard part is finding relationships in life, whether they be friendships, coworkers, or lovers, for which it is contextually appropriate to do favors for the other person that actually are things that you enjoy.

I can try to think of examples. This first one is overly simple. Think of two friends that meet up to play tennis together. Each gets a lot of joy out of playing tennis, and in context of doing it for one another, both might like each other more than before, and rate each other as being closer friends.

In high school I used to bake cakes for all my friends on their birthdays. It was a “favor” in the definition of the word, had little external motivation, but I loved baking by itself, and giving my beautiful creations to others made me feel good. The fact that I had these friends for which to do this baking, something that I love, made me like them more.

So maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to ask people for favors to strengthen a relationship, or find out if it can be strengthened in that regard. From an opposite standpoint, if I ask someone for a favor and they turn me down, the exact opposite occurs. I guess it’s all about balance, again, and this second idea is probably why I don’t like to ask people for favors, ever. But in not asking, I don’t let people do nice things for me, and feel everything that comes with that.

And a beautiful idea that was said by one of my professors is the statement that “love is not always a feeling, it’s an action verb.” If you do acts of love, give affection, even when you don’t feel it, it will get you over those humps in a relationship when the feeling isn’t there. I would say that friendship is an action verb as well, and this is exactly the reason that having deep, true friendships is a rarity – it takes a lot of energy, and it’s a lot easier to expend less energy and remain on a superficial level.

Personally, I know that I put a lot of energy into friendships from high school after I went to college, and I’m very lucky to still have my best friend. However, for the so many that I lost, I learned that my expenditure was largely a waste. As a result, I don’t spend very much energy on other people anymore, unless I get some indication that the interaction might become balanced and two way. From my life experience I have learned to be weary of others as possibly a defense mechanism to avoid ultimately being forgotten. It’s a selfish strategy and sometimes leaves me lonely, but it’s a choice. And I can admit to starting on paths of friendship here, and either feeling overwhelmed by being the sole provider of energy, or just not enjoying the favors that I do enough for the other person to keep it going. I might start on a track of doing favors for the other person until it feels like some sort of expectation, and then I don’t enjoy the friendship like I used to. So I’ll just stop, and keep waiting for people to enter the picture that show an interest in knowing and understanding me, and also that I find fulfillment in doing things for. And it isn’t that I cycle through people like index cards, I find that it is very hard to find people that:

1) I can relate to
2) open up to me, show honesty, humility, a sense of realness and ultimately
3) I can trust

So welcome to my perception of my social scene at Duke University. It’s a game of continually waiting for hints of interest in friendships, leaving your room and putting up a shell with the hopes of drawing people to you and also aiming to protect yourself. And although everyone arguably desires almost the same thing, we wind up with a bunch of young people walking around in social armor. Instead of being like fingers in a mitten, we all have our own enclosure as in a glove, and in those private spaces breed insecurities, some loneliness, unanswered questions, and eventually self-justification to reduce the dissonance and make the reality OK. What we can’t see from our private spaces is that we are actually right next to each other, and going through the same thing.

I also imagine all of us standing in individual boats on a great sea. There are many of us, we float on the same water, but no one dares risk climbing aboard someone else’s boat for fear of being thrown overboard. Some speed around the sea, their boat driven by sexuality or task oriented business, and others are content to remain in one spot. And some boats are heavy, beautiful, and made of glass, some are grand and impressive to look at, but you know nothing about the person inside, others have a lot more holes, some patched and some left to slowly fill the boat with water, and some are even overturned with their inhabitant floating in the air pocket underneath. The boat with holes might not be as impressive as the majestic wooden one, but I would bet that the person inside has a lot better stories We want our boats to reflect who we are, but we also want them to look like what we think they should look like, and those two things aren’t always the same thing. What does your boat look like?

So when two people do find each other, I think that it is largely situational, or accidental, but the result is always something to the effect of a huge appreciation for the other person, for the things you can do for that person, and wondering how life might have been had X not happened, had your friend not crashed his boat into yours, and forced an interaction.

So maybe the people that you like the most give you incentive to do things that you love, and a beautiful feeling of fulfillment and appreciation grows in a circular manner to build the foundation for a long lasting, successful relationship.

It’s time to start crashing some boats, and taking some risks and jumping into other boats to see who is inside. This might be a lot easier for guys than girls, but that goes with the social expectation anyway. The worst thing that can happen is you get a little wet, and have to swim back to your boat.

Affection: the spectrum of emotional vs physical

This is the way that it usually works, when I want to express what I’m thinking: when it rains, it pours! So I want to talk about one more idea, Kelly’s idea of “constructs.” Constructs are interpretations that we have about the world that help us to predict behavior. Kelly uses 11 corollaries to help explain this idea child. If you want less of the theory and more of my ideas and evaluation, skip down to “Sociality,” that’s where it gets interesting, but understanding the theory is important too!

Construction: I can anticipate events by construing their replications (my friend is often late, so probably will be for this instance too!) This anticipation is not possible without replication.

Individuality: people just differ in construction of events, it’s what makes everyone different.

Organization: the construction system is built around relationships between constructs

**Dichotomy: **Our construction system is based upon a finite number of dichotomous constructs. We look at people and situations and characterize them, but there has to be a spectrum, I can’t understand something if I don’t understand it’s opposite. I can’t understand good without having a knowledge of bad, safety doesn’t make sense without it’s opposite danger, etc :and going off of this idea, I would say that most people take the safe route and just stick with the constructs they already have, which I guess you might call being narrow minded or unable to be empathetic, but it makes them less likely, i would speculate, to be able to connect with other people that have different constructs (look at the world in a different way) And then I would also say that people who have an idea of a concept but DON’T understand the level of the opposite either 1. take the idea and applications of it for granted (good health, a good friend) or 2. become stuck in a one minded perception in that when the opposite DOES come along they might negate its value (oh, that’s not very important) or just apply the dominance of their end of the spectrum and make value statements (well, that person just needs to be happy , why wouldn’t he?

**Choice: **I can be safe and look at something with my established construct system, or take a chance and try to apply a new construct, the choice corollary is trying to look at the world in a different way. It’s a risk, of course, but I think that people who take the risk have a more developed, complex system of constructs than those who opt for the safe route.

Range: every construct has an appropriate range it can be applied to. Every construct doesn’t apply in every situation

Experience: corollary says that my construct system varies as I successfully/unsuccessfully construe the replication of events.

**Modulation: **some constructs are more plastic/malleable/changeable than others.

**Fragmentation **corollary says that because these constructs are in constant change, there is the possibility for inconsistent behavior

**Commonality: **similar construct systems = similar personalities (the idea that “wow, we see the world in such a similar way!! I feel you!!”)

**Sociality: **(the most interesting, in my opinion) to the extent that one person can construe the construction process of another person, he may play a role in social processes involving the other person. So I have to understand someone else’s construction in order to have an interaction with them, and the role I play is dependent on how I understand the other person to perceive me, or how the other person construes my role should be. (Man, this just feels so real, that people, (that I) act, based on how I think others expect or want me to, and me being able to do that requires that I understand the person on a non-superficial level. And of course this isn’t all or nothing, I can see sharing some constructs with another person and enough so that personalities are similar, but not all.

For example, in my daily speculation I was thinking about the idea of affection, on an emotional and a physical level, and I realize that I’m pretty one sided. I don’t have an understanding of emotionally caring for someone else, not to say that I am incapable of it, but it’s in its infancy. My way of showing emotional support is to make you feel good with buying you things, baking you cakes, giving you cards, and sharing things like quotes, music, and ideas that have made me feel better when I am down, but I have a hard time willingly putting myself in the emotional shoes of another person, and trying to actually live his or her experience to understand it.

But why Vanessa, why?!? Well I can easily say that in my family, there is a lot of physical affection: hugs, doing nice things for each other that might make them feel better, but there isn’t a lot of venturing into the “I felt this way when you did this: do you understand?” That and I’m the youngest, which has always placed me at the receiving end of all types of affection, and less so at the giving end. So that has made me weaker on the emotional affection side, and leaning heavily on valuing physical affection. It’s not that I don’t understand it or feel it, but that I don’t know how to express it or deal with it in relation to other people.

Here’s the frustration, I can’t express the best way I know how to give affection, physically, with most people outside of family and the rare occurrence of a boyfriend. It’s sort of a contradiction, and I can see how being unable to make a friend or someone I care about feel better might make me distant, or even worse, just seeming like I don’t care. It isn’t socially acceptable, outside of an intimate physical relationship, to express affection through kisses, or touch, or hugging and gazing into eyes and hoping for the life of me that the emotions that I feel and want to express and share somehow are transferred physically. I’m not saying that I WANT to express physical affection towards everyone, I don’t, but I sure as heck need to work on expressing emotional affection a lot more than I do, because no, bonking heads with someone does not imbue them with the strong things I feel and want to share, and sending a card or baking a cake can only go so far. I’m limited to being able to listen to someone, share things that have made me feel better, and give relentlessly, and hope that said person feels better.

The implications of this? I’ll have no problem expressing physical affection in a relationship, but I’ll have trouble with friendships. And then when you think about the construct system, that people who have similar constructs have similar personalities and therefore “understand” one another (which arguably leads to a good friendship, no?) and this last social corollary, that we act based on what we perceive others to expect of us, well when I am in need of affection, I’m pretty sure that my friends won’t know how to give it to me, and that sucks on their side. When my friends need support and my limited strategies don’t work, I’m not going to know what else to do other than backing off and giving them space, and hoping that he or she can resolve things in absence of me.

But all that said, it’s very reassuring that this system is so open for change, and growth. And one thing I do know about myself, that gives me the ability to understand the thinking of a lot of different types of people, is that I am cognitively complex. It basically means that I take chances on my own constructs and try out different ones all the time, and it leads to a larger range of constructs, and consequently an easier ability reading other people. And a higher level of cognitively complexity = a better ability to predict other people’s behavior and reactions. I might not be able to directly read your mind, but by understanding your thinking, I can predict your behavior and what you might be feeling and thinking.

Again, for me it’s all about figuring these things out, seeing a dynamic that someone else might not be able to see because they aren’t open to it or it hasn’t even crossed their mind, and then sharing that with them. But it’s hard to the extent that not everyone values emotional insight, for some the emphasis is on academia, or achievement, or career success, or living up to expectations, or material things, (or maybe just not thinking about what they value much at all, and just striving towards some future moment) to the extent that I value wisdom.

I know I’ll always struggle with the idea or knowledge that I can understand a person on a deeper level than they know, but I’m unable to have a conversation with said person about this either because they aren’t open to those sort of ideas, or maybe I perceive them to be less cognitively complex, or pure and naive so that I can’t open up to them because he or she isn’t ready for the opening of that Pandora’s box..

Either way, our society still really struggles with valuing wisdom, on so many levels. It’s just a lot harder to be a feeler than a thinker and a doer, for which you see measurable sources of success- and that looks really great at an institution like Duke. Then it becomes about being able to accept yourself, maybe re-evaluate your idea of “success,” and accept that there is a discrepancy between what you value (and when I say YOU I mean I) and what society values , but that’s a whole other can of worms, to be prodded at another day.

Interesting Ideas from today's studying

• People with more right brain activation (those feeling, creative types) are more vulnerable to negative emotion, and those with more left brain activation are more prone to positive emotions (or possibly just a lack of the negative, hmm?)

• The entire idea of proprioception (that my body is me, myself, and I am aware of it in space, etc) is just an illusion, because with correctly correlated visual and physical stimulus the brain can be convinced that almost any object is an extension of the body (and I won’t even get into phantom limbs!)

• There seem to be many body types for males, females, (and the link with personality is questionable beyond developing behaviors based on how you can use and what you think about your body”) but I can’t seem to find the “boobless-wonder” type”

• The ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) is sort of a biological explanation for introversion and extroversion. The goal for everyone is to seek a pleasant baseline. Introverts have a higher level of activity, you might even call the system overactive, so you might say there is a party going on in the ARAS, so they don’t seek out stimulation. Extroverts have crickets chirping up there, so they seek out stimulation to meet the baseline level.

This might be why introverts are comfortable and can even fall asleep in absence of sensory stimulation, and extroverts go insane. This is also why, when asked to choose an optimal level of noise for working, introverts’ average choice (55 db) is lower than extraverts (72 db), and introvert performance decreases when you raise that value.

• Sitar Sunday is a glorious celebration of different colors of delicious slop that might be confused with Indian food.

• A lot of college, mostly the academic part, isn’t that important, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that amongst the predominantly Type A personalities around here. Ten years from now, all of that stuff won’t matter. College is about learning about yourself, learning how to learn, and graduating only proves to future employers and everyone else that yes, you do have the skills and intellect necessary to get through it all, congrats, here’s a cookie!

• In other notes, a good friend of mine pointed out that you have to have a certain level of sophistication and rugged beauty to pull off the short hair look. I don’t claim to pull it off, but damn it feels good to have my curls back, and not look like the rest of the world that has straight hair.

• Wilson Phillips, ahh !

• In the past I was inclined to like things that I excelled at, but I’ve realized that fulfillment can’t come from getting patted on the head for something that doesn’t really excite you that much. I’m learning to take chances on things that I find exciting, even when I suck at them, and “failing” at something you suck at somehow seems more right than excelling at something that was there all along.

• “and on that note, it’s time to return to memorizing material for regurgitation on Wednesday’s exam, as opposed to actually thinking about the more interesting points. It’s funny how that works, or maybe doesn’t.

You are only as strong as I perceive you to be

I’ve been thinking about Rogers phenomenological viewpoint and the idea of actual versus ideal self, and of course have some thoughts.

I have an appreciation for the phenomenological viewpoint because it imbues the individual with free will and states that human beings are all inherently good and striving towards their actual selves, or full potential. The hairy beastie that comes into the equation is the environment, but as humans we are still in control of our reactions to that environment. In stating this I start to think of neurobiology and correlating neurotransmitters and electrical firing to behavior and personality, suggesting that we are less ghost and more machine, but for the sake of the phenomenological viewpoint I will stick to the beautiful idea of free will.

Carl Rogers came up with this phenomenological viewpoint, and in it he also discusses a subconscious guide called the “organismic valuing process,” or a tendency to draw us towards experience that allow us to grow, and away from experiences and people that inhibit growth. This sounds like gut feeling to me, and I think that in a society that idealizes certain qualities and experiences that may be true to some and not others, there is a higher risk of forcing oneself into experiences that go against gut feeling, and consequently inhibit growth. The voice of what is socially acceptable and prized seems to be stronger than the intuitive, inner voice that guides the individual towards self realization.

I agree with Rogers that our perceptions of our selves are most important in leading to self actualizing and happiness, but I wonder about whether it is my perception of myself that is most important, or how I perceive others to perceive me. I say this because there are aspects of myself for which the ideal self and actual self are correlated, but I might think that other people look down on this characteristic, despite me valuing it. I think that Rogers theory probably takes this sort of social influence into account in the idea that the ideal self is influenced by society, but I question whether the Q-sort can correctly account for stubbornness on the individual’s part in having a trait that they perceive as valuable and matching up with their ideal self, but feeling judged in the eyes of society. I think there should be three measures taken for assessment: a measure of ideal self, a measure of actual self, and a measure of what the individual thinks that people perceive them to be. I might guess that people who differ widely between how they actually are and how they think they are perceived might be more psychologically troubled because they are either working hard to maintain a false image or are unable to relate their true selves to others, or feel that their true self is not appreciated by others. For example, I see myself as highly ethical, and value that characteristic, but I know that many behaviors that I don’t engage in as a result of this quality are not judged highly by my peer group. It might not even be that they judge it poorly, but that their behavior reflects a large difference between our expressions of that characteristic, which makes me question it. Even if many might value this characteristic, what matters is my observation of my peers’ behavior, my judgment of their level of this characteristic, and then the conclusion that the large difference means that I must be judged poorly by them. In a sense, this is jumping to concussions, but I feel very strongly that the idea that we look at ourselves through the eyes of other people should be further explored. A society that verbally promotes individuality but leads to and an unspoken lemming dynamic can certainly play tricks on the individual’s psychological health.

It might be beneficial to ask how humans developed this dynamic from a phenomenological viewpoint. All organisms have a need to be appreciated, loved, and valued, first from others, and then from themselves. If an individual perceives having a quality about himself or herself as a bad thing, that he or she might only be valued in absence of a certain quality or in the presence of one that is lacked, then this might lead to a conditioned sense of positive regard. Put in simpler terms, I am told that being valued by society is dependent on having factors x and y and not z, and consequently I am alienated from my true self and/or learn to not trust my feelings. Either way, these conditions of worth make one move away from his or her true self, and in the presence of expectation and internal (possibly unconscious feelings of lacking or defiance), anxiety is born. This anxiety seems to be what differentiates a fully functioning person that is in touch with his or her true self from a maladjusted person. The maladjusted person is either driven to conformity despite straying from their actual selves, which I would argue is the type of person that makes up the majority of society, or caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to meet the conditions of worth, anxious and seeking positive regard, but still trusting gut feelings and unable or unwilling to conform. It is only those individuals whose qualities match up with the expectations of society who never perceive conditions of worth and are allowed to pursue their ideal selves with full support. For everyone else, finding coping strategies to deal with this anxiety while maintaining outward composure is the challenge of being human.

The Mind as Energy

Freud talked about the mind like the body, as an energy system. The mind contains and directs its limited supply of energetic forces, and energy spent on one task leaves less energy for everything else. That’s why after taking an exam, I am exhausted. And, of course, this limited well makes multitasking very challenging. I am a strong believer in science and having hard evidence to prove a theory, but I also believe that there are some phenomena related to our perception that we have yet to understand, or even measure. I think that our perception of “reality” is just that, a perception, completely fabricated in the mind in response to a mixture of stimuli and forces that we might not be able to see and really don’t understand. Think about the blind spot in your vision due to the optic nerve exiting the back of the eye. There are no rods and cones there, yet your brain weaves the hole closed so you are not aware of it. Similarly, we adapt to the shadows cast by the intricate web of veins on the inside of our eyelids. Think of something like blind-sight, or the idea that damage to the part of the brain responsible for seeing can render someone blind, but they are still able to reach for and perceive objects in a mysterious way. Think about how texture, color, depth, spatial aspects, and vision are controlled by different parts of the brain, but some inner monkey puts it all together, and tricks us that we have one vision, solitary in our perception.

But back to this energy. It can be focused, released, or blocked, and if you block it, it will simply find release through the path of least resistance. And we find pleasure in the release of this energy, because it is a release of tension. So let’s say you feel some sort of anxiety and fail to deal with it in a healthy way€¦ it might release as an even uglier beast in the long run or even something called hysteria, which is an emotional sympton expressed as a physical condition. I would postulate this is a starting point for hypochondriacs. I think that these inner demons can build up unconsciously and traumatize an individual without he or she being aware of the original cause. On the other hand, this energy might build up and expressed in another way, perhaps through cultural productivity, but I think that being productive to deal with suppressed anxiety does not relinquish it, but only holds it at bay.

A poem from last year

English? Spanish? There are even some made up words in there… let’t be safe and call it Spanglish.

Aeropuerto

En el muchedumbre del aeropuerto
leaking con conversacion y cafe
me siento abajo del muro
siempre pidiendo, porque?

en el confianza de mi mano
en la isolacion de mi mente
es una cuestion de dano.

la respuesta es definamente

~2007

Stumbling on Happiness

I apologize for the time away: I was busy with another blog, but I have returned.

Here are some interesting ideas from the latest book I am reading, “Stumbling on Happiness” I expect to have a lot to say about this book in the next few days, but I’ve really just started.

“The things we do when we expect our lives to continue are naturally and properly different than things we do when we expect our lives to end.”

This says a lot for adversity breeding wisdom. Until you are forced to realize what is important, you really don’t have perspective, and with this realization, incentives change, people change.

“We spend most of the hours of today constructing tomorrows that might make our future selves happy.”

and I think that there is a fundamental difference between fulfillment and happiness, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

You Run Girl!!

Here is Thursday’s run:

I’m drooling already… Newton is so gorgeous, and I love riding the far branches of the T! (It gets crowded as you move in :P)

here was today’s run… I wound up missing the loop turn and going a bit farther than expected… it was a tempo so it was short, fast, and sweet, about 4 miles.

here was yesterday’s PLANNED run

and the ACTUAL run (doh! wrong turn… who has two roads going off of the same street with the same name anyway?!) Believe it or not, the second one is about a mile longer…

and here’s tomorrow’s run…

and Thursday I’ll either go long in the morning or someone might just run with me from work to the intern get together… werd!