"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." Twain / "I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of these contradictions out for myself." Montaigne / "I write because I have found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts." Nietzsche / "Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding." Arendt / "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." Asimov.
Dr. Alok Kanojia is a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction treatment. His videos are fantastic for some everyday issues as well, like this one on burnout. The most impactful line from this video is that burnout tends to happen when, "people who want to do a good job are placed in situations in which doing a good job is very, very difficult." It's not because you're lazy or a bad fit with your career, but that your workplace isn't acknowledging their part in making a job unnecessarily difficult. And it tends to happen more to people who actually care about what they're doing, not people who are just putting in hours. He says,
"One of the biggest scams that's currently being perpetrated against people about burnout and mental wellness . . . that's subtle and society wide . . . people are placing the responsibility for burnout on the individual. . . . . Burnout affects the individual . . . so there's a subtle scam going on that once you label it as an individual problem . . . then you work on it as an individuals. It's a catastrophic shift of responsibility from the workplace to the individual."
I just finished John Green's Turtles All the Way Down, which I read because he claimed it was his way of trying to put words around what it's like to live with profound anxiety, and then I saw this article asking "Why are more American teens than ever suffering from severe anxiety?". I was raised with most my sibs affected by some kind of mental illness or disorder, and now my children are in the same boat. Somehow, I've made it this far relatively unscathed by the ravages of anxiety, so I'm ever eager to really get my head around what it feels like from the inside.
Green's book is just what I was hoping for. There's nothing to read below the surface here, which might deny it any book awards, but it does an excellent job of giving us a clear and straightforward first-hand glimpse of the inner thoughts that drive anxious behaviours. Like David Sedaris's Naked, a collection of hilarious personal essays about OCD, it can help the reader really get why anyone would do or think those things and then begin to empathize with that curious drive that all but obliterates their free will.
This may be a little hokey, but I think Catching Fire is an important film to see right now.
And it's awesome!
I read the books ages ago, but even though I know how they each end, it didn't stop me from being on the edge of my seat. And I was surprised by how inspirational I found the film to be.
Grist relates how the books chronicle what happens after climate change destroys the world and makes for scarce resources for the survivors to fight over. We have a really interesting crisis to overcome for our time. It's not us against the state - not just us against the state - but against our own conveniences. Not enough of us have the foresight to vote out politicians who are supporting the pipelines. That's one problem. But a bigger one is that too many of us are sliding into complacency.
I spent a lovely extended weekend in Awenda and fell in love with Penetanguishene through a scenic bike ride. The sun filtered through the trees on either side of the road, with the blue, blue lake peeking through - gorgeous! But it was marred by my chosen beach read: Chris Hedges' grim Empire of Illusion, which actually gave me nightmares - featuring Hugh Laurie for some reason. Spooky, me possums! I'll get to the book another day, but for now, let's focus on the distraction du jour: marijuana legalization. That's much easier to think about. Tra-la-la.
Medicinal ganja is already legal, and new regulations are apparently streamlining the process to access it, but that's a boring issue anyway, so we'll move on. The meaty question is: Should another mind-altering substance be legally available to the healthy masses?
I cleaned my house, so I took photos to document the rare event. I have a hard time cleaning, but there's lots to take from Taoist and Zen writings about it. It's all about the moment, and not the final product. Years ago I watched a film called Enlightenment Guaranteed about two brothers who stay at a Zen monastery for a while. Their days are filled with meditating and chores. The one actor was also in the film Men! which I saw decades ago. It's about a guy who uses an alias and moves in with the guy who's having an affair with his wife. I tried it in a philosophy class once to discuss ethics. Reactions were mixed.
Back to Enlightenment: One message they learn is that it doesn't matter that someone walks across the floor right after you just cleaned it. The point was in the cleaning not in the having it cleaned. That helps. Because it's never over, it seems fruitless. It helps to consider that the purpose of housecleaning is something greater than just to have the house clean. But it is nice to actually see the rooms and not the mess.
While I was in the middle of re-watching season one of Arrested Development yesterday, someone came to my door wanting a donation for an initiative she was creating. This happens every other day or so. I'm often very patient listening to people's plea for financial help with their new business or for me to buy their service that they claim I can't live without. It's the new version of the door-to-door salesman. But yesterday? Not so much. I interrupted her with, "Sorry, I'm just not interested," and walked away.
I felt badly afterwards, but rationalized that her intro was just too long for sustained attention. She needs to get her pitch down to two-minutes tops! Also, there are many people on my street that will listen to her at length, so I can free-ride on their kindness. If my reaction upset her, I know the woman two doors down would build her back up. Right?
But then I wondered if the T.V. show I was watching wasn't affecting my judgment and subsequent behaviour.
I gravitate to shows with snarky, selfish, morally-corrupt characters like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Weeds, and Community. There's likely something in me that appreciates that kind of humour - maybe it's because I typically repress all that in my regular life, so I like to watch it on T.V. I think I'll go with that. But to what extent does watching the corruption affect my behaviour and make me even more corrupt than otherwise?
Does media reflect or affect society? I think it's both.
An interesting study was done that found that "educational media exposure was correlated with future observed relational aggression." Researchers looked at the connection between the content of non-violent cartoons and verbal aggression, and found a strong correlation. Shows like Arthur or Franklin, or Magic School Bus are non-violent, but the content is full of anti-social behaviours: snarky, whiney kids who complain and tease and berate one another. Another study found that 96% of all children's programming includes verbal insults and put-downs, averaging 7.7 put-downs per helf-hour, and 84% of the time, there was no reprimand or correction, only laughter or nothing at all. Even though the final moral of the story is positive, the kids watching pick up and directly copy the behaviours seen throughout.
T.V. producers have spent so much energy on taking out all the physical aggression in shows like Road Runner, or Bugs Bunny, that they didn't see they had replaced it with verbal aggression. Conflict of some type is integral to a story. Everyone getting along is boring and doesn't entertain beyond the early years.
That physical aggression of dropping anvils on characters or punching them until they have little birds circling their heads are strongly disapproved of in our culture. Kids know that. We watched the shows without copying them - much. At the very least if we copied them, we did it secretively because we know we'd get in trouble if we got caught. But subtle verbal nastiness is almost socially sanctioned, particularly if it entertains us in class or at the dinner table. We might say, "That's not very nice," but with a hint of a smile that suggests it's okay anyway.
We all know hitting and biting is wrong. But we seem to have forgotten that teasing and belittling and whining is problematic. These behaviours have become socially acceptable on T.V. shows and in our lives.
But is it immoral to hurt someone's feelings in order to get a laugh or because we're feeling impatient with them? Is it just an etiquette issue? Etiquette is much more relative and culturally determined. We were taught to keep our elbows off the table and never wear a hat indoors back in the day. Most of us ignore these rules now with no ill effects, and people who maintain them strictly may be seen as old-school. But the difference between these examples is the harm caused.
Knowingly causing harm to another for personal gain is immoral. Often instead of altering our behaviour to reduce harm (by not teasing for example), we try to alter our belief in the effect ("She doesn't mind if I tease her") or the receiver's belief in the effect ("Oh, lighten up!"). We rationalize our behaviour to try to convince ourselves and others that we're not really causing harm simply because it's entertaining to us to cause exactly this kind of harm. And it's a bit of a power-trip. Of course sometimes teasing really doesn't cause harm. But we typically know where that line is, and we often ignore it.
I hate censorship. And I think that's not necessary for the big kids anyway. I think we can watch the shows, but perhaps should pay just that much more attention to our behaviour to ensure we're not blindly copying the very funny but very cruel attitudes and actions we're watching. We can laugh at the fools so long as we don't turn them into our role models. For our children, it's a matter of monitoring when they're able to think before they act before they should watch such anti-social programming, and then discussing the programs with the kids as they watch. Maybe they can watch some nature shows until then!
And when Montaigne says we need to work against evil in order to actually be virtuous, he might be happy to know that in today's society those opportunities to consider an immoral act but choose to be virtuous are more plentiful than ever!
AND let's not forget it IS possible to be funny without being a jerk:
