The unexpected

Quote:
In psychology, there is a concept called learned helplessness, which arose from a series of animal experiments in the nineteen-sixties at the University of Pennsylvania...

... Dogs were restrained by a harness, so that they couldn't move, and then repeatedly subjected to a series of electrical shocks. Then the same dogs were shocked again, only this time they could easily escape by jumping over a low hurdle. But most of them didn't; they just huddled in the corner, no longer believing that there was anything they could do to influence their own fate. Learned helplessness is now thought to play a role in such phenomena as depression and the failure of battered women to leave their husbands, but one could easily apply it more widely. We live in an age, after all, that is strangely fixated on the idea of helplessness: we're fascinated by hurricanes and terrorist acts, and epidemics like SARS - situations in which we feel powerless to affect our own destiny. In fact, the risks posed to life and limb by forces outside our control are dwarfed by the factors we can control. Our fixation with helplessness distorts our perception of risk. "When you feel safe, you can be passive," Rapaille says of the fundamental appeal of the S.U.V. "Safe means I can sleep. I can give up control. I can relax. I can take off my shoes. I can listen to music." For years, we've all made fun of the middle-aged man who suddenly trades in his sedate family sedan for a shiny red sports car. That's called a midlife crisis. But at least it involves some degree of engagement with the act of driving. The man who gives up his sedate family sedan for an S.U.V. is saying something far more troubling - that he finds the demands of the road to be overwhelming. Is acting out really worse than giving up?
EndQuote
Even though the passage mostly relates to driving safety, and how S.U.Vs are much more dangerous than cars - easier to control, the appearance of safety and helplessness is very broad (as the article itself says). It's easy to give up what you believe and adopt something that seems safer or more comfortable. It's easier to just enjoy life and run away because you can't handle it. It's easy to pretend the past never happened, give up, and fight for something new. Or just think of it as "moving on". But is that what we should be doing instead of "acting out"?

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I've spent a lot of the past weeks trying to understand yet another curiosity about human nature. Also trying to figure out who I am. Looking back, I've changed so much from who I was 4-5 years ago. I'm more confident, more of a believer. Back then I was more of a hoper. And as I looked through my past I've learned one critical aspect of understanding oneself, or anyone else as a matter of fact:
It is much easier to understand someone by understanding what that one is thinking, by looking above the words, and seeing the idea behind the thought, the original launch site. Descending into another being's soul (or mind), or even my own, is a whole process. It's like imagining yourself in a blank room - just white, no shape, no time, no space - and then coloring the surroundings with impressions, ideas, facts, hunches, feelings, anything will do. On the whole, you start to get a picture of who the person is and how that correlates to you - even more likely since you are in the middle of the room. Now, you might not be one of those people that like putting themselves in other people's shoes, but I am. And I love doing it, struggling to understand, feeling what the other is feeling. What's interesting is that 99% of the time this doesn't necessarily have to do anything with analyzing the other person. By actually trying to live in that other world I get such a good picture of it that I don't have to think about his or her inner feelings and thoughts, instead find myself already knowing some of them.

I'm also a believer in self-education. Since probably most of us are twisted human beings, either because of our (often traumatizing) childhood experiences, or surprisingly bad things happening one after the other, or maybe just the plain old go-with-the-flow-forget-who-you-are-along-the-way kind of thing, I strongly promote (slow-)careful-paced self-control and self-manipulation. Even though that may sound evil (>:)) to some of you, it's not... not in the right hands that is. And love yourself. Appreciate yourself. Don't forget that you are most at knowledge of what's inside of you and always exert your ability to see yourself through others - the better you're at it the more confident you will be in what you do. I've recently been told how important it is not to use strong words such as 'never', 'always', 'very'. It's always very important never to forget that :))

Time was slow, life was empty, I guess the beginning is often the hardest part. For a while I thought that the universe was holding me back. Now I see IT has actually been pushing me forward - thank you God, for your blessing. Aside from the sudden boost of energy that I had (I've been sleeping much less because of that, I felt so well rested, amazing!), I've been more determined to fight for myself and to see that I can do anything: without boundaries, without any inhibitions that I might've had when I was younger. Yes, damn it! I am a fighter! And I will keep being who I've always been, I will keep doing the things I've done and start the things I want to do.

Sometimes the best way of arguing something to someone is through that someone's words, through his/her thinking. In writing whatever it is I'm trying to write, I've usually thought that when the target of the essay is "any reader", I can only be myself. And I consider myself a bit better when it comes to person-to-person discussion, perhaps a reason I think I could become a therapist or something similar. Today I've added the "Contact me" link on this blog. You can write me personally... Here's a quote from Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic: "... the dimension of the imagination is much more complex than those of time and space, which are very junior dimensions indeed..." Sometimes the best way to understand someone is by abandoning yourself and living through their eyes, through their imagination. That someone might even help you with a good description, heh.

I've taken a math exam today. Quite predictably, last night at 11 p.m. I was still studying for it (typical student attitude, isn't it?), when I noticed how fast I went through the book. It has about 800 pagess. Addmitedly, I didn't go through all of them, yet after an hour I almost did 200. And it took me 4 hours, skipping some chapters too. Of course it can be done faster than that. And I only skipped through, carefully reading all the definitions I found and looking at the hardest exercices (if I could do the hardest, the others wouldn't be a problem, right?). It has been a while since I thought math, or learned anything fast-paced at all, except reading and writing essays. I remembered why I like it so much: I enjoy building up on the skeleton of reasoning - in math's case: math reasoning. It's like a sort of pyramid, you learn and learn and build up until you reach the top. It won't fall if you ommit a couple of bricks along the way, but it would not last that long; nor would it be easier to keep building up afterwards. Try being good at math, then not doing it for quite a while, then coming back, and see how easy it seems to catch up, and how creative it is. That's how it was for me, I was in top shape, really! And I hope I'll pass. It was actually fun. Missed it...


Recently, I was hit by a wall, metaphorically speaking. "Carpe diem" - Live (in) the moment. That's what I hear, that's what I've heard. Unfortunately, this great phrase often has to do with frustration, abandonment, the refusal to fight or the need for plain ol' human enjoyment. I believe we all do it from time to time, whether we like it or not. However, a life lived by such standards is usually very empty - that's the life of a non-believer. What makes people non believers? Failing. Being overpowered. Lost. Exhausted. Underestimating obstacles. Overestimating themselves, or living in a dreamworld for too long. I think this too goes like a roller coaster: the 'downs' are those moments when you just don't believe anything you used to anymore, yet justify every act of yours by the same phrase: "carpe diem", either in this form or in relation to others. Say, time - it's about time I did this, or age - I'm too young for this, or space - the obstacles are too much for me. Then the 'ups' would be those moments when life has so much meaning that you feel it through every inch of your body.
So, my advice to you is: don't "carpe diem" through life for too long, or you'll end up lost and empty. One point of being alive is making a difference, and to believe in making that difference. Wandering around undecided about anything is wasting time. Unless, of course, you are searching for what you're supposed to do (hate this clichee, give me a better one). It's true: life's much more enjoyable if you just take in everything life has to offer, make it a rule not to sacrifice too much or to keep yourself within the limits that you think of yourself as being - those are all killers of the truth, the bigger truth, which, in my opinion, encompasses every little thing there is to know, feel, and understand in this world. I just realised last week how much I believe in love. And that's been true since back then, 4-5 years ago. I believe in devoting yourself to whatever it is that you are involved in, to believe in what you do and follow life with care and involevement. True, there is too much happening and so little room in your mind (or heart, although...) for all of this. Uhm... yeah. NO! Actually, your mind is unlimited, as far as you consider the short life you're gonna live, you are 99% unlikely to ever fill up your head fully. Since we probably use little of our brain for focused thinking and reasoning - because we're lazy, not to talk about memory, you're unlikely to ever run out of space :). So, you can't really put too much brain into it. And the heart is even bigger, as most human beings are capable of a wide range of emotions and remember them to a very great extent. We're fascinating beings, you and me! Really! Be happy for that! Live life. And believe in yourself. And in life. I can't tell you to believe in love, you might feel something else is most important. There might be. There's so much to fight for... and so few fighters.

I want to learn to write with my left hand. It's one of my wishes from childhood actually, cause I was originally left handed, but was sort of forced to write with my right hand. And now I want both. Ambidextrous, that's how it's called.
Too much talk about me, I feel. But I hope that you can see yourself somewhere along these lines. Understanding someone else is a priceless thing sometimes. We can learn something even from the people we least expect to teach us. The moment will come when the unexpected happens. That's life, isn't it?