Grumpiness and old age; does it have to be?

Not if you don't want it to!  Getting grumpier as you get older can be an easy habit to fall into, but not one that helps you much.  With some self-awareness and a bit of effort, life can be more enjoyable for yourself and those around you.  This article has some good reminders and tips on how to do that:

If you want to be a more pleasant person as you get older, say goodbye to these 10 behaviors

     

Have you experianced the "Helper High"?

Apparently, we are hard-wired to experience it:



How to Be Happy Every Day: It Will Change the World | Jacqueline Way | TEDxStanleyPark

The World Happiness Report states “Over 1 billion adults suffer from anxiety and depression.” How do we get to happy? Jacqueline Way, Founder of www.365give.ca shares a secret to happiness so simple a 3 – year old can do it. Jacqueline is a mother of three boys and social good activist dedicated to changing the world 1 give, 1 day at a time. You will learn through her powerful story how your body is hard-wired for giving. Researchers from all over the world have been studying the science and physiological of giving for decades. They’ve discovered giving makes you happy, makes you high, is our bodies natural “Fountain of Youth” and reduces stress. Her inspirational journey with her son and thousands of children will inspire you start a daily giving habit that will make you happy and change the world.

Jacqueline Way is the founder of www.356give.ca a charitable organization dedicated to educating, empowering, and inspiring children to change the world "one give, one day at a time." You can reach Jacqueline at jacquelineway365give@gmail.com [...]

Around Christmas time, there is an emphasis on giving. But what if giving were to become an ingrained habit, a habit you practice 365 days a year? And what if doing so benefited you, made you feel better, physically, mentally and emotionally? That is what is interesting about her Ted Talk. Giving doesn't have to always be a major sacrifice either. You can give in small ways, every day. And if it becomes a habit, you reap multiple benefits. A Win/Win for everyone.

   

Successful people don’t operate alone

America's Insensitive Children?
Perhaps unlike their U.S. peers, kids in Denmark—where happiness levels are the highest on Earth—are taught in school to care for one another from a young age.

Contrary to popular belief, most people do care about the welfare of others.

From an evolutionary standpoint, empathy is a valuable impulse that helps humans survive in groups. In American schools, this impulse has been lying dormant from a lack of focus. But in Denmark, a nation that has consistently been voted the happiest place in the world since Richard Nixon was president, children are taught about empathy from a young age both inside and outside of school.

[...]

Another, less obvious example of empathy training in Danish schools is in how they subtly and gradually mix children of different strengths and weaknesses together. Students who are stronger academically are taught alongside those who are less strong; shier kids with more gregarious ones; and so on. The goal is for the students to see that everyone has positive qualities and to support each other in their efforts reach the next level. The math whiz may be terrible at soccer, and vice versa. This system fosters collaboration, teamwork, and respect.

Studies show that this system of interactive teaching involves a steep learning curve. Students who teach others work harder to understand the material, recall it more precisely, and use it more effectively. But they also have to try to understand the perspective of other students so they can help them where they are having trouble. The ability to explain complicated subject matter to another student is not an easy task, but it is an invaluable life skill. Research demonstrates that this type of collaboration and empathy also delivers a deep level of satisfaction and happiness to kids; interestingly, people’s brains actually register more satisfaction from cooperating than from winning alone.

Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that empathy is one of the single most important factors in fostering successful leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, and businesses. It reduces bullying, increases one’s capacity to forgive, and greatly improves relationships and social connectedness. Empathy enhances the quality of meaningful relationships, which research suggests is one of the most important factors in a person’s sense of well being. Research also suggests that empathetic teenagers tend to be more successful because they are more purpose-driven than their more narcissistic counterparts. And if you think about it, it all makes sense. Successful people don’t operate alone; every human needs the support of others to achieve positive results in his or her life. [...]

When I was younger I might have dismissed this as new age twaddle. But I'm older now, and I've learned to appreciate that people are, to varying degrees, interdependent on one another. No one lives in a vacuum, and certainly "successful" people have good relationships with other people.

Empathy does matter. I think we are sometimes resistant to it because our empathy can be manipulated for political or commercial purposes. But regardless of attempts to misuse it, it still has a place in human society. There is a lot of alienation in American culture. You have to wonder, if children were taught to recognize and understand empathy and human emotions, their own and others, at an early age, if there would be less school shootings and bullying?

As a landlord, I've also seen a lot of people, many young people, who seem to have no control over their emotions, and they often end up being evicted, because they lack self control and seem not to understand basic human interactions. They seen not to understand their own emotions, and unable to empathize with other peoples emotions. In frustration, they become angry and lash out, which only makes their problems worse. It does not bode well for our culture or our country.

I'm amazed at how many young people I see, who have everything going for them, who have much more help and resources available to them than I did at their age, repeatedly fail and sabotage themselves. They are angry all the time, and seem to lack basic social skills to succeed in life. Even if one does not agree with everything in this article, I would still say there is definitely room for improvement in this area.

     

Reading to change your life...

... for the better. From a Personal Development blog:

12 Good Reads that Will Change the Way You Think, Live and Love

[...] As readers, we not only learn more, but we are also more proficient at deciphering misinformation – our habit of reading gradually improves our judgment. And being able to correctly size up a situation is crucial for being effective at whatever we’re doing.

Speaking for myself, I know my reading habit has sharpened my edge. I’m always enamored when I’m working on a puzzling issue and some out-of-left-field piece of information comes to mind from something I’ve read that helps me put all the pieces together.

So with the importance of reading in mind, it’s time to read or re-read our 12 most popular posts (based on the number of reader views, social shares and comments) from this past year. If you give them a chance, each one of these quick reads has the power to change the way you think, live and love, so you can stay on track to living at your greatest potential… [...]

Some good topics covered here. The authors are Life Coaches. Excellent content, good food for thought. I will be referring to this list again and again.

     

The mental/emotional effects of isolation

An article by Felicity Aston, the first woman to ski cross-country across the Antarctic continent, completely alone. She talks about her experience of isolation, and how her experience might compare to what future astronauts might face:

How will space explorers cope with isolation?

[...] It was the alone-ness itself that was frightening and my subsequent 59-day ski across the continent was dominated by my battle to deal with the shock of it.

I imagine that the first humans to visit Mars might experience a similar state of shock at their disconnection from human society. It is intriguing to wonder whether there might be parallels between the psychology involved in exploring Mars and exploring Antarctica.

Could potential astronauts preparing for long space missions across the solar system learn anything useful from experiences like mine in Antarctica?

As I began my loneliest of expeditions I had the benefit of more than a decade of previous polar journeys to draw from. In addition I had carefully prepared for the psychological stress of isolation, consulting a specialist sport psychologist.

Yet, I was taken aback by the range of ways in which the alone-ness affected me. I became increasingly emotional. With no one to witness my behaviour, I allowed inner feelings to flow into outward expression without check. If I felt angry, I shouted. If I felt upset, I cried.

Self-discipline became much harder. Surrounded by others, taking risky short-cuts isn't a possibility, largely because of the embarrassment of being discovered. But alone, with no-one to observe your laziness, the voice of temptation was always present. I found that ignoring the voice of temptation was an extra drain on mental energy that simply hadn't existed on team expeditions.

My brain, starved of any input by the lack of colour, shape or form in my largely blizzard-obscured world began to fill in the gaps by creating hallucinations.

I was surprised to find that we can hallucinate not just with our visual sense but with all our senses. I hallucinated strange forms in the gloom of regular whiteouts that took the shape of floating hands and small bald men on dinosaurs, but I also hallucinated smells, tastes and sounds that all seemed very real.

As I skied, I began to direct my internal monologue at the sun (when it was visible through the bad weather) and was slightly perturbed when eventually the sun began to talk back to me in my mind. It took on a very distinct character and even though I knew on some level that it wasn't real, the sun played an important part in my coping strategies.

Routine became increasingly important to me in overcoming these damaging responses to alone-ness. When everything else in my landscape and daily experience was so surreal, routine became the rhythm that I clung to. I performed every task in exactly the same way, every time it had to be done. I repeated chores in the same order again and again until I reached the point that I barely had to think about them. Reducing the thought required seemed to simultaneously reduce the emotion.

This was despite the fact that I did have some connection to the outside world during my expedition. I carried a satellite phone which was capable of calling anyone in the world at any time from my tent -- and yet, largely, I decided not to.

I was scared of the emotional high that speaking to loved ones might bring, knowing that it would inevitably be followed by a crushing emotional low as I was forced to end the call. [...]

To read it is to almost be there in her shoes. Fascinating. See the links for pics and more.
     

"Blondie", Satanism, and Christian Contemplativism

Two more interesting posts on the Philosophy for Life blog:

Crowley’s Children

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog-post analysing the video for Blondie’s Rapture, and pointing out the voodoo, occult and mystic symbolism in it. I wondered if Blondie were into that sort of thing, or perhaps I was seeing things. It turned out they were, and one of them – the bassist Gary Lachman – had even become a historian of the occult.

I met up with Gary in the British Library, to ask him about the influence of occult ideas on rock and roll – and particularly the ideas of Aleister Crowley. I’m interested in this because I’m interested in ecstatic states and how we reach them in modernity. Sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, and magic are part of that story. It’s not always a very nice story.

[...]

Crowley was a poster-boy for liberationist philosophy. It makes perfect sense that he would be picked up by rock and roll and later forms of pop music, because in many ways it’s tailor-made to the adolescent sensibility. Think of Jim Morrison’s ‘we want the world and we want it now’, or Iggy Pop: ‘I need more than I’ve ever done before.’ When you’re young you want to throw away all constraints on you. Crowley did that his whole life. His whole thing was excess in all directions.’

Liberationists want to liberate themselves from any social hang-ups, which means liberating themselves from traditional morality and even from reason itself. ‘Turn off your mind and float downstream’, as Timothy Leary said and John Lennon later quoted. Leary and other key figures in the 60s saw in Crowley a genius explorer of altered states of consciousness accessed through drugs, music, poetry and sex – just as they were trying to do. His Rite of Eleusis was a blueprint for the acid tests of the 1960s, and the raves of today – which also aim to bypass rational thought and get the audience into trances. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links, pics and videos. It was a fascinating read. Crowley's ideas pervade our society through pop culture. And when you see how Crowley ended up, it's not hard to see why many of his rock and roll followers crashed and burned. I love what the author, Jules Evans, says about the conscious and subconscious mind, and how Crowley used it, and the way Jules concludes the article. Good lessons for us all.

Gary Lachman apparently saw through the Crowley philosophy, and wrote a book about him, showing what a flawed man he was. Thank goodness.

Just for the heck of it, here is a video from 1979 of the band Blondie performing the song "Heart of Glass":



I had come across that video recently, and so when I saw Blondie mentioned at the beginning of that blogpost, it drew me in.

And on that same blog, I also enjoyed reading this article, which is an interview with the Bishop of London:

The Bishop of London on Christian contemplation

[...] I have a simple map of spiritual reality. We spend most of our time at the mental ego level, on the surface, with the self negotiating the world around – a self which we have largely manufactured and confected. It is very difficult to get modern people to understand prayer is not just a form of thinking at that level. That’s one of the fundamental errors and difficulties people encounter at the beginning of learning to pray.

At that mental ego level, there are often things of darkness which are unacknowledged. At the end of The Tempest, Prospero says of Caliban, ‘this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine’, but often those dark things are left unacknowledged within us. And much religion is really dangerous and I would say lethal, because it is in effect the surreptitious re-ascent of the bruised ego.

We project parts of ourselves – our anger, all kinds of personal psychic material – into the middle distance, deifying it and conducting a solipsist conversation. God is very often a projection of some of this unacknowledged material.

You can see it very clearly: the God which causes people to smite and slay. Sane religious cultures which have lasted for a very long time have discerned that the real fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace and various other things. They certainly aren’t homicidal impulses.

So you have the mental ego level – and the adventure of prayer is to go beyond and beneath that – into the psychic zone, in which very often there are gifts of the spirit, charismatic gifts of various kinds – glossolalia, gifts of prophecy, and ecstatic utterance.

There is a great danger in falling in love with yourself once again as a spiritual person, in becoming too intrigued by these things, and to think ‘because I have these things I am a really serious Christian’. There has to be a continued Copernican revolution, and that revolution always turns us outwards in generosity to our fellows and in adoration to God. St Anthony the Great says we must see the Spirit in our neighbour, and love them.

But instead, what can happen when you have notable charismatic gifts, is once again a turning inwards, an admiration of the self. Lucifer the light-bringer fell, because he fell so in love with his own reflection.

And then after the psychic zone, there is what is called the heart, which for the Hebrews was not the blood pump, the heart for the Hebrews was the vitals, where the spiritual centre was actually located. And once you were quiet enough and had been educated by silence and stillness, and had gone through this journey, from time to time, you tasted from the eternal well-spring that there is at the heart of every life and all life, where the spirit is already there and praying in ways we can’t understand. [...]

The bold emphasis is mine. I found it interesting that, even though this is a different subject from the Crowley article, there are some parallel ideas expressed, about where people go wrong in looking for happiness. Not everyone finds happiness in the same way, but among the ways they do, there are often core ideas, realizations and truths, even inside of seemingly different philosophies. The perennial philosophy in philosophy, which is one of my favorite areas of interest.
     

Distraction as a form of Therapy

These are from a philosophy blog I posted about last week:

Distraction therapy, or ‘shut up and deal’

[...] Sometimes, in the darkness, we need to give our minds a rest, and find a distraction. Games are good for that. It reminds me of Billy Wilder’s film, The Apartment. Shirley Maclaine’s character has tried to kill herself with an overdose. Jack Lemmon’s character finds her, resuscitates her, and then tries to keep her awake and busy by playing cards with her. When she asks him what’s the point in life, he replies: ‘shut up and deal’ – a line she repeats to him at the end of the film, when she has recovered and they’re in love.

One of the few philosophers who understood our need for distractions amid the existential confusion was Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French philosopher and mathematician. He’s a fascinating figure – he was one of the leading mathematicians of his age, he almost died in a riding accident, and then had a sort of near-death experience (known as his ‘nuit de feu’ or ‘night of fire’), after which he became a religious philosopher. But he’s fascinating even if you’re not theist - he’s really the first existentialist philosopher, in that he has an acute sense of the mystery of existence and the absurdity of human endeavour.

His Pensees, or ‘thoughts’, are a collection of brief meditations on existence. Here’s one of them: [...]

Read the whole thing. It actually starts with a letter from a reader, who talks about how his relentless search for meaning of the mysteries of life, lead to great and deep depression. And how he eventually got himself out of it, through distraction therapy, while still remaining a "seeker". The article then goes on to talk about how many of the great minds of history knew this, and how even modern medicine is recognizing it today.

Following a similar theme, another blog post is advice to a teenager, who decided after smoking Marijuana, that life was pointless, resulting in deep depression:

What’s the point in life?

[...] This is exactly what I felt like when I was in late adolescence and early adulthood. And I think it’s a classic psychological journey. It’s the Fall of Genesis. It’s also what happened to the Buddha – happy teenager, then a sudden shock to his world-view, then a period of depression and searching. A lot of us go through the Fall when we’re in our late teens or early 20s. It’s a nasty surprise, not something our parents or teachers told us about, although it’s described in many books.

The Fall is really an awakening. It’s our consciousness realizing that some of the things we believed in are actually a bit of a charade.

When I was 17 or so, I went through one of these awakenings – suddenly, the world seemed a rather sordid and selfish place. Everyone else seemed a bit of an egotistical phony, chasing after their shallow and pointless goals. Getting a career, getting a nice house with a nice lawn and a nice wife, getting a thousand followers on Twitter…what’s the point!

People are like greyhounds chasing after a mechanical rabbit, desperately trying to out-run each other, and if one of the greyhounds stops, scratches his arse and says ‘it’s just a mechanical rabbit’, they call him crazy.

And what lies beneath all the ego, all the desire, all the shadow puppetry? Nothing. The abyss. Human life is a game of charades played over a trapdoor of nothingness, and every now and then the trapdoor opens, one of the actors disappears below, and everyone goes on like nothing happened!

[...]

I didn’t exactly choose to awaken to the emptiness of constructed reality. It was an accidental awakening – maybe through drugs, which can alter our consciousness and make us see things differently. Some people go through similar accidental awakenings through, say, meditation – suddenly everything seems a bit empty and pointless. Or it might happen to them when they first lose someone they love. They notice the trapdoor beneath their feet and think: ‘what’s the point!’

This kind of awakening to the emptiness of our constructs has been called the Dark Night of the Soul. In truth, it happens occasionally through life. It comes with being human, unfortunately, and with being blessed / cursed with consciousness.

So how do we get out of it? How do we discover a sense of purpose or meaning?

People get out of the darkness two ways. Firstly, some people just fall asleep again. Life changes, and they stop thinking such deep thoughts, and get caught up in the game once more. Actually, this happens to everyone. You fall in love, you get a great job, you go on holiday, and things are fun again, and you shelve your inner Hamlet and enjoy the festivities.

There is nothing wrong with this at all. Sometimes the game of charades is a really fun game, and it’s fun to get involved, though unfortunately we often forget it’s just a game and end up totally believing in it and taking it very seriously.

Secondly, some people get out of the darkness by discovering a philosophy or an attitude that helps them through it and gives them a sense of meaning. Their old philosophy – ‘be happy-go-lucky’ - doesn’t quite work anymore, but they discover a new philosophy which works better.

I’ve turned to different philosophies to help me when I’m lost: Buddhism, Stoicism, Sufism, Taoism, Christianity. These are all quite different philosophies, but I think they have a core message to them.

Which is this: We’re here to know ourselves, to discover our nature, and to help other people do the same.

The journey to know ourselves is not an easy one. It involves a lot of wrong turns, a lot of dark forests, steep mountains and sinking swamps. And we meet bad people along the way, fools, liars, egotists, and people who wish us harm. What makes the journey particularly difficult is, when we ask passers-by how to get to our destination, they all give us different directions, and they all seem immensely confident that they’re right.

On this journey, I don’t think you can go backwards. You can’t go back to the Happy Valley of childhood. Frodo and Sam can’t go back to how things were, they’ve got to go forward. You have to go forward. Your consciousness grows – sometimes accidentally, sometimes through education and experience – and then it’s like you don’t fit into the old clothes any more, they feel cramped and ridiculous. That means it’s time to go forward. [...]

There's a lot more, with embedded links too. Pretty good stuff!
     

Palestinians can save Israel from itself.

Can the Palestinians really do that, to the benefit of everyone? This article says they have the power:

Israel doesn't have peace because peace and fear don't mix well
Israel simply cannot bring itself to use the bargaining chips it holds in exchange for the big prize. Why can’t it deliver the goods?

[...] A feeling of victimhood – as if our lengthy national childhood was one characterized by abuse – has turned us into a country that behaves like an abusive parent. This is how it works in 
nature, where violence is perpetuated from one generation to the next. The parents were fearful and beaten, so the children become thugs, yet remain fearful and lacking in self-confidence.

Where are the keys needed to break this impasse? One of them is the passage of time. Maybe there is no such thing as “Peace Now.” Maybe our temporal proximity to the trauma of the ovens does not allow us to act with cold logic, only with hot passion. Maybe we need to wait for the next generation, already born, to accomplish what two generations – ourselves and our parents – totally failed at doing.

The other key is unfair, placing responsibility for Israel’s wellbeing on the Palestinians, for their own good as well. I liken Israel to a lazy elephant, sprawled across the road. It has no motivation to budge. It enjoys seeing itself as big and powerful, heavy, reclining and satiated.

It’s not surprising that in politics it is the weak and hungry that are agents of change. In contrast to a strong agent that has no motivation to move, the weak Palestinian can effect change. How? Violence has not wrought change, since we have become inured, even addicted to it. Each blow only adds to the historical fate to which we believe we have been subjected to over time – to justifying the present situation on the backdrop of our traumatic past.

Only one thing will raise the elephant from its current pose: a nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience, a creative and determined insurrection aimed at one goal – attaining equal rights. It seems as if there has been a recent awakening among Palestinians in this direction. This is reflected in a transition from a discourse about interests, power, terror and honor to a conversation about values, rights and liberties. Many Palestinians are rightfully angry at Israel, holding it accountable for many wrongs, but they are no longer afraid of it or feel threatened by making peace with it. They have internalized the positive aspects of a political settlement, and, in terms of their political mental framework, they are well ahead of many Israelis. More and more Palestinians are acting in the political arena without fear and with an ideology of nonviolent resistance. Israel has no response to such a course of action, neither a military, political nor moral one.

In contrast, Israelis are still an anxious collective. Since peace and fears don’t mix well together, we still don’t have peace. The dread inside us has taken on a life of its own, to which we’ve become accustomed and even addicted. Fears can play a positive role, keeping us alert in the face of dangers and threats, leading us to deal with them in an appropriate manner. For too many Israelis, any kind of peace is enmeshed in an existential dread, a condition that supposedly conceals a plot to eradicate us, posing risks but no opportunities.

There will only be peace here when the masses and their political leaders internalize the fact that peace is a therapy for our fears. It is the total, completely beneficial alternative to all our historical phobias – a condition that can replace or erase them. Paradoxically, the Palestinians – who now bear the brunt of our current historic phase of fears and phobias – can save Israel from itself. A million Palestinians who relate to Israel and its corrupting occupation with peace and conciliation, rather than with terror and hostility, will do well for themselves and us. [...]

Well, civil disobedience has worked as a political strategy in other places, most recently in South Africa. But I don't know how much of a chance it would have in Israel, as long as rockets keep flying over their borders at them.

If you read the whole thing, it explains a lot about the historical/psychological dynamics at work, that need to be overcome. That's a hard sell though, while the rockets continue to fly, reinforcing the old dynamics.
   

Will software relationships replace people?

Some, like Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Tech company Oracle, see a trend that suggests it's a possibility:

Billionaire Larry Ellison Warns: Be Careful Of 'Relationships With A Piece Of Software'

[...] One man asked Ellison what he thought about the role of tech in our modern lives. Ellison said he was "disturbed" by how much time kids play video games, and what that could lead to. Here's what he said:

My daughter produced a movie called "Her." It's about this guy that gets divorced and is having a rough time finding a relationship until he meets this piece of software ... it's an artificially intelligent bot, that takes no physical form.

Here's a guy that's chosen to have a relationship with a piece of software instead of a human being.

That's one way it can go. You can say that's utterly ridiculous. But I am so disturbed by kids who spend all day playing video games. They've chosen a virtual self.

This weird thing where NFL says 60 minutes a day you should go outside? I know I was a kid a long time ago, but if the sun rose, I was outside on my bike and if my parents were lucky, I would be home before dark.

The fact that people have chosen games where there's a virtual ball rather than a real ball ... that's because [games are] easy. It's very hard for me to be LeBron [James]. I was pretty good at basketball, I'm still not bad, but I'm not LeBron. Now everyone gets to be LeBron in virtual reality. But in reality only one guy gets to be LeBron.

Where does it all end? "Her" is kind of the next thing. What about virtual relationships, where your virtual partner just keeps telling you how great you are?

I won't tell you how the movie ends, but it's amazing: Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software, that are gradually getting smarter than you are.

The truth is, the future that Ellison describes is already here. Virtual girlfriend apps are all the rage in Japan right now.

The mention of the "Virtual girlfriend apps" was a hyperlink, which lead to this:

I ‘Dated’ A Virtual Girlfriend For A Week To See What All Those Japanese Guys Are So Excited About

[...] After reading stories about the game Love Plus and how there are Japanese men who would rather date virtual ladies than real ones (one man even got married to his on-screen girlfriend), I wanted to test out what it would be like to date someone who isn’t real. I wanted test how well a gamified relationship stacked up to real life, whether I could find love — or something like it — amid the pixels and 3D animation.

Love Plus, a Nintendo DS game, is only available in Japan, so I browsed virtual dating apps in the Google Play Store. My Virtual Girlfriend was the most popular.

Here’s how the game works:

[...]

The author, a woman, tests out the virtual girlfriends extensively. Follow the link for details and screenshots. At one point, she concludes:

[...] It's easy to scoff at this game for being stupid, over-the-top, and kinda sexist.

But...

I’ve been in a real relationship for almost a year and, in some ways, playing My Virtual Girlfriend reminded me of what my boyfriend and my early dalliances felt like.

It took time and effort to progress through the levels and if I closed the app and ignored my lady for too long, she needed some sweet talk before warming back up. Starting something new isn't easy. Plus, all the girls responded differently to different things and getting to know them proved surprisingly challenging at times.

Some action-reactions were obvious, but others less so. Tell Jen a joke? She hated it. Ditto with complimenting her eyes, though admiring her smile got her to waggle her hips and giggle at me.

And her thought process was more nuanced than I would expect. After I “gave blood” to raise money to take us on a date, she chastised me for being too broke. So, when I earned the option to flash my cash later in the game, I thought I'd try it since she clearly valued money. But instead of offering her signature giggle, she just looked revolted, quickly rebuking my attempt to win her heart with money.

Unsurprisingly, she also hated my catcalling and, well, picking my nose lowered my love score too.

Unlocking new options and figuring out how to prevent my girlfriend from getting outraged and breaking up with me made me feel like she and I were growing closer, even though she was just following an algorithm. But, despite the fun, gamefied challenge of the relationship, I could never see myself developing actual feelings for any girl in the game.

Admittedly, My Virtual Girlfriend can't hold a candle to Love Plus. In that game, you have to work your way through a more complicated romance (there are only three characters with very fleshed out personalities and you start by meeting them in school). The girls can respond to your actual voice and you can kiss the screen to show affection. But, try as I might, I just couldn't find anything with more in-depth capabilities than My Virtual Girlfriend. [...]

The author talks about another program she found, that was more sexual and creepy. She said that a program like the Japanese Love Plus, isn't available in the West, probably because of cultural stigma. There may be a stigma, but for how long? Many Japanese things have crept their way into our culture. I wouldn't be surprised if "Love Plus" makes it's way here too.

She ends the article with a brief but interesting interview with creator of the "My Virtual Girlfriend" program.

Another aspect of The Brave New World is here. Are you ready for it?
   

Lifelong Learning, and Resiliency

Two topics I've been interested in, and two articles about them on one of my favorite websites:



How and Why to Become a Lifelong Learner

For the first twenty-two years or so of our lives, our main “job” is learning. The bulk of our time is spent in classrooms acquiring new knowledge. And then, once we graduate, we feel like the education phase of our lives is done and now it’s time to go out into the world. Have you ever thought about how odd that idea is? That only a quarter of our lives should be devoted to learning, and then we should simply rest on our laurels for the remaining three-quarters of it?

It’s an erroneous idea – but one many have absorbed, at least subconsciously. But school need not be your exclusive provider of learning. Just because you’ve finished your formal education, doesn’t mean that your education is over!

Many, perhaps most, of history’s greatest men were autodidacts – those who devote themselves to self-education, either in addition to or as a substitute to formal schooling. [...]

It goes on to give examples, and more. Lots of good links, I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the links was this:

Building Your Resiliency: Part V – Recognizing and Utilizing Your Signature Strengths

This is the fifth part in a series designed to help you boost your resiliency. For the previous entries, see Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

When we first introduced the topic of resiliency, we discussed how it is both a reactive and an active quality, a skill that helps you bounce back and reach out.

Today’s discussion will center on the active aspect of resiliency and the path to gaining the confidence to take risks and embrace change.

Anchoring Your Resiliency in Your Authentic Self

When your self-esteem and sense of self-worth is tied to other people, your job, or any other external factors, your confidence is subject to every wind of change and lacks real stability. Any time these external factors change, your happiness and confidence go with it. Your emotional fortitude goes up and down like a roller coaster.

Tying your self-concept to external factors also keeps you from embracing adventure and approaching the world like a courageous explorer. If you base your self-concept on external things, any changes in those things will throw you for a loop, create anxiety, and compel you to cling as tightly as you can to the status quo. You become desperate to keep your life just the way it is and can’t handle change. You avoid traveling, moving, changing jobs, and getting into relationships because these steps alter the environment on which you’ve based your self-concept, leaving you feeling lost and out of control

The key to active resiliency is to build your self-concept not on a constructed self, but on an authentic self, not on external things, but on the inner, personal strengths that make you unique as a man. Your unique strengths are your special tools that will allow you to build a happy and fulfilling life. Understanding what tools you possess can give you the confidence that you’ll be able to face any challenge that comes your way. While we can’t predict the future, we can have confidence in our ability to deal with whatever happens. [...]

Again, it's full of interesting links. And this article is part of a series, so I can look forward to reading them all.
     

Where the jobs are: Health Care

I've posted previously about MBTI personality testing as a tool for choosing a compatible career. I tested as an ISTJ, one of 16 personality types.

At the Keirsey website, the sixteen types are divided into four temperament groups: Guardians, Idealists, Artisans and Rationals. And there are four sub-types for each of those. My type, ISTJ, is a Guardian, with the sub-type being The Inspector.

Anyhow, one link on their right sidebar was to an article that said there is one job sector that continues to enjoy job growth, and is expected to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And that sector has jobs that suit each one of the personality types! I found it quite interesting:

Rx For an Ailing Career Outlook:
Health Care is a Growth Industry

With the economy in seeming freefall, and companies daily announcing layoff plans, the employment picture is looking bleak for those entering the workforce, or those hit by the layoffs needing to find new jobs.

However, there is one employment sector that is continuing to show steady growth. According to Joanne Giudicelli, Talent Management Consultant and author of HIRE POWER: A Radical New Strategy for Defining and Executing Successful Hiring, the health care sector is itself one of the healthiest in terms of employment opportunities. According to Giudicelli, "As the large crop of Baby Boomers age, the need for health workers has increased. The need is not only found in the United States, but in countries throughout the world." Backing Giudicelli's statement, an August 1, 2008 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) stated that "employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries, while health care continued to add jobs."

[...]

Career Coach and Author Alice Fairhurst points out, "While most people are aware of the critical need for primary care physicians, physician assistants and nursing staff, many do not realize the shortage in the allied health professionals such as respiratory care practitioners, medical transcriptionists, radiographers and lab technicians. Those with the highest projected need include physical therapist assistants, dental hygienists and pharmacy technicians. Some health care providers are working with two year colleges to provide needed clinical training."

Mid-career workers who have lost their jobs due to downsizing are taking training to enter these fields where demand is high. And people who worked in health care in another country are getting certification in the United States to fill the need.

To help sort out the various opportunities in this growing sector, Fairhurst recommends individuals take the Keirsey Temperament Sorter which can help guide a person into which of the careers might be more satisfying. [...]

The full article gives examples of suitable jobs for the different types. If you don't know your type, but want to find out, try taking the MBTI test for free, here or here.

A job skill that will always be in demand, is a nice thing to have. And if it's one that suites your personality too, so much the better.


Also see:

What to do in college right now

Best alternative to grad school

Bad career advice: Do what you love

There Are No Bad Bosses, Only Whiny Employees.

Overcome the willpower myth
     

Magic Mushrooms make you Young At Heart

Permanantly. See for yourself:

Magic Mushroom Drug Has an 'Anti-Aging Effect' on Personality

Sept. 29, 2011 -- Psilocybin, the drug in “magic mushrooms,” helps many people become more open, creative, and curious after they take a single high dose, a new study shows.

Ordinarily, researchers say, after age 30 personality is a pretty fixed part of who we are.

When people do change their stripes, it’s usually in the wake of significant life events that cause emotional upheaval, like marriage, divorce, or getting fired from a job.

Researchers say the new study, which is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, is one the first to show that a drug, when used in an experimental setting, can alter personality long term.

Specifically, the study found that psilocybin affects a dimension of personality called openness. Openness relates to the ability to see and appreciate beauty, to imagine, to be aware of our own and other people’s feelings, and to be curious and creative.

“Personality, after the age of 25, is relatively stable, and if anything happens, openness decreases across decades, just very slightly, but generally people become more rigid and less creative,” says researcher Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “And this is showing an anti-aging affect if you will, on openness.” [...]

Read the whole thing for details of the study, and embedded links.

I'll just say... they don't call them "Magic" for nuthin!

     

Solar Activity and Human Behavior: a link?

In response to an earlier post I did about Solar Flares and GPS disruption, someone commented about the affects that solar activity can have on human behavior.

Having read more about it since then, it seems that there are some interesting correlations. Here are some links I found on the subject:

Sunspots and Human Behavior
This article was published in the year 2000, just after the last Solar Maximum:

The recent Solar Maximum gives us a wonderful opportunity to observe the Sun in action. Borderland Sciences has been investigating the relationship of the Sun and human behaviour for many years, and we are quite confident that we can predict behaviours based on sunspot fluctuations over very short and long durations within the Solar Cycle of 11 years. Historically, research has been conducted to link the 11 year cycle of the sun to changes in human behavior and society. The most famous research had been done by professor A.L. Tchijevsky, a Russian scientist, who presented a paper to the American Meteorological Society at Philadelphia in the late 19th century. He prepared a study of the history of mass human movement compared to the solar cycle, beginning with the division of the Solar cycle into four parts: 1) Minimum sunspot activity; 2) increasing sunspot activity; 3) maximum sunspot activity; 4) Decreasing sunspot activity. He then divided up the agitation of mass human movements into five phases:

1) provoking influence of leaders upon masses

2) the “exciting” effect of emphasized ideas upon the masses

3) the velocity of incitability due to the presence of a single psychic center

4) the extensive areas covered by mass movements

5) Integration and individualization of the masses

By these comparisons he constructed an “Index of Mass Human Excitability” covering each year from 500 B.C. to 1922 A.D. He investigated the histories of 72 countries in that period, noting signs of human unrest such as wars, revolutions, riots, expeditions and migrations, plus the number of humans involved. Tchijevsky found that fully 80% of the most significant events occurred during the years of maximum sunspot activity. He maintained that the “exciting” period may be explained by an acute change in the nervous and psychic character of humanity, which takes place at sunspot maxima.

Tchijevsky discovered that the solar minimum is the lag period when repression is tolerated by the masses, as if they lacked the vital energy to make the needed changes. He found that during the sunspot maximum, the movement of humans is also at its peak. Tchijevsky’s study is the foundation of sunspot theory on human behavior, and as Harlan True Stetson, in his book Sunspots and Their Effects (available from BSRF), stated, “Until, however, someone can arrive at a more convincing excitability quotient for mass movements than professor Tchijevsky appears yet to have done, scientists will be reluctant to subscribe to all the conclusions which he sets forth.” Stetson did acknowledge that the mechanism by which ultraviolet radiation is absorbed was still a puzzle biologists had to solve. [...]

It's interesting, but I want more proof. Which leads to the next website, which goes into specific examples:

The Evidence: Historical Events During Sunspot Cycle Heights (1750-2000)

1905-08 German miners, Hottentots, Turks, Indians, Honduras, Russians revolt

1916-18 World War I, Irish and Indian revolts, Russian Revolution

1927-31 Mussolini and Hitler build power on economic unrest; revolts in Vienna, China; formation of Red Army; Spanish Republic formed; mass civil disobedience in India

1937-40 US steel strike, Spanish Civil War, Germany and Japan start World War II, mass civil disobedience in India

1947-51 Greek Civil War, First Israeli-Arab War, Indian-Pakistani riots, Red Army conquers China, Vietnam revolts, Korean War

1957-60 Israel invades Sinai, Hungarian uprising, Cuban revolution, civil rights movement in US, French-Algerian war, MauMau revolt, Iraq revolt, numerous African nations gain independence [...]

The website is maintained by Carol Moore, who gives many more examples like this, with graphs, which appear to support professor A.L. Tchijevsky's research and theory. She gives examples from 1770 up until 2009. Also on her site:

A. L. Tchijevsky’s Theory of Sunspot Activity and Human Activity

[...] Tchijevsky did not believe solar disturbances caused discontent as much as they acted as detonators that set off the smoldering discontent of the masses--discontent often channeled into war by their rulers. Nor did he deny that even during minimum solar activity some people would rebel against intolerable conditions or that nations would seek advantage through war and conquest. Some have since noted that the number of sunspots during any period may not be as significant as whether there is a rapid increase in the numbers, triggering unexpected passions. [...]

Ms. Moore has a lot more on her site. If the subject interests you, be sure to visit her webpage, she has a lot of source material for you to consider.

So the correlations make the theory more interesting, but what do we actually know, scientifically, about the affects of the sun's magnetic field on human beings? This site looks into that question:



Could Cycles of War or Peace Be Tied to Cycles of the Sun?

[...] Like weather patterns found on Earth, solar wind patterns can change rapidly. Luckily, our planet's magnetosphere quickly responds to the threat and absorbs the impact, wiggling and jiggling in the process. Geophysicists call this reaction a geomagnetic storm, but because of how it disrupts the Earth's magnetic field, it could also be called electromagnetic pollution.

These storms, although minute, affect brain waves and hormone levels, causing a number of different reactions, predominately in males. While a few women may also experience changes during these storms, they generally seem less affected by the Sun's behavior.

[...]

Reacting to changing hormone levels, some men may become increasingly irritable and aggressive, while others may instead become more creative. An increase in solar activity is found to increase psychotic episodes in individuals who already suffer from unstable psychological states. While we might relate such behavior to a full moon, in 1963, Dr. Robert Becker and his colleague, Dr. Freedman, demonstrated that solar changes also lead to a noticeable increase in psychotic activity.

Yet these reactions are not simply isolated to a few particularly sensitive or unlucky individuals. Evidence indicates that wars and international conflicts most often break out when sunspots are rapidly forming or rapidly decaying, as these are times when there are more intense geomagnetic storms. [...]

So do I believe it? I don't know. I can't verify all these claims. And I would like to see it investigated with a more solidly scientific method. But how does one "prove" that 80% concurrence of wars and solar storms is not a random coincidence? I'm not discounting it as a theory, but I think as a theory it has yet to be proven. For me it remains... interesting!
     

Does your state have a personality?

The United States of Mind

Researchers Identify Regional Personality Traits Across America

Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian.

But the conscientious Floridian? The neurotic Kentuckian?

You bet -- at least, according to new research on the geography of personality. Based on more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, the study maps regional clusters of personality traits, then overlays state-by-state data on crime, health and economic development in search of correlations.

Even after controlling for variables such as race, income and education levels, a state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. Dutiful states -- an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah -- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests. [...]

Read the rest for more details. The article also has an interactive map of the USA, where you can click on five categories in the left sidebar, which will pull up a map showing how each of the 50 states rates in that category. Placing your mouse cursor on each state will give you a list of all the scores for that state.