Placebo: it's all in your mind....

I was surprised when I examined the literature that came with my first prescription migraine drugs.  There, in minuscule print on tissue thin paper folded about 20 times, was the FDA approved statement of drug effectiveness (along with a host of other information) and a visual--a graph charting the drugs efficacy Vs a placebo, two lines heading up, one ever so slightly above the other.

In order to be endorsed as a valid medication, a drug must deliver some tiny percent greater effectiveness than a sugar pill.  This didn't seem like a very high bar to clear!  But one look at the chart showed the unexpected, but irrefutable fact that the placebo had significantly positive impact.  The bar was in fact quite high indeed! 

Did this feed into the physician's dismissive "its all in your head" "hysteria" "maladie imaginaire" ?  For me, it was incontrovertible evidence of what we all know, but can have difficulty acknowledging: the incredible power of our own mind.

In many--though not all--cases, we can will things to happen.  And while the power of belief is accepted in many areas, it can be scoffed at or dismissed in others. Though mankind, whose ever-present default position of being the center of the universe (!), all knowing and all controlling, can take this too far.

It's why snake-oil salesman are able to succeed, along with faith healers, talismans, the power of positive thinking, and mind-over-matter. Change may not have a physical reason for happening, but sometimes, if there is a spiritual/emotional reason, that in itself may create an opportunity, a pathway, to open your mind and allow your body to follow.

Believing is seeing, and if we can allow ourselves to accept new things/beliefs, we will likely see new things, even as we look at the familiar.

Believing is also tasting--I remember being at a high-end conference and heading for the dessert table, where there was a large bowl of unlabelled pale yellow pudding.  I thoughts...lemon something?  Took a sample.  No, just light and blandly sweet tasting.  Our table speculated as it what it was.  Vanilla Pudding?  Seemed too plebeian for our exalted venue.  Then it clicked: white chocolate mousse.  Everyone dashed off to have some.  It's blandness had been transformed to an elegant delicacy.

This insight has lead me to strive to ignore all warnings about the relative merit--or negatives--about all digestibles.  My understanding of what is "good" or "bad" for me has become crystal clear and easy:

1. Whatever I like is good for me
2. Whatever I don't like is bad for me.

And you know, I can tell the instant I put something in my mouth whether it is good or bad for me.

This insight, of course, is coupled with the overarching truth of moderation in everything.  To which I also add the key ingredient of appreciation...

Enjoy!

Listen Up!

I'm not a techno maven, so please forgive my self-congratulation and delight at having figured out how to download digital audio titles (and eBooks) to my iPhone...from the Public Library.

Is that great, or what?

I don't have a tablet at the moment (lost my Kindle & am obsessing about alternatives.  Thinking Galaxy Notebook? Mostly an Apple family, so wanted to try something else). So I am mostly focused on audio right now. Love the idea of downloading from the library for several reasons:

1.     Very inexpensive (free).  You do have to get a library card, though. (also free)

2.     You aren't stuck with a physical product that sits around, cluttering things up--as if you're going to listen to it again, which is unlikely.  And if you want to, why just take it out of the library again!

3.    OK, yes, I worked for publishers, who often had an uneasy relationship with libraries due to their free-ness when you're trying to make a living selling books. But libraries have always been magical and wonderful places for me.  They are an amazing repository for information, help, knowledge and access.  Via their remarkable "free sampling" program, they introduce people to new things--like digital content--that often create new consumers and enrich our lives. So I believe in & support libraries--by using them as well as giving.

4.     OMG when you download digital content, it is never late! It just disappears when your time is up.  No need to keep track or be nearby to hand it in.  Poof.

5.    With a WiFi connection, you can download a book from anywhere, anytime.  Finish something in the middle of the night on a business trip or vacation?  Just browse the shelves and download something new at 1:00am.

Audio is an interesting format, with incredible advantages and some challenges.  It is a genuinely different vehicle for "consuming" content, and it can take a bit of personal exploration and experimentation to find your sweet spot. What are this issues? you may well ask...

A.  Sound.  It's pretty basic.  You have to have earphones (comfy earphones) if you're in company (unless it's a shared experience), and the environment has to be quiet enough so you can hear.  For example, New York is a really loud city.  It's hard to hear as you walk on the street, ride the subway or sit in a cab.  Not impossible, but I find myself turning the volume up & down a lot.

B.  Someone is reading to you--often a delightful asset, but sometimes a liability.  If good, the voice can significantly enhance the experience.  I've been listening to several P.G. Wodehouse Bertie & Jeeves titles & they're a delight.  All the upper crust characters, ridiculous expressions, outrageous situations come alive with the accents & tones of voice.  

James Joyce's reader is a Joyce expert, delivering wonderful Irish accents, even singing when the story required. And it's a comfort to feel the stream of consciousness is flowing by with an approved cadence and pace.  

Life of Pi's Indian accented reader turns out not to even be Indian, but really enhanced and enriched the story for me.  

But if the reader is bad, it can make the listening experience unbearable.

C.  Also, with audio, they read every word.  I skim when I get bored reading, or if there are long lists, or it feel repetitive. You don't really have that option with audio.  

You can skip forward, but it's not the same as glancing down a page to confirm they're still yammering about battle details or lush descriptions.  

This can be a good thing if the writing is good--forcing you to slow down and savor the words and images. But if you're listening to some little known Victorian novel, you may discover why it is not well known when you find yourself subjected to what seems like hours of exquisitely described detail of an emotional or physical landscape.

D.  Some people just lose traction listening & feel they have to keep going back to remember who said what to whom & when & thus find audio frustrating, as it doesn't offer the visual cues of flipping back a page, or looking in the middle of that long paragraph.  

In this case, they need to listen to stuff they don't care about so much (avoid 'How To' or non-fiction or complex fiction). Consider plays, or poetry, where listing & responding is perhaps more important than keeping track of everything.

E.   Why bother? Well, I love storytelling, and audio can slip in through the cracks and deliver a great reading experience when actual reading is impossible.  I can listen and look out the window of the train or plane or bus.  I can listen and knit or sew or mend. I can sit with the gang as they watch TV and listen to my story.  Grocery shop.  Walk the dog.  If I'm alone, I can be read to sleep, with a built in timer that will shut off after 15, 30, 60 minutes. Though if being read to makes you fall asleep, perhaps listen to the radio when you're driving!

Downloading audio books from your public library:

General info  Overdrive Media Console or  Overdrive for iStuff

Load the app onto your iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.  

Locate your library (hopefully) on their very long Add A Library list.  

Put in your library card number & password.  Search.  Browse.  Create a Wish List & fill it with titles you're interested in.  Ask for a eHold on a title that isn't available right now--you'll get an email when it becomes available & you can download it.  If you finish before your book is due, return and delete it.

Select and download titles--you'll get a sense for how long they are by the number of packages of data.

Plug yourself in...and listen up!

A New Language

I was thinking I should learn a new language.

You know what they say, keep the mind active, learning, getting exercised. Maybe Spanish? My year of Spanish in 8th grade was a hazy memory, and learning Spanish through the advertisements on the New York Subway had not been a successful foray in effective communication....

Cucarachas? Mandelos a un Motel!

Not the best way to win friends and influence people (unless, of course, they are Spanish speaking cockroaches).

But then as I struggled with vocabulary words, grammar and syntax, I realized I was already in the middle of learning a new language: Tech.

When people (of a certain age) say they find technology confusing, daunting, that they're not good at it, I don't think they've taken on board that Tech is a new language. Would you expect to be able to speak a new language fluently after an hour's class?

I didn't think so.

If anyone complained that even after many hours of learning French they were unable to read a novel, watch TV, or that they were unable to speak quickly and fluently, articulating their every nuanced point, most people would think: Huh? It takes more than a few hours to become fluent in a new language!

This point is not to discourage non techfluent types, but just a request that everyone realign their self expectations to a more reasonable level. To stop beating up on themselves because they are harboring absurdly high expectations of fluency, and appreciate learning tech, like learning a new language, is a process.

And the language metaphor doesn't stop there. As countless childhood development research statistics have indicated, when we are young, our ability to acquire new languages is remarkable. Thus everyone that has grown up learning the language of Tech has internalized it fairly effortlessly.

I can recall my horror and distress when I came across my first French child, a six year old, and I could not fathom how it could have learned French so well at the age of six, when I was still struggling at the age of 21 after years of classes.

Thus many of those that have grown up speaking Tech and are now explaining it to you may find your struggles incomprehensible. It's easy. It's natural. It's intuitive. It's obvious. Sure different dialects (games, new programs, operating systems, upgrades) can present a challenge, but for many, the challenge is fun to overcome. Just like people enjoy learning new languages, or new vocabularies, or new accents and idioms. But it's often not so easy for a non-native speaker.

And as it's a new language, it is constantly changing, adding new words, sprouting new dialects right and left, even the basics changing and morphing to fit this brave new world. It is going to take all my efforts to build my vocabulary and figure out how to effectively communicate and make myself understood.

Parlez-vous tech?

Oui! Un petit peu....

Poetry

I majored in English in college—I have always loved stories.  I can't even remember now what my period of interest was—maybe 19th century English &  French literature?  That sounds reasonable.  I read a fair number of novels, plays and...poetry.  Yes, I fondly recall a seminar in French symbolist & surrealist poetry.

Homework was reading poetry, and I remember how first I'd just read an assigned poem.  Then I'd go back & look up all the words I didn't know or understand and translate it.  Then I'd read my crude translation to try to understand the sense of the individual words and the vision of the poem.  Read it again trying to internalize the meaning of the words as I read them.  Read it again out loud to hear the language.  It took hours to read a few lines of text on a page!

While I was wrestling with this class, I remember going to some event and chatting to two somewhat inebriated English graduate students and explaining that really, I just didn't get all the hoopla about poetry.  And having them earnestly explain that poetry was it.  The pinnacle. The point.  The Ultimate in the pantheon of literature....

I didn't buy it.  I figure they just liked to lord it over us lowly undergraduates & needed to pick something obscure and difficult (indeed often impenetrable) and pretend they understood the secret language, and others lacked the refined ear and were not worthy of the key to unlock this treasure.  ENC (Emperor's New Clothes) I thought.  Nothing there.

Flash forward several years.  Had broken up with my college/post college boyfriend, moved to New York, gotten a job.  But  I was still connected with our collective friends when I found out from other sources that he was getting married to a woman who had banned all of his former friends (our friends) as a pre-condition.  He had to give them all up for her, and he did.

I  felt compelled to write to him.  It couldn't be any kind of lengthy explanation of my disappointment in his actions: his willingness to betray long term friends to satisfy an utterly inappropriate perception of threat.  To roll over and allow for such bad behavior.  To not stand up for himself.  To be so utterly lacking in integrity. No.  No explanations.

It had to be brief--no more than 3 sentences.  Expressive. Dignified.  Ruthless.

I wrestled with words.  Wrote and rewrote.  Crafted my note. Every word had to have resonance, had to have it's own integrity and then when juxtaposed to another, and another, create a new and nuanced meaning.  I flashed back to my conversation on Poetry and realized...

Poetry is it.

It is the challenge of packing the world in a thimble, of making each word do double, triple duty or more.  Of creating a multifaceted object that you can turn and turn again, see through it, see yourself in it, see other dimensions within it.  Within yourself.

The burden of specialness

Did you catch the David McCullough Jr (son of) "You are not special" graduation speech?

In some follow up interviews he speaks about his goals in taking his position that resonated with me:  the burden of specialness.

Watching friends who—perhaps compensating for the lack of desired adulation from their own parents—lavish their offspring with encouragement and praise, and are resentful towards anyone (teachers, employers, friends) who are critical.

Their goal is to inspire and empower their children.  But these aspirational goals, this barrage of belief their progeny's exceptionalness, is a heavy burden.

It can make every success a failure, because it can never be remarkable enough.  If there ever is something exceptional, then really, it's just what is expected—nothing remarkable about that!  It makes failure unacceptable, a betrayal of their parent's faith, something to hide, to be ashamed of.  Not good.

For all those who were dumped on and discouraged in their formative years, rethink your resentments.  If you were strong enough, motivated enough to defy assumptions, to fight for  your own dreams, than every step was a triumph.  The desire to "show" others how wrong they were about you may have lead you to excell in remarkable ways.  Your victories are your own, fought for and won in the teeth of opposition.

Perhaps it is logical to think that it would be easier to achieve success if those barriers were eliminated, but the barriers are what buids and ensures the strength and the motivation to succeed. The challenges we face and overcome in the race to win are the cause of our success. Not what prevents success.

Consider it in physical terms—no one trains successfully to win a race by having their coach move the finish line closer to the start. 

The word "burden" reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress, read many years ago.  Our burdens can indeed sink us into the Slough of Despond.  And a positive burden can be just as heavy as a negative one.

Let them go and find your own path....

What Is It About Virginity?

No, not just that kind.  I'm thinking of all kinds of firsts, any first.

While virginity in other areas don't get nearly the play that sexual innocence/experience gets (why is that?), many firsts are paradigm-altering experiences.

In youth, life starts with non-stop firsts.  Everything is a first—first breath, first cry, first word, first smile, first tooth, first food, first step.  Of course the proportions change over time—from 100% firsts in those intial hours, dropping to a still demanding percentage of firsts Vs familiar: first school, first friend, first fight, first love, first job, and so on.

As we explore, experiment and stake out our ground, we often build a life around the familiar, shrinking that percentage of demanding firsts we have to experience.  We've found our sweet spot, our comfort zone, our wheelhouse.

Yes, we understand our job as parents and mentors: we must push children, students, trainees to expand their horizons, open their eyes and minds to a world of possibilities, but hey, we've BTDT (Been There, Done That).  We don't need to do it again.  It's exhausting, time consuming, scary, disappointing, uncomfortable.  Something we encourage others to do, extolling the benefits of remaining open to new ideas, continuous learning, etc.

So I was wondering—what makes it hard to try something new?

And I realized that when you are a virgin/newbie approaching any new situation, you maintain a constant 360º scan of the situation, holding all potential options (given the lack of prior experience) open and possible.  Depending on your personality (some types listed below) or level of experience in related areas, your need to maintain a high-gain assessment of all information may vary, but the constant data flow can be significant and challenging to process.

Powering that constant scan consumes energy—you are not only trying to assess all the possibilities, but may (if more compulsive, or if this is a value-laden or important first) do some scenario building off of that 360 degrees of possibility, increasing the amount of information that has to stay active and running on your "screen."

When that 360º energy-intensive radar goes on for anyone who feels compelled to think ahead, it is tiring.  However if we are frequently trying new things, we can get used to it.  Like daily exercise, our mental muscles adjust and accommodate.  But for those who aren't in shape, the learning curve of newness can feel very daunting, a steep hill to climb.  We may give up, forgetting how quickly that initial learning curve can pass with minimal experience, narrowing that 360º circle into an ever smaller and more focused slice of the pie, enabling us to rapidly eliminate and jettison inappropriate options or scenarios.

Learning can be a heady experience, as we offload unecessary information that has been cluttering our mind, like cleaning house.

In general, I have observed three broad attitudes/approaches—perhaps you have experienced others...

The Laissez Faire:  So if you're not so compulsive or caring, and something new comes up, you might not switch into high gear.  You're in the "Whatever" school that believes in minimum-to-no-effort and deal with it (or abandon it) if things blow up. Relatively low increased energy required for approaching something new.

The Go For Its: Another mindset falls in the toss-it-in-the-air-and-See-If-It-Sticks (SIIS) school.  Simultaneously adventurous and lazy, this group is afraid to pre-think much, as that may lead to a never-ending list of what-ifs that would require additional research, effort and more thinking, which might result in inaction and depression.  For them, there's often some kind of mental mechanism that kicks in while they are dithering which launches them into the challenge willy-nilly.  They, closing their eyes, take the leap and deal real-time with the possible consequences of unthought-through actions. Energy only required if things go awry!

I Am, Therefore I Think: The third group are the pre-thinkers, sometimes so good at their job that no action is ever able to be taken!  The wide spectrum of this group can range from the thoughtful plan-aheader to the truly obsessive I-must-think-of-everything-or-else-there-will-be-a-break-in-the-Force-and-the-world-will-end. Required energy can be medium, to high...to off the charts. For the extremists in this segment, seemingly "simple" tasks or decisions can be overwhelming.  To illustrate this, consider taking a small number, say 2, but then saying you have to think of it to the tenth power.  The complexity increases exponentially.

Of course, there's always the straightforward fear of looking like an idiot, which is always a disincentive to trying something new.  Get over it. Try something new. Don't expect yourself to be perfect from the start.

Embrace failure, for without it, there is no learning. And remember that something not working out the way you had planned ("failure") may be a door that opens a new direction, insight, opportunity.

Really.

Isabel Swift (learning to knit…)

If you haven't read it yet, you should….

I’ve just finished re-reading Deborah Tannen’s early work (1990), You Just Don’t Understand.  She’s a linguistic professor who has published some bestselling titles (That’s Not What I Meant, Talking 9-5).  I’d read it ages ago, when it first came out & found it both interesting and helpful.  Rereading it offered new insights.

If you’re a romance reader or writer, I expect you’ve heard the comment, “The whole story was just based on a misunderstanding! A five minute conversation would have cleared everything up on page two…!” 

Well, spending five minutes with YJDU will clarify that communication between the sexes is rife with misunderstanding.   That males and females—from the very beginning—bring quite different assumptions to conversations (both speaking and listening) and those assumptions can create significant misinterpretation, misunderstanding, frustration, anger, unhappiness, alienation and disappointment.  A better understanding of the underlying assumptions on both sides can really help realign expectations and diminish misinterpretation.  Additionally, the stories and research offer reassurance that you are not alone in your confusion, hurt, and frustration.

Before I became a romance editor and made my living on the differences between the sexes, I remember having a conversation with the father of a woman who had finally announced her engagement to her long-time partner.  The couple hadn’t gotten married because their respective families didn’t approve of the relationships due to their being from different races or religions (can’t recall the issue). 

The parent was earnestly explaining to me that he wasn’t racist (or whatever) but that building a successful marriage was so hard, and if the two parties came from totally different cultures, different upbringings, different experiences, that it would be that much harder to find the common ground needed to create a strong partnership.

As I listened, I sympathized—all his concerns were valid.  And then I looked him in the eye and said, you know, I have never heard such a compelling treatise on the benefits of homosexual marriage.  I mean with heterosexual relationships, you are asking people of the opposite sex to figure out a way to live together.  Not easy!  There’s a reason it’s called the opposite sex….

Yes, when you think about building a strong partnership between two people who are different sexes, have totally different bodies, bring different assumptions, expectations and world view, have different conversational styles (in some ways a different language), and were raised differently, it’s clear heterosexual marriage is not easy.  That challenge has fueled countless stories, poems, songs and is often one of the central challenges of our lives.

It’s not easy to understand the opposite sex, but YJDU does give some helpful insights.  Tannen opens with a perspective that had a lot of resonance for me: that all conversation has two diametrically opposed goals.

One is to connect, to reach out, to feel a bond with another, to feel part of the greater whole of humankind.

The other is the desire to maintain your sense of self, your autonomy, your uniqueness, your individuality and separateness.

Tannen indicates (my interpretation) that these simultaneous and opposite goals are present in every conversational interaction for both men and women.  But she notes that men often have a slight default to autonomy in that 180 degree spread.  And that women often have a slight default to connection.  And that slight difference can and often does create a significant communication gap between the sexes.

If you think about it, much of “politeness” (which can vary significantly in different cultures) has been created to enable people to communicate and connect in a non-threatening way.  To enable others to feel ‘safe’ in connecting, reassured that they are not being asked to lose their autonomy or sense of self.

Romances are all about the puzzle of how to be both an individual and be part of a team.  And many address the challenge of having the woman need to nurture her sense of self, validate her right to her own individuality and needs in order to balance her natural tendency to compromise for others.  And additionally presenting the flip side: of having the man appreciate that there are appropriate and necessary compromises that he must make to be part of a team, and to learn to appreciate the unique gifts that that connection will bring.

So if you haven't read it yet, check it out.  And vive la différence!

Isabel Swift