Selfchat

I'm coining the term.  This is a vital arrow in the quiver of personal comfort, offering not only the feeling of being listened to, but of having someone who knows you well on your side.

We're in lockdown--at least some of us non-essential non-workers are.  We're spending a lot of time with another person. Or alone. Which is worse?  Don't answer that--there is no single answer, it depends.

Whatever--selfchat is exactly what you need.  You might think it was only necessary or helpful when you're alone.  No.  It can be even more valuable for harmony and happiness when you're with another.

Yes, you're right.  There is an old-fashioned term that now feels loaded, fillled with negative connotations, shame, worthlessness--indeed "craziness".  We eschew this attitude, along with the naming and shaming.  We are not, as those out-of-it unawares might say "talking to myself."  We are enjoying a selfchat.

With selfchat, you always know someone is listening--and listening both attentively and sympathetically!  

Selfchat is there to acknowledge a good idea, an achievement, a game effort that may not have turned out quite as planned, nice try! Or a moment of clarity, an insight. It's a Yes! you're on it, looking good, almost there, you go girl!

But selfchat also is there for you in your confusion and uncertainty--what the hell was that? Why did that happen? Where did I put it?  I know I put it there, where is it?  Why is it hiding from me? Was it because I said it wasn't my favorite?  Come out, you're in the top ten favorites. Why can't I ever remember that! Wha--!?

Selfchat is also there to galvanize you, to demand action, to address an issue, fix a problem, and Just Do It.  C'mon, how hard could it be?  Focus! Get it done.  Now. What do you need to do first? You can't get something to eat until you finish this. Well, you should have thought of that before....

Selfchat is not universally positive, it seeks to inspire, instruct but most essentially: acknowledge.  

Out loud, so you can hear it.  Saying something out loud allows you to bear witness to yourself.  When something is heard, it goes into your ear canal and is processed differently than an inchoate internal feeling.  When you hear something out loud, that means someone is talking to you, telling you something they think you should hear.  And you should listen.  And you usually do!

Even if you're not alone, it's doubtful that whomever you're with will notice, express sympathy, give you just the right amount of encouragement, sympathy, inspiration...acknowledgement, that is hoped for, needed, on occasion: craved.  It's just not going to happen--certainly not 100% of the time.  

That's where selfchat steps into the breach.  

Stop waiting for the perfect comment or response--you know exactly what it is: say it.

Wonder....

I was sitting on the porch with a writer friend who was describing her recent trip and sharing her interesting insights and observations.

At one point, she started a sentence with, "I wonder…" paused, and then added, "perhaps I wonder a little too much."

I am a wonderer. I expect I wonder a little too much.

Some people are not wonderers, but most of us usually have elements in our lives that we wonder about.

When you find someone that wonders about the same kinds of things you wonder about, you can talk for hours! Speculating, parsing information, hypothesizing about alternative outcomes, tossing in a monkey wrench that causes your collective speculative house of cards to completely collapse and need to be rebuilt.

You can be friends with someone with a personality that isn't very compatible with yours, but if you have this in common, you can enjoy their company & treasure your conversations.

Wondering is not an exercise enjoyed only by ivory tower academic intellectuals, nor is it a female trait. For example everyone enthusiastic about a sport spends a lot of time wondering. The now popular fantasy teams are built around the delight people feel about playing with a complex mathematical set of probabilities, demonstrating a deep knowledge of all the moving parts and wondering and hypothesizing about outcomes.

Conversely if somebody wonders about something you don't wonder about, you find them a crashing bore. Or even if you're slightly interested in the subject and they go in for a deeper dive, you lose traction and start rolling your eyes.

One of the gifts creative people—whether they be dancers, writers, performers, artists, storytellers in any medium—give us, is to share their sense of wonder about something with us. And illustrate that wonder and delight through their work.

We often choose to experience things we are already interested in, but one of the gifts of diversity (spouses, friends, etc.) is seeing things you aren't particularly interested in or don't wonder about and discovering a new perspective, an unexpected insight and sense of wonder. A new world may open, like suddenly having a flower open and display its beauty when you didn't even notice the bud.

Wondering is slow.

It is squatting by tide pool and spending time looking at what initially looks like a bunch of rocks and water and discovering the teeming life within. Of looking at a pile of garbage and realizing every element was grown, manufactured, packaged, marketed, purchased, enjoyed before ultimately being discarded. Every element in that pile had a life from birth to its present state of awaiting burial.

Everything, everybody has a story.

We choose which stories interest us, are valuable to us—or are thrust upon us.

And our priorities can be different.

One viewer can be totally focused on the nuance of a story, the process, the character's motivations. Another on outcome, product, whodunnit, impatiently waiting for the answer while their colleague is delighting in exploring the question.

What do you wonder about?

Do you think you can control yourself?

That is one of my favorite lines from early dating days.  If you are of the female persuasion, you may have had similar early experiences.

The scenario:  Boy from work holding a similar lowly position as your own asks you out.  You know him, have a friendly relationship, he seems OK, cute, but not someone you're really interested in.  Still, why not?  So off you go to...movies? inexpensive dinner? (nobody's making much money at this point).  Casual, perfectly nice.  But then.  Moves are made.

And I'm sure I'm not alone in demonstrating that girl-like kindness of allowing a kiss, because refusing it would be just too mean—this is someone you'll see at work the next day, and really, what harm is there in being gracious (and perhaps a bit of...who knows? Maybe it will surprise me?).

And I'm equally sure I'm not alone in experiencing that startled Ugh moment of suddenly finding your mouth filled with someone else's tongue.

Even boys will know the feeling if they have ever slurped a raw oyster and realized that their choice was really far too large to take in one go, and that now your mouth is filled with something substantial, moist and unappealing. It's like that, although sometimes it wiggles about a bit.

After managing to extract the tongue & back off, I moved into the classic: 'This is not a good idea, we work together, it would be awkward, I like you & don't want to risk our friendship, etc. etc." The truth...but not the complete truth.  He took that in thoughtfully, consideringly, and earnestly asked:

"Do you think you can control yourself?"

Dear Reader, yes.  I said I thought I could.

But it opened a door for me regarding the difference between boys and girls (and please note that in my lexicon, males & females remain either a boy or a girl for the rest of their life).  And it's a difference that is both acknowledged culturally, commercially, personally, and legally in a thousand ways, but is also unacknowledged and invisible in many ways.

For the most part, girls just don't have a problem "controlling themselves."  Really, it's usually not hard for (most of) us.

But it's clearly harder for most boys—you only have to look at various religious requirements, cultural norms, and startling actions to acknowledge that really, examples of reversing the situation would  be hard to find.

This is just anecdotal, but I've simply never read a story of a woman coming across a drunk and unconscious man and having her way with him.  Sure, there are logistic issues that make it tough, but I would posit that the compelling desire just isn't there.

If the Navy were run by women, I just don't think they'd be as tempted by meals, alcohol and a bunch of prostitutes. Maybe something else? Instant weight loss? A full night's sleep? Those would indeed be tempting—we're only human!

Women don't seem to require that men wrap themselves from top to toe to ensure that our massive libidos don't get out of control. Indeed many religions seem to have determined that the sight of a woman's...hair, eyes, face, collarbones, arms, legs, or just spending time—a meal perhaps—with them in the presence of alcohol appear to be simply more than any man can handle.

These religions (surely unnecessary to note that these religions are all invented by men and have men as their gods) clearly believe that men really can't control themselves.  Or perhaps more accurately, shouldn't have to control themselves.  Everyone else (aka women) need to accommodate their weakness.  You get the picture (but DON'T look!). Christians, Muslims, Jews, whatever.  Sad.

So I would just like to take a moment to give a big shout-out to those millions (and I do mean millions) of guys that clearly have iron control, and  are able to live their lives—seemingly fairly effortlessly—wandering about with countless heads full of women's hair all about them, seeing women's faces, looking at scantily clad female bodies, even going so far as to eat a meal with them, and continuing to behave as normal human beings among other normal human beings, even though those other human beings are in fact female human beings.

You guys are amazing.  Really.  My hat's off to you (and I know I am safe in taking my hat off and exposing my hair because...well, you CAN control yourself). Thank you.  Really.

But all of this gave me a new insight into male homophobia! If all those religious sects endorse the fact that men have no self-control—or at least no obligation to exert it—to the point that they cannot be alone with a woman who is not their wife, cannot look at a woman's hair, cannot sit beside a woman, etc. etc. then what if the MAN they are sitting beside is...filled with uncontrollable thoughts about THEM! 

Think about it.









SaveSaveSaveSave

Zombies

You know how myths and legends are actually early stage psychiatry?  

They are stories that illustrate behaviors, offer life lessons and explore the dynamic between certain personalities.  They demonstrate the impact of misunderstandings, the consequences of acting hastily and the importance of not dismissing people because they don't meet your assessment of being a valuable player.  They remind us of the need for courtesy to all (really, you just never know), and countless other helpful guideposts to better understand and survive in this complex world.

Jealous Hera, mischievous Loki, the old beggar woman asking for alms, the simple son, witches, goblins, vampires, werewolves, zombies....

Zombies! Yes, it sounds a bit ridiculous.  Despite Haitan folklore, Vodou, Voodoo, or whatever spelling or incantation you choose—or even the possibility that the Undead do indeed walk—our present Zombie craze is highly stereotyped and stylized.  

But you perhaps never thought of the Undead as a valuable life lesson—an accurate explanation of what life is actually like. 

Think again.

It all starts innocently enough, you're living your life, hanging out with your classmates, co-workers, colleagues, spending days, months, often years together, cordial, close, connected.  You chat, share meals, share stories, share your life, your dreams, your experiences.  

You think you are surrounded by humans, but all it takes is a change to clarify who in your group are the living dead—surviving off flesh or brains—and who are actually human.  You graduate, your kids go to different schools, you move, you change jobs, you retire.  Suddenly, you no longer have a brain or flesh worth eating—you have nothing to offer.  

In fairness, you can't stay friends with everyone & the drifting apart is often mutual, but it's still an odd feeling to achieve invisibility with people you may have seen every day for years. 

Retirement may be the most challenging adjustment, as other changes often just trade one group of the Undead for another.  Opting out of the workforce can often eliminate your usefulness to others quite dramatically.  Suddenly, you have nothing worth eating....

Visiting the old workplace you realize you are a ghost in the machine—invisible to most.  Though it can sometimes be quite surprising who you are visible to, and to whom you have disappeared.  

Just like in a Zombie film the humans are often not the ones you would expect.

Cantaloupe. Yes, really.

It is likely that almost all the cantaloupe you have eaten--at least in America--has been unripe.  Certainly every salad bar, every plastic box of cut up cantaloupe in the grocery store, every breakfast buffet, has served you unripe cantaloupe.  It is a tribute to the deliciousness of cantaloupe that we all eat these fairly tasteless, hard chunks and think them not only edible, but OK.

If you think you like cantaloupe melons, please do yourself this favor.  Buy one at the grocery store.  Sniff the end where the vine came out and see if it smells like a cantaloupe.  If it doesn't, put it back and try another.  Fruit tastes like what it smells like, so if that beautiful peach doesn't smell like anything, than that's what it will taste like.  You don't even need to trust me on that, just do your own experiment.  It will be convincing.

Back to the cantaloupe: if it passes the sniff test, push gently simultaneously on the two ends to feel if there's any give. Usually there's not much, which is OK, it just means it's not ripe yet.

Take it home. Put it somewhere that is not the refrigerator: a windowsill, a shelf, a bowl.  Every few days, give it a sniff, press the ends to see if there is more give, and give the cantaloupe a shake.  You are listening for the sound of the interior seeds to have loosened from the inside wall and shake around.

You are waiting for your melon to ripen, and guess what?  It will likely take over a week, possibly two. The cantaloupes you buy are UNRIPE and hard.  They need to be to be able to ship and sit in stores and not get bruised.  And most places can't afford to have them sit around for days/weeks to ripen before serving.  But you can!

Allow your cantaloupe to ripen. Restrain yourself (I know, an un-American trait).  Think of this as the Adult "marshmallow test."  Until the seeds loosen, the cantaloupe isn't fully ripe.

Wait for it.  It's worth the wait.

It's easy to criticize...

...but I wish there were rules—at least with any public criticism—that required the critic to present a viable alternative (and "viable" is a key word here!). A sort of Thumper-like commitment that if you are going to say something negative, you have to provide a reasonable positive alternative.  That would certainly shut a lot of people up (yours truly among others!).

Is there a better way of doing it?  Is there a better choice? Think about it. Actually think.

If you do, you may determine that the results you are complaining about (sub-optimal as they may indeed be) are the really the best alternative.

Every day we all experience the complex algorithms we work with in daily life to get something accomplished.  It could be the choices we make in getting our kids up, dressed, fed and out the door to school or it could be a business merger.  We balance encouragement, threats, incentives (bribery), etc. to get the job done as well, as quickly, as effortlessly, as humanely (or not), as possible to motivate behavior and get the results we want or need.

That can make for a lot of complex juggling of timing, personalities, personal values, choices, priorities, mood, costs, external pressures etc. The end result often may not be ideal or what we had hoped for. But that's part of being an imperfect person in an imperfect world.  Life doesn't usually give us "do-overs."

The situations we and others face are rarely black and white.  But especially with technology, we can make a judgment without any knowledge or context and we actually expect to be taken seriously.
Complaints—especially now about politicians and the political process—display a startling naïveté, absence of thought and a shocking lack of awareness of history.

I have to admit to being Kinseyan in my assessment of human behavior—if most people have been doing something for centuries, it is unlikely that any person, belief-system or rhetoric will be able to airbrush that behavior out.

It's not that change can't happen, it can.  But it's a slow and hard fought battle and all the incremental gains can be easily lost. There needs to be a realignment of incentives (and there's usually no incentive to realign them) so it takes real thought and effective politics to get something done.  If you can't read actual history, watch Lincoln or All the Way for an understanding of what it actually takes to get something done.

As a female, the history of women's suffrage is depressing—it's been barely a century (19th Amendment was August 18, 1920) in the USA, something to remember as Americans finger-point other countries' lack of gender equality. That's about 150 years into our nationhood, and there are still a fair number of Americans who are feeling a bit sad about it & would like to turn back the clock. Change takes time.

Yes, it's easy to criticize. But it's far less appealing to be criticized, so before dishing it out, consider if there is a viable alternative (and "viable" is a key word here!) before excoriating the stupidity of others.  

Judge something on its own merits/demerits: don't blame the peacock for its tail or wish it were a chicken and provided eggs.

Self-brainwashing...

from my favorite paper: Funny Times

I know, most of America drives around in their own cars, but those city dwellers who find themselves in the back seat of a taxi or other hired conveyance may sympathize with the situation. 

Many people that drive for a living have the radio on: talk radio, music, endless news, NPR.  

I have to confess, I am a big advocate for silence, and feel there should be a bi-partisan movement for the right to not have to listen to stuff (on airplanes, in elevators, in malls, etc.).  

Sure, I could get (and indeed have) earphones.  But I don't want to block out the world, I want to hear it—just not endless marketing jabber or musak or whatever.

But I am particularly unhappy with having to listen to endless news or much of talk radio.  

There are a few talk radio stations whose goal is to be entertaining or informative.  But most lure their listeners in with conflict, outrage, fear, danger, scary information, etc. like a fish with a dangler lure....

These kinds of shows—TV, radio, whatever—wind listener's clocks, pull their chain, and give them some frisson of energy—hate, fear, anger—which seems to be far more addictive and universal (clearly part of one's "lizard brain") than a feeling of peace, happiness, learning or engagement.

It exhausts me to listen to the streams of exhaust!  And I don't have adequate shields to effectively block out noise.  Yes, I freely confess, I can't pack with the TV on.  It's just too distracting.

Propaganda works—if you hear information over and over again, it wears away at your critical faculty (if you have one).  It's convincing, even it it's patently untrue and utterly ridiculous.  If you see it, hear it, read it, talk about it it gets truthified through endless repetition.  So I now not only ask the drivers to turn off the radio, but tell them to stop listening to this endless, depressing stream of fairly useless information. It isn't good for their outlook on life.

It's all a creepy, voluntary self-brainwashing.  

I now feel much more charitable towards endless sports!  But really, they should be reading romances....