Damek.

(From a comment on a slashdot post about a study about happiness being catching

To become a social hub, all you really need is to be able to take an interest in everyone else. Start off by faking it, but once you’ve done that a bit, you’ve already got the level of background knowledge that you don’t need to any more – it’s basically the same as ‘geeking’ only this time the subject of your study is people and social dynamics. Accept the idiosyncrasies of people without passing judgment, much like you would with a hardware platform. Take the time to figure out what they’re good and bad at, and keep up to date with their revision history. From there, all it takes is a bit of spreading of invites when you choose to do something…

Haha, “revision history…” too true, too true. Of course, you can’t track everyone, any more than you can track all the software and hardware out there. Some individuals – and some whole social circles – are more personally interesting, and valuable, than others.

Lauren Slater, writing about Harry Harlow’s wire monkey experiments:

But the Iron Maiden, he has written about her, almost with glee. He made many variations: some iron maidens pumped freezing cold water over their children; others stabbed them. No matter what the torture, Harlow observed that the babies would not let go. They would not be deterred; they would not be thwarted. My god, love is strong. You are mauled and you come crawling back. You are frozen, and yet still you seek heat from the same wrong source. There is no partial reinforcement to explain this behavior; there is only the dark side of touch, the reality of primate relationships, which is that they can kill us while they hold us – that’s sad. But again, I find some beauty. The beauty is this: We are creatures of great faith. We will build bridges, against all odds we will build them – from here to there. From me to you. Come closer.

Slater also writes about Elizabeth Loftus’ experiments illuminating the malleability of memory, and asks Loftus,

“What grounds you? …If you can’t trust memory, what can you rely on?” I’m thinking of how Dostoyevsky claimed that a few good memories were all one needed to find faith in the world. But after you’ve lived in Loftus-land for a while, it’s hard to know where to place your faith…

“What do you have?” I ask her, but what I really mean is: what do any of us have then? What?

Loftus doesn’t answer me. Instead she says, “I wrote a letter to my mother a few days ago.” She shows it to me.

[...]

Why am I such a work-a-holic? Does it give me a way to escape from painful thoughts? Does it help me feel an importance that is and was otherwise missing from my life… busy with work, I don’t have much time to think about what is missing. A family love and closeness. That’s what I miss. That’s what I miss about you.
Love forever,
Beth

Loftus’ mother died when she was young.

…I’m still not aware of any studies showing better health outcomes for organic consumers. Maybe they’re yet to be conducted. Maybe Philpott’s circumstantial cases around nitrates and pesticides will prove true. But maybe not. As of now, they don’t show up in any observational or experimental data we have. From a public health perspective, I’m much more concerned with whether people consume fruits and vegetables than whether they consume organic fruits and vegetables.

That said, the evidence that organics are good for the environment, and the soil in particular, is very compelling. And the first part of Philpott’s post is a very elegant explanation of why.

Speaking of “the new gay…” and calling anything that … I love society and how acceptance shifts and things are normalized and the goal posts can be moved. It’s good to be reminded of this in different areas. The world isn’t as liberal as I’d like, and right-wingers have fought so vociferously for decades that they’ve held society back on a lot of fronts, but… things can go the other way and, eventually, tend to.

One small example is health care.

Thinking about “the new gay,” there’s definitely reasons to see open relationships as less of a “choice” for some than a question of “reality.”

Life is complicated, though, of course. There may be more “nature” in the question than you’d think, but there’s still questions of “nurture,” in how one chooses to act. Cheating? Self-denial? And even if embracing, the nature of human emotions, growth and development, may require some personal growth, reflection and, well, effort. For which advice such as the following is but a small part.

…do not squelch it, do not deny it, do not be ashamed of it, and most certainly do not deny it.

Feel.your.feelings.

Your feelings are trying to tell you something, so let them be felt without judgment or second-guessing. Feel the feelings. And when they’re done, let them go. Don’t try to go back and revisit them artificially. If the jealousy or insecurity comes up again on its own, again, feel the feelings, and let them run their course. In time, because you are giving them “voice”, as it were, these feelings will fade, both in frequency and intensity.

And in truth, all emotions work this way. Feel your emotions fully, whatever they may be, let them run their course, and then, let them go.

Of course, asking for help by way of reassurance, or communicating valid complaints, is also a reasonable thing to do. But much easier when you actually allow yourself to feel your feelings and become more aware of what they may be telling you.