August | 2005 | Letter Never Sent

Personal — 1 Comment
15
Aug 05

Balance

There was an interesting article today on the growing awareness of depression in China, Black cloud over China. I found one bit particularly weird and funny:

Prozac is among the most popular antidepressants in China. Its name in Chinese, Bai You Jie, means “free of a hundred worries.”

I have a theory that the reality of depression is very different from the popular conception of it as a strictly medical / neurochemical problem. It seems like the psychiatric field possesses a biased view of the mind as a chemical / organic machine, in the sense that mental health issues are caused primarily by chemical imbalances in the brain. To me this is myopic. Obviously I am not a scientist, so I have only my own anecdotal and limited experience to go on. I think the symptoms of depression may contain their own cure. What if the treatment for depression is right under our noses? Here are the nine classic symptoms of depression:

Depressed mood for most of the day
Disturbed appetite or change in weight
Disturbed sleep
Psychomotor retardation or agitation
Loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities; inability to enjoy usual hobbies or activities
Fatigue or loss of energy
Feelings of worthlessness; excessive and/or inappropriate guilt
Difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly
Morbid or suicidal thoughts or actions

Amazingly, almost all of these classic symptoms of depression can be acutely and positively affected by attention to the body; that conglomeration of muscle, bone, and blood most of us use primarily as a vehicle for our mind. Balanced exercise and activity stimulates mood. It increases appetite. It makes you more healthy resulting in more energy. The more active you are the better sleep you will get. Exercise has also been show to stimulate the brain, even areas that seem to have little to do with exercise.

Along with this idea of treating the body, I believe there are a few simple habits and strategies that could help people fight depression:

Adequate sleep. Go to bed a few hours after dark and get up at dawn. After dark refrain from turning on too many lights so your body will wind down. Don’t start watching a movie at 10:00pm. Get eight hours of sleep, no more, no less. Too little sleep will make you feel exhausted, too much sleep will make you feel sluggish. I say get up at dawn because I imagine that as diurnal creatures (active during the day) we need to experience sunlight. I know that staying up late when no one else is around and everything is dark is a recipe for feeling bad. The sun feels good as long as it is not too hot outside.
Physical activity. It’s hard for me to suggest exercise since I have a difficult time doing it myself. I need to have more of a goal than just “exercising”. That’s why I’m using the word “activity” instead. I had this experience recently where I had to help Jody move into her apartment. It was a lot of work, as anyone who has moved before knows. It pushed my physical limits. I was hot, sweaty, sore, and exhausted when it was all said and done. However, I remember sitting in a chair afterward and feeling blissfully worn out. I was exhausted and shaky but I also felt great. I noticed that I had this very pleasant and unfamiliar feeling of absolute mental stillness, as if the vibrating, warm sensations coming from my tired muscles were lowering the volume and intensity of my inner voice. I remember the same thing from working in the fast-paced warehouse at Fedex. If I showed up to work feeling blah, a few hours loading shipping containers would really get the blood flowing. If you have trouble getting enough exercise, you can do little things to fit it in. Try using the stairs at work, or walk to lunch. Go bowling, or dancing. Do something physical. If you’ve been feeling depressed, how much exercise have you really been getting? Even if you don’t feel like it, exercise will help you feel better.
Balanced social interaction. Depression can often result in social withdrawal, but too much social interaction can being overstimulating. Good relationships go a long way to improving your outlook and emotional state, but it is also important to spend quiet time by yourself. As important as it is to have a support network of friends and family, you should also develop a friendship with yourself. Do things by yourself that you like to do. One thing I do is try to remember what I used to enjoy as a kid. Many of those activities have a calming effect. For example, lately I’ve been reading a lot more than I have for a long time and it helps me focus on something other than what’s going on in my little bubble.
Stay busy and get out of your head. Is it denial to try to work through a bad spell? It might be, but I often feel better the more productive I am. When I get things done I feel like I’m doing something useful and productive. More importantly, I feel more active in my own life and affairs. One of the best experiences I had recently was when I took an hour or so to clean and wash my car. It felt so good to power spray all the dirt and bird crap away leaving something that shined. I got in and vacuumed out all the trash and gunk in the floor and wiped down the dashboard and windows. I even sprayed in some of that cheesy cherry air-freshener with that gun they have hanging next to the vacuum. It was satisfying to take my car and spruce it up with a little elbow grease, even an old car like mine. Cleaning can truly be a creative activity, and it seems to tap into that same motivation I have for building or making things.To clean is to restore, and that’s not much different from creation itself.

There’s a good article today from the Mayo Clinic I haven’t had much time to read about how exercise can ease symptoms of depression and anxiety:

Before you think, “Yeah, right,” and move on, consider this: Exercise doesn’t have to come in large doses to offer psychological benefits. Even as little as 10 minutes of low-intensity walking helps. Your goal doesn’t have to be losing 20 pounds, being able to run five miles nonstop or hitting the gym at 6 a.m. three days a week for a sweat-drenched workout.

Rather, the idea is to do something active in order to trigger the mechanisms that reduce negative moods and improve positive moods. And with a little planning and some practical tips – after all, it’s not a matter of sheer willpower – adding exercise to your treatment program won’t seem so daunting, even if you experience severe symptoms of depression or anxiety.

Despite ongoing research, just how exercise reduces symptoms isn’t clear. There are plenty of theories, though, about both the physiological and psychological pathways that can improve symptoms related to depression and anxiety disorders, including sadness, anxiety, stress, fatigue, anger, self-doubt and hopelessness.

One of the physiological mechanisms that may be at work is an increase in levels of certain mood-enhancing neurotransmitters in the brain. In addition, exercise may boost feel-good endorphins, release tension in muscles, diminish sleep abnormalities, reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol and even increase body temperature, which has calming effects.

Maybe depression is such a modern problem because of how much our lifestyles have changed. Think about it, fifty years ago most families had one car, one television at best, and no computers or Internet. A lot of people walked to work or school. Most families cooked their own food and ate every meal at home. If you owned one major appliance you were doing pretty well. One thing I notice when I go to Oklahoma with Jody to visit her folks is that my normal daily life is very fast-paced and overstimulating compared to the quiet and slowness of being out of my normal routine. When I’m out in the country, sometimes I’m just sitting around on the porch watching the barn swallows catch bugs or I’m just eating lunch and having a nice quiet conversation. You don’t realize how wired up you are until you get away from yourself.

Arts — 2 Comments
12
Aug 05

Horned man

old man

I think it would be cool to have horns or antlers like this old man I altered in Photoshop. When you walked up to your friends you could bow your head and rattle antlers. It would be the equivalent of a high five. If you were frustrated you could scrape your antlers on a tree.

Literature — 3 Comments
10
Aug 05

Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake

Good moralistic sci-fi satire from Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. This book has been an eery trip, very cold and numb, and depressing… yet funny. This passage gives you the flavor.

When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it had once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray. It must have got tired of the soul’s constant nagging and whining and the anxiety-driven intellectual web-spinning of the mind, distracting it whenever it was getting its teeth into something juicy or its fingers into something good. It had dumped the other two back there somewhere, leaving them stranded in some damp sanctuary or stuffy lecture hall while it made a beeline for the topless bars, and it had dumped culture along with them: music and painting and poetry and plays. Sublimation, all of it; nothing but sublimation according to the body. Why not cut to the chase?

But the body had its own cultural forms. It had its own art. Executions were its tragedies, pornography was its romance.

Society — Comments Off
10
Aug 05

On Finnish stoicism

This article on Finnish stoicism reminds me of that famous maxim: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

Because Finns rarely talk, when they do talk, they choose their words very carefully, and what they do say is incredibly loaded. They mean absolutely every word they say. A different word here and there is significant. Finns are also understated. If they say someone is sick, they are probably dying.

Finns also listen very carefully and easily pick up subtleties and nuances. Finns put everything you say under the microscope. There’s no such thing as the throwaway line, enthusiastic exaggeration or poetic licence. I once casually mentioned I was annoyed with my husband and wanted to wring his neck. A work colleague said I had only been married a short time and I should give it a chance and think seriously before separating. I said that wasn’t what I meant. They asked if I didn’t mean it, why did I say it. Clinical Finnish logic. Gets you every time.

Finns don’t trust big talkers. Finns are suspicious of extra words and wary of passion and emotion. Finnish conversation is even and measured. Finns don’t raise their voice. This suggests Finns are gentle people. Finns are not gentle. Gentle people don’t play ice hockey. In Australia and many other countries, just-contained anger is an effective tactic in hostile negotiations. In Finland, anger, passion and emotion suggest you’re not in control. If you raise your voice, you immediately lose authority and credibility. Finns lose respect and you lose the argument.

Finns are also known for the untranslatable concept of “sisu“. Wikipedia:

“Sisu is a Finnish term that combines inner strength, determination, perseverance in the face of adversity, and a strong work ethic. There is no direct English translation, but the concept can be somewhat expressed as “tough as nails” or “hard-nosed”. To anthropologists, it is an appropriate invention for a cold northern land, fractured by thousands of lakes, and long under threat of being overwhelmed, militarily, linguistically and otherwise, by more powerful neighbours. Similar concepts exist among other cold-weather peoples, such as the Inuit and Chukchi.”

General — 1 Comment
10
Aug 05

From Steve Jobs’ commencement speech

From wiredatom.com:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

International Pol. — 1 Comment
10
Aug 05

Nuanced first hand perspective

On Iraq, from one Major’s point of view:

Back to my non-insurgency theory: There is not a web of like-minded (much less amenable) patriots gaining succor and inspiration from the populace. There are a thousand disparate cabals and petit punks and opportunists, each with competing motivations and interests. A water truck leaving a coalition base may be fired upon by a host of various suspects. The “usual suspects” rounded up may include:

1) a 17-year-old who was paid $50,

2) a competitor of the truck’s owner who covets his contract,

3) a local tribesman who resents the presence of another affiliate,

4) a garden-variety criminal out to steal the truck, or embezzle the business,

5) a former Ba’athist apparatchik fearing the end of his gravy train,

6) a Jihadist from Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Egypt hoping to please God, or

7) an Iraqi, proud and nationalistic, believing the US is on a craven crusade to plunder his country’s oil and rich culture.

The permutations are endless and motivations intertwined. In this petri dish of conspiracy, those who are convinced that the Israeli Intelligence services, the Church of England, and Hollywood joined forces to mastermind the WTC attacks don’t even evoke a smirk. Credulity knows no filter. Lyndon LaRouche would be quite at home here.

Science — 1 Comment
09
Aug 05

Male / female differences and even autism

I’ve been reading a lot about this and have found some good information on some biological differences between men and women and a few things really stuck out to me…
Continue reading →

Personal — Comments Off
07
Aug 05

PostSecret is a drug

I like to forget about PostSecret, so I can go back every few weeks and read a big hunk of new postcards. Here are some good ones…

# I’m scared of cockroaches crawling into my mouth while I sleep.
# I skipped math to stand in the lunch line with him.
# What hurts more than losing you is knowing you’re not fighting to keep me.
# Sometimes I put coins in other people’s parking meters.
# Everyone thinks I do it to make people stare… but really, it’s to keep them from looking too closely.

Film and motion pictures — 3 Comments
04
Aug 05

Down with movie reviews!

The woman and I watched Closer last night. I never went to see it in the theatre since the reviews at the time were lackluster, but that’s what I get for listening to someone else’s worthless opinion. It’s got great characters, great and memorable dialogue, and Natalie Portman spends one scene nearly buck naked.

What I liked about “Closer” is that it reminded me of all the sh*t and pain that’s mixed up in love. The entire movie is break-up / infidelity / love / loss / revenge concentrate. It’s every bad relationship experience you’ve had condensed into two hours. It’s real. But, it’s not all negative, just realistic and maybe cynical. It’s not just about relationships, it’s also about how people can be dishonest and screwed up because they’re self-loathing cowards. It’s a cycle: you seek someone to love because you have a hungry hole in your chest, you get involved with someone else because the hole is never really filled, then you betray your first lover and whip yourself with the resulting guilt so that everything falls down around you and you can be even more unhappy and pathetic. It takes work to be happy, dammit. I really believe that.

Like I said, there are some fantastic lines. Clive Owen is the star of this film, without a doubt, but everyone else is really good, too.

Some of my favorite lines:

Dan (Jude Law): You’re an animal.
Larry (Clive Owen): Yeah? What are you?
Dan (Jude Law): You think love is simple. You think the heart is like a diagram.
Larry (Clive Owen): Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist, wrapped in blood!

Anna (Julia Roberts): Why is the sex so important?
Larry (Clive Owen): BECAUSE I’M A CAVEMAN!

General — 2 Comments
02
Aug 05

Generational lack of financial discpline

In June, the American personal savings rate dropped to 0%!! This is absurd in the extreme.

I know few people of my generation who save. Our Baby Boomer parents grew up in a very different world. The world before instant credit and credit cards. A world without computerized databases where our collective histories and behaviors could be recorded and analyzed. Now we have social security numbers, drivers license numbers, and persistent electronic records. Our parents grew up when the financial world was less ominiscient. Everyone was largely innocent and naive when it came to credit. Credit cards themselves have only existed since 1951. In the old days, you had to be careful who you extended credit to. Nowadays, no one is really a credit risk. You can track a debtor anywhere in the country if they’re drawing a paycheck, and backruptcy laws have been introduced to make it more difficult to escape your debts.

Spendthrift nation:

That said, “a large proportion” of Americans are not saving and have never saved, Salisbury acknowledges. “That’s largely a function of income…. They’re just barely managing to survive as it is, and they don’t have enough income to save.”

A recent Consumer Federation survey found the lack of savings was especially troublesome to women. More than 70 percent said they worried about their finances in the last year, and two-thirds said that unexpected expenses – things like the furnace breaking or the car needing to be fixed – were the cause of that worry.

That’s because they had little or no money set aside. More than 40 percent of all women had less than $500 in the bank. For those 25 to 34 years old, the percentage without a rainy day fund jumped to 55 percent.

Many of us never learned anything about balancing our own books and socking money away, but we’d better since we can’t expect anyone else to do it for us. Why should they when it pumps billions of dollars into the financial sector of our economy? There are a few things you need to learn if you ever hope to be on top of your financial situation. Luckily, financial matters are very simple.

Principle 1: Spend less than you earn. Save the rest.

This is difficult for some people, but it is absolutely necessary if you ever hope to get in the black. Things will always cost more than you think and you can never predict every expense that might arise, so save for a rainy day when you receive those periodic windfalls. If you’re perpetually treading water you have two options: cut spending or make more money. You can do both for optimum effect. I know it seems like you have no room for spending cuts, but believe me you do.

Things that should be cut if you cannot save money each month:

Starbucks. You do not need a 4-5$ coffee. That coffee could easily turn into $10 if you invested it for a year or two.
Cable television, TIVO, Satellite TV, Netflix, etc. I have a love hate relationship with television, although now it’s mostly hate. Cable television on the other hand is a complete luxury. I can think of no real justification for it. It’s expensive and will turn you into the most unproductive person possible. If you routinely come home and plop down to watch television for 2-3 hours, do yourself a favor and have it disconnected. Instead, do something productive and life-affirming like clean the house, call your grandparents, paint, or work on something. Do anything but sit on your butt and watch television.
Any other subscriptions. Magazines, XM Radio, Yahoo Music, gym memberships, video games, whatever. Cut it. Have you really been using that gym membership? Don’t lie to me.
Dining out. Tighten that belt. For dinner tonight, crack open a can of soup and make a grilled-cheese sandwich. You just saved $10. Pat yourself on the back.

If you do all these things you will be amazed at the result. I promise you’ll have at least three hundred dollars more than you normally would at the end of each month and that’s equivalent to a raise of $2 an hour or $4000 a year. After a few weeks, you’ll also probably look better and fit into those pants that have been miraculously shrinking.

Principle 2: Know where your money is going.

How much are you spending on late fees, overdraft charges, interest payments each month? How much is your auto insurance costing you each month? How much do you spend on gasoline, or food each month? You should have some idea, and that will allow you to adjust accordingly. I highly recommend using something like Microsoft Money or Quicken. You can get either of these used off eBay or Amazon for about $20. My normal routine is to get up each morning and open Microsoft Money, which then automatically downloads all my bank transactions from my bank and sorts them according to category and payee. I also use it to track and manage any credit accounts, loans, investments, and accounts receivable. With reporting and automated bill reminders, it has become my financial command center. Knowledge is power. Don’t be afraid to peek under the hood of your financial life. It’s probably not as bad as you think.

Principle 3: It’s just paper and numbers.

If there’s one thing I want to emphasize it’s that money is just money. It is no measure of your value as a person. If you haven’t saved much of anything up until now, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, or that you’re stupid or lazy. Do not get emotional about it. Your fear will paralyze you. Money is just a tool, a means of exchange for goods and services. Keeping more of the money you earn will make you feel more secure only if you stop worrying about it. Change what you can and don’t obsess over everything else. If you’re in debt, find out how much and do something about it. The first thing you can do is cut up the credit cards and stop using them. This will cost you exactly nothing. When you throw away this crutch you unlock the creative potential of your brain. Without credit cards, you’ll have to start thinking of ways to not run out of money because you’ll have no other option. You will become more active and creative. What can I cut? What can I sell? What can I do to make more money? Is my job doing enough for me? What other options do I have? Credit turns off your brain and forces you to forestall important considerations. You can walk without credit, but your thinking will need to change. Instead of “I can’t afford that” you’ll have to start thinking “How can I afford that?”.

Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

Monthly Archives: August 2005