Dissertation update: what am I actually doing???

Back and updating!

hmmmm

so i should be doing 11 other things, but this is the only one that sounds fun-- writing stuff. One problem, i really have nothing to say; no topic. And for a lesser person, this would be a problem... One good way to start a topical musing like this one, that is, one with no particular topic, is to outline. ie There are 5 things every wildlife enthusiast should keep in mind when venturing into a new environment. Then you think of 5 things. Like 1) although insects do not appear appetizing, they contain as much protein ounce for ounce as a Cliff bar, and can improve chances of surviving in the wild when you just can't choke that disgusting Cliff bar down. Then something like 2) remember that wild animals are often more afraid of you than you are of them, but scientists aren't sure which ones meet this criteria. then you realize you can only think of 3 things, so you say-- and most importantly 3) never underestimate the risks of hiking with a partner; not only is this generally annoying, but in a pinch, you may have to decide whether or not to eat them-- always a tough choice, because maybe you're overestimating their self-restraint in not eating you... so 3) always hike alone.

Update-- where to now?

dissertation update: methodology and access

intimidator 305 roller coster, kings dominion, virginia

the volcano roller coster at Kings Dominion Virginia

Now What!?

why we try new things... sort of

So I've been thinking about what makes us (as human beings) try new things; or more importantly, what makes us like new things. One example that comes to mind is food. It’s fairly innocuous, but maybe there is some insight into deeper motives that drive trying and liking something new. We all probably fall somewhere on a continuum ranging from “I always eat food I know I like” on one end, to “I always try new foods.” What makes us willing or unwilling (or somewhere in between) to try new things? I think trying new things, like food, is a function of habit—a result of a basic part of how we define ourselves.
The way we see ourselves has been defined as our self-concept. Our insight into why we have the self-concept that we do is called self-awareness. The way we feel about what we are (self-concept) and why we are (self-awareness), is called self-esteem. The three together make up what we call, predictably, the Self. So these terms are just a way of simplifying complicated concepts that already exist, like naming some new spider in the rainforest that we didn’t know was out there; we didn’t make it, just named it. This is important because this is just one way of trying to understand the Self, and ultimately, improve ourselves.
Anyway, getting back to how this might relate to our willingness or unwillingness to try new things… it seems like people tend to look for balance within the Self. In other words, we like to maintain a balance between each what we are, why we are, and how we feel about it. This seems to me to be fairly universal. If I see myself as a person who does not like to try new foods, and I know that I order the same things in restaurants because I like predictability, and I feel good about that, I probably won’t change. Similarly, if I see myself as a person who likes to try new things, and I know that it is because I am willing to take the chance not liking my meal in order to find something I like a lot, then I likely feel positively toward myself, and won’t change. A person who sees themselves as spontaneous—and likes it, is not likely to want to change that equilibrium; so being spontaneous makes us predictable, just as being predictable makes us… predictable.
Predictably, change cannot occur unless we shift our focus from maintaining equilibrium in the Self, to making a change in one of the Self’s three parts. This scares us because, like dominos, a shift in one causes a shift in the others. This is where thoughts, actions, and feelings come in. We think incremental change can be made by adjusting either our thoughts or our actions; feelings seem to be more of an involuntary response to these two. Lets continue to use ‘trying new food’ as our example. Say I don’t like to try new foods, but I want to change that; I can do one of a two things: 1) change my actions (behavior), or 2) change my thoughts (cognition), and the way I feel about the change will be automatic.
I’m going to have to finish this later, but I’ll get to using associations with the familiar in order to make small jumps, slight adjustments and low-risk shifts in the Self that maintain maximum equilibrium—I think this is how we all work. Watch for new posts.

If this is a journal… it sucks. After re-reading some of these… whatever they are, sections; I realize this is a conduit for reporting on thoughts I have when I should be busy. And here I am again asking questions: Is there a shortage of words? I’ve written about sentiments, moods, situational sentimentalism—is it all about communication, social constructivism, internal versus external working models, internal AND external; am I thinking in terms of psychology, social-psychology, sociology, anthropology, social work—is there a meaningful difference? I just want to know what makes us do what we do. I don’t think there is a grand theory that will explain it because I don’t know what “it” is. And I don’t know if I’m looking for answers or questions. I suppose wanting to ‘know’ implies answers, but maybe life is the answer and we are coming up with interesting questions in response. So what is an interesting question? Maybe one that everyone gets to answer with their own life. So a common one would be ‘what is the purpose of life?’ Then people answer it through living. The purpose isn’t set in stone, the potentiality is the answer—I get that its like saying ‘wherever you find yourself, there you are.’ So what governs our actions? It’s a question that can only be answered by each.

Is it important to know the difference between a sneeze and a cough when you hear it?

So a couple of things: I’ve been thinking a lot about mood, and the role of moods in our every day life. What is a “mood”? I think that the word mood represents a general feeling or sentiment that changes based on a range of stimuli. A mood could be based on a social setting, like a wild nightclub, a business meeting, dinner with the family, or being one of only two people in a movie theater. In each case, the social context, along with the physical context right down to what you are wearing and how much sleep you got last night, flow together into something you experience in the form of a “mood.” Certainly substances can also have an effect on mood; from coffee to cocaine, your mood is altered. Perhaps mood isn’t the best word for it. ‘Feeling’ is not quite the right word either, as it tends to be understood a little too broadly. Really it should be something like situational sentimentalism. Situational should be understood to mean any psycho-social context, keeping in mind that all experience is born of a social interaction of some sort. Sentimentalism refers to internal impulses that help us organize our immediate world. I think we probably each have an internal world that we are constantly changing to reflect the outside world as new information is translated through social interaction, filtered through our situational sentimentalism, and is deemed useful or un-useful. The important thing to remember is that moods, or sentiments exist based on so many unique “variables” (not quite the right word), that every experience, whether psychological or social, can never be exactly replicated for an individual, let a lone a group such as a sample, or population. The first “bottom line,” as it were, is that situational sentiments account for nearly all of the shaping of this internal world. That means that I am really a product of my mood at any given time, which is unique from any other given time. I think that it is likely that we are each constructing many many little worlds as we each go about our days, and the thing that governs our actions seems to be what we recall of the internal world we constructed from the last time we were in a similar mood. This infers that we never really throw out old ideas; these internal mechanism, or mini-worlds, that guide our actions simply become useful or un-useful. This means that, not only is truth and reality a product of individual internal translations, but that it is completely based on situationaly derived sentiments and the sense we make of the world as viewed through that singular (yet infinitely multi-ocular) lens. And to make it more complicated, situational sentiments are in constant flux; you start to feel hungry during your child’s soccer game, you become angry when someone cuts you off in traffic, you receive tragic news during an up-beat card game. This is beginning to refer to the idea of sentimental gravity, or mood priority. Its interesting that, at least my culture, seems to put a high value on consistency. This refers to normative behavior, like showing up on time places, or wearing appropriate attire, or completing tasks by an agreed upon time. This means that people shape their lives around creating the same situational sentiments every day through a consistent routine. Wake up at the same time, drink the same thing, work the same hours, and basically maintain more predictable moods that produce more predictable output. Well who says that’s the best way? Maybe the best solutions to problems are hidden within the sentiments that we try to avoid as a matter of adherence to norms. Maybe the dress code, the stringent schedule, the value placed on predictability and sameness are keeping new ways of thinking locked out. What would happen to people if they realized, as I think I do, that I can think contradicting thoughts based on different moods, and the world still turns. Paradoxical thinking, it seems to me, is a real tool rather than a problem to systematically solve. Eventually something will need to be said about the relationship between thinking and sentimentality. But I mean, watching a movie changes your mood, hearing a song changes your mood, the clothes you wear changes your mood—moods govern our actions more than any rational. And this empirical stuff is simply getting at the wrong information; its too complex, contextual, and unique from one individual to another.

By the way, I think it would be interesting to start a journal called something like The Multidisciplinary Journal of Thought and have a wide range of experts write a short narrative about how they think. Eventually it would be a journal respected for its creativity and transferability of unique processes that people would love to read it, and love to write for it. It would have to be written in first person, be between 2 and 20 pages or so, and you cannot cite others, it is simply a narrative about how you think and problem solve, not a compilation of people who influenced you. From business to social work, from medicine to politics, just answer the question “how do you think?” It would be a great experiment in multidisciplinary exchange of processes, with less focus on the ideas, although examples would be allowed. It would have to be written using language that other disciplines could understand and find useful, but otherwise, it should be very interpretive.

sentiment

What is it about sentiment? What is sentiment? I’ll tell you what I think before I go get the “real” definition. I guess I don’t know. The real definition is something like communicating a thought or feeling through words, acts or gestures, but that is independent of words, acts or gestures themselves. I guess that’s pretty good, but can that really happen? I mean, if I tell you a story, can I really tell you anything more than what my words, acts or gestures convey? Go through the list, if I tell a very sad story, and cry, and my face looks all pathetic and distorted, my eyes are glossy with tears—well all of those things fit into words, acts or gestures, so how is that emotion transported from me to you, or is it? Maybe we just have these reflexes to react to whatever emotion we see portrayed, but that can’t be it; why do I laugh when guys get hit in the crotch on America’s Funniest Home Videos? Presumably they are experiencing a very different emotional response than I am. Well, what if I, as listener, am trying to put myself in their shoes? Am I really getting to where they are, and experiencing the same emotion they are trying to communicate? I mean, how do I know what it is like for them to lose a loved one? Maybe their dad was a big jerk, and your dad is great, so you picture losing your dad, and you miss the connection because you don’t know what it was like to have their dad. Hmmm, what if the words, acts and gestures just remind us of what our experience was with that person? Maybe their dad was always nice to me, so I experience a small loss, and that’s what I feel, and not the emotion they feel and want to share. But why do people cry in movies where the characters are totally fictitious? Or are people more touched in movies or books of true accounts? What about sympathy and empathy? Maybe sympathy or empathy are the mirror emotions in us when we hear a sad story? That’s getting off topic a bit, because sentiment, where we started, is really a “shared” emotion, but that seems impossible to communicate. Okay, so maybe sentiment has to be based on a shared experience, and not just the communication of a thought or emotion independent of words, acts and gestures. So what are we left with, a few people go through an experience together, then they have this common bond because they went through the same thing? Well that seems implausible, because even though two people go through the same experience, their individual history will do more to interpret that experience than any actual thought or feeling shared during the experience. For example, if an angel came down and stood in front of two close fiends, one very righteous and one very wicked, wouldn’t they each be feeling very different emotions? Or maybe they weren’t as close of friends as we thought, because it seems like the more shared history, the stronger the bond between two people, and the more similarly they will experience a shared event. But shared history doesn’t automatically mean harmony or agreeability; maybe they hate each other. So is sentiment real, or is it fake? And if its real, how is it communicated? I know some people would say that it is the most “real” type of communication, is that what I think? Am I trying to answer my real question, or is there a bigger question underlying this small potato? Hey, and by the way, what is it about music and art that “moves” people, or communicates with people? And why does it change through time, I guess it must be socially based. No, I’m on the wrong track; there is definitely something there, some communication that’s not based on words, acts or gestures. I feel like I’m just hacking up decades of philosophical reflection with haphazard thought experiments and blind bias, but, what else am I supposed to be doing? Oh yeah, homework. Ps. I think mood has something to do with it too.

writing

Sometimes, writing is like conducting a skilled orchestra, where they get quiet when you do that hunched-down thing, then get loud when you do that hold-your-hands-up thing. But other times its more like shucking corn, and they’re all those really tough ears. Yet other times it more like spreading a butter substitute over warm homemade bread. And still other times like having a meal with long lost relatives, you dread it, like it a little while your there, but want to have a good long time before you do it again.

I’m not a very good ponderer, I don’t think.

Watching Rachel change a diaper is an odd experience, especially after having changed a couple myself. As I watch my hands unbutton the onesy, the snaps never cooperate for me. Huge fingers clumsily prod for the sticky tabs like they were half on novocain, and Lydia’s frog-leg routine doesn’t make it look any more natural. These hands look so mechanical as they over judge the amount of diaper needed in back, leaving the front shortchanged; then pulling a little out leads to pulling too much to the front. “Just lift her up a little bit and tweak it to the side some more,” I coach the hands from the pilot’s seat. Why does it look so flowing and second nature when Rachel’s skinny hands maneuver Lydia’s bird legs back into the gentle snapping of her purple onesy? I guess I’ll leave it to the professionals. – And how the heck do you spell “onesy”…“one-zee”?

Procrastination

Its funny how people tend to categorize themselves. “I’m a morning person,” vs. “I’m a night owl,” or “I’m just a messy person,” vs. “I’m a neat-freak.” It’s funny because its true. But what if the circumstances surrounding these categories changed? Would people change too? Lets say that you’re a person who considers yourself “messy.” But one day, you have to write a very large and important piece of work that contributes heavily to your graduate studies; lets say… doctoral studies in social work. As a result of the impending deadline, you arrive at the office early and prepare yourself for the rigorous reporting of scientific facts, but before you could possibly begin, you realize how disorganized your electronic filing system has become. Documents and folders on your desktop just don’t seem to mesh efficiently. The culmination of a semester worth of binary disorder ends now. How could you possibly produce articulate and clear-thinking work on such an important paper in this quagmire of ineffectiveness? You can’t!
Or, is it possible that although you are a messy person, an overarching character flaw is that you are a procrastinator? And in this very moment, are you not siphoning creative energies that could be allocated toward a critical analysis and reporting of pivotal social research, thus advancing your career by producing a passing grade in your class? I’ll address this question momentarily.
First, I think we have uncovered something important here; namely, that character flaws seem to self-regulate and organize in accordance with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (Registered Trademark of Big Science©). Survival of the fittest is one way we can begin to understand the life cycle of character flaws. Naturally selected for their ability to out-compete and out-live lesser character flaws, these super flaws, as they will be known hereafter, seem tailor-made stumbling blocks to our best efforts. The hierarchical nature of life’s challenges can be organized as follows: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, and ‘you did what?’ Further organization is possible, but not practical with generalizable interest. The domain level represents all character flaws in general. The kingdom level breaks the domain into about three categories: Character flaws that annoy everyone, character flaws that are self defeating, and character flaws that annoy everyone and are self-defeating. The phylum represents this super flaw level. These are the flaws that supercede all lesser flaws. It contains such super flaws as impatience, hating baby kittens, and procrastination. Therefore, according to the Domain character flaw, and the Kingdom flaws that annoy everyone and are self-defeating, and the Phylum procrastination, you are probably reading this while you should be doing something else far more important, thus advancing the super flaws of your author—thanks a lot! (did I mention blaming as another super flaw?)
By the way, the answer is Yes!

Have you ever had an idea, and you think, “Ah, that’s an okay idea, but not that great of an idea.” But then you forget the idea, and you think, “What was that idea I just thought of? It was a really good one. Why didn’t I write it down?” Then a few minutes later, you remember the idea, and you think, “That was it? Why did I think that was a great idea while I couldn’t remember it?” I think that happens to all of us! I wonder why forgetting an idea makes that idea seem more important or better than the idea while you can easily think of it… Probably the same thing that makes the heart grow fonder during absence.
Or is it that the idea really is a good one, but it just seems like, if you could think of an idea, everyone else could think of the same idea too. But then if you can’t remember it, it must mean that it isn’t that common of an idea after all, so it must be a valuable one. Then you remember the idea again, and you go back to thinking that it must not have been that unique of an idea after all. It just goes to show that the best ideas have probably already been thought of. Or have they? I can’t remember.