Bo

Sweet.

He was more than anything a sweetheart.

He loved to meet other dogs on our walks, and if one got aggressive he'd defend himself, but I never heard him growl threateningly at any other being, not another dog, not a cat, not a human.

He was great for teaching the kids in the neighborhood how to pet a dog. "Oh look! A doggy! Can I pet him?" They'd come rushing up. I'd stop them. "Let me show you how to pet a dog . . . . don't run up behind him, come around to where he can see you coming. Don't run at him. Be sure the owner says it's okay. Now put your hand out and let him smell it. Now you can pet him." Bo stood patiently. The kids would beam, proud of their new dog-petting skill, as they petted him. The next time they saw us, they'd say, "Miss! Watch! I remember how!" And they'd show off for their friends, "This is how you pet a dog."

On Halloween, he helped me with the trick-or-treaters, letting me know they were coming up the walk before the doorbell rang. As I admired costumes and distributed candy, he was out on the porch collecting pets and attention. He had a great time.

I resisted adopting him at first. My daughter rescued him and his sister Mali, and when she tried to convince me I should take him, I stupidly listened to friends who said, "Don't let her talk you into taking that dog. You already have a dog, and cats. You don't need another pet." But I rediscovered my spine, quit listening to other people's opinions and he became my dog.

One of my friends who was absolutely adamant that I shouldn't adopt him was Melanie. I have no idea why she objected. She had always had dogs herself and was a huge animal lover, rescuing and fostering all kinds of needy pets over the years. I think she was convinced that my daughter had me wrapped around her little finger and that I needed to occasionally stand up to her just on principle.

Soon after I got him, I took him over to her house, which pissed her off. He was six months old at the time. "He'll chase my cats. Is he housebroken?" I told her not to worry, he could stay in her backyard while we visited. "He'll whine and bark and scratch at the door. I'm not in the mood to deal with a puppy." She was battling cancer, and was not having a particularly good day.

Bo sat on her patio just outside the sliding glass doors for two hours, content. Never scratched, barked, whined, or chased any cats. Just seemed to be enjoying the day, patiently waiting for me to come get him and take him for another ride in the car. By the time I left, she grudgingly admitted that maybe I was right to take him, that he really was the good dog I'd been telling her about. That my daughter was right. I needed this dog. He needed me.

I always called him "the doggiest dog." "The essence of dog." A very handsome boy.

He was never any trouble. His housebreaking never failed. He always came when he was called. Never chewed or damaged anything. He was never sick.

He chased my cat Penny full tilt across the yard and then skidded to a halt when she reached the porch, sat down, and turned to look at him like "Ha! Beat you!" Barked at squirrels and the possum who lives under the porch and who sometimes tries to steal a tomato. Danced and bucked like a pony with excitement when I got the pet foods out. Danced even more and squealed with even more excitement when I got out the shoes that meant we were going for a walk.

He loved the greenbelt and running free there.

He was usually right behind me when I went out to the backyard, but not always. Except when I headed out the door with a laundry basket. Then he had to go with me, every time. I never understood why he thought I always needed his help to hang clothes on the line, or to take them down. Some things will be forever a mystery, I suppose.

He had a great time when the new siding was being put up. The gate stayed open while they worked so he could roam freely from back yard to front yard, which he seemed to find a special bonus, supervising the work. I always let him out when I heard them drive up and he made them smile, being greeted by "such a good dog he is!" at the beginning of their work day. And of course, Dana always had a doggie treat in her pocket for him.

He was my dog, and I was his human, for nine years. My faithful canine companion. I don't know how many times I told my daughter. "Thank you for talking me into taking Bo. He is the best dog."

The doggiest dog. The essence of dog.

It's hard to head to bed and not hear his patter up the stairs behind me. It's hard even to walk out my door to leave the house without going to pet him, telling him, "Be a good doggie. Guard the house. Take care of the kitties." How do you take a walk by yourself? Or hang laundry? Who will defend the tomatoes from the possum?

Saying goodbye to Bo

Bo had a lot of fun helping with the trick or treaters at Halloween. But after the kids had stopped coming and the porch light got turned off, he didn't want his supper. Very uncharacteristic, but then sometimes dogs go off their food for a day or so.

It was a little worrisome, because at treat time, he came into the kitchen but had trouble sitting up. His feet kept sliding out from under him. And he looked at the treat, but didn't want it.

After about 36 hours of no food and lethargy, I was about to take him to the vet, but all of a sudden he seemed his old self. Hungry, energetic. Anxious to go for a walk. Oh well, I thought, one of those GI viruses that lasts a day or two, I guess.

But over the next two weeks, there were a couple of more refusals to eat. More worry. Whatever this is, it's not entirely gone. . . .

Last Wednesday, he didn't want breakfast and he seemed weak again. Wobbly. I called the vet and made an appointment at the first time they had open. I left to teach my class and got home in time to take him to the vet.

When I came in the kitchen from the garage, he didn't come to greet me as he always did. "Bo?" I called. He came into the kitchen, but couldn't sit up. He collapsed onto the floor. I sat and petted him. "Poor baby. I sure hope the vet can fix you right up." After a few minutes, he went back to the couch and managed to get back up on it.

When it was time to leave for the vet, I got out the leash - a sure sign a walk is imminent in Bo's world - and he seemed excited and happy for a minute. He tried to leap off of the couch in his usual way, but slid and collapsed on the floor. I attached the leash and he struggled to his feet, headed for the door - "Going for a walk!" - but stumbled over the threshold, stumbled again over the small step down to the sidewalk and collapsed onto the grass. He was panting and seemed exhausted.

I picked him up to carry him to the car and then realized I had to put him down to open the car door. He lay on the concrete with his legs outstretched completely immobile. I got him into the car with some difficulty. He was heavy and couldn't help me at all.

At the vet's one of the techs carried him in while I filled out paperwork. Finally the vet came to talk to me. "His gums are so pale, I think he's bleeding internally. In Labs, and a few other breeds, in a dog his age . . . the usual reason for that is cancer of the spleen. Especially given what you told me about how he'd get better then worse again. That's how splenic cancer goes. It causes bleeding from the spleen, they feel bad, then it clots and the blood is reabsorbed and they feel better until the bleeding starts again. I'll do some X-rays and blood tests, but you should know . . . ."

She brought in the X-rays and the printout from the blood work. His RBC count, hemoglobin, etc were all less than half of what they should have been. His spleen on the X-ray was huge. There was no doubt.

"I can do surgery and remove his spleen. It's major surgery but we can do that if that's what you want to do. Generally, when you remove the spleen, the dog can live for about six more months."

No. Nope. No way. I've had major surgery. It hurts like hell. Even for a human with pain meds and when you know why this is happening to you and that it's worth it, it sucks. No way I'm putting the-best-dog-in-the-world through that. Pain and misery and nausea and me leaving him. Leaving him in the vet hospital, or as one fellow dog-lover described it from the dogs point of view, "the bright lights, fear-smelling, stick you with needles place."

No. Just no. For what? Six months? Six months of . . . ? It will be just as hard, just as "too soon" then as it is now. And in the meantime, pain and misery for Bo.

I sat trying to absorb what she was telling me. Just a few weeks ago, I said to my daughter, "When people ask me how old Bo is, I always say, "He's seven," but it occurs to me that I've been saying that for a long time now. How old are Bo and Mali really?" "They're nine," she said. And there was a little pang. Nine. Damn. That's getting old for a big dog. We don't have that much time left, Bo and I.

But I thought we had a few more years.

I suddenly realized - "I can't even take him home, can I?" I asked the vet. She said, "Of course you can. But you'll have to carry him when you get him home."

I thought of him stumbling and lurching off of the porch step and collapsing in the yard. No. No more of that for Bo.

And so, as they say, I had him "put to sleep." Some people resist that euphemism, as if it's weak or dishonest to put it that way. But really, that's what happens.

I called my daughter and she came to say goodbye. While we waited for her, we sat on a blanket on the floor, Bo and I. I petted him and stroked his ears. He had the softest ears I've ever felt on a dog and he loved to have them gently tugged and stroked. He leaned on my leg, the way dogs often do when they feel insecure or worried, but this time he had to lean on me lying down.

When my daughter got there, he lifted his head a little. He seemed tired and weak and like he just plain didn't feel good, but he seemed glad to see her, to enjoy the petting and attention anyway.

Finally, I called the vet in. She injected a sedative and he went to sleep as I stroked him. Then the other drug. Nothing seemed to happen. He still seemed the same, asleep. I asked her, "He's gone, isn't he?" She leaned over him with her stethoscope and then nodded.

I petted him a few more times, kissed the top of his head. "Bye, Bo, best dog in the world. I was so lucky to have you."

Love & Marriage

Rita Hayworth is Stayin' Alive

Jesus, she was good.

Why I love teaching at a community college

Because students like this show up in my classroom. Sadly, I can't embed the video. But just as well - if you click through to Gizmondo, you get a really nifty Q & A as well as the video. OK, ready? Click!

Reasons why life is good

Fireflies

This explains a lot

. . . about, well, a lot.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/how_it_works.png

Determined

Last night I ran into a neighbor who mentioned that her husband is taking Calculus II this summer, and only that one class because calculus is hard, you know. I said, I know, I took it in summer school too, and only that one class so I could focus on just that. Because it was hard.

Which reminded me of a student who completely amazed me one summer. She worked for Dell and Dell was paying her tuition, but only if she got her degree within a certain time frame - I think that's how it went, why she was doing this. Anyway, she was going to St. Ed's working on a bachelor's in business and needed to graduate at the end of the summer.

Now if you haven't done summer school in college, this is the deal. You take a class that usually lasts four and a half months and cram it into 6 weeks. Full time students generally take five or six classes during the Fall or Spring semester, but you're not allowed to take more than two at a time in summer school. There's two six week sessions, so you can do four classes in a summer. I did it several times and I liked the intensity of it. For one summer, eat, sleep, go to class, study, and that's all.  I could do it because I had no job, no kids, all I had to do was school.

Anyway, this student needed eight classes to finish her degree. So she was taking 4 classes - two at St. Ed's, two at ACC - during the first six week session. And then 4 more - two at St. Ed's, two at ACC - during the second six week session. Oh, and there's no break between the two sessions. This summer, for example, the first session ends Friday July 6 and the second session begins Monday July 9.

She was a divorced single mom with three kids.

And a full time job at Dell.

She packed a suitcase for each of the three kids and delivered them to her ex-husband. "They're yours for the summer. I have to finish school. Love you, kids! I'll visit when I can."

There was still the full-time job.

She passed all her courses, got her degree that summer. She made a B in my class. I could tell from her work that she was usually an A student, but I thought a B was damn good, considering. [published on 5/21/12]

Teddy

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read. ― David McCullough

via [published on 5/21/12]

Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant

Part 2, Part 3. More Vi Hart at her YouTube channel. [published on 4/4/12]

Why This Kolaveri Di

Current favorite music video. Which makes more sense if you read this first.

[published on 1/8/12]

What was the injustice?

Teenagers' emotions are intense, but their world is not all hormones and feelings. Their brains are waking up. They think. A lot. (It may not look like it to the adults around them, but that's because they're not thinking about what the adults want them to think about.) And the thoughts and the feelings are not separate things - for one thing, our feelings tell us what to think about, tell us what's important.

Surely those intense emotions, the racing thoughts of our adolescence affect who we become.

Teenagers have a keen sense of fairness, and are outraged by injustice. Children have a sense of fairness of course, but it seems like when we are children, it's personal. We're upset when we're punished for something we didn't do, or when we tell the truth and are not believed. In adolescence we become intensely, emotionally aware that the world is not fair.

It would be interesting to ask people, "What unfairness upset you most, what injustice were you angriest about, when you were a teenager?" [published on 12/27/11

The quest to understand consciousness

TED talk by Antonio Damasio, who has spent his life studying the inseparability of mind and body, thought and emotion.

[published on 12/27/11]

Yoga class

In an effort to Stay Busy so that I won’t completely lose my mind while adapting to this retirement thing, I signed up for a yoga class at ACC. I picked one of the classes at the campus least far away which had both MW and a TTh at 10:30am, a practically perfect time that avoids having to deal with rush hour. The teacher listed in the schedule for the MW class is Barbara and Helen for the TTh class.

It didn’t much matter to me whether the class was MW or TTh, so in the end I picked the TTh one because Helen is teaching three yoga classes and Barbara mostly teaches Tai Chi and just has the one yoga class. I thought maybe that meant that Helen is a better yoga teacher, but really, who knows?

* * * * * * * * * * * *

When I was in my late 20’s I used to swim a mile every day at Barton Springs. It’s an eighth of a mile long so it only took 8 licks (four laps) to do a mile, which I thought was quite wonderful since I am totally incapable of counting thirty something laps in a regular pool to get a mile in.

More important of course, is that Barton Springs is beautiful and beginning the day in a beautiful place does more for one’s health than any amount of exercise.

(I did these laps topless, by the way. It was an okay thing to do at the time and topless women at Barton Springs was a pretty ordinary sight.)

I usually swam in the early afternoon but for some reason one day I went to swim later. It may even have been a Saturday and I usually only swam on weekdays. I can’t remember why I went there then, just that it felt odd because it wasn’t my usual time to be there.

But when I got there, no one was in the pool, which was even odder. A crowd of people was sitting on the banks on blankets and lawn chairs.

Actually, one person was swimming the length of the pool. Back and forth. Every one was watching her.

And then . . . well, here’s what the Chronicle said about it years later:

Dancers would march through the shallows in a conga line and lie on the rocks on their backs, their upturned arms and legs undulating like underwater grasses. They'd form a circle and hit the water in sequence to make a running wave. And most often and most delightfully, they'd parade around imitating assorted animals: apes, seals, crabs, frogs, flamingos, dolphins, elephants .... Not since Ovid have there been so many magical metamorphoses.

Oh, and that one person swimming back and forth – she did that the entire time. For some reason I really liked that part.

I was enchanted, transfixed, delighted. For years after I tried to tell people about this wonderful thing that I had stumbled upon by pure luck, but it was hard to describe.

* * * * * * * * * *
I was talking to my daughter about the class I've signed up for, at Rio Grande campus, which is where she took a yoga class a few years ago. She asked who was the teacher - she really liked her teacher. I couldn't remember. Betty? We looked it up. No, Helen. She said that sounded familiar, but . . . She googled and found some former students commenting on her class. "She'll ask you to call her Dee . . ."

My daughter said, "Yes that's her. She's also a dancer. She was with Ballet Austin. She's older. She's what I want to be like when I'm her age. That's one reason I want to keep doing yoga."

She got up and hobbled around. "She said, have you seen old people walk like this? That's because they have poor circulation. You need to do yoga so you won't walk like that when you're old."

* * * * * * * * * * *

When I woke up this morning at 5am, as I've been doing lately, for some reason I found myself thinking about the yoga class and thought, wait, what was Helen's last name?

'Water Works'
Once upon a time, one of the best stages in town was Barton Springs Pool. That's because every three or four years, Dee McCandless and Gene Menger would take a couple dozen swimsuit-clad performers and present a dance around and in its chilly waters.

I groped for the iPad in the dark and checked the ACC course schedule.

Helen McCandless.

I'll be damned. Dee McCandless is going to be my yoga teacher.

Cool.

[published on 12/12/11]

Jian sword dancing

As some of the commenters pointed out, this is art. It's not just the boy and the girl dancing, it's the old lady, the boom box, the dog, the beer, the suburban patio . . . BTW, here's more about the Jian sword. The boy is dancing with a balisong.


[published on 11/13/11]

The world is where we live

Definitely should be watched full screen - click the "little arrows making a star" icon next to the word Vimeo. [published on 7/31/11]

Shakespeare

>
[published on 7/23/11]

Regrets

From Bronnie Ware’s blog:

Regrets of the dying:

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result. When you change the way you are by speaking honestly, it raises the relationship to a new level. Or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind.

[edited – see link for original text] [published 7/17/11]

Quitting . . . fail

I have two blogs, this one and It's all about the narrative. I made two so I could post about politics on one, and about not-politics on another. And why I feel the need to separate them is a post in itself I suppose.

Because they aren't really separable - I started thinking about politics in terms of how our brains work, how we create a picture of the word in our minds. In other words, the narrative, the story that we are telling ourselves as we go about living our lives.

Of course I noticed that our narrative doesn't just affect our politics, but, well, everything we do. So The Narrative applies to both blogs.

But I think it more properly belongs as a title to the political one and "Jackie Strange" for the more personal one. So I'm in the middle of a project to move posts from one to another and get them more organized. Which is why many have a [published on ...] note at the bottom, so it's clear when I first wrote that.

I had quite a few posts on quitting smoking last summer, which I ultimately failed at. I made it for a month, and then started again. I was hard to move those. I didn't want to be reminded of my failure, the posts seemed boring. But in the name of honesty I decided I should leave them out there on the internets.

I'm adding this because the posts about quitting just stopped, leaving, maybe, the erroneous impression that I'm now a non-smoker. Why did I start smoking again? A depression attack. It seemed to take about maximum possible will power to not smoke, and sometimes I can head off depression - but that takes near maximum too. I couldn't do both, so I chose.

Or that's what I told myself at the time. Maybe it was a rationalization, just another narrative.

Two more days

. . . . and it will have been two weeks. I still want a cigarette, though I suppose it’s less intense and less frequent than it was. I am looking forward to getting to the point of just not thinking about cigarettes at all, at least not usually. I suppose I’ll always have those moments from time to time when I think, damn, a cigarette sure would be fine right now.

And of course if I run up on a seriously bad time all bets are off. That’s always what made me a smoker again the times that I quit before.

Eh, we’ll see.

The worst part of the last week or so is that I’ve been craving food more than cigarettes. I made it through the first few days by constant snacking – jerky and jelly beans, chocolate and hard candy. I gained 2-3 pounds, cut back on the snacks and lost one or two. Then gained again. I think I’m 4-5 pounds over what I started off weighing. In less than two weeks!

Anyway, now I’m fighting food cravings and nicotine cravings. Sucks.

New news

I posted a while ago about Fallow’s Why Americans Hate the Media. I was reading along in the comments that follow this story by Ta-Nehisi Coates – which I’d been doing off and on all day – when it occurred to me that that post and its comments, and another story I’d read earlier today, plus something that happened months ago pretty much summed up exactly why so many people like me have abandoned newspapers, TV news, and newsmagazines.

This is about the story I read earlier today, and this is about the thing that happened months ago.

This is TNC's original post:

'My Whole Desire Was to Choose Him for My Companion'

In 1867, Carrie Hall, a white woman, married Sandy Alexander Hall, a black man. They were, like many interracial couples, tormented by whites in fear of the fall of white supremacy. Here is Carrie Hall's appeal to the local Freedman's Bureau.

Dear Sir,

As you are the Bureau agent of this county, I have some advice to ask of you, if you please, concerning myself and my husband.  I am a White woman and my husband is a Colored gentleman. Some two or three years ago, I became very much attached to this colored gentleman for whom my desire grew stronger and stronger every day of my life, and my whole desire was to choose him for my Companion and my Husband through life,and he was the only one on this earth that I desired for a husband and I never would have been happy without him.

But of course we had to keep all of this a secret to ourselves, fearing that the white people would trouble him about me and I would not have him hurt on my account no way in this world, for my respect and love towards him was too great for anything of that kind to trouble his mind, and I would stand up in any crowd to save him from any trouble if I had it to do, or if I have it to, for it is me that is the cause of this being carried on as far as it is so, for me charging him to marry me.

We came to the conclusion some two or three months ago that we would get married and see what would be the trouble with us anyway. So he got his licenses and paid for them and we were married by an ordained minister of the Gospel, though our marriage was somewhat secret we are lawfully and honestly husband and wife before God and Man and would be one of the happiest couples in the world if it were not for this: Some of the white people have learned some or the other that we are married, or at least that I have married a colored gentleman and I hear they are making great talk of what they are going to do and my mind is in great trouble fearing they may try to carry out some of their plans.

I have no relations near me to interfere with us and besides I am an orphan and have been working for my self ever since I was eleven years of age and now I am twenty-six years of age no one has any right to interfere with me or my husband or at least I don't think they have under the circumstances as he was my choice.

And now my dear sir the advice I ask of you is this: If you please to let me know if anyone has any rights or law or Authority to interfere with us and if not will you be kind enough to give each of us, from your hand a writing that will save us from any trouble--that is, if it is in your power to do so. If it is not and you can not attend to to it for us, will you please inform me who to apply to. If you can, please give us two notes--one for me and one for my husband. My husband is living in Ala. and I am living in Ga. The reason we are not living together is he is in a contract on a plantation and can not leave until the end of the year. I left the neighborhood knowing that the white people would be against me for marrying this colored gentleman.

I am living with my husband's Uncle in Georgetown, Ga. If you can understand my trouble by this letter and can help me out, please do so as soon as you can and I never can thank you for as long as I live. I will now give you my husband's name--Sandy Alexander Hall lives near Eufala Barbour Co., Ala. My name is Carrie Hall living in Georgetown, Ga. I write you confidentially. Please answer this as soon as you can and excuse my bad writing and spelling and also the letter. I wrote it in the best of my knowledge, and hope you might understand it.,

Yours,
Very Respectfully,
Carrie Hall

The letter itself is moving, and infinitely more interesting than anything one might find on the TV. But it's the comments to this story. . . . TNC's place is famous for the quality of its commenters, but there's more to it than that this time. No spoiler here, Just go read.

There are a lot of comments. The part I'm so amazed by is near the end of them, but . . . Worth It. Definitely.



[published on 12/30/10]

Who do you love?

It's really hard to love an actual person, rather than the person we think they are or who we want them to be.

[published on 12/16/10]

Skateistan

SKATEISTAN: TO LIVE AND SKATE KABUL from Diesel New Voices on Vimeo.


Watch in full screen if possible. Incredibly beautiful photography. Moving story.

[published on 11/26/10]

Life, time, etc.

So i'm hanging out at my favorite political blog. It's late, and the proprietor is posting music videos. Little Feat . . .



. . . and the Grateful Dead. . . .



Sitting on my back porch after midnight, with my laptop in my lap, listening to youtubes. I'm back at the Armadillo, a 20-something hippie chick dancing.

The night before I was having dinner with Darksyde at Threadgill's. I'm now 60-something, and I'm in the same place - the intersection of Barton Springs Road and Riverside Drive. Instead of dancing, I'm having an earnest discussion about health care reform.

But the dancer hasn't gone anywhere. Forty years has passed, that's all.



[published on 8/28/09]

Eight biases - the first four

Emily Pronin's paper, "The Bias Blind Spot," describes three studies which attempt to identify the reason that people consistently view others as more biased than themselves. The first study began with having participants read a booklet describing eight specific biases. Some I recognized, some I didn't. So here are brief descriptions of four of the eight biases described in the booklet (I'll do the next four another time):

1. The self-serving bias - attributing one's successes to one's own personal attributes or effort, but one's failures to external forces beyond one's control. "I avoided the accident because I am a good driver and reacted quickly. I had the wreck because the rainy street was slick."

2. Choice-supportive bias - remembering mainly the positive qualities about a choice made and mainly the negative qualities about the choice not made. "I stayed home Friday night because I was really tired. It felt good to just relax for a change. I had a great weekend because I had a lot of energy. The party I chose not to go to was too far away. Several of the people who were going to be there are annoying and boring. I would have spent most of Saturday morning with a hangover if I'd gone." (Reduces the dissonance of the possibility that the choice not made would have actually been better. Coulda been a great party.)

3. The halo effect - the tendency to see additional positive qualities in a person or object after noticing one positive quality (or additional negative qualities after noticing one negative one). If someone strikes you as friendly or attractive on first meeting, you're more likely to judge them as intelligent, or talented, or industrious, etc. than if the first thing you noticed about them was that they are physically unappealing, or have a snobbish attitude. Even though an ugly or snobbish person may be as intelligent, talented, or industrious (or even more so) as the friendly, attractive person.

4. Pronin calls the fourth bias "biased assimilation of new information." I think she is referring to what is commonly called confirmation bias. (One of my favorites.) New information that confirms one's current opinions or understanding is considered to be very important, highly relevant, and is remembered for a long time. Information that contradicts one's beliefs is dismissed as unimportant or the rare exception - and often promptly forgotten. One particularly interesting effect of this bias is that when people are presented with (true) information that reveals that a deeply held belief is, in fact, false, more often than not they will not only not change their (false) opinion - they will embrace it more strongly.

[published on 7/24/09]

And also

When I said I could spend a year thinking about this paper, I should add that this paper, too, is an essential part of what Pronin has to say.

[published on 7/20/09]

Why

So, given what I just said, why continue to post these?

My daughter claims that the way to defeat an earworm is to listen to the song. That the source of the earworm is some part of your brain that's frustrated because it can't remember all the parts of the song exactly - usually it's some of the words that you can't quite conjure up. When you listen to it, that part of your brain says, "Right - that's it" and lets it go.

One of the characteristics of depression is a repeating pattern of distressing thoughts - no matter how hard you try to distract yourself or to convince yourself - by reason and logic - that the thoughts are wrong, no matter how much will power you try to exert to simply stop thinking that! . . . they won't stop.

Just like an earworm, but Bad Stuff. A train of thought instead of a tune.

Long before I heard my daughter's Theory of Earworms, I felt like - if I could just write it all down, it would go away.

I could keep a journal - and I have attempted to many times. But I can never keep it up. It seems pointless. With a journal, I'm just talking to myself, and I'm already talking to myself in my head.

The point of a blog is that you're theoretically talking to someone else. Even if no one else in the entire worldwide web of electrons and pixels ever reads it - there is at least the possibility that someone will stumble across it. Maybe just to say, "Huh" and move on, but still.

So I'll see. Maybe this will be different from a journal. I'm not particularly interested in actually writing the Bad Stuff that gets stuck in my head, but I am interested in writing about the reasons that particular Bad Stuff got stuck there. How brains work, why we think the way we do. Or why I think the way I do.

It may not be original or profound or brilliantly written (see whatIjustsaid), but what the hell.

[published on 7/20/09]

How We See Ourselves and How We See Others

You know, I really love the internet. I mean, I really love it. I'm one of those who thinks it will change everything in ways that we are just beginning to glimpse. And that, overall, those changes will be for the better.

But one of its effects is to make it hard for me to write. I expect I'm hardly unique in this, but I have no way to be sure - yet.

Decades ago, I'd have what I thought was a brilliant idea or a profound insight and I couldn't wait to write it down. Such brilliance must be preserved!

But now . . . whatever I'm thinking, before I have a chance to write it down, I discover that someone else already has. And furthermore, they've thought it out in much more depth and expressed it much better than I could. So I lose interest in writing my own thoughts. I mean, what's the point of saying something that's unoriginal, poorly expressed, and shallow - that is, my thoughts on the matter.

I started this particular blog to have a place to write down my thoughts on how we see each other, the stories we tell ourselves about the people around us and how that affects what we choose to do. And how those choices shape our lives and the lives of those same people that we make stories about.

Then I come across How We See Ourselves and How We See Others.

Sigh.

I could spend a year thinking about this paper.

[published on 7/20/09]

The narrative

Sometimes I end up with a phrase stuck in my head that seems to answer a question that I’ve been thinking about, puzzling over, vexing myself to try to figure out for a long time – years even. There’s an aha! That’s IT!

For a long time it was, “The one thing that trumps everything else is the need to feel special.” Maybe I’ll make another blog about that one some day.

But right now, I’m fixated on The Narrative. Or narratives. That is, the stories we tell ourselves. The ones that make sense out of whatever we’re experiencing or thinking. That have a beginning, middle, and end. A plot. That have prototypical characters. Stories that “come out.” As in, “how did it come out?” Did it have a happy ending? Did the good guys win? Or was it one of those bleak ones, where you can’t win, and the point of the story is to make clear that you can’t?

The essential part is that the story makes sense. It’s logical.

And of course, it’s almost always wrong.

As my sister Fredda said, “Well, if it’s about people, and it makes sense, it’s guaranteed to be wrong. People don’t make sense.”

What she said.

[published on 7/15/09]

The week is a mountain

That's what it seems like. I start up on Monday morning. On a bike. It's not just pushing the pedals, plod. plod, plod on a winding interstate through Colorado. It's a back road. Potholes to watch out for. An occasional falling rock to dodge. An few level stretches where the going is easier - briefly. But mostly uphill. Struggling to get past this next turn.

But then, and it's almost surprising to discover, every time, the week is ending and I'm at the top, I can just coast down through the weekend. There are some uphill stretches, but they mostly feel good, using the muscles.

Sometime Sunday night I notice. I'm looking at another mountain. Waiting for me in the morning.

Published on

10/7/10 4:31 PM