Category Archives: Life

Synchronized bulbing

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The first time several lightbulbs in my house blew within a few days of one another, I was puzzled. Murphy’s Law? Disturbance in the force? Electric eel over the dam? An appliance conspiracy?

Then I realized.

When a bulb blows, I don’t replace it. Not right away. I simply avoid that spot and do my flitting around the lights that do still work.

Then, another bulb blows. I still don’t replace it. (If I drop small, dark objects, I can always wait until sunrise to look for them.)

Some time later, “pop” goes bulb #3. Now, perhaps, I begin to feel uneasy. It occurs to me that burned-out light bulbs may not show my domicile to its highest advantage. And what if, you know, Martha Stewart dropped by on her way from her parole meeting or something.

Plus, batching is efficient, right?

So I get a chair and three light bulbs and get to work.

Do you see what’s happened? I now have three light bulbs that were replaced at the same time. Assuming I use those fixtures with somewhat the same regularity, odds are pretty good they will all blow at about the same time some months in the future. And if, at that point, I put off changing them until a fourth bulb has blown . . .

I figure that if I live here long enough, eventually I will get it to the point where every light bulb in my house will blow more or less simultaneously. And it will be a beautiful thing to behold.

Dude, you are so off my list!

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The topic of this Washington Post article by Libby Copeland is a fascinating one, in my opinion: when people shop for relationships — i.e., date — they often reject prospective mates for seemingly trivial reasons. But are they trivial? Copeland speculates that, on the contrary, a “nitpicky” criticism is

a proxy for taboos, or regrets about past failed relationships. It’s a proxy for class concerns or cultural differences, because most people want someone who looks and sounds and smells as they do.

For me, a man’s musical tastes are hugely important. I think that serves as a proxy for gauging his esthetic sensibility, moxie, cultural savvy, sensitivity, and possibly even intelligence.

Alas, that’s not very quirky, though! The WaPo article has some wonderfully quirky accounts of people who ran away screaming because of things like “he didn’t like my pixie shoes” or the relish with which a woman described mayonnaise.

I’d love to hear other people’s stories! Have you ever been on a date when something happened that persuaded you, beyond all doubt, that this was most definitely not the one?

And Part B: why were you so turned off? For what did it serve as a proxy?

Reality Check

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As I’ve written previously, I suspect people think they know more about so-called objective reality than they really do know. One manifestation of this is what we sometimes term a “conspiracy theory:” a mind, scanning the sensory landscape into which it is submerged, tags certain data elements as significant and overlays a system of causal relationships. The causality is always arguably plausible, and the theory appears to enable the person to successfully predict future events.

The plausibility and predictive utility of the theory are awfully seductive, of course, so it’s easy to recruit believers, who refine the theory and contribute new data points that they’ve observed. Soon, the theory takes on a life of its own.

This can be amusing and cute, as in the “Paul is dead” theories of the Beatles era.

Yet peoples’ conspiracy theories often disturb us as well. They unsettle us, because they can’t be dislodged by arguing “facts.” I can guarantee that you couldn’t persuade this guy, for instance, that the cloud formations he photographs have a benign explanation. He’d bury you. He’s a frickin’ meteorologist. He’s devoted his life to mustering facts that support his theories.

What’s more, conspiracy theories have a way of galvanizing people into “inspired action” — it gives them the added motivation of believing that their actions are in the service of something greater than themselves. So we read in the first piece I linked (by Massimo Polidoro, on the website of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal):

What is sadly true is the fact that Charles Manson and his “family” also believed that there were hidden messages in Beatles songs hinting at the Armageddon. He thought that the Fab Four were actually angels sent by God to reveal the secrets of the approaching apocalypse and that, in order to start the end of the world, they needed Manson’s help. This is the tragically absurd reasoning he gave for the murder of Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, and the guests she was hosting at their house in Hollywood.

I’m not a relativist. I believe there are absolutes out there, dangling from the firmament like the brightest of stars. But look at how we muddy them from our earthbound perspective.

And when I say “we,” I don’t just mean the “crazies.” All of us do it. Political beliefs, for instance, are more like, than unlike, conspiracy theories. Supported by selective data points that are linked together into causal relationships, rendered seductive by plausibility and predictive utility.

We need to find better ways to measure what we accept as true.

If by any chance you emailed me . . .

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Within the last 24 hours, using the AOL address I USED to have on my sidebar — please resend. I’ve run afoul of their clunky interface and deleted some mail that I shouldn’t have.

Deleting mail as spam, it turns out, is categorically different than deleting any other sort of mail. I guess if AOL thinks mail is spam, that mail is naughty naughty mail, and never deserves a second chance.

TGIF.

When in doubt

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Think about something else.

In a series of studies with shoppers and students, researchers found that people who face a decision with many considerations, such as what house to buy, often do not choose wisely if they spend a lot of time consciously weighing the pros and cons. Instead, the scientists conclude, the best strategy is to gather all of the relevant information — such as the price, the number of bathrooms, the age of the roof — and then put the decision out of mind for a while.

Then, when the time comes to decide, go with what feels right. ”It is much better to follow your gut,” said Ap Dijksterhuis, a professor of psychology at the University of Amsterdam, who led the research.

Lots more in the article, written by Gareth Cook for the Boston Globe, by following the link.

Wrestling the angel

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In a New Yorker review of two books about happiness, John Lancaster argues persuasively that for ancient man, happiness was a matter of luck. Life was “nasty, brutish, and short,” and individuals had very little control over whether they achieved what we, today, call happiness.

He quotes from “Happiness: A History,” by Darrin McMahon:

As McMahon points out, “In virtually every Indo-European language, the modern word for happiness is cognate with luck, fortune or fate.”  In a sense, the oldest and most deeply rooted philosophical idea in the world and in our natures is “Shit happens.” Happ was the Middle English word for “chance, fortune, what happens in the world,”  McMahon writes, “giving us such words as ‘happenstance,’ ‘haphazard,’ hapless,’ and ‘perhaps.'” This view of happiness is essentially tragic: it sees life as consisting of the things that happen to you; if more good things than bad happen, you are happy.

Then came the Enlightenment, and with it the notion that the world is a rational place, governed by laws that, if mastered, do give us a measure of control over our lives.

Manchester then plunges, as have we all ;-) into the modern world’s examination of happiness, with its increasingly sophisticated science, including neuroscience and positive psychiatry. He notes that some researchers have concluded that each individual has a happiness “set point” that is little influenced by external circumstances. From “The Happiness Hypothesis”  by Jonathan Haidt:

“It’s better to win the lottery than to break your neck, but not by as much as you’d think. . . . Within a year, lottery winners and paraplegics have both (on average) returned most of the way to their baseline levels of happiness.”

Yet even David Lykken, the behavioral geneticist who came up with the set point idea (“trying to be happier is like trying to be taller”) went on to suggest things people can do to be happier.

Manchester does, too — read the article for the details, but being socially connected is important, as is spending your time in work you find absorbing.

The fact is, we’re all of us wrestling with the angel.

And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Genesis 32:24-28

We’re wrestling with the angel, and demanding that he bless us; yet if you think about it, even the chance to enter the match is its own blessing, isn’t it?

Mmmmmm, soft

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I “lost” an argument this week to someone who must have used this as his handbook. His attack was a disjoint blend of Histrionics (“Use emotion . . . Sound indignant, outraged, self-righteous, passionate, ‘courageous’, ‘defiant'”) and Moral One-upmanship (“If people disagree with you, accuse them of Eurocentrism or elitism or intolerance or narrowness or conventional thinking or scientism or homophobia”). And then, the coup de grace:

Claiming is Succeeding: Blur the distinction between claiming to make your case, and actually making it.

At that point, I started to wonder what on earth I was doing, wasting my time. lol

Oh, I also realized how much I appreciate the clear and honest minds I’ve encountered since I’ve begun blogging. Thanks, you guys.

Indispensible kitchen gadgets, the 2nd

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Whistling tea kettle.

kettle

Reasons:

1. It takes the fun out of blogging when you discover that, while you were busy writing, you’ve boiled the kettle dry.

2. Again.

3. Now if only there were a pan that would save me from “over-caramelizing” my food . . .