The Receptionist: August 2018

Learning! Roundup: Self-Worth and Facebook, Objectifying Others, Transforming Blood, and More!

Self-Worth and Facebook

There are a lot of ways we can judge our self-worth: social acceptance, appearance, success in competition, academic success, family love, having strong morals, and God's love. If you think social acceptance is key to determining your value, you are at risk of becoming negatively addicted to Facebook.

Why We Objectify

It's not just how much skin someone reveals that leads us to sexually objectify them. It's actually more about body language: we objectify people more based on whether they are in provocative poses than if they are wearing revealing clothing.

Transforming Blood

Did you know that we can turn Type A blood into Type O blood (the universal donor)??? I didn't!!! Apparently, it's been possible for a while, but a slow process. Now, using a bacteria, it can be done much more quickly, which could really help with blood shortages.

All About That Bass

New research looking at music, the brain, and our sweet, sweet dance moves shows that it really is the beat that gets us going. Our brain activity actually synchronizes with the bass elements in a song, helping us to get into the groove.

How to Control a Conversation

If there is someone who is good at controlling a conversation, it's a dominatrix. Well, there is one who is translating that skill into the business world and teaching how to use dominatrix techniques to control a conversation in a less-sexual situation. Tips include answering questions with (more direct) questions, avoiding talking about yourself, and insisting on specificity.

Fishy Fertility

A new study shows that couples that eat more fish might have sex more often and get pregnant more quickly. Of course, this is correlation, not causation, so maybe it's high fertility that leads people to both eat fish and have more sex!

Eat Your Carbs

Thankfully, for all of us who fail at carb-restricting diets, low-carb diets are now linked with a four-year reduction in life expectancy! You know what? If your lifespan is going to be reduced you might as well live it up with some cake and chips.

Hot and Cold

Have you heard of the hot/cold empathy gap? Basically, it means that we are very bad at predicting how we (or others) will actually behave in the moment. From the outside (cold) we can consider the situation and think one course of action is most likely, but science has now shown that we're in it, it really is different.

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Inspiration! Roundup: Baroque Photography, Dancing Bettas, Instagram Stories, and More!

Inspiration roundup: New York Public Library Instagram Stories, Betta Fish, Baroque Photography

This Week's "I want to go to there": I have been spending a lot of time out and doing things. How about staying at home for a weekend and reading a book? That sounds nice!
Photo by iam Se7en.

Baroque Photography

Christy Lee Rogers' underwater photography looks like a baroque painting. Amazing.

A post shared by Christy Lee Rogers (@christyleerogers) on Aug 24, 2018 at 1:24pm PDT

Instagram Stories

I have always had a mixed relationship with Instagram Stories. I didn't really see the point - why post something if you aren't willing to have it live forever online? (Because I think we should always assume that something posted online will live forever until we transition into the post-apocalyptic world where technology is dead and useless and we all have to remember how to live off the land again.)

HOWEVER! The New York Public Library has done something very cool with their Instagram Stories. You can go there and read classic novels! In the stories! It's amazing! Just hold your thumb in the bottom right corner until you're done reading the page, and then it will turn the page and you can read more. There are some stunning animations to boot.

I love libraries.

Dancing Fish

Visarute Angkatavanich photographs betta fish as if they were the most graceful dancers. The results are stunning!

A post shared by V A Perez (@madame_butterfly_paris) on Aug 16, 2018 at 4:07pm PDT

Talking to Bullies

Dylan Marron has conversations with his online bullies, and it's turned out to be incredibly positive. I'll admit, I always have mixed reactions to stories like this. On one hand, it is a beautiful example of how transformative empathy can be and the value of seeing the "other" as a real person. When a person who is full of hate has a meaningful encounter with a person from one of their target groups, it is the best way to change their heart. On the other hand, that is a lot of work that oppressed or targeted people shouldn't have to do.

Is it Political?

"The difference between an actual discussion (where we seek the right answer) and a political one is simple:

In a political discussion, people don’t care about what’s correct or effective or true. Facts aren’t the point.

The honest answer to, 'if it could be demonstrated that there’s a more effective or just solution to this problem, would you change your mind?' is, for a political question, 'no.'"
-Seth Godin

I think we could help make our conversations, and thus the world, a better place if we asked ourselves this question more often. What would we need to see to change our minds? Are we actually open to seeing it?

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Cute! Roundup: Some Adorable Burritos, a Slothful Approach, Double Paw, and More!

This summer has been pretty hot, so Gertie had to step up her game when it comes to keeping cool: sprawl out long, hang near the fan 24/7.

OTHER CUTENESS:

A much-needed listicle of dogs doing cute things!

Another listicle that steps it up a notch: dogs (and cats) wrapped up like burritos!

This sloth approach is almost creepy, but still definitely cute.

Hey! Psssst! Wanna see a cat freak out?

A paw with a paw!

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Singalong! All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar

I truly think this is one of the cutest love songs of all time! Let's ignore the fact that it's on an album called "My Brother is a Banana and Other Provocative Songs for Children" because that's a bit odd even for the 70s. Of course, for most of us, that context is completely unknown as we only encountered this song in the context of teen pregnancy rom com Juno.

ALL I WANT IS YOU

by Barry Louis Polisar

If I was a flower growing wild and free

All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee

And if I was a tree growing tall and green

All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

If I was a flower growing wild and free

All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee

And if I was a tree growing tall and green

All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride

Take me by the hand and stand by my side

All I want is you, will you stay with me?

Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea

If you were a river in the mountains tall

The rumble of your water would be my call

If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow

Just as long as you were with me, let the cold winds blow

All I want is you, will you be my bride

Take me by the hand and stand by my side

All I want is you, will you stay with me?

Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod

If you were a seed, well I'd be a pod

If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug

And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

All I want is you, will you be my bride

Take me by the hand and stand by my side

All I want is you, will you stay with me?

Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire

If you were the love, I'd be the desire

If you were a castle, I'd be your moat

And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float

All I want is you, will you be my bride

Take me by the hand and stand by my side

All I want is you, will you stay with me?

Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea

Giphy

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Learning! Roundup: Alcohol Cleanses the Brain, Self-Control is for Cheaters, Introducing the All-Powerful Liver, and More!

Learning roundup! Alcohol (one at a time) is good for your brain!

Photo by Justin Aikin.

Alcohol Cleans the Brain

It's been known for a while that light drinkers (one drink a day) are at lower risk of dementia. Now we know why! Low levels of alcohol help your glymphatic system, the system that flushes your brain of metabolites, including the ones associated with dementia.

Self-Control

People with better self-control experience body states like hunger less intensely. So basically, they don't ACTUALLY have better self-control, they just don't NEED that much self-control. Cheaters!

Liver Facts

Did you know that the liver is both a gland and an organ? That it can regrow with only 25 percent of its original tissue? That your brain function depends on a healthy liver? Learn that and more, here!

Savant Syndrom

Usually, when we think of savants, we think of young kids who pick up a paintbrush and reveal themselves to be extraordinary. But that's not the only way a person can suddenly reveal incredible skill. Adults who suffer a stroke, head injury, or central nervous system injury can suddenly wake up and realize that art or mathematics just "makes sense" to them. They are savants!

You've Lost That Joyful Feeling

Anhedonia is a condition some people suffer from where they are unable to experience joy. It's a common symptom of depression as well as schizophrenia, and as you can imagine, takes a lot of their motivation out of life. There is also no current treatment for this particular experience. A new therapy is being tested, however, that gives people with anhedonia concrete tasks to do that are (theoretically) pleasurable and linked to their personal values. It might bring the joy back!

Paternal Post-Partum Depression

New evidence is showing that about 10% of new dads experience postpartum depression as well as moms. This is in part because they also experience hormone fluctuation after having a child, as well as the other life and emotional upheaval that goes on.

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Why Do I Judge Some Selfies and Not Others?

It turns out that I judge some selfies as good and some as vain and annoying. Why?

Photo by Angela Franklin.

I am not a selfie-hater.

I know some people like to blame the selfie for all of our societal ills, declaring them vain acts of narcissistic image curation, designed to seek attention and make other people feel bad about themselves, but I think that's at least a little bit over the top. The only difference between a selfie with your friends at the beach and a picture of you and your friends at the beach is that you didn't take up some stranger's time to take the picture if it's a selfie.

Also, what's this obsession with whether people are trying to "get attention"? Who cares?!? Posting ANYTHING online is basically a plea for some kind of attention. You are posting it IN PUBLIC. For PEOPLE TO SEE. The point is to get attention of some kind, whether it's for your sense of humour, appearance, fun vacation, wokeness, life milestone, intelligence, or whatever.

If no one paid attention to what each other posted online then social media would cease to function. And then we would just go back to other ways of getting attention, writing letters to the editor or sending carrier pigeons or whatever.

AND YET.

I have come to realize that I judge people very inconsistently for their selfies.

Some selfies I see as nice and interesting and fun that are "just sharing their lives." They are great! I like seeing people's lives!

Others I immediately judge as attention-seeking, annoying, desperate pleas for compliments and/or likes.

Ummmm... what?

Honestly, that is just mean. And presumptuous. What makes me think I know the reasons behind people's selfies, and even if I did, didn't I just say that trying to get attention isn't so bad? Why is my brain such a jerk?

I have really tried to figure this out. Is it because I know that person to be more needy or insecure? Do I have reason to believe they are trying to manipulate for likes? Is there something materially different in the photos that triggers this response? The captions?

I have found no obvious answer to these questions. Do you have answers for me? How do you judge selfies? Or are you just a better person who doesn't do that?

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Inspiration! Roundup: Chie Fueki Paintings, Moments of Movement, Lin Manuel Miranda, and More!

Inspiration! Roundup: let's get buff, dance all over town, and have Franny Lebowitz teach us about race

This Week's "I want to go to there": Lately one of my besties and I have been talking about getting stronger.
Photo by Alora Griffiths.

Chie Fueki

I would love a giant Chie Fueki painting hanging on my wall somewhere. Maybe this one, called Where?

A post shared by Chie Fueki (@chiefueki) on Jul 3, 2018 at 10:29am PDT

Moments of Movement

I quite love this video, it's a simple series of dance vignettes and it made me watch the whole thing.

Gmorning Lin Manuel Miranda

How did I only JUST learn about Lin Manuel Miranda's little Twitter poems for the morning and evening? I'M IN SO MUCH LOVE:

Gmorning
to the heaviness on your heart
that will not budge
and does not move:
‘Sup, heaviness
We still got shit to do,
So I guess you’re coming with us
But we’re driving
And WE get to DJ
Now move over and make room

Visual Processes

Saw this art on Twitter and had to stop for a moment to pay attention.

VISUAL PROCESS 1 by sculptor, Serge Jupin. pic.twitter.com/S8PMxpzEqd
— Tales from Weirdland (@WeirdlandTales) August 7, 2018

Fran Lebowitz on Race

The way to approach it, I think, is not to ask, “What would it be like to be black?” but to seriously consider what it is like to be white. That’s something white people almost never think about. And what it is like to be white is not to say, “We have to level the playing field,” but to acknowledge that not only do white people own the playing field but they have so designated this plot of land as a playing field to begin with. White people are the playing field. The advantage of being white is so extreme, so overwhelming, so immense, that to use the word “advantage” at all is misleading since it implies a kind of parity that simply does not exist.

This came from a 1987 interview in Vanity Fair, and the rest of it is just as great. Have a look.

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We Need More Stories About Grief (Sheryl Sandberg Can't Do it All, Guys)

Grieving is a lot to handle all on your own.

Photo by Matthew Henry.

I just read Option B by Sheryl Sandberg. Hoooo boy!

For those of you who don't know, this book exists because her husband suddenly died while they were on vacation. It's about grief and adapting to new realities in life. Some aspects of it are tough to read, but it is also beautiful and encouraging.

One thing that it really highlighted for me was the impact of other people on her experience and how they let their own discomfort get in the way of being there for a grieving friend. Some quotes:

"Two things we want to know when we are in pain is that we're not crazy to feel the way we do and that we have support. Acting like nothing significant is happening to people who look like us denies us all of that."

"I felt invisible, as if I were standing in front of them but they couldn't see me. When someone shows up with a cast, we immediately inquire, 'What happened?' If your ankle gets shattered, people ask to hear the story. If your life gets shattered, they don't."

While there are some people who are just going to avoid heavy feelings no matter, I think most people avoid bringing up the terrible losses their friends have suffered because we have no idea what is best. It feels like walking through a minefield of "making things worse," and you don't know what is going to set off a bomb for this particular person.

Plus, if you have watched movies and TV shows where people are grieving, they make it seem like people's well-wishes and consolations are a burden. By the time I was a teenager, I had seen many an actor grieve on television, saying things like, "I'm just so sick of people asking how I'm doing," or "If anyone else brings me a casserole I am going to throw it on the ground," or "I can't stand to tell anyone else what happened."

The lesson was pretty clear: grieving people don't want any of the things that we do in our culture to support them. They don't want food. They don't want sympathy. They don't want to answer questions (especially how they are doing). They don't want cards. They don't want condolences. They don't want it brought up.

What do they want? It seems that they want one friend who is straightforward and slightly brash in their supportiveness and will make a joke that strikes just the right tone between irreverence and understanding while eating cold casserole with them straight out of the pan OR for that person to actually be a love interest and say all that before having passionate "let's forget it all" sex.

What I have never seen depicted is a person who needs and accepts the help of their community. A person who feels abandoned and rejected because their friends AREN'T asking if they are okay or if they want to talk about it. Someone who needs the active support of everyone around them for a long time because major loss rocks your life for a long time.

So is it any doubt that when faced with grief like Sheryl Sanberg's, most people freeze? NOPE. Our cultural story is that everything we want to say or do will make it worse.

What I am learning is that if I'm going to screw up, I want to screw up on the side of caring. If a person I love could either feel annoyed/exhausted/angry because I showed up or lost/abandoned/invisible because I didn't, I want to opt for the first. Because at least that way, even if I do accidentally make it worse, they know that someone cared.

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Cute! Roundup: A Box 'O Cuteness, Whale of a Time, Swinging Sheep, and More!

I've got nothing to say except that Gertie is so darn cute!

Cuteness roundup! A cute cat, a box of rottis, some whales, swinging sheep, and more!

OTHER CUTENESS:

This box of rottis is the best box of cuteness of all time.

Whales know what's up.

Monday mornings, amiright?

The funnest sheep.

I legit snort-laughed by myself at this cat pun.

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Singalong! The Boys of Summer by Don Henley

I can't tell you why, I can't tell you how, but I love this song so very, very much! It makes me grab at my heart and sing along every time. It's got all the good sides about Summer Lovin' from Grease, but without the weird sexual assault references.

BOYS OF SUMMER

by Don Henley

Nobody on the road,

Nobody on the beach

I feel it in the air

The summer's out of reach

Empty lake, empty streets

The sun goes down alone

I'm driving by your house

Don't know you're not home

But I can see you

Your brown skin shining in the sun

You got your hair combed back

And your sunglasses on, baby

I can tell you my love for you will still be strong

After the boys of summer have gone

I never will forget those nights

I wonder if it was a dream

Remember how you made me crazy

Remember how I made you scream

I don't understand what happened to our love

But, baby, I'm gonna get you back

I'm gonna show you what I'm made of

I can see you,

Your brown skin shining in the sun

I see you walking real slow

And you're smiling at everyone

And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong

After the boys of summer have gone

Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac

A little voice inside my head said

Don't look back, you can never look back

I thought I knew what love was

What did I know?

Those days are gone forever

I should just let 'em go, but

I can see you,

Your brown skin shining in the sun

You got that top pulled down,

And that radio on, baby

And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong,

After the boys of summer have gone

Giphy

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Learning! Roundup: We Become Our Friends, Rude Emails, Social Media Mobs, and More!

Photo by Bui Than Tam.

Your Brain on Friends

This one is neat! Over time, we begin to take our friends' traits and work them into our self-concept, having a harder time separating their traits from our own and mentally treating their mistakes in the same way we might treat our own. It's like we just slowly mentally overlap with them!

Rude Emails

It looks like emails that are rude or mean have a greater impact than we might realize, impacting our stress levels for the entire day and coming home with us.

Ye Old Social Media Mob

You know how every time there is moral outrage about someone's actions, whether they used a racist slur, raped someone, or some other action that (I thought) we don't appreciate in society, people start jumping up and down about how the online mob has become "judge, jury, and executioner"? Well, here's science about that! Looks like once moral outrage goes viral, those in the "outraged" position become seen as bullies, not noble heroes.

Anti-Vaxxers and Doctors

We know that the anti-vaccine movement is a huge issue in public health today, and new research suggests that parents who are against vaccines actually believe that they know more than medical professionals about medical health.

The Speed of Death

Ever wonder how long death takes to spread through a cell? Now we know! The speed of death is approximately 2mm per hour.

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Action Items: Things to Do to Help Fight Evil and Save the World

Action Items are notes from the "Let's Save the World" committee meetings in my head. A collection of some news items and articles that may fire up a desire for action, and then at least one suggested action item to follow up. It won't be comprehensive of every single thing in the world and all the ways to fix it, but it will be something, and something is better than nothing.

The world is a house on fire, and it is not fine. A roundup of current events and some actions to help counteract them.

Some of the Things That Are Happening:

A woman called the police on a black kid in a convenience store. Why? She told the cops he was 'black' and 'arrogant'. So... now people aren't even pretending they have other reasons to call the police on black people who are simply living life?

+++

Meanwhile, a white woman reminded police that she is white in order to get out of a DUI. Luckily, that didn't work, but before we write her off as JUST ridiculous, let's remember that she thought she could do that because of systemic racism in who gets in trouble for committing crimes and who doesn't. If there was no history of white people being let off the hook, she wouldn't have said anything.

+++

There were a host of different protest actions taken by NFL players during the national anthem for the first games of the season. From kneeling to standing with their backs to the field to walking in from the changing rooms during the anthem, these guys are making their point.

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Speaking of the sports, when a baseball player's mother died during a baseball game, his teammate held him and comforted him. And then the commentators mocked them for being affectionate. I hope those commentators feel like big, huge turds.

ACTION ITEM: STOP with mocking men for being affectionate with each other. People need to be able to take care of one another, and physical affection is one way to do that. Everyone should have access to it and it certainly shouldn't affect your view of their masculinity.

+++

ACTION ITEM: Donate your spare air miles to an organization that helps reunite families who have been separated at the US Border.

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Are You Exactly Who You Want to Be?

Can you say "I am exactly who I want to be" and mean it? It's a bit scary!

Photo by Miguel Bruna.

I have a running list where I jot down ideas for blog posts. It's mostly a list of random questions and phrases, some of which I look at months (or days) later and have NO IDEA what I was talking about.

One of the entries on that list was a sentence:

"I am exactly who I want to be."

I know I didn't write that down in a fit of awesome self-love (although that would have been pretty cool). I am pretty sure I heard someone else say it and then realized I had a bunch of complicated feelings about it that I should write about.

So let's dig in.

On one hand, I do like myself. This is a pretty big deal because I used to hate myself. A lot. For a long time.

On another hand, I am not perfect. Not by a long shot. But I do think I am at least pretty good. I think that if you put me in a line with a bunch of people and compared us (because that is obviously a reasonable thing to do to people), I would hold up alright in the stack of humanity.

But am I exactly who I want to be?

I wouldn't mind changing a few things about myself. A little more self-control, a little less selfishness, a lot less taking things personally, a little more confidence (apparently). It would be nice if I didn't talk so loud so often.

At the end of the day, though, I am on board with the person that I am.

But am I exactly who I want to be?

That is a really strong statement! It makes me uncomfortable!

Okay, here's a question: if I could wave a magic wand and change the things about myself I want to change, theoretically becoming "exactly who I want to be", would I? I am not so sure.

It's one thing to work on being better at something, and another to just say "blammo, self-control" and change it. Then I would be afraid of the other repercussions. Would I become too much of a different person if I suddenly had perfect self-control? Probably! There are trade-offs, for example, between being a person who occasionally stays up way past their bedtime for the sake of some quality friendship time or being a person who always goes to bed on time. If you work on yourself over time, you make intentional choices to balance different traits and values. If you just "blammo" your way into something, well... you will probably lose something.

Part of being a person is having a weird, contradictory pile of traits that are both good and bad. Not just good traits and bad traits, but the traits themselves are both good and bad. Individually. Like, self-control is a great thing in moderation but would suck a lot of juice out of life if it permeated everything.

So, yes, I will continue to work on improving areas of my life that I think could use improvement, because I am the kind of person who does that, but no, I do not want to suddenly turn those traits up to 11. (Or even 10.)

So then, am I exactly who I want to be?

I guess maybe I am.

Huh.

That was honestly a little unexpected.

How about you? What's your answer, and how did you get there? Show your work!

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Inspiration! Stay Present, Pixellated Installation Art, Gender Fluid Ballet, and More!

A roundup of inspirational things, from powering through obstacles to pixel-inspired installation art.

This Week's "I want to go to there": I want to do something that is safe but a little scary. (Only a LITTLE scary!)
Photo by Ian Froome.

Sticking With It

"If you abandon the thing that you’re passionate about at the moment you hit that first obstacle, you shouldn’t be making films. You have to get through it to figure things out, and that’s a very interesting aspect of the work itself. I find one of the most interesting parts of making a film how different it would be if you just had an idea and executed it. Even having made a fiction film where in some ways you have an idea and you execute it, I think it was still important to stay present to what the situation I had created was, and respond to it."
-Natalie Almada in The Creative Independent

She is talking about filmmaking, but let's be honest. She's talking about life. Stay present with the situation we create and respond to it.

Pixellated Installation Art

I love this installation art piece by Quintessenz. It's simply painted mesh squares and it creates this incredibly three-dimensional, pixellated look.

A post shared by Quintessenz (@quinte55enz) on Jun 29, 2018 at 4:01pm PDT

Gender Fluid Ballet

Chase Johnsey is a ballerina who is gender fluid. Love this mini-documentary on the BBC about their work.

If any world needs to have gender roles shaken up, it's ballet! Go, Chase, go!

Cling to Each Other

"One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found--and it is found in terrible places... For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
—James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

That last sentence! Oooooh boy!

Things for Women to Avoid

I got a kick out of this list of six things working women should pretend they can't do. It includes doing other people's dishes and planning parties.

Body Control

These body isolations are incredible!

True or false?

I think probably false, but I like to think about it.

A good, multi-use formula

A post shared by Liana finck (@lianafinck) on Aug 6, 2018 at 2:28pm PDT

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Follow Roxane Gay on Twitter and Learn All the Secrets That Don't Exist

I love Roxane Gay on Twitter. She is ridiculously straightforward and responds to those who question her with a direct self-assurance that I can't even imagine possessing. It's beautiful.

A while back, this tweet had a serious impact on me and I saved it:

There are no secrets. You need to submit your work to appropriate publications, relentlessly.
— roxane gay (@rgay) May 15, 2018

I really like remembering that for most things I want to do, there is no "secret" to success. Want to be a writer? Submit your work to people who publish writers. RELENTLESSLY. (What a word. Relentlessly. I submit things to publications from time to time. Roxane Gay submitted relentlessly. The gap in achievement from people who work on things occasionally to those who work constantly must be massive.)

On one hand, it reminds me that it's basically all my fault that I'm not where I want to be on certain goals. This isn't an entirely pleasant feeling. On the other hand, it reminds me that I have the power to change that if I sit down and do the freaking work! This is a much more pleasant feeling. There is something I can do about it! I just have to do the things!

Giphy

If you click through the tweet, you'll see that the next one is someone asking what "appropriate publication" means, to which she responds, "Publications you've researched to see if they're a good fit for whatever you'd like to submit or pitch to them." To which someone ELSE says, "I don't even know how to start researching this. There are a lot of scammers out there. A list for different genres would be very helpful."

Can we all take a moment to appreciate the amount of labour we expect from famous people?

First, we demand they tell us their secrets. Ummmm, guys? If she tells us it's not a SECRET anymore! Also, if there was some secret ritual to success (as a writer or anything, really), then don't you think that the ones who got let into the club would be a little more selective about who they passed it on to? I mean, vampires don't just turn every dope they meet into an immortal, earth-walking, half-demon. It would thin the blood pool.

Second, after they've told us the secret but the secret is that we have to do work, we demand they pleeeeeease do it for us? It sounds harrrrrd!

Yeah. No. Be grateful for the time people like Roxane Gay already spend VOLUNTEERING to help answer our questions and then do your own work.

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Cuteness! Roundup: Cuddle paws, snow owl smiles, hummingbird pool parties, and more!

This is frequently my view during cuddle time. I am okay with it!

So much cuteness in the world, where do we start???

OTHER CUTENESS:

There are few things cuter than babies and mamas cuddling.

Have you ever seen a snow owl smile?

These two have incredible synchronicity in their dance moves!

A hummingbird pool party.

Every single baby pangolin has a question for you.

You know that feeling when you're getting a massage and suddenly it stops? Heartbreaking!

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Singalong! Friends by Michael W. Smith

Growing up in the Christian subculture, I spent a lot of time listening to Michael W. Smith. This sweet song about friendship has been coming to mind a lot lately, so I figured I had better share it. You should listen and imagine a montage of you hugging your friends, and then maybe you'll cry a little and isn't that nice?

FRIENDS

by Michael W. Smith

Packing up the dreams God planted

In the fertile soil of you

I can't believe the hopes He's granted

Means a chapter of your life is through

But we'll keep you close as always

It won't even seem you've gone

'Cause our hearts in big and small ways

Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever

If the Lord's the Lord of them

And a friend will not say never

'Cause the welcome will not end

Though it's hard to let you go

In the Father's hands we know

That a lifetime's not too long

To live as friends

And with the faith and love God's given

Springing from the hope we know

We will pray the joy you live in

Is the strength that now you show

We'll keep you close as always

It won't even seem you've gone

'Cause our hearts in big and small ways

Will keep the love that keeps us strong

And friends are friends forever

If the Lord's the Lord of them

And a friend will not say never

'Cause the welcome will not end

Though it's hard to let you go

In the Father's hands we know

That a lifetime's not too long

To live as friends

And friends are friends forever

If the Lord's the Lord of them

And a friend will not say never

'Cause the welcome will not end

Though it's hard to let you go

In the Father's hands we know

That a lifetime's not too long

To live as friends

Though it's hard to let you go

In the Father's hands we know

That a lifetime's not too long

To live as friends

No a lifetime's not too long

To live as friends

Photo by Ruth Daniel. CC.

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Learning! Roundup: Fall in Love With a Sci Fi Nerd, Unconscious Thoughts May Not Exist, Trigger Warnings, and More!

A roundup of interesting studies from the past week, including the fact that sci fi and fantasy nerds make the best romantic partners!

Photo by Hello I'm Nik.

Sci Fi Love

It's official! People who love science fiction and fantasy make the best romantic partners! Apparently we have the most mature beliefs about romantic relationships.

Do We Actually Have Unconscious Thoughts?

What an idea: maybe there is no such thing as unconscious thoughts. This notion rests on the question of whether our brains can do more than one thing at a time, and the answer is likely that no, it cannot. Being an interconnected computational machine, our neurons don't differentiate what subject matter is behind the electrical signals they are receiving in order to allocate some to one problem and others to another problem.

Trigger Warnings

A new study on trigger warnings shows that people who receive trigger warnings perceive the material in question to be more potentially distressing and people in general to be more sensitive. (This study was of non-traumatized patients, not those who might actually require the trigger warnings.)

Reasons for Bi Erasure

Last week was Pride Week here in Vancouver, so what better time to look at the problem of bi erasure (or even hostility towards bisexuals) in LGBTQ+ culture? A new study looks at the reasons for bias against bisexual women in particular, and have found that people who are both gay and lesbian perceive bisexual women as having a sexual preference for men. This feeds into mistrust of bisexual women in lesbian culture.

Brain Resilience

A young boy who had severe seizures had one third of the right hemisphere of his brain removed and seems to be functioning totally normally in the aftermath. Brains are so funny! Sometimes a person changes completely after one little bit is damaged, and other times you can take a whole chunk out and they are fine.

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The Unexpected Benefits of Giving Thanks

Photo by Morvanic Lee.

Years ago, I made intentional expressions of gratitude a central part of my efforts to claw my way out of depression and self-loathing.

It is a bit strange to think that thanking OTHER PEOPLE might help you feel better about yourself, but it was all a part of my practice of rewiring my brain away from those deep, dark spirals where the only thing that was real was how terrible and unlovable I was.

Thanking other people for things they did for me helped me focus on something more positive, and it also reminded me that other people cared about me at least enough to lend a hand. Whether it was giving me their cast iron pan when they moved across the country and couldn't justify moving the weight or helping me produce a play, I wasn't in it alone. If I was TRULY worthless, they wouldn't have invested their time or resources in me, right?

As a practice, I would send out my little thank you notes once a year. Around the new year, I would evaluate the past year, count up all the little wins and successes (again, reminding myself that good things could happen in my life, and so I wasn't total garbage), and then thank every single person I could think of who was involved in those happy memories.

There was a surprising bonus to this practice: it turns out that receiving expressions of gratitude like that made other people feel good too! It hadn't even occurred to me that it might make a difference in someone else's life to hear about how they had positively impacted mine (everyone else was just happy and self-sufficient and would be unaffected by my absence, right?), but in the weeks that followed I would receive responses from people about how meaningful it had been to them to receive my thank you notes.

It kind of blew my mind and it cheered me up even more.

It was almost ten years ago that I began this practice, and probably about six years ago that I let it fall away entirely. It was vital to my mental turnaround from self-hatred to actually liking myself, but since then I got caught up in the other hassles of life and forgot about it.

Well, now I'm going to get back on the wagon. I read a new study about the power of a thank you letter - how senders tend to underestimate its impact (often to the point of not even sending it) and just how touching it can be for the recipient. Pairing that knowledge with the purely selfish knowledge of how powerful that practice was for my own well-being, I want to get on it once more.

How have expressions of gratitude helped you, as a giver or receiver?

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Inspiration! Roundup: New Categories for Humans, You're Not Really Special, Light Art, Tunnel Vision, and More!

This Week's "I want to go to there": I want to travel somewhere very far from here! Hong Kong, maybe?
Photo by Sean Foley.

A New Category

I got a HUGE kick out of this thread, discussing different ways that aliens might categorize humanity besides gender. Just another reminder that we could have just as easily divided by whether or not we like cilantro. (And in fact, that may be a more meaningful division.)

Not All That Special

This interview with poet José Olivarez is pretty great, especially if you're a person who is pretty high-achieving, used to have things come easily, and maybe is learning what it's like to struggle (or maybe has been learning this lesson for, oh I don't know, 15 years but it's slow to sink in).

"I was a straight-A student in high school. I went to Harvard University. I had a job getting out of college. Then I moved to New York, and I was fired from a job. Before I was hired at YCA [Young Chicago Authors], I couldn’t find a job. I got rejected from grad school, I got rejected from everything. I had relationships fail, and I learned that I wasn’t perfect as a person, or as a partner.

It was either going to break me—that I had such high expectations for myself and that I turned out to just be a regular person—or, I was going to revel in that. Through the help of therapy I came to see my imperfections as something that I could revel in, and take joy from. Like the fact that I write bad poems. Instead of hating myself for it, I could be more compassionate with myself. Then in that compassion I could make room to go back and do a second draft and a third draft, and so on and so forth."

He also quotes poet Lucille Clifton: "your voice is not unique." That one is piercing, in a good way and a bad way. Not sure what to do with it yet.

Light Art

Josh Sheldon creates art using a light animation robot he built in his dorm room. It's pretty neat.

A post shared by Josh Sheldon (@heyjshel) on Apr 14, 2018 at 9:23am PDT

Scarcity

"Over-scheduled people develop a kind of tunnel vision. They're just keeping their heads above water - scrambling from one meeting to the next, or one to-do list item to the next - and they become less insightful, less controlled, and less forward-thinking."
-Jocelyn K. Glei

I hear the heck out of that.

Insta-Famous

Artist Lola Dupre takes photos of pets that are famous on Instagram and distorts them. It's quite delightful.

A post shared by Lola Dupre (@loladupre) on Jul 6, 2018 at 6:26am PDT

Not Desolate

“As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time.”
– E. B. White

It's nice to remember that as much as it can feel like selfishness and greed and hatred is spreading, so can compassion and strength and hope.

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Action Items: Things to Do to Help Fight Evil and Save the World

Some of the Things That Are Happening:

This is an inspirational protest move: an Afghan man was being deported from Sweden, and one student stopped it, just by refusing to sit down. She bought a ticket for that flight and refused to take her seat, preventing the airplane from taking off, until he was removed from the flight. It's a great reminder of the power of individual action.

This New York Times piece on Carrie Gracie's fight for equal pay at the BBC is a fantastic dive into the gender pay gap, and the incredible amount of work (and privilege) needed to be able to fight back.

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It's just funny: Amazon's facial recognition mistook 28 U.S. politicians for people wanted for crimes. I mean... was it a mistake?

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Universities have long been the perfect place to get away with committing sexual assault, since they avoid reporting them to protect their "reputations". Well, good news! A new study shows that reported sexual assault numbers don't hurt a university's reputation. SO START REPORTING THEM, YOU STUPID UNIVERSITIES.

Action Item: Send this report to everyone in charge at your university. They are supposed to respect scientific research, so I'm sure they will accept it immediately.

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BEST NEWS EVER: The NRA is in peril of financial bankruptcy! I want to sing and dance "ding dong the witch is dead!", but it's not quite dead yet. People are sending thoughts and prayers, though. (Honestly, I think even that is a little risky. You never know when they might suddenly become effective.)

The joyous news is thanks to the fact that New York State is pushing insurance companies and banks to cut ties with the NRA, which has cost it "tens of millions" of dollars in the past year.

Action Item: DO NOT donate them any money. Instead, buy a Hold Your Fire t-shirt. It's a fundraiser for gun control launched by a teen girl whose dad was a teacher killed in a school shooting. Also, let New York Governor Andrew Cuomo know that he is doing the right thing!!!

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This is an awesome roundtable discussion with three Indigenous artists about the emotional cost of cultural appropriation. A great quote: “I want to know why I’m just hearing about cultural appropriation now, at the end of four years at an arts institution.”

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A good news story: Vancouver International Airport and the Musqueam Band whose land it is on struck a deal a year ago called the Sustainability and Friendship Agreement. It included profit-sharing, a scholarship program for Indigenous youth, and the eradication of an invasive species from Sea Island (where it is located). It's reported to be a great success for both sides.

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Cute! Roundup: Time to Chill, How Many Dogs Do You See?, Hug-o-Clock, and More!

Juuuuust chillin'.

A roundup of cuteness: sleepy cats, hidden dogs, penguins looking for hugs, and more!

OTHER CUTENESS!

Count the dogs!

Sometimes, you just need a hug.

Cat or forest guardian?

This chaotic pet show is amaaaaazing to watch!

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