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anonymousanomieness · 3 years

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Cheat the Church of Integrity — Strip the Sanctuary of Truth — Compromise the Cult of Society — Life is YOUR Game

Introducing The Games (Continued):

vi. The Time and Space Game What better way to control the masses than to contain them within a limited number of perceivable dimensions and parameters by perpetuating a fictitious narrative? The nature of Time has been pontificated since antiquity; yet, there’s not much to grasp. Time is only an intangible concept — a product of the imagination that somehow became so pervasive, that the vast majority took for granted that it is merely a creative idea. When does the ego become aware of the idea of Time? When one is a baby, or even a toddler, one is unaware of anything called “Time.” Even when a child is becoming “potty trained,” it is debatable as to whether or not Time needs to be grappled with. One may claim that a toddler has a sense of how much time there is to safely reach a toilet before having an “accident” — however, truthfully, the toddler is not thinking in terms of time, but rather, urgency. If the toddler delays going to the toilet, then due to its body’s digestive system, the toddler will experience a biological sensation, which will then trigger a psychological feeling of urgency, which will grow more intense the more the toddler delays. The mental sensation of urgency is a predictable outcome of the biological sensation within the digestive system — but either way, it is independent of Time. After all, the toddler will experience these sensations regardless of whether or not it believes in Time. If the toddler has an accident, the toddler will not likely believe that it “ran out of time”; rather, it will simply accept — perhaps after some emotional trauma — that its body gave into the biological urgency of the situation, regardless of Time. Contrary to popular belief, urgency does not relate to Time; it only relates to a sense of importance and high priority stemming from strong convictions, or pressure. Time is an extra imaginative factor that we subconsciously plug into life equations, usually to denote urgency. If you eliminate Time from an equation, urgency still remains, until you eliminate what seems to be directly causing the sense of urgency. The toddler’s sense of urgency will disappear when it finally releases its waste through the digestive system. Likewise, the sense of urgency that a person feels when they are holding their breath will disappear once their body insists on exhaling and inhaling deeply to relieve the tension. Time does not contribute as a risk factor at all; the person holding their breath risks losing consciousness not due to prolonged “time” without oxygen, but simply due to a quantitative lack of necessary oxygen — regardless of time. Yet, we insist on thinking of Time as some independent force that “moves things along” on its own, like some phantom glacier. My least favorite cliché is, “All things change with time.” Time does not change a thing; rather, objects, including living beings — and perhaps forces of nature — make any and all changes. (It can be said that objects and living beings are, in a sense, forces of nature themselves.) Any change that is made to your reality is either caused by your actions, the actions of some other object, or natural forces — all falling within your consciousness. Time is not a force, but an idea. Regardless of whether or not you believe in Free Will, all changes that occur within your awareness — for certain — are not initiated by anything with the name “Time.” Similar statements like, “Times have changed,” only serve to make you feel powerless and useless. Sure, it would be wise to accept that you cannot control everything, as you may not be able to stand up to a hurricane…but are you seriously going to base your life decisions on “the times you’re living in,” rather than allow your imperatives to determine and influence this timeless present moment of your creation? One would be wiser to consider that Time does not perpetuate us; rather, we foolishly perpetuate Time as a fixed idea. The Operators within the Church of Integrity, or the Sanctuary of Truth, use the concept of Time to their advantage in order to control masses of people without them even realizing it. To be fair, most commoners enjoy utilizing the idea of Time to their benefit as well. This is tempting, especially when you want to instill a sense of urgency within your followers so they will prioritize your intentions and act according to your desires more readily. Hesitation and procrastination do not actually demonstrate an augmentation of “down time,” but rather a diminution of personal desire and the will to act. However, you can trick people into fearing you, and therefore cooperating with you, if you introduce them to Time, and explain that they will experience an undesired sensation if “time runs out” due to a “deadline.” We tend to fear potential consequences. However, these are only spooks — contrived ideas based on the concept of “after.” Etymology shows “after” to be derived from “off,” as in “farther off” or “further” — beyond the present moment. When we start to worry about what may happen after, farther off, further down the line, beyond the present, etc., we are less capable of enjoying what is right in front of us. “After” is only part of our imagination, since it has not occurred yet! Likewise, “before” is only a dream, because it is not happening anymore! Only the present is occurring now.

• • •

Another obstacle to contend with is space — that is, the concept of space as a measurable entity within our immediate perceivable environment. The vast majority has trouble questioning the validity and significance of space, due to being so caught up in the five main senses, and the physicality of surroundings; in other words, we are so convinced by our perception that all objects surrounding us are undeniably “real” and external from the self, rather than entirely mental and internal — within the self. That being said, it truly does not matter whether you think your surroundings exist externally or internally. You can believe that your surroundings exist as independent materials outside of your perception, yet still agree that the concept of space is nothing more than just that — a contrived concept. Space, let alone time, is not a phenomenon that stands in its own right; rather, space and time are tools of our imagination that we utilize in order to make sense of our awareness, and how objects within our consciousness seem to behave. A widely accepted system that is easy to debunk is that of “orientation” or “direction.” Terms such as “North,” “South,” “East,” and “West” were completely contrived by human minds. They each simply seem to describe a general path that progresses toward or away from a given point of reference. For example, “East” is the general label given to a path that progresses toward the rising sun. It comes from Proto-Germanic “aust-,” meaning “toward the sunrise.” “North” is the general label given to a path that progresses “left” of the sunrise, as the term descends from the Proto-Indo-European root “ner-,” meaning “left” or “below.” The word “left” is thought to derive from the Kentish or northern Old English term lyft, meaning “weak; foolish”; or from the East Frisian term luf, or from the Dutch dialectical loof, meaning “weak, worthless.” Of course, these would be referring to the arms or hands. Usually, the “left” arm tends to be the weaker arm. So, humans conjured up a metaphor comparing a contrived direction traveling away from the sunrise to a weak arm that seems to be pointing in that same direction, when one faces the sun at “dawn.” The “tangible” objects involved here — if you will — are the sun and the weak human arm, based on the temporary perspective of a human looking towards the location where the sun was said to rise. From observing these tangibles, humans have invented the intangible concepts of “North,” “South,” “East,” “West,” “Left,” and “Right” to assist with navigating awareness. It is clear how significant of a role the Language Game plays here. It is worth mentioning that languages borrow from one another, which means that concepts and terms across all languages — even if they refer to something global, such as “the ground” — do not originate simultaneously. The vernacular spreads through globalization, imitation, and repetition, and continually evolves. It becomes clear how most humans instinctively tend to imitate what they observe, rather than constantly innovate. This makes sense, considering when we are babies we must imitate our caregivers to survive. Language and communication certainly assist with surviving and thriving; but this does not mean that it is necessary to build a world in your mind that gives life to intangible, invisible concepts — and then impose your imaginary world upon the awareness of others, let alone your own consciousness. Within the Legal Game, lawyers, judges, and jurors use the Time and Space Game in tandem with the reasoning process. The word “reason” is part of the definition of the Latin word causa, and the Old French word cause. When someone tries to determine the “cause” that led to some “consequence,” they are merely reasoning. It might as well be said that they are seasoning, since all they are managing to do is sprinkle your awareness with arbitrarily imposed suggestions as to why you experienced something. “Where were you on the evening of April 4th, 1995, at 6:32 PM, when the sun and the moon were at this or that position in the sky?” “Why, I was standing at such and such coordinates, facing just Northeast of the Eastern border of the territory formerly known as Yugoslavia!” What nonsense! This is nothing more than a sly game — a manipulative tactic. Yet, we willingly choose to play this game every day, never stopping to question it. There are no hours, days, months, years, borders, countries, provinces, coordinates, or cardinal directions! There is only one “time” and “space,” and that is this moment! Awareness does not need a map, nor a compass to thrive. Consciousness is not a chronological web of events, all pointing the blame at one another. The winds will continue to blow, whether or not we measure their speed, or where they go. The sun will continue to rise and fall, whether or not we trace its journey, or keep watch at all. To be continued...

#egoism #egoist #egoist anarchism #anarcho-egoism #individualism #individualist #individualist anarchism #anarcho-pessimism #autonomy #autonomist #autonomism #anticiv #society #anarchy

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virtchandmoir · 5 years

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Tessa Virtue steps into the style spotlight for new 'uplifting' fashion campaign

Canadian Olympian talks personal style, women supporting women — and what's next for her off the ice.

August 30, 2019

From left: Ashley Callingbull, Karine Vanasse and Tessa Virtue are featured in a new campaign for Canadian retailer RW&CO. HANDOUT/RW&CO.

Growing up, Tessa Virtue faced no shortage of strong female role models.

“I was so lucky. I grew up with an incredibly strong grandmother, mother and sister,” Virtue says. “All three, independent, fierce, clever women who were hard workers, had goals and visions for themselves, and were really ambitious.”

“And, they didn’t apologize for those goals.”

The trio’s individual and combined influence left a Virtue with a sense of “limitless,” she recalls.

“I really believed that I could do or be anything,” she says with a smile.

While she didn’t pause to think much on it then, she’s now keenly aware of the fact that her inspirational upbringing, surrounded by a network of strong women who promoted the underlying message of “yes, you can!”, wasn’t always the case for other young girls.

“I didn’t realize that not everyone felt that way. That, not everyone felt that privilege,” she says.

The realization has been a contributing factor to the increased visibility of Virtue in media and advertisements in recent years — primarily those following the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics where she and ice-dancing partner Scott Moir stole the spotlight for their riveting routines — that allows fans and followers a glimpse into Virtue’s life that goes beyond her on-ice achievements.

“For whatever reasons, after the Pyeongchang games, there was a different awareness of both Scott and me … but it provided so many unique opportunities. And, hopefully I can have some kind of impact for young girls to look up to,” she says humbly. “I feel very privileged to be able to be considered any kind of role model.”

Olympic ice dance gold medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada hold up the Canadian flag after their winning performance at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games on Tuesday in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. PAUL CHIASSON / CANADIAN PRESS

Her visibility on social media platforms such as Instagram, where she boasts a following of 364,000 and counting on her account @tessavirtue17, is one area where she works to constructively (and carefully) share her struggles and successes, in the hopes of leaving a positive impression on those who may happen to scroll by.

“I’m conscious of that. And I try to do that in a way that is authentic,” she says of fully realizing the scope of her role via social media and beyond. “I think, often, about how a nine-year-old girl would feel if she were to scroll through my Instagram. And, what messaging I’m sending, both objectively and subjectively. I think, ‘What kind of role model am I?’”

Focusing on the type of content she shares — positive messages and happy shots of herself attending events or with friends and family — has kept her somewhat safeguarded from the rampant online trolling that plagues many celebrities online. And, when she does face negativity, she doesn’t allow herself to get too caught up in it.

“You put yourself out there and I think there is always vulnerability with that,” she says. “Whether that’s standing at centre ice and waiting for the music to start, or posting something on social media for everyone to criticize, you just have to hope that the good outweighs the bad.”

Her ambition to present a positive role model to young girls and women led her to a recent collaboration with the Montreal-based fashion brand RW&CO. The campaign, which sees her featured alongside Canadian actress Karine Vanasse and First Nations activist Ashley Callingbull, the first Indigenous woman to be crowned Mrs. Universe, aims to promote “powerhouse” working women, in various stages of their careers.

“The campaign is so in line with my messaging and the things that I’m trying to accomplish now, outside of sport,” Virtue says. “And it’s something that I can relate too, also.”

Virtue hopes people pick up on the collaborative, supportive air of the campaign stars and feel empowered to introduce that outlook into their own lives.

“The culture now of this competition that’s ingrained in us, to pit women against other women, and this unrealistic standard that we’re all held to — all these issues are pervasive,” she says. “We can only be stronger for women when we support one another.”

Speaking on a hot, sunny day in July at a studio space in Montreal during a brief break in shooting images for the campaign (with her mom looking on in support), Virtue reflected on how, at 30 years old, she’s reached a point in her life where she’s “transitioning,” personally and professionally.

“And I’m looking to other women to support and uplift me,” she says of the changes. “So, I think it’s really neat that (RW&CO. is) putting together, really, a movement to incorporate so many things. And, they’re not just talking the talk.”

To mark the release, the retailer will be running a contest for Canadians to nominate an inspiring woman in their lives. The winner will receive a donation to the charity of her choice.

In addition to providing a visual representation of strong female role models, the partnership provided Virtue and her campaign co-stars with the opportunity to donate a portion of their fee to a cause of their choice. Callingbull directed her share toward a shelter for Indigenous women and children, while Vanasse chose a women’s shelter in Montreal.

Virtue, chose to promote another passionate platform, highlighting her efforts as an ambassador for the Canadian organization FitSpirit, which works to promote and support physical activity and athletics programs for young girls.

“It’s something that is so close to my heart,” she says of the role. “Obviously, I’ve reaped the benefits of sport and activity. But not many girls, as it turns out, even have the resources available to them to be physically active or to maintain that as they go through high school. So, FitSpirit is connecting with schools and giving that accessibility to young girls and youth at a time when they might otherwise drop out our prioritize other things.”

“It’s an opportunity to be active and connect with other girls — and to realize the power that those lessons and the sense of building self confidence and self worth that will carry forward for them.”

Recalling a recent visit to a school with FitSpirit where she met with young girls in the program, she recalls, with evident pleasure, sharing her enthusiasm for athletics with the girls — and how she took a little bit of something away from the visit for herself, too.

“They were so curious and it’s so obvious that they’re capable of taking over the world,” she says of the energetic assemblage of youths. Needless to say, it left her feeling inspired.

“When we realize the powerhouse of that sisterhood and the camaraderie among women — there’s no stopping us,” she says.

Flash fashion: Style talks with Tessa Virtue

Canadian Olympian Tessa Virtue may be known more for her on-ice moves than her off-ice style — but, these days, the 30-year-old athlete and ambassador is putting a lot more emphasis on what she wears.

“I lived in either sweatpants or athletic wear,” she says with a laugh of her go-to uniform during her training days. “I was really of two extremes, which plays to my personality as a bit of an extremist. I was either in full-on workout wear or black tie. So, I didn’t have that middle range.”

But, now, as she ventures confidently into her next career adventures that see her stepping away from amateur sport, she says she’s having fun exploring her personal style as she spends more time in the “corporate sphere” and much less time on the ice.

“It has definitely evolved over time,” she says of her fashion sense. “Now, I would say my personal style is pretty classic and refined — with a bit of a twist. I like to have a bit of an edge to every outfit.”

Virtue recently took time away from her busy schedule to dish four tidbits about her personal style. Here’s what she had to say:

On how she chooses her outfits: “I definitely dress based on my mood. I like accessorizing differently. Having classic, quality pieces and mixing in graphic tee, a headband, a pair of funky boots or a belt and changing the outfit entirely.”

On here greatest style influence: “My mom has always shopped for me. I’m so lucky that I have an in-house stylist.”

On her MVP (most valuable piece): “I love a good blazer. Whether it’s jeans, a T-shirt and a blazer, or a power suit, I think that would be my staple.”

On her most cherished item: “My grandmother’s necklace.”

—Windsor Star

#tessa #off ice #ambassadorship #rw&co.#interview: windsor star #does love a blazer

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carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory · 5 years

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Natural History and a Unified Museum Definition

By Eric Dorfman

Much is being said within the museum industry about the definition of museums. ICOM is considering the current definition and whether it needs to be rethought. I think a review is worthwhile, regardless of whether changes are ultimately made. Robust thinking about museums (or any field, in fact), whether related to practice or theory, should be based on the intrinsic nature of the field. Defining museums is a critical step along that journey.

For natural history institutions, whose main business is to study and interpret the diversity of life, the relationship between museums and the state of the Earth must by necessity play an important role in constructing a definition. At the very least, an exploration of this relationship provides a context for natural history museum collections and, at best, it has the power to incite people to explore their identity and connection to one another through the prism of nature.

To some degree, natural history museums can be defined by what they do. At Carnegie Museum of Natural History, we have defined our work through three distinct but interrelated lenses:

The Tree of Life: The study of evolutionary relationships among taxonomic groups,

The Web of Life: The collection-based and in situ study of ecological systems,

The Future of Life: The study of the trajectory of species, populations and ecosystems, especially in the context of anthropogenic disturbances, as well as actions to ameliorate those effects.

The collections and other infrastructure provided by our museum support this work and the story-telling that arises from them.

While the study of evolution and ecosystem relationships is the traditional work of natural history museums, the future of life bears further consideration. By most measures, conditions on the planet we bequeath to our descendants are highly uncertain. Even discounting the seemingly inescapable reality of a future effected anthropogenic climate change, many factors inhibit our predictive ability. Will we run out of power or meat? Will plastic and mercury pollution render produce from the oceans inedible? Will at least some of the planet run out of water in the face of increasing desertification?

These are “wicked problems” (Churchman 1967; Levin et al. 2012) – issues that have so many facets we cannot know the answers, but for which at least some of the alternative outcomes are negative. The interrelationships between these issues create bewildering complexity.

These effects have been recently amalgamated into the concept of the “Anthropocene”, a proposed geological era that reflects human impacts so pervasive as to influence the geological record. These effects will be detectable millions of years from now, by whoever might be looking, as an unprecedented band of plastics, fly ash, radionuclides, metals, pesticides, reactive nitrogen, and consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations (Waters et al. 2016), as well as highly modified fossil composition, featuring an overwhelming preponderance chicken bones.

How does this ‘Age of Humanity’ structure our visitors’ perceptions and help them phrase questions about their environment? How will it influence our research? Most germane here, how does lack of certainty about the future of the planet influence the museum definition as it pertains to natural history institutions?

A Natural History Perspective

Fifteen of the world’s top natural history museums collectively contain, at rough estimate, almost 570 million specimens[1]. This represents the largest category of collection across the museum industry. Collections underpin the field. Any discussion of a unified perspective of natural history museums must therefore take into account the fact that collections form the basis of much of that is undertaken by natural history museums. This focus on collections, often from deep time, intertwines physical and temporal considerations:

Natural history museums and their collections are often thought of in terms of the past, which is not surprising. We are probably the only scientific research facility that can claim the ability to time travel, albeit in a patchy and far from perfect way. Our business is intimately connected with the past, both recent and deep time, and much of what humans know about the natural world a hundred, a hundred thousand, or a hundred million years ago arises directly or indirectly from the specimens held in our collections. When your child states with certainty that Tyrannosaurus rex lived in the Cretaceous they are, knowingly or unknowingly, drawing on the results of research done using museum collections. Norris, 2017, p. 13.

Norris (ibid.) follows this with a comment: “There is, however, a considerable difference between studying the past and belonging in the past.” Natural history institutions also focus strongly on the present and future and use information about the past uncover, contextualize and predict changes in the world around us.

Natural history museums, sitting at the crux between nature and its artistic representations have an important place in facilitating exploration of personal identity. Inasmuch as enhancing self-perception can have a positive influence on behavior, (see Falk, 2009), natural history museums’ capacity to contribute to society increases as their activities in this sphere become more purposeful. Those visitors who care about wildlife, and there are many, want natural history museums to deepen and expand their understanding. Museums like to feel that they occupy a place of credibility in the hearts and minds of the public that other channels of information, for all their worth, do not (but see Museums Association, 2013). Whether we truly are more credible than other types of institutions or not, our self-perception provides a significant opportunity to strive for best practice.

Albert Bierstadt: Rocky Mountain Landscape

The grounding of natural history museum practice in the study of physical specimens means that these institutions have at least a goal of objectivity, however influenced by curatorial subjectivity the framing of questions can sometimes be (see Dorfman, 2016). The articulation of evidential knowledge, concern over changing political environments, even in quality of governments themselves, is not new, nor restricted to the museum field.

How are museums responding to the melange of environmental, sociopolitical and technological changes that that are beginning to set the context in which they operate? Customer focus and using people’s own languages, both culturally and linguistically, to communicate touches every aspect of activities at natural history museums, including exhibitions, marketing, strategic planning, science, cleaning regimes and providing sufficient seating. Conflating individuals’ perspectives into stereotyped offers based on age, gender, race, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation undermines the relevance on which natural history museums pride themselves. Every institution has the opportunity to provide leadership in the sense that Covey (2005) wrote “…leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.”

For natural history museums, the unique signature of our industry is formed by using collection-based and in situ research to elucidate evolutionary and ecosystem relationships, as well as the intersection of these processes with humanity and its impacts, and then facing these stories outwards to the public. For all the many facets of the work of natural history museums, this is the most important and the aligned with our mission.

The Definition Through the Eyes of Natural History

The current definition of a museum as provided by ICOM is as follows:

A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. (ICOM Statutes art.3 para.1)

At first blush, much of the definition of the definition as it stands is generic enough to include natural history museums. One question, however, that comes to mind is how well the term “humanity and its environment” fits the practice and perspective of our industry. For one thing, any organism that existed before the evolutionary rise of Homo sapiens (~2mya) could, by this definition, be considered irrelevant to the work of museums. While this is patently not the case, a careful review of the definition should take this wording into consideration.

This semantic argument notwithstanding, the implicit question embodied in the words “its” poses a deeper consideration, namely the ideological friction between the notion of ecosystem valuation versus that of the intrinsic worth of nature. Both these perspectives have their strong adherents.

Formal cost-benefit analyses and the generation of market value were first developed in 1997 by Robert Costanza, Distinguished University Professor of sustainability at Portland State University, Oregon, building on earlier discussions of economic benefits of the environmental (e.g. Rolston, 1988). Constanza and his colleagues calculated that such services were worth US$33 trillion annually, or US$44 trillion in 2019 currency (Constanza, 1997). The rationale for undertaking this exercise is that ecological system services and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth’s life-support system for humans. They contribute to humanity’s welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet.

Since then, the field of environmental economics has proliferated and non-market valuation has become a broadly accepted and widely practiced means of measuring the economic value of the environment and natural resources. A variety of methods, including opportunity cost, travel-cost, hedonic price and contingent valuation have been applied in highly nuanced and complex models (e.g. Weber, 2015). In most, but not all cases, environmental goods and services are geared solely toward protecting inter-generational human welfare. For instance, considering mangrove ecosystems, benefits might be characterized by direct ecological yield in the form of fish or timber, contrasting with indirect value, such as filtration services and storm protection. There is also a line of reasoning that suggests that sentimental or “existence” value: simply knowing something exists provides a distinct, discernible benefit (Krutilla 1967).

An opposing viewpoint lies in the philosophy that nature has intrinsic worth and that the environment should be protected based on its own merits without reference to real or potential benefits for humanity (McCauley, 2006). This viewpoint is strongly based in environmental philosophy and ethics (see, for instance Callicott’s 1992 criticism of Rollston, 1988).

Young humpback chub (Gila cypha) swimming in Shinumo Creek, inside Grand Canyon National Park soon after release. They are part of a reintroduction program of this federally protected species with the goal to establish a second population, after they became extinct everywhere except a small part of Little Colorado River. Photo: Melissa Trammell, NPS

For instance, in discussing conservation efforts of the humpback chub (Gila cypha) a large minnow with no value to humans, native to the Colorado River, Smith (2010) suggests that all currently existing (biological) species have their own intrinsic goods, framed in terms of their ability to flourish. Based on this ethical stance alone, it could be argued that even a species like the humpback chub, that competes successfully with economically important introduced species (such as rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss), should be preserved.

The work of natural history museums is firmly rooted in this second philosophy. For one thing, much of the research we do is based on advancing knowledge for its own sake or, like the example of the humpback chub, taking conservation action out of professional ethics and a moral sense that it is the right thing to do. Additionally, natural history institutions, like other types, use the museum medium of engagement to instill empathy with the subject. In the introduction to her book Fostering Empathy Through Museums, Elif Gokcigdem highlights this necessity:

…Having visibly altered our planet’s outermost layers, scientists are debating whether our footprint is worthy of naming an entire geological epoch on Earth’s billions-of-years-old timescale after ourselves: Anthropocene, the Age of Humans… A steady proliferation of new and ever more powerful technological tools seems unable to correct these ills. One must wonder why they have not succeeded. I believe it is because the tools that are at our disposal are most beneficial when filtered through a worldview that values the collective well-being of the “Whole” – our unified humanity and the planet, inclusive of all living beings as well as of its life-supporting natural resources. Such a unifying worldview cannot be attained and sustained without empathy, our inherent ability to perceive and share the feelings of another. (Gokcigdem, 2016. xix)

Connecting people both intellectually and emotionally to the world’s major stories sits firmly within the scope of work of museums. The opportunity to bring people outside themselves to engage more deeply with the world is an element of the definition of that should be incorporated across all its nuanced facets. If the definition of museums chases, these considerations should sit beside many others as influencors of the conversation.

Eric Dorfman is the Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Footnote

[1] Information taken from the websites of the following museums: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History: 137 million; Natural History Museum (UK): 80 million; Jardin des Plantes: ‎68 million; Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History: 35 million; American Museum of Natural History: 32 million; Naturhistorisches Museum: 30 million; Field Museum: 30 million; Museum für Naturkunde: 30 million; California Academy of Sciences: 26 million; Carnegie Museum of Natural History 22 million; Australian Museum: 21 million Harvard University Natural History Museum 21 million; ; Natural History Museum of Geneva 15 million; Yale Peabody Museum: 13 million; Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales: 6 million. No attempt to verify these figures has been made.

References

Callicott, J. B. 1992. Rolston on intrinsic value: A deconstruction. 1992. Environmental Ethics Vol. 14. Number 2. 129-143.

Churchman, C. W. 1967. Wicked problems. Management Science, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. B141-142.

Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., de Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S., O’Neill, R. V., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R. G., Sutton, P., van den Belt, M. 1997. ‘The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital,’ Nature, Vol. 387, pp. 253–260.

Covey, S. R. 2005. The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. New York, NY: Free Press.

Dorfman, E.J. 2016. Who owns history? Diverse perspectives on curating an Ancient Egyptian Kestrel. Taipei: Proceedings of the International Biennial Conference of Museum Studies Commemorating the 80th Birthday of Professor Pao-teh Han 30th and 31th October 2014.

Dutton, D. 2009. The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.

Falk, J. H. 2009. Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience. New York: Routledge.

Gockigdem, E. 2016. Fostering Empathy Through Museums. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Krutilla, J. 1967. Conservation Reconsidered. The American Economic Review, Vol. 57, Issue 4, pp. 777-786.

Latour, B. 2015. Telling friends from foes in the time of the Anthropocene. In: The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis: Rethinking Modernity in a New Epoch. Edited by Hamilton, C., Bonneiul, C. and Germenne, F. London and New York: Routlege.

Levin, K., Cashore, N., Bernstein, S., and Auld, G. 2012. Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: Constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change. Policy Sciences, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 123-152.

Louv, R. 2011. The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books.

McCauley, D. J. 2006. Selling out on nature. Nature 443(7107), p. 27.

Museums Association. 2013. Public perceptions of – and attitudes to – the purposes of museums in society: a report prepared by BritainThinks for Museums Association. Museums Association, London. http://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=954916 accessed January 13, 2019.

Norris, C. A. 2017. ‘The Future of Natural History Collections,’ in The Future of Natural History Museums. Edited by Eric Dorfman. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 13-28.

Oxford Dictionaries. 2019. Word of the Year 2018 is… Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2018, Accessed January 13, 2019.

Rolston, H. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World. 1988. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Smith, I. A. 2010. The Role of Humility and Intrinsic Goods in Preserving Endangered Species: Why Preserve the Humpback Chub? Environmental Ethics. Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 165-182.

Waters, C., N. Zalasiewicz, J., Summerhayes, C., Barnosky, A.D., Poirier, C., Gałuszka, A., Cearreta, A., Edgeworth, M., Ellis, E.C., Ellis, M., Jeandel, C., Leinfelder, R., McNeill, J.R., Richter, D., Steffen, W., Syvitski, J., Vidas, D., Wagreich, M., Williams, M., Zhisheng, A., Grinevald, J., Odada, E., Oreskes, and Wolfe, N. 2016, The Antrhopocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science, Vol. 351. No. 6296, p. 137.

Weber, W. L. 2015. Production, Growth and the Environment. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis Group.

Weil, S. 2002. Making Museums Matter. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Books.

White, M. 2000. Leonardo: The First Scientist. London: Little Brown.

#Carnegie Museum of Natural History #Museums #Natural History Museum #Natural History #Anthropocene #Defining Museums #ICOM #Philosophy #Ethics

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alivinghopes · 3 years

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Emotional Numbness

Weekly Discussion

At some point or another we’ve all heard these words before:

“Suck it up princess!” “Be a man!” “Stop being a cry-baby,” “Get over it,” “Stop being so sensitive,” “Get thicker skin!”

While these words were likely spoken without consciously intending us long-term harm, they nevertheless point to a common and undeniably tragic truth in our society: that expressing your emotions is a sign of weakness, rather than strength.

If you were born into an emotionally repressed culture that valued the “masculine” ideals of efficiency and logic, it is likely that you struggle with some level of emotional numbness.

If you were born into a family that shunned any form of strong emotional expression, it is even more likely that emotional numbing is an issue for you.

And if you experienced an extremely traumatic life event that was simply too overwhelming for you to handle (from which you haven’t recovered), I can almost guarantee that you suffer from emotional numbness.

So how does emotional numbness impact virtually every part of our life? And what advice can I share with you after going through my own struggle with this issue? Keep reading and you’ll find out.

What is Emotional Numbness?

Emotional numbness is a defense mechanism employed by the mind to avoid intense and overwhelming emotions such as fear, hatred, jealousy, and grief. When you go emotionally numb, you lose the ability to feel and experience your emotions on a psychological and emotional level. In this sense, emotional numbness is often clinically connected with dissociation, which is the disconnection from one’s memories, identity, environment, body, or senses.

What Causes Emotional Numbness?

As with most issues, emotional numbness goes back to childhood and the way we were raised by our parents. Being abused by our parents physically, emotionally, sexually, psychologically, or spiritually can contribute towards our inability to self-regulate emotions, which results in emotional numbness. Feeling alienated or disconnected from one or both of our parents, or family at large, can also contribute towards emotional numbness. Being punished whether directly or indirectly for expressing our emotions in childhood also creates emotional numbness.

Numbing our emotions may also start after a severely traumatic experience, such as witnessing acts of violence, being assaulted, experiencing rape, suffering intense loss, or anything that we didn’t have the capacity to psychologically and emotionally handle in the moment. For this reason, emotional numbness is often a symptom of PTSD and various anxiety disorders.

Emotional numbness is also influenced by our culture and wider social circles, particularly those that emphasize being stoic, rational, and emotionally invulnerable (e.g., British, Chinese, American, Russian).

The Danger of Emotional Numbness

If you even have the slightest inkling that you might be emotionally numb, it’s time to listen up. Emotional numbness is not a small character flaw or minor area of self-growth to improve in – it is a serious problem which needs to be addressed immediately.

Speaking from experience, emotional numbness has formed the root of many issues I have faced (and still continue to face) in my life. Due to my upbringing in an emotionally stunted, dogmatically religious family whom I felt disconnected from for the majority of my life, I never learned how to handle strong emotions. I was punished verbally, emotionally or physically anytime I expressed strong emotions, and freethinking or any form of dissent was rejected, resulting in being ostracized.

The combination of having a British father and a mother who was traumatized by her own emotionally unstable mother – on top of an oppressive fundamentalist religion – led to grooming me as a stoic and “stable” person who was taught that expressing emotions was not only bad but shameful.

As you can see, sometimes there are numerous factors at play that may contribute to your inability to regulate intense emotions, and therefore resort to unconsciously numbing them. In my case, I learned that strong emotions = punishment in one form or another, and so I learned that they were dangerous to experience.

The danger of disconnecting from your emotions is that it can lead to a host of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual issues. Such issues may include dysfunctional coping mechanisms (obsessive compulsions), mild to severe depression, spiritual emptiness, inability to enjoy life, inability to form close and fulfilling relationships, disconnection from inner self, confusion, irritability, fatigue, addictions, chronic illnesses, and somatic illnesses (illnesses produced by the mind). In extreme cases (and I’m talking about situations where emotional contact is nil), emotional numbness can lead to acts of cruelty.

Why is it ‘the Secret Illness’?

I call emotional numbness the secret illness because it is so pervasive in our society, and so socially acceptable, that it often flies underneath the radar. In a society that largely doesn’t know how to handle strong emotions in healthy ways, being stoic and “level-headed” is valued – yet this very same calm and collected facade often conceals unhealthy detachment from one’s feelings. Thus, emotional numbness is a secret illness because so many of us struggle with it, yet don’t even realize that we have it until chronic issues start emerging.

13 Signs You’re Struggling With Emotional Numbness

Emotional detachment is not always a bad thing. It comes in handy when you need to maintain boundaries, avoid undesired energy overload from others, and even help others in crisis situations. But emotional detachment turns into its unhealthy twin (emotional numbness) when it becomes an automatic inner defense mechanism. “What’s so great about feeling strong emotions?” you might ask. The answer is that without feeling our emotions, we don’t have the capacity to live and learn from them or experience the beauty and depth of life.

Here are some of the most significant signs of emotional numbness that you should look out for:

Inability to express strong negative or positive emotions

Inability to “fully participate” in life (i.e., feeling like you’re a passive observer)

Feeling that life is like a dream (a sense unreality)

Living on autopilot

Lack of interest in activities others find enjoyable

Feeling distant from others

The tendency to withdraw from friends and family members

Emotions are only felt in the body as sensations, but not by the mind (or else are completely muted in the body and show up only as illness)

Dislike of people who express strong emotions (both positive and negative)

Not feeling anything in situations that would usually generate strong emotion

Panic or terror when strong emotions eventually breakthrough

Feeling empty inside

Physical and emotional numbness or “flatness”

In extreme circumstances (such as in PTSD sufferers), emotional numbness may even influence the desire to commit suicide. If you are considering suicide, please seek out support immediately.

How to Overcome Emotional Numbness?

Like any psychological defense mechanism, emotional numbing can be complex to deal with, and often requires support from a trained professional such as a therapist.

If you feel that emotional numbness is significantly impairing your life, please do an act of self-compassion and seek out support either locally or online (there are even free counselling services online).

For the time being, here are some helpful practices which I have personally found to increase my ability to feel, cope with, and express strong emotions:

Anchor yourself to your body. As mentioned above, emotional numbing is connected to dissociation (mental disconnection from one part of yourself). In my case, whenever I experience strong emotions, my automatic response is to either (a) only feel the emotions in my body, not my mind, or (b) to have a complete meltdown. In both cases, one of the best self-soothing mechanisms I’ve learned is to anchor myself to my body through mindfulness and physical contact. Similar to what a mother does with her child, I tightly but gently hold one area of my body – usually my hand or stomach. This method helps me to feel contained and grounded in my body. I also recommend using shapewear or a pressure vest to help you in extremely emotionally turbulent periods to anchor yourself to your body (here is a good example of shapewear). Shapewear is used by women and men to keep “love handles” and other body parts slim and defined. For our purposes, shapewear is like a hug to the body that will help you feel safe and ‘held together.’ Pressure vests are a little more expensive and they are used by people with sensory integration disorders (such as autism) to relax.

Deep breathing. Whether used alone or in conjunction with the above-mentioned technique, deep breathing is a simple and easy way to help you mindfully move through whatever you’re experiencing. This practice is particularly useful when intense feelings such as fear or rage break through. There are many books out there that talk about the importance of deep breathing (such as this one), and there are many online tutorials with breathing techniques. I recommend sticking to something simple, something you don’t have to think about too much, and something that doesn’t feel forced. The point of deep breathing isn’t to follow someone else’s technique perfectly, it is to use your breath (in whatever way suits you), to calm your mind and body. Also, I recommend breathing slowly, deeply, and softly instead of forcing deep breaths (which can increase anxiety) – let your breath be natural. Read more about how to relax using deep breathing.

Keep a journal of sad thoughts. I realize this suggestion may sound a tad bit melancholic, but it’s a practice worthy of your time and effort, particularly if you’re wanting to feel and express your emotions. Journaling is also a powerful form of shadow work (a way to express what you would usually suppress). In a physical journal or online diary, spend five to ten minutes every day writing down something which triggers even the slightest pang of sadness in you. For example, you might write down a memory of your dog who died, an issue in the world, something someone said to you, a scene from a movie, a daily struggle or virtually anything that is upsetting (or what you imagine would be upsetting). Creating a sad thoughts diary has two main benefits. One, it helps you express your emotions, even if in an indirect way at first. And two, it acts as a catalyst for feeling and letting out your emotions, particularly when you need momentum (I’ll elaborate more on this soon). Always try to finish your sad thought journaling with something uplifting, like reading the uplifting news subreddit, spending time with someone you love, playing with a pet, or watching something entertaining on YouTube or Netflix.

Catharsis (let it all out, baby!). When emotionally numbing ourselves becomes our default defense mechanism, we tend to have a huge amount of suppressed emotion lying just beneath our conscious awareness. In order to safely and effectively express your suppressed emotions, try some form of catharsis. Catharsis may involve screaming into or punching a pillow, using your sad thoughts journal (mentioned above) to stimulate sadness and crying, intense emotional-fuelled exercise, impassioned dancing, or dynamic meditation. Regular catharsis should be a must on your journey. Without regularly ‘letting it all out,’ you run the risk of experiencing the repercussions of festering emotions (i.e., depression, emptiness, chronic illness, etc.).

Yoga and self-massage. Yoga is a well-known way of helping to clear and balance your energy. Not only that, but yoga often has a way of releasing emotions stored in the body. I recommend doing slow and gentle forms of yoga such as Hatha yoga for at least ten minutes a day. Remember, the goal isn’t to become some Instagram-perfect yoga star; it is to connect with your body, mind, and heart. The truth is that our unexpressed and repressed emotions are often stored within our bodies. I like to think of our bodies as being reflections of our unconscious mind: they are maps that help us to figure out what we are keeping locked away, and what unresolved issues we need to face. In my article about chronic muscle tension, I list the nine types of emotions trapped in different areas of the body. In order to release these emotions, I regularly use something called the ‘Acuball’ to introduce fresh blood flow and energy into these tense areas. I like the Acuball because it gives me a deep tissue massage, while also helping me to stay grounded in my body, relax, and release pent-up stress. (You can get the Acuball here).

Creatively express your feelings (or lack thereof). Write a song, doodle in a journal, paint a picture, create a collage, find some way of expressing what emotion you last felt. If you struggle to feel anything at all, express that artistically. Grab those greys and blacks and turn that damn page into your own work of art. Pay attention to how you feel afterward. Does even the slightest feeling of satisfaction enter you? Journal about these emotions.

Take care of your inner child. As it was your child self that likely copped the trauma that caused you to default to emotional numbing, take care of this part of you. Practice inner child work and find ways of comforting and nurturing this vulnerable place within you. You may even like to create empowering affirmations for your inner child to help him or her access emotions. For example, you might repeat to yourself when you are in a difficult circumstance, “It is OK for me to feel,” “It is safe for me to feel sad,” “My anger is valid,” “Being vulnerable is being strong,” and so forth.

Dedicate space and time to feeling. In our busy lives, it is very easy to numb and distract ourselves with social media, the TV, shopping, food, social commitments, and other things that constantly cause us to look outside. Looking inside is much harder and requires far more self-discipline, hence why most people don’t do it. If you are serious about overcoming your emotional numbness, you will need to dedicate space and time to all of the activities I have mentioned in this article. If you struggle with self-discipline, I recommend making yourself externally accountable by joining a meditation group or other practice to help you turn inwards. Please don’t skip this step, it is imperative that you spend time exploring your inner self, and in particular, what you are repressing and why.

ㅤ

Emotional Numbness Q&A

Here are some commonly asked questions about emotional numbness. Hopefully they’ll answer any remaining concerns or thoughts you may have about this topic:

What causes emotional detachment?

The simple answer is trauma. Usually, emotional detachment (or numbness) can be linked to early childhood experiences such as being abused mentally, emotionally, sexually, or physically. However, not everyone who experiences emotional detachment had tough childhoods. Sometimes, other traumatizing experiences later in life can trigger emotional detachment as a protective mechanism (such as divorce, job loss, rape, illnesses, war, etc.).

Can numbness be a sign of anxiety?

Yes, emotional numbness can mask intense feelings of anxiety – it’s the mind’s way of protecting itself from being flooded by overwhelming emotions. Numbness is a primal reaction to fear and is also known as the freeze response. There are three main reactions to anxiety-provoking situations that we have: fight, flight, and freeze.

How to fix emotional numbness?

To fix, or rather regain the ability to feel again, it’s important to be gentle with yourself. Try reconnecting with your body, practicing deep breathing, doing some catharsis, journaling, and creating a safe environment for yourself. Seeking out professional support is usually crucial, as emotional numbness is usually a major sign of a traumatized nervous system. To regulate your nervous system, you need a safe holding environment, which a professional therapist/counsellor can provide.

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objectificationmediaeffects · 7 years

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4. How do these media portrayals and their resultant effects on behavior affect women’s self-attitudes?

Before embarking on this research, my opinion on female objectification derived from a single source: mainstream liberal rhetoric. That is to say, I had never even questioned whether objectifying women could be anything other than detrimental. Most of the studies I found throughout researching my capstone project corroborated this view -- since Frederickson and Roberts (1997), the vast majority of academics have concluded that this phenomenon is objectively detrimental to society. However, I did stumble upon a few, less-traditional perspectives that view objectification through a more nuanced lens. These researchers explored the possibility that younger generations of women may feel empowered by viewing portrayals of women in objectifying but also sexually dominating or liberated ways. In this blog post, I will outline the range of conclusions that academics have come to regarding the media effects of objectification on women’s self-attitudes.

Before Frederickson and Roberts’ groundbreaking manuscript, academics had barely begun to scratch the surface in terms of researching portrayals of women in the media. This study was the first to define the framework of objectification theory as an overarching social construct, which led its authors to the conclusion that media objectification is linked to perpetual body monitoring, shame, anxiety, reduced motivation, and reduced efforts of self-care. The authors concluded that the media’s tendency to portray women as a body or collection of body parts valued predominantly for its consumption by others is a form of gender-based oppression which not only leads to mental health conditions such as depression and eating disorders, but may also enable other forms of discrimination in the workplace and beyond (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) (Rudman, L. A., & Borgida, E., 1995).

via GIPHY

A major contribution to the framework of objectification theory compiled by Szymanski, Moffitt, and Carr (2005) corroborated Fredrickson and Roberts’ conclusions about the negative impacts of media objectification. This compilation of studies cited links between media objectification and damage to mental health. Taking an approach grounded in critical theory, the authors included a section in which they advised psychologists about how to better work with patients dealing with issues related to sexual objectification. They also took a strong stance against objectifying women. The authors claimed that the negative implications of female sexual objectification are so severe, that we as a society should all engage in social justice advocacy aimed at challenging and eradicating the objectification of women “at individual, interpersonal, organizational, institutional, policy, and sociocultural levels.”

Other research has found nonlinear relationships between the same variables of media objectification on women’s mental health. In a report for the American Psychological Association, Tiggemann et al. (2011) posited that the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating is mediated by body shame and appearance anxiety. Tiggermann found that self-objectification is related to depressive symptomatology, and that this relationship is mediated by body shame. Finally, Tiggerman concluded that women’s self-objectification and resulting lack of self-confidence during sexual intercourse is negatively correlated with sexual functioning and satisfaction.

The collective evidence from these studies supports the proposition that self-objectification can cause women to develop various clinical, sometimes life-threatening mental health disorders, and even sometimes physical dysfunctions. This study is relevant to the topic at hand because the media’s objectification of women is a primary causal factor affecting female self-objectification, which has a profound effect on the lived female experience, and thus is of critical importance when considering the mental and physical health of contemporary women.

Though the vast majority of literature published since the establishment of objectification theory has supported the proposition that objectifying women is inherently harmful, some newer studies indicate that the issue may not be so black-and-white. Some academics have noted a recent shift in media representations of women to feature significantly more “active, independent and sexually powerful” representations of women as opposed to women as mere objects of the male gaze (Gill, R., 2008). In a literature review, author Rosalind Gill, PhD links this shift to what she describes as a “postfeminist, neoliberal moment in which young women should not only be beautiful but exposed, sexy, sexually knowledgeable, and always ‘up for it’.” Gill’s analysis of this shift is nuanced; she simultaneously praises its break from traditionally reductive and silencing trends in female representation while also offering criticisms.

The conclusions of Gill’s literature review, while drawing points of analysis from frequently-cited studies employing experimental and survey methods, are largely interpretational. However, her claims about the changing nature of media representation of women have been corroborated by other academics. Identical surveys of women conducted in 1991, 2000, and 2008 indicated that young women’s reactions to objectifying images have changed over time (Zimmermann & Dahlberg, 2008) (Ford, LaTour, and Lundstrom, 1991; Mittal and Lassar, 2000). According to this longitudinal study, women in 2008 still acknowledged the media’s hyper-sexualization of their gender, however, they found it less offensive than the young women surveyed in both 2000 and 1991. The authors concluded that this shift in perception of female objectification is directly correlated with the “New Wave” or “Third Wave” of feminism that allows women to be strong, dominant, promiscuous, and sexy simultaneously, a perspective that starkly contrasts with the majority of older literature on media objectification that only cites its negative implications.

This controversial ad campaign for Suitstudio’s new line of women’s suits was intended to portray women as sexually agentic.

So what should we conclude about the media effects of portraying women in sexually objectifying ways? Should we default to the conclusion of traditional objectification theorists who posit that the phenomenon is inherently detrimental? Or are these contemporary theories about its potential for empowering women actually onto something?

A recent study by Halliwell & Tischner (2011) attempted to determine whether contemporary media images that displayed women as sexually empowered could actually have these alleged positive effects. The study compared women’s reactions to traditional, “passively objectifying” media content with more modern “sexually agentic” portrayals of women. The results indicated that sexually agentic images that some postmodern feminists might regard as “empowering” were just as likely to trigger feelings of weight dissatisfaction in female viewers as traditionally objectifying images. The findings of this study support the argument that even allegedly empowering portrayals of women scantily-clad or in dominating positions lead to similar feelings of self-objectification among female viewers, and are thus just as detrimental to the mental and physical health of women.

Aside from these few aforementioned outliers, most academics agree that objectifying women is detrimental to their health and safety. Relationships exist between objectifying media portrayals and men having sexualizing thoughts when interacting with women. Sexualizing thoughts have been linked with increased rates of sexual misconduct committed against women, a behavior which can both endanger women’s physical well-being and cause increased rates of self-objectification, which often entails long-term mental health disorders. Research has also uncovered a direct relationship between the media’s objectification of women and self-objectification. Though a few studies have proposed that some advertisements depicting sexualized women may be interpreted as empowering, other research has debunked this claim, asserting that both portrayals of women as passive sexual objects and as agentic sexual subjects had the same negative effects on weight dissatisfaction and levels of self-objectification (sorry, Queen B).

via GIPHY

As citizens of a society plagued by this increasingly normalized culture of sexual harassment, assault, and violence against women, it is critically important to understand the media’s role. Conducting research in this area has solidified my initial views. All things considered, I believe that objectification of women in the media is a pervasive factor exacerbating virtually all issues of gender disparity facing modern society. Its harmful and often even dangerous effects clearly outweigh any financially lucrative or entertaining benefits.

However, I do not think that drawing attention to the female form, or even sexualizing the female form, is inherently detrimental to women’s self-attitudes in the same way that sexual objectification has been shown to be. Recently, I have noticed some advertising (or “femvertising”) campaigns that simultaneously emphasize women’s sexual features and promote body-positive mentalities.

For example, New York-based beauty startup Glossier’s ad campaign for a new product called “Body Hero” featured five successful female professionals, posing completely nude. The models included Olympic Gold medalist Swin Cash Canal, influencer and clinical research coordinator Mekdes Mersha, Outdoor Voices founder Tyler Haney, creative director Lara Pia Arrobio, and model and “It-Girl” Paloma Elsesser. This group of women represents a diverse range of body types, races, and ethnicities.

Even though the women are posing nude, which is inherently sexualizing, public response to this campaign has been overwhelmingly positive, as demonstrated by the comment section pictured above. Personally, I am empowered by this campaign because I feel inspired by the confidence, influence, and power that these women are projecting, regardless of the degree to which their bodies conform to conventional beauty standards. New research has shown that women sometimes buy “femvertised” products for no reason other than to show support for the progressive messages the ads send. I hope that the impacts of the #MeToo moment spark change in the advertising and media industries, and that we begin to see more ad campaigns like Glossier’s. There is substantial evidence showing that women will buy products if the ads make them feel good -- so why not shift our marketing tactics to empower and inspire instead of to objectify?

REFERENCES

Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T.-A. (1997). OBJECTIFICATION THEORY Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks. Psychology of Women. Quarterly, 21, 173–206. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00108.x

Gill, R. (2008). Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising. Feminism & Psychology, 18(1), 35–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353507084950

Halliwell, E., Malson, H., & Tischner, I. (2011). Are Contemporary Media Images Which Seem to Display Women as Sexually Empowered Actually Harmful to Women? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35(1), 38–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684310385217

Rudman, L. A., & Borgida, E. (1995). The Afterglow of Construct Accessibility: The Behavioral Consequences of Priming Men to View Women as Sexual Objects. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31(6), 493–517. https://doi.org/10.1006/JESP.1995.1022

Szymanski, D. M., Moffitt, L. B., & Carr, E. R. (2005). Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research. The Counseling Psychologist, 39(1), 6–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000010378402

Tiggemann, M., Calogero, R. M., Tantleff-Dunn, S., & Thompson, J. K. (2011). Mental Health Risks of Self-Objectification: A Review of the Empirical Evidence for Disordered Eating, Depressed Mood, and Sexual Dysfunction. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/12304-007

Zimmerman, A., & Dahlberg, J. (2008). The Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective. https://doi.org/10.2501/S0021849908080094

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psychcharted · 7 years

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SOCIOPATHY: A Study in Rafe Adler. (Uncharted 4)

Sometimes, when I watch a show or play a game, one of the characters pops out to me as someone who would be incredibly interesting to psychoanalyze. It isn’t often, but on occasion, I can already give a pretty good guess at which category a “crazy” character falls under upon my first time around being introduced to them. Whilst exploring some of the already known and beloved characters of Uncharted and being introduced to the game’s new characters in its 4th and final game of the series, I was immediately intrigued by the character of Rafe Adler. Superficial charm, egocentricity, manipulative behaviors: these traits and many more were practically crystal clear indicators that everyone’s favorite “psycho” in Uncharted was actually a nearly by-the-book sociopath.

Before we begin, I will preface this analysis with the DSM-5 definition of what will be addressed below. Sociopathy is less-commonly known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. These two may not sound the same when one thinks about it colloquially, but in my own words, the “antisocial” component simply refers to a disregard for other people.

I do not have access to the full DSM-5 yet myself, but I have done research online and found several useful pieces of information to aid this analysis:

“APD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) is a DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition), diagnosis assigned to individuals who habitually and pervasively disregard or violate the rights and considerations of others without remorse. People with Antisocial Personality Disorder may be habitual criminals, or engage in behavior which would be grounds for criminal arrest and prosecution, or they may engage in behaviors which skirt the edges of the law, or manipulate and hurt others in non-criminal ways which are widely regarded as unethical, immoral, irresponsible, or in violation of social norms and expectations. Those with APD often possess an impaired moral conscience and make decisions driven purely by their own desires without considering the needs or negative effects of their actions on others. Impulsive and criminal behavior is common. The terms psychopathy or sociopathy are also used, in some contexts synonymously, in others, sociopath is differentiated from a psychopath, in that a sociopathy is rooted in environmental causes, while psychopathy is genetically based.“ (Reference)

I have highlighted the points that fit Rafe specifically, which (as you may note) actually completely cover the entire definition of APD. I don’t know much about Rafe’s past besides what we were told, but I can pretty much confirm the causes were environmental. (Nature AND Nurture) Take this excerpt from the Uncharted Wikipedia page for Rafe as a prime example of environmental factors influencing his sociopathy:

"Initially groomed to take over his family's business empire, Rafe Adler spent much of his youth consorting with the thieves, smugglers, and criminals in the black market antiquities trade. Now a respected businessman, he still makes time to seek out treasures for his collection. Thanks in no small part to the flexibility and power his wealth affords him, he usually gets what he wants. Cunning, cold, and quick to anger, he is not an opponent to take lightly."

The bolded points are clearly environmental factors. I will get into personality traits in just a moment, but I would like to preface the rest of the analysis with the fact that I do not know for certain whether genetics had anything to do with Rafe’s mental state, but from what we know about him, I can make a confident assumption that nature and nurture caused his sociopathic tendencies.

Now, to get into what else the DSM-5 says about APD. I will be using THIS SITE for this section of the analysis, and I will also be utilizing videos / pictures / gifs to effectively support my points. Below are some traits I have chosen to discuss that people with APD commonly possess / display. (Once again, I am using this as reference)

“Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.”

This is self explanatory. Rafe is a treasure hunter, who has quite obviously partaken in many acts that have gotten him into trouble, even prison.

“Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.”

Rafe is very obviously characterized as selfish, but what I’d like to focus on is when Rafe backs Nadine into a corner for his own personal gain. Unknown by Nadine up until this point, Rafe bought the loyalty of her remaining men, ergo leaving Nadine standing completely alone when she wishes to leave with the treasure they found without stepping foot on Avery’s ship. When Rafe hears her uncertainty and ultimately the wish to save her own life by avoiding the deadly traps set by the long-dead pirate, he becomes incredibly aggressive and manipulative, even slapping her before once again speaking to her in a tone that clearly indicates he is exerting his power over her. By the way he speaks, viewers can tell this behavior is not new to him, as he clearly knows what to say in order to get even a strong person such as Nadine to submit to his will. One can most definitely say he conned her in this sense; she thought she had control, but when she needed it most, Rafe completely flipped the board on her.

As for the rest of the definition, one can only assume that, with the profession Rafe has pursued, he has deceived others, lied to others, used aliases, and most certainly conned others for his own personal gain.

“Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.”

The scene discussed above is also applicable to this point, but his attitude as a whole also clearly displays this behavior. Here are some scenes in which Rafe is irritable, aggressive, or involved in an assault or fight:

VIDEO 1 (senseless anger turned to murder; the latter will be discussed later but I put it here as an extreme example)

VIDEO 2 (threat)

VIDEO 3 (assault)

VIDEO 4 (fight)

This irritable and aggressive behavior is almost an underlying default for Rafe, though his sociopathic charm masks it the majority of the time.

“Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.”

“Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing.”

Another self-explanatory point. Rafe does not care about the safety of others by any means, and he occasionally puts his own life on the line if it means having the chance to increase his eventual personal gain. Rafe is reckless during the prison break scene, remorselessly killing Vargas and causing chaos to break out. He also does not care about Sam’s “death,” not showing any intention to find out whether or not his “friend” is actually alive and treating his brother Nate insensitively before heading off with full intent to leave him behind. Even though they went through everything together, Rafe was reckless and willing to leave Nate behind on a whim. He had no remorse in killing Vargas, and similarly showed no remorse for Nate upon losing his brother. Sure, they were in the middle of an intense prison-break, but someone without remorse would be able to easily treat someone harshly immediately after a loved one’s death.

Rafe is also completely willing to let Nadine die when Sam is about to shoot her, despite what he says about Sam “not having it in him.” Rafe kept pushing Sam, stepping closer and provoking him; he was at one point literally asking - arguably egging - for him to shoot her. He refuses to put his gun down, even when Nadine warns him that Sam is on edge and incredibly serious about shooting her. Rafe then brushes it off very insensitively, with a laugh, when Nadine gets freed and expresses her anger towards him.

Other quick notes from the DSM.pdf that fit core components of Rafe’s personality with any other added points I wish to contribute:

Ego-centrism; Self-esteem derived from personal gain, power, or pleasure.

Rafe’s ego is hard to miss throughout the events of Uncharted 4; many people in the Uncharted fanbase even refer to him as a “brat,” which is usually associated with a large ego. Ego-centrism is the focus on oneself, which usually comes hand in hand with the colloquial definition of “having a big ego.”

Goal-setting based on personal gratification; absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behavior.

Selfishness, actions during prison-break.

Lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others; lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another.

E.g. Lack of remorse in killing of Vargas, lack of remorse for loss of Sam, lack of remorse in abuse of Nadine, lack of remorse in almost getting Nadine killed.

Incapacity for mutually intimate relationships, as exploitation is a primary means of relating to others, including by deceit and coercion; use of dominance or intimidation to control others.

It is quite clear that there is some sort of pre-established connection between Rafe and Nadine upon first seeing them together, but their relationship is incredibly toxic. Rafe does not care about Nadine at all; he uses her own men against her, manipulating her and forcing her to submit to his will against her own. He physically assaults her and ultimately shows no lack of concern for her safety at any point.

E.g. Once again, his abuse and manipulation of Nadine, and the fact that he did not care about the possibility of getting her killed.

People with Antisocial Personality Disorder are also categorized to be charming, callous, hostile, and risk-takers, all traits that Rafe displays throughout the plot of Uncharted 4. I can most definitely go into further analysis of this character and his sociopathic traits, so if anyone would like a second post to follow this at some point in the future, I would be more than happy to elaborate further on this intricate character. This post is meant to be a crash-course on the character of Rafe Adler and his sociopathy. Below, I have included some general links about sociopaths, in case anyone is intrigued by the personality disorder itself.

5 Signs You’ve Met a Sociopath But Just Don’t Know It (video)

Sociopath vs Psychopath: What's the Difference? (video)

11 Signs Of A Sneaky Sociopath (video)

Psychopaths and Sociopaths-Body Language Analysis (video)

How to Spot a Sociopath (web page)

Antisocial Personality Disorder (web page)

9 Ways to Spot a Sociopath (web page)

Antisocial personality disorder (web page)

Antisocial Personality Disorder (article)

Antisocial Personality Disorder: Treatment, Management and Prevention (article)

#uncharted #rafe adler #sociopath #analyzation #psychology #uncharted 4 #long post

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psyclownsis-a-blog · 7 years

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Can you elaborate a little on how Joker helps Harley because given their canon history it really doesn't seem like he does more than stunt her mental growth and harm her

okay well the thing you have to keep in mind when i’m talking about this stuff is that i’m talking specifically about my interpretation of harley and my interpretation of her relationship with joker, not harley in general as a character, and you also have to keep in mind that there is a difference between harley being emotionally stable and happy and harley overcoming her mental illness and living a healthy life with healthy relationships. as for canon interpretations of her relationship with joker, they’ve had just as many fun moments as they have un-fun moments, and the way their relationship is written varies massively from series to series. you can argue all day one way or another about their relationship using nothing but canon evidence and you won’t get any closer to having 100% agreement on whether it’s good or bad (“bad and acceptable/enjoyable” or “bad and must be stopped immediately” are probably more accurate terms). something else to keep in mind is that i am talking specifically about joker helping harley come back to baseline after some kind of mental breakdown or upset, as opposed to joker helping harley become a better person or something (he doesn’t). so i’m? not? really sure if you’re genuinely asking or trying to be passive aggressive? but either way i’m gonna give you a genuine answer¯\_(ツ)_/¯

harley is delusional, her delusions are extremely pervasive and warp her entire grasp of reality, reality as she knows it is built on the concept of Good Guys and Bad Guys that joker instilled in her when he was her patient, okay, we’ve established this. the factors we have to look at to answer your question are:

harley’s mental illness and how it affects her daily life

joker’s relationship with harley/joker’s feelings for harley/the revenge arc

how being around joker affects harley’s mental health

how people other than joker tend to handle her mental illness and emotional needs

1. okay so! we’ve already talked about that first one a lot, but i’m gonna talk about it a little bit more just to clarify. the Good Guy/Bad Guy delusions were shaped and fostered by joker when she was his doctor (however, they did not originate with him; the best way i can explain it is that she/her pre-joker trauma planted the seed of her own delusions and he watered those seeds until they bloomed), but i don’t think he intended for them to become so strong, and he certainly didn’t intend to have to deal with her delusional ass for presumably the rest of his life. regression as a coping mechanism is also something joker tends to encourage in her, but it is something she was already doing before she met him. both of these things contribute to her inability or unwillingness to fully comprehend death/her inability to fully understand that she is hurting people, but that issue was initially shaped by trauma that occurred mostly outside of her experiences with joker (guy kopski’s death and arnold wesker’s death). these issues manifest as a regressed and childish persona: she has a very simplistic, childlike worldview, and a very simplistic, childlike resistance to unhappiness. on the level of daily life, this puts her at odds with some people, because they require her to act like an adult and take responsibility for her actions (ie, batman telling her she needs to be serious because “this isn’t a game” or something like that). joker is perfectly content to let her act however she wants as long as it doesn’t interfere with his own work/plans/whatever, so in that sense, he “helps” because he doesn’t challenge her worldview. this is not a healthy dynamic at all, but it’s a dynamic that allows harley to function happily within the parameters of her delusions and psychosis.

2. which brings me to the second point: joker and harley have been together on and off for about seven years at this point in my blog-canon timeline. they know each other better than anyone else. they can rely on each other. it hasn’t always been pretty, and it has certainly never been a healthy relationship, but they are more or less constants in each other’s lives. the fact that they have a relatively stable relationship at this point is entirely due to the revenge arc. the revenge arc takes place after the events of mad love and after harley’s recuperation time with poison ivy and catwoman. once she had recovered to mostly fighting-fit, harley took off, kidnapped joker, and spent several weeks methodically torturing him and inflicting every wound on him that he’d ever inflicted on her before dropping him off half dead at the gcpd. she was doing this out of anger, yes, but it wasn’t just anger. if it was just anger, she would have killed him. she still loved him. (is that healthy? no! this is fiction! relationships in fiction do not have to be healthy or unhealthy to be well-written or well-developed or interesting or even enjoyable! you can enjoy something in fiction while recognizing that it is unacceptable in reality and not wanting it to ever be reality! for example: zombie apocalypse scenarios!) her reasoning was that if he could go through all that and still want to be with her– if he felt the same way about their relationship as she did– then she would go back to him and they’d figure things out. if not, then she’d leave him in the dust. after some time, he did come back to her, and they’ve been (mostly) equal partners in crime ever since. their relationship is tumultuous and unhealthy, yes, but it’s more or less a constant in both their lives. they’re used to relying on each other and working with each other– they feel at home with each other in ways they rarely feel with other people. so in that sense, joker “helps” harley because they have a very well-established rapport, and he provides her with (relative) constancy and the sense of having a home she belongs to.

3. harley thinks and acts differently with joker than she does with other people. harley desperately needs to be liked and accepted, and in order to achieve that, she often compartmentalizes and puts on different “faces” with different people. (every human being on the planet does this, whether they realize it or not; it’s called facework and you probably have it to thank in part for getting your job, starting your relationships, and a bazillion other things). being with him, and thus being exposed to his mindset and manifestos, pushes her to adopt a more violent and less empathetic face. that being said, being with him encourages her to fall deeper into her psychosis, to view the world in extremely simple and child-like terms. she doesn’t have to think about who she is as a person or what she deserves or what she’s truly capable of doing; she can just fall into this old familiar role. and this role fits her. this role was created for herself, by herself. so in this sense, joker “helps” her by not putting her in situations where she feels some kind of internal struggle, which can lead to mental upset as i have discussed before.

3.5. note: being with poison ivy pushes harley to be a better person and adopt a less destructive and more empathetic face. joker may “help” harley by not challenging her at all, but ivy could help harley much more by constructively challenging her. however, their relationship (again, as i interpret it) does have obstacles to this end, and those will be discussed in the next bullet point.

4. people other than joker tend to react to her mental illness and emotional needs very poorly. they often expect her to be able to support herself completely on an emotional front, to function perfectly fine when alone on a mental front, and essentially seem to believe that harley is under some kind of evil influence from the joker which will magically remove itself with zero fallout once they break up. let me make this perfectly clear: harley had mental health problems long before she met joker. he did not somehow “make her crazy”; she had been prone to neuroticism and dramatic mood swings ever since she was a child, and the more severe psychosis she has today had been developing from the time of guy kopski’s death, several months before she ever met the joker. while the joker did influence the final shape and nature of harley’s mental illness, he was not at all the cause of it, and thus, his presence in or absence from her life is not going to dictate her ability to function. it is also worth noting that, due to her mental state, she would have fixated on anyone the way she fixated on joker-- she needed for someone to take care of her and make her feel part of something the way guy kopski did--, developed the same type of delusions and psychosis, and turned to a life of crime. all joker did was provide harley with an opportunity to act out the way she wanted to. so! that addressed, let’s move on to how people other than joker tend to handle her mental illness and emotional needs: most notably, batman, bruce wayne, poison ivy, and catwoman.

batman. batman constantly exploits her mental illness and her emotional weaknesses. while this is understandable as a way for the hero to get the upper hand in his conflicts with the villain, that does not make it okay, and it certainly does not do anything to make harley’s lifestyle healthier. batman does not come from a perspective of wanting to help harley. batman comes from a perspective of wanting to hurt and disorient harley enough that he can take her out quickly and easily. this happens so often that his go-to method for handling harley at this point seems to be “if i can’t take her out within the first three hits, i’m going to start pushing buttons until she breaks down”. it’s cruel. it’s unhealthy. it pushes her further and further down the rabbit hole of “i am just a Bad Guy doing my job and the Good Guys take things way too far and make everything hard for everyone else”. batman reacts in incredibly negative ways to her mental illness, and he dismisses her emotional needs entirely in order to reach his end goal of catching joker or ivy or whoever harley’s working with, seemingly with no care over how his actions are going to affect her mental or physical health. additionally, he justifies these actions-- which, personally, i classify as going past the realm of standard hero/villain damage and into the realm of straight up abuse-- by victim blaming her for her own psychosis and drastic emotional needs (both of which are almost entirely the result of some kind of trauma or neglect in her life), essentially, if not literally, saying “normally, i wouldn’t be this mean to somebody, but since she’s boning my greatest enemy, she must be insane, and we’ve been doing this for so long that she must be a lost cause, and since joker’s not here, i’m just gonna take out all my rage on her, and like, if she didn’t want me to do this, she should just stop being mentally ill and doing things in ways that are dictated by her mental illness and unfulfilled emotional needs”. (see: mad love, where he manipulates her into calling the joker even though he knows it will certainly result in her being hurt, and then does absolutely nothing to address the fact that joker pushed her out of a 4-6 story window which probably killed her. like, i’m not trying to be a villain apologist here, that’s the last thing i want, but that is? a really shitty thing for batman to do? and if he didn’t treat harley like that over and over again i would say it was super out of character for him to (a) let it happen in the first place and (b) not seem to care if it killed her at all? but he does treat her that way? repeatedly? constantly? i’ve made a post about it before and this is already getting super long so i’m not gonna list all the other times he pulls this shit on her but like. trust me when i say “batman exploiting harley’s mental illness in ways he knows will get her hurt and then not caring about how badly hurt she gets and justifying it with the grossest victim blaming logic” is pretty much the go-to routine for their fights now.)

bruce wayne. yes, bruce and batman are the same person, but harley doesn’t (consciously) now that, and the two personas react to her mental illness in drastically different ways. batman comes from a perspective of violent and impulsive exploitation, but bruce comes from a perspective that’s... well... almost a calmer and more calculated exploitation. does bruce want to help her shape up re-enter society? yes. does bruce put personal investment into helping harley do that? sometimes, yes. is he doing it more or less out of the goodness of his own heart? yes, absolutely. but here’s the thing: bruce only tries to help harley once harley is no longer perceived a threat to batman. bruce’s good will towards harley is entirely conditional. he has left her to rot in arkham just as much as, if not more than, he has come to her aid about parole. he follows the fallacy that joker has some kind of evil influence on her, and that once that influence is removed, she’ll be perfectly normal. that’s not how it works. a good example of this is in the detective comics issue where harley and batman team up to defeat ventriloquist ii: bruce, as a member of arkham’s board, denies harley parole at the beginning of the comic, despite her being clearly desperate to prove she’s ready to re-enter society. later, as batman, he has no sympathy for her mourning of the original ventriloquist or her anger that his title and m.o. has been taken by someone else-- not even with the knowledge that the original ventriloquist was her only friend in arkham, and were it not for him, she probably would have committed suicide. it’s not until the very end of the comic, after harley has acknowledged that arnold wesker was a criminal and turns herself back into arkham-- essentially, after she submits to batman as the moral standard who is always right in his eyes (not “after she admits that she has made poor decisions and is trying to atone for her actions as a criminal” or “after she explains to him that her perception of morality may be different but that does not mean it is entirely wrong and invalid”, both of which she does if i’m remembering correctly, but “after she submits to him as the moral standard who is always right in his eyes” by acknowledging wesker’s villainy and not resisting when he brings her back to arkham). again: bruce’s actions do fall into a pattern that is more or less default for hero/villain dynamics, but given the context of these interactions and the way they repeat over and over again, his actions begin to move outside the realm of standard hero/villain interactions and into the realm of abuse.

poison ivy. ivy loves harley! harley loves ivy! that does not change the fact that they both have their own individual problems that can foster an unhealthy relationship dynamic at times! ivy wants harley to break away from joker entirely because ivy has been in an abusive relationship (jason woodrue) and broken out of that abusive relationship and understands both how difficult it can be and how much better your life will be if you do get out. that’s awesome! that’s great! ivy loves harley and she wants to see harley grow as a person, to be more independent, to be stronger emotionally. those are all honorable and good and altruistic and healthy things for ivy to want for harley. however, in order for harley to achieve that, she needs someone who understands that the joker isn’t just her partner, he’s part of her backstory that cannot be erased. she won’t ever be able to leave him behind and say “i wish i never met him” or “i am what i am because of me and he had nothing to do with it”, and she would never want to, because it simply isn’t true. but, that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t ever want to leave him behind, period. the problems with harley and ivy’s relationship stem from ivy’s inability to understand the full extent of harley’s relationship with and feelings for the joker; thus, when harley expresses something to the extent of “this man was a huge part of my life and it wasn’t super horrible and it made me who i am so i’m not going to dismiss it and may even remember it fondly”, ivy hears something like “i owe this man my life and because of my perceived debt to him for ‘creating’ me i am reluctant to completely break away from him”. so ivy tries to force harley to cut joker out of her life, which harley can’t do, and since ivy does not understand the full extent of harley’s relationship with joker, she can’t provide adequate emotional support if harley needs it in the process of breaking away from him, and it is just. a huge mess. and i hope and pray with all my sapphic heart that one day harley and ivy will sit down and talk frankly and get this all out in the open so they can live happily ever after without joker coming in to fuck everything up. or ivy/harley/joker happens. like-- i’m not picky. i just want harley to be happy. but yeah, anyway, back to what i was saying: ivy reacts to harley’s mental illness and emotional needs pretty well, except when it comes to stuff about joker, which comes up a lot, and so whenever they come close to making any progress they kind of sabotage themselves and it all falls apart.

catwoman. selina and harley’s dynamic here is pretty similar to ivy and harley’s in this sense, i think, except that selina seems generally content to live and let live wrt harley and joker as long as he/his relationship with harley doesn’t become a problem in her own life. the problems with selina and harley come from harley being unable to reconcile selina’s gray morality with her own Good Guys vs. Bad Guys worldview. selina may not understand harley’s psychosis or her relationship with joker entirely, but she doesn’t have the same bias that ivy does about it, and that allows selina to be more supportive of harley emotionally. however, selina and harley have had various fights and falling outs over the years, and given harley’s mindset, it’s easy for harley to convince herself that selina is either 100% A Bad Guy And Safe To Be Around or 100% A Good Guy Who Is A Traitor And Deserves To Die. it also doesn’t help that harley sees selina’s relationship with batman almost the same way selina sees her relationship with joker: acceptable as long as the man remains at arm’s length, because if he gets too close, the woman will choose him over her friends. the basic issue between selina and harley, i think, is that selina does not address and often does not acknowledge harley’s relationship with joker until it becomes a problem, and by then, it is no longer a discussion, it is selina telling harley what her options are. harley sees this as a double standard, given selina’s relationship with batman, and from there it is very easy for her to see selina as a Good Guy in disguise and deem them enemies. it’s not something selina does; it’s harley’s inability to process what selina does in a healthy way. (note: imo, selina has every right to handle harley and joker’s relationship this way, and she is one of very few people in harley’s life who provide her this kind of “me or him” discipline in a way that’s not an ultimatum. she lets harley do her thing and she doesn’t want to be involved in that thing and when that thing is over she and harley can get back together again, and as long as that thing doesn’t infringe on selina’s life, she doesn’t really pay it any mind. compared to harley’s other relationships, that’s actually a pretty healthy dynamic.)

so! wowza! this got really long! now you see why it was in my drafts for months on end! to summarize: i am talking here specifically about joker helping harley return to baseline operations after some kind of mental upset, not about joker helping harley on a more holistic level, because he really doesn’t. however, there is a difference between him not helping her and him actively sabotaging her. he does not actively sabotage her (anymore). joker and harley have known each other for the better part of a decade, and they know each other better than anyone else; they have an established rapport and they are essentially each other’s home. because of this, joker often understands her mental illness and emotional needs better than others, and is better able to give her what she needs in regards to grounding and support after a mental breakdown. many people in harley’s life react to her mental illness and emotional needs very poorly or even exploit it for their own ends, or they may unsuccessfully try to support her because they do not understand her needs. this is not to say that everyone except joker is terrible at helping harley recover, nor is it to say that joker is the only one who understands harley’s mental illness and emotional needs-- for example, jonathan crane has known harley since she was in college, and given his profundity in psychiatry, he’s probably better at helping her recover than joker is. arnold wesker, when he was alive, also helped her just as much if not more than joker does. ivy could help harley much more than joker-- on all levels-- if she and harley addressed the miscommunications and misunderstandings between them.

i hope this makes sense and i hope it wasn’t too hard to read orz and thank you for sending this question and the other ones before it, they were very involved and have made me delve into harley’s character much deeper than i have been lately. peace dude ✌

#Anonymous #answered

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hub-pub-bub · 6 years

Link

The MIT Media Lab is located in a classically modern building. At night, its glossy white walls, floors, and ceilings shine through its glass perimeter to cast a futuristic glow onto the surrounding streets.

But the part of the building that best reflects the Media Lab’s forward-thinking spirit is actually a picture of the past. Dominating the hallway of the Amherst Street entrance is a towering, three-part portrait showing the eccentric Brookline living room of legendary MIT staffer Marvin Minsky.

Marvin Minsky's living room

Many people consider Minsky, who passed away last year, the father of artificial intelligence. His influence spans from his 1951 invention of the first neural net machine at Harvard to the pioneering work currently being done at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (which Minsky co-founded).

For most of Minsky’s career, however, progress in AI was limited to research papers and experimental, one-off prototypes. Today, the hype surrounding AI’s commercial applications has many people insisting it will be the driver of the next big tech wave, creating systems that aid (or replace) workers in every sector of the economy.

“I think machine intelligence represents a once in a lifetime opportunity for entrepreneurs,” said Vivjan Myrto, Co-Founder of AI-focused VC firm Hyperplane Venture Capital. “It also represents a massive opportunity to invest in technologies that are solving really large-scale problems.”

Boston has long been known for its hard tech contributions, but that hasn’t always translated into the creation of market-leading tech giants. Even more discouragingly, in several cases, some of the city’s most promising startups have moved to California as they’ve scaled.

Rob May, Founder of AI-driven virtual assistant company Talla, believes Boston tech companies have had a more conservative approach to the market in the past, a mindset that has sometimes taken its toll. But May thinks AI’s emergence will play out differently than previous tech waves, and he’s not alone.

In fact, people within the Boston tech community are almost uniformly optimistic that Boston is as well-positioned as anywhere to produce the next great companies built around AI solutions.

A History of Intelligence

The colorful portrait of Minsky’s room serves as a vibrant reminder that the city of Boston is the birthplace of much of humanity’s knowledge of AI.

As progress in the field has quickened, many local and state governments have pledged support for AI research and implementation. But in Boston, AI isn’t the latest fad, it’s a long-standing tech frontier we’ve been involved with since its inception.

“We’ve been doing this since way before it was the next big thing in software, since way before it was cool,” said Catherine Havasi, a longtime member of MIT’s Media Lab who founded text analytics spinoff Luminoso in 2010.

Boston’s experience with AI gives local companies several advantages when developing AI solutions that can actually add value in a business environment, which is more difficult than many people think.

Machine learning techniques, for example, use data to train systems to complete a range of tasks including object recognition and detecting credit card fraud. Although these systems don’t need to be painstakingly programmed for each task, they’re often only as effective as the datasets going into them, thus requiring companies to maintain collections of clean, well-labeled data to optimize a system’s performance.

Deep learning, a subset of machine learning that has exploded in popularity over the last five years, typically requires even more expertise to work effectively. Deep learning systems rely on layers of connected processing units to extract insights from data. Getting a successful output from a deep learning system requires users to adjust the weights between units in a technique that’s often more of an art than a science.

That means trying to use deep learning systems in a new space can be next to impossible if you don’t have a mathematical understanding of how they work.

“Whenever there are algorithms or datasets being used, the people who created those things are going to know how to use them the best because they understand things at a deeper level,” Havasi said. “If you run into a problem, you have to go under the hood and make changes, and the people who truly understand these things are always going to have an advantage.”

That advantage is a big reason why Myrto describes Hyperplane as a very “founder-centric” VC firm.

“In AI, you have to be very team-focused and vision-focused,” Myrto says. “The technical teams are absolutely crucial. You need to have a team that understands the technology in a way that others don’t. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re investing in, really outstanding engineers.”

If building successful AI companies requires intellectual capital, then Boston should feel pretty good about its prospects. In their 2015 pitch to bring General Electric to the area, Boston officials described the city as “the world’s most sustainable source of exceptional talent.’’

There are more than 50 colleges and universities in the greater Boston area. According to the state’s 2017 Budget and Policy Center report, Massachusetts has the highest percentage of workers holding bachelor’s degrees of any state in the country.

When it comes to AI, MIT is unquestionably one of the leading research entities in the world, but other schools in the area such as Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University, Tufts and UMass Amherst also have AI-related programs and research labs that have produced a host of intriguing spinoffs.

“Boston really has an incredible heritage of engineers that are focused on these heavy-lifting technologies,” Myrto said. “Boston has always been on the forefront of solving the biggest problems in the world with frontier technologies.”

An Improving Tech Ecosystem

All that brainpower provides only fleeting benefits to Boston, however, if entrepreneurs feel the need to relocate before applying their research and ideas to the private sector. Strong tech ecosystems also require ample support structures for entrepreneurs, and it’s recent improvements in that area in particular that have people bullish on Boston’s future.

Habib Haddad, the president and managing director of MIT’s new investment group the E14 Fund, is one of those people. Haddad said as recently as five or ten years ago, there were several factors that made places like New York and San Francisco more appealing to entrepreneurs than Boston, and they had nothing to do with the demoralizing effects of the snow.

“Great companies like Facebook and Dropbox moved quickly to the other coast because some key elements just weren’t here,” said Haddad. “Now city officials, the startup community, investors, and universities are all saying, ‘We’re not going to miss out on the AI revolution the way we missed out on the consumer revolution.’”

There’s an old-fashioned mindset that academic research should focus on long-term, fundamental breakthroughs at the expense of more commercially applicable advances. In the past, that kind of thinking was certainly more pervasive in Cambridge than in Palo Alto.

Now the proliferation of university-based incubators in Boston is sending a clear message that schools support entrepreneurship. The emergence of university-linked venture capital funds such as UMass Amherst’s Maroon Venture Partners Fund, Boston College’s SSP Venture Partners, and MIT’s E14 Fund further blur the lines between the education and business sectors.

The number of accelerators in the city has also grown over the last ten years, led by groups like Techstars, which has helped local companies raise more than $750 million since it came to Boston, and MassChallenge, which has supported more than 1,200 companies since it launched with money from local officials in 2010.

And many research labs in the area now have corporate partnerships that allow researchers to consider real-world problems instead of the high-level work encouraged by more traditional funding sources like the National Science Foundation. Those partnerships offer a huge advantage in overcoming two of the biggest hurdles of starting an AI company: Determining product-market fit and securing access to large amounts of data.

“With AI, you see people building really cool technologies without identifying a problem, so they’re always trying to find a beachhead,” Myrto said. “But the research labs are interacting way more with investors, and that shift has happened in the last three to five years. They’re interested in building companies from this research. So we’ve seen a shift in mindset, and it’s accelerating big time now.”

Tech Giants Take Notice

One way of looking at this shift is that Boston universities are finally opening their doors to the private sector. The other way to interpret it is that the private sector finally beat their doors down.

GE’s decision to move its world headquarters to the Seaport District is just the latest example of an industrial giant establishing a connection to the city. All around Boston, companies are competing to gain access to the city’s cutting-edge research and talent pool, often elbowing out space for themselves in the process.

This summer Amazon announced a new office along Fort Port Channel, literally next to the space GE has claimed for its flashy new headquarters. Google and IBM have also expanded their local offices in the last three years. Other tech behemoths such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter have made Kendall Square one of the most densely packed tech hubs in the country.

Many of these companies’ local branches are focused on AI. Amazon’s Cambridge office has been deeply involved with the company’s intelligent voice assistant Alexa. IBM has a local lab which seems to focus exclusively on AI, and last month the company announced a 10-year, $240 million investment in the new MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab.

“When you talk about industrial technologies and industrial AI, the race is ours to lose for sure,” Myrto said. “Soon that’ll spread to every industry. GE, Siemens already know this, that’s why they’ve been here. Boston’s background in industrial knowledge is really deep.”

These big companies are also competing for attention, forming partnerships with local tech groups, hosting events and creating their own events in an effort to position themselves as thought leaders. Such events give Boston’s growing tech community a way to keep its small-town feel and provide newcomers with a way to connect with peers over free drinks.

“We’re seeing enormous amounts of growth if you look at the number of events that are happening in Boston, especially around AI,” May said. “The support we’re getting is great.”

But partnerships and free drinks, of course, aren’t all it takes to be successful.

Follow the Money

CB Insights has tracked a rise in Boston VC funding over the last five years (and early 2017 results follow that trend), addressing a weakness that had major implications for area startups in the past. If advances in AI methodologies and computational resources had aligned fifteen years ago, Boston entrepreneurs looking to start companies would’ve had a much more difficult time than today.

Havasi, for instance, said Luminoso had some trouble securing seed funding in Boston in 2010.

“There were certainly funding gaps,” Havasi said. “There wasn’t as much early-stage venture capital or AI venture capital in Boston when we started. That has changed tremendously both across the country and in Boston. Now there are a lot of funds that are very savvy about AI, and that’s fantastic.”

Indeed, when the folks at NextView Ventures sat down to update their excellent Hitchhiker's Guide to Boston Tech last year, they had a lot of additions to make to the investor section. AI companies seeking their first round of funding have been helped by a number of angel groups that have recently institutionalized, including Converge Venture Partners and Half Court Ventures, which May started with Todd Earwood last year.

Myrto said the founders of Hyperplane saw a gap in early-stage AI investing in the area when they launched their VC firm two years ago.

“We saw an opportunity with big data and machine learning in Boston seed investing,” Myrto said. “The thesis of Hyperplane from the very beginning was about machine intelligence and systems intelligence, and we believe Boston is one of the best places in the world to invest in enterprise systems intelligence.”

New firms in the area such as Pillar and Underscore.vc have invested in companies offering AI-driven solutions, with others such as Glasswing Ventures (founded in 2016) and Hyperplane (founded in 2015), focusing almost exclusively on AI.

The growing number of Boston VC firms comes as every firm scrambles to adopt an AI investing strategy. More established VC firms in the area including NextView Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, and Flybridge Capital Partners have also counted AI-driven local companies among their recent investments.

And, perhaps most importantly, we’re seeing investment strategies increasingly veer from the conservative reputation Boston earned in the past. May described west coast investors as more aggressive, helping companies raise large rounds in order to achieve heavy market share, then using their balance sheets as strategic weapons.

“There are pros and cons to that strategy, but it also leads to really big companies at the end of the day,” May said. “I think Boston VCs think less that way typically, and our culture always needs more people thinking big. But you’re seeing some companies raise a lot of money now, and there are some investors that are very west coast-minded.”

Boston’s shortcomings in this area have been talked about a lot. Often they’re referenced as a mistake not to be repeated. Boston investors heading new firms such as Pillar'sJaime Goldstein and Jeff Fagnan from Accomplice (which split from Atlas Venture a few years ago) are among those who have talked about the importance of building large, sustainable companies in the area.

Myrto, who describes Hyperplane as very “west coast-minded,” said he’s seen a change in investor mindsets as well.

“The new generation of venture capital is certainly more inclusive and risk-taking, and those two ingredients are important to having a sustainable ecosystem here,” Myrto said. “Being a little more aggressive in the way we look at technologies and a little more futuristic in the way we see the world is a key ingredient.”

Riding the AI Wave

The race to produce great AI companies has, of course, already begun. Haddad guesses we’re in the “second or third inning” of AI perforating every industry.

Boston has already seen many AI startups gain traction, in some cases helped by recent eye-popping funding rounds. In a three week stretch of March, for instance, DataRobot's predictive analytics platform helped it raise a $54 million Series C and Kensho's financial analysis software earned the company a $50 million Series B.

Big funding rounds are becoming increasingly common in the area. Boston startups are working to overcome some of the largest technical barriers holding AI back, and they’re attracting attention across a wide variety of industries in the process.

Examples of startups working to increase AI’s potential impact include Lightmatter and Forge.ai. Lightmatter is focused on using light, rather than electricity, to improve computational speed and efficiency for AI operations. Forge.ai helps businesses use unstructured data in machine learning systems.

Havasi’s Luminoso, meanwhile, uses AI to analyze customer feedback in 13 languages to give companies insights on product reviews, social media posts and more. May’s Talla integrates AI into office chat programs like Slack and Gchat to help employees automate repetitive processes within a company.

And a number of Boston AI startups are competing with the same tech giants that have recently set up shop in the city. Netra CEO Richard Lee says the company’s visual intelligence software is more accurate than Google in image recognition tasks in head-to-head tests. Newton-based Semantic Machines has raised more than $12 million to make a conversational AI that its website says will “enable people to communicate naturally with computers for the first time.” The Semantic team shares that goal with a number of companies building the next generation of smartphones and smart speakers.

Other Boston AI startups are just plain cool. Cogito uses AI and behavioral science to read people’s emotions in real time. Neurala's product, the Neurala Brain, uses neural network software that’s been designed to closely mimic the functioning of the brain. It was first used to increase the intelligence of NASA’s Mars rover.

Other Boston tech companies such as Localytics, dataxu and HubSpot also now leverage machine learning for core product offerings.

“With AI and machine learning, we’re still exploring where it’s going, but it’ll be everywhere,” Myrto said. “And it’s Boston’s race to lose because you can see all the ingredients are here, from the labs to the talent to even the government being more innovation focused. We’re very young and very hungry to make a big impact on the world. This could be a huge long-term benefit for Boston in general.”

Boston taking a leading role in AI’s implementation could also be good for humanity. Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” mindset poses little real danger in consumer tech, but the implications of further AI advancements require a much more thoughtful approach.

“You want to really change the world with AI,” Haddad explained. “Boston has been thinking about AI for a long time. If all you’re doing is optimizing for the short-term opportunity to make money, you’re looking too close to you. And if you’re stepping back and looking at the horizon, that’s also not good because the world needs faster change. Boston has really converged those two views. We’re looking at AI in terms of its impact on society, and those conversations don’t happen as much elsewhere.”

No one can predict exactly how far-reaching the AI wave will be or what companies will come to define it. All we can do is consider how prepared the city is to support the next generation of entrepreneurs seeking to make their mark on the world.

In that sense, Boston seems to be in good shape to welcome the next Minsky to town.

Zach Winn is a contributor to VentureFizz. Follow Zach on Twitter: @ZachinBoston.

Images courtesy of Henry Han, GE, Gensler, Harvard i-Lab, and CB Insights.

#ai #boston #boston industry #technology #technology degrees

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newstfionline · 7 years

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How to Boost Resilience in Midlife

By Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, July 25, 2017

Much of the scientific research on resilience--our ability to bounce back from adversity--has focused on how to build resilience in children. But what about the grown-ups?

While resilience is an essential skill for healthy childhood development, science shows that adults also can take steps to boost resilience in middle age, which is often the time we need it most. Midlife can bring all kinds of stressors, including divorce, the death of a parent, career setbacks and retirement worries, yet many of us don’t build the coping skills we need to meet these challenges.

The good news is that some of the qualities of middle age--a better ability to regulate emotions, perspective gained from life experiences and concern for future generations--may give older people an advantage over the young when it comes to developing resilience, said Adam Grant, a management and psychology professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“There is a naturally learnable set of behaviors that contribute to resilience,” said Dr. Grant, who, with Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, wrote the book “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy.” “Those are the behaviors that we gravitate to more and more as we age.”

Scientists who study stress and resilience say it’s important to think of resilience as an emotional muscle that can be strengthened at any time. While it’s useful to build up resilience before a big or small crisis hits, there still are active steps you can take during and after a crisis to speed your emotional recovery.

Last year Dr. Dennis Charney, a resilience researcher and dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, was leaving a deli when he was shot by a disgruntled former employee. Dr. Charney spent five days in intensive care and faced a challenging recovery.

“After 25 years of studying resilience, I had to be resilient myself,” said Dr. Charney, co-author of the book “Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges.” “It’s good to be prepared for it, but it’s not too late once you’ve been traumatized to build the capability to move forward in a resilient way.”

Here are some of the ways you can build your resilience in middle age.

* Practice Optimism. Optimism is part genetic, part learned. So if you were born into a family of Eeyores, you can still find your inner Tigger.

Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring the reality of a dire situation. After a job loss, for instance, many people may feel defeated and think, “I’ll never recover from this.” An optimist would acknowledge the challenge in a more hopeful way, saying, “This is going to be difficult, but it’s a chance to rethink my life goals and find work that truly makes me happy.”

While it sounds trivial, thinking positive thoughts and surrounding yourself with positive people really does help. Dr. Steven Southwick, a psychiatry professor at Yale Medical School and Dr. Charney’s co-author, notes that optimism, like pessimism, can be infectious. His advice: “Hang out with optimistic people.”

* Rewrite Your Story. When Dr. Charney was recovering from the shooting, he knew that his life was forever changed, but he reframed the situation, focusing on the opportunity the setback presented. “Once you are a trauma victim it stays with you,” he said. “But I knew I could be a role model. I have thousands of students watching my recovery. This gives me a chance to utilize what I’ve learned.”

Study after study has shown that we can benefit from reframing the personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves. In expressive writing studies, college students taught to reframe their college struggles as a growth opportunity got better grades and were less likely to drop out. A Harvard study found that people who viewed stress as a way to fuel better performance did better on tests and managed their stress better physiologically than those taught to ignore stress.

“It’s about learning to recognize the explanatory story you tend to use in your life,” Dr. Southwick said. “Observe what you are saying to yourself and question it. It’s not easy. It takes practice.”

* Don’t Personalize It. We have a tendency to blame ourselves for life’s setbacks and to ruminate about what we should have done differently. In the moment, a difficult situation feels as if it will never end. To bolster your resilience, remind yourself that even if you made a mistake, a number of factors most likely contributed to the problem and shift your focus to the next steps you should take.

“Telling yourself that a situation is not personal, pervasive or permanent can be extremely useful,” Dr. Grant said. “There is almost no failure that is totally personal.”

* Remember Your Comebacks. When times are tough, we often remind ourselves that other people--like war refugees or a friend with cancer--have it worse. While that may be true, you will get a bigger resilience boost by reminding yourself of the challenges you personally have overcome.

“It’s easier to relate to your former self than someone in another country,” said Dr. Grant. “Look back and say, ‘I’ve gone through something worse in the past. This is not the most horrible thing I have ever faced or will ever face. I know I can deal with it.’”

Sallie Krawcheck, a former Wall Street executive, said that after a very public firing, she reminded herself how fortunate she still was to have a healthy family and a financial cushion. While she has never studied resilience, she believes early challenges--like being bullied in middle school (“It was brutal,” she said) and going through a painful divorce--helped her bounce back in her career as well. “I just believe in comebacks,” said Ms. Krawcheck, who recently founded Ellevest, an online investment platform for women. “I see these setbacks as part of a journey and not a career-ending failure. There was nothing they could do to me on Wall Street that was as bad as seventh grade.”

* Support Others. Resilience studies show that people are more resilient when they have strong support networks of friends and family to help them cope with a crisis. But you can get an even bigger resilience boost by giving support.

In a 2017 study of psychological resilience among American military veterans, higher levels of gratitude, altruism and a sense of purpose predicted resiliency.

“Any way you can reach out and help other people is a way of moving outside of yourself, and this is an important way to enhance your own strength,” said Dr. Southwick. “Part of resilience is taking responsibility for your life, and for creating a life that you consider meaningful and purposeful. It doesn’t have to be a big mission--it could be your family. As long as what you’re involved in has meaning to you, that can push you through all sorts of adversity.”

* Take Stress Breaks. Times of manageable stress present an opportunity to build your resilience. “You have to change the way you look at stress,” said Jack Groppel, co-founder of the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute, which recently began offering a course on resilience.

The key, Dr. Groppel said, is to recognize that you will never eliminate stress from your life. Instead create regular opportunities for the body to recover from stress--just as you would rest your muscles between weight lifting repetitions. Taking a walk break, spending five minutes to meditate or having lunch with a good friend are ways to give your mind and body a break from stress.

* Go Out of Your Comfort Zone. Resilience doesn’t just come from negative experience. You can build your resilience by putting yourself in challenging situations. Dr. Groppel is planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with his son. Take an adventure vacation. Run a triathlon. Share your secret poetry skills with strangers at a poetry slam.

“There is a biology to this,” said Dr. Charney. “Your stress hormone systems will become less responsive to stress so you can handle stress better. Live your life in a way that you get the skills that enable you to handle stress.”

#resilience #middle-aged resilience #midlife resilience #aging

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sherristockman · 7 years

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Light at Night Damages Your Health and Potentially Future Generations Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola There is a significant cost to your health from light pollution resulting from living in a 24/7 society. A growing number of street lights and lit signs obscure the night sky, and your bedroom is likely dimly lit from street lamps, digital equipment or alarm clocks. It’s not possible to “feel” the changes in your brain and body from outdoor street light that seeps in around your bedroom curtains or the dim glow from your alarm clock. Yet, even a dim light at night affects your natural sleep cycle and produces biological changes which, in turn, may affect your risk for health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cancer and depression. I have been a long-time advocate of sleeping in complete darkness. Even a small amount of light is enough to make a difference in your health. And now, recent research demonstrates your exposure to light pollution may affect the health of your children. Light Exposure at Night May Alter Immunity of Future Generations In a study at Ohio State University, researchers concluded exposure to light at night may produce immune and endocrine disruptions.1 To isolate the effect light has on sleep quality and not on interruption of sleep, they used naturally nocturnal hamsters that normally sleep during daylight hours. The hamsters were separated into two groups; for nine weeks one group was exposed to dim light all night while the other was exposed to standard light days and dark nights. Following this the hamsters were allowed to mate and then all were returned to standard lighting conditions. Initially, the researchers noted an increase in body mass of both male and female hamsters exposed to dim light at night.2 The next generation was also raised under standard lighting conditions. The researchers ran a series of tests on the hamster pups once they achieved adulthood.3 They found parental history of light exposure prior to conception left the following generation of hamsters with an impaired immune response and decreased endocrine activity. These health conditions were passed down through either parent’s genetic material, meaning it didn’t matter whether it was the mother or father that was exposed to dim light at night; the effect could be traced to either parent. The impaired adaptive immune function noted in the hamster offspring illustrates a transgenerational effect of light at night. While the exposure did not change the DNA sequence of the hamsters, it did affect the epigenetic expression of that DNA. Epigenetics describes changes to genetic expression not occurring from an actual sequence change in DNA, but rather how the genes are expressed. For instance, exposure to environmental factors such as nicotine or alcohol may trigger sections of DNA to be switched on or off. These changes in genetic expression can be passed to offspring while still maintaining the exact genetic sequencing. In this study, light exposure at night changed the epigenetics of the hamster offspring, negatively affecting their immune system. Light Pollution Also Affects Your General Health Senior author Randy Nelson, Ph.D., professor and chair of neuroscience at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center commented on the significance of the results:4 “Now, we’re seeing for the first time in these hamsters that it’s possible this damage isn’t just being done to the affected individuals, but to their offspring as well. These weren’t problems that developed in utero. They came from the sperm and the egg. It’s much more common to see epigenetic effects from the mothers, but we saw changes passed on from the fathers as well. I think people are beginning to accept that light pollution is serious pollution and it has health consequences that are pretty pronounced — an increase in cancers, depression, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and anxiety disorders. We should be concerned about the increasing exposures to light at night from our tablets and phones and TVs.” Exposure to light at night, even when awake doing shift work or dim light exposure when sleeping, may be associated with an increased risk of certain cancers, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal ailments and mood disorders, regardless of the type of illumination.5 In both the recent study and others,6 animals exposed to light during night hours had greater weight gain. In some mice, up to 50 percent more weight was gained over eight weeks, despite identical activity levels and available food. Other studies show that rates of cancers dependent on hormones, such as breast cancer or prostate cancer, increase with exposure to light at night.7 The suppression of melatonin, a sleep regulating hormone, by blue light emitted from electronic media and other lighting, is linked with reduced sleep quality and interrupted sleep.8 Poor sleep quality increases your risk of depression and may impact your reproductive health as well.9 Mitochondrial Damage Is at the Center of Poor Health Mitochondrial function plays an important role in many of the diseases and changes associated with aging, and melatonin plays a unique part in stabilizing the function of molecular mechanisms and biogenesis of your mitochondria.10 Melatonin acts as an antioxidant and regulator of mitochondrial functions.11 It is selectively used by mitochondrial membranes, a function not exhibited by other antioxidants. The hormone effectively prevents oxidative stress-induced mitochondrial dysfunction. As exposure to light, and specifically blue light, severely impacts your melatonin production, it also has a substantial effect on your overall health. Your mitochondria are tiny powerhouses inside the cells of your body. They are the primary source of energy for your cells, and thus your body. Since mitochondrial function is at the heart of everything that happens in your body, optimizing it is extremely important for good health and disease prevention. For example, one of the universal characteristics of cancer is serious mitochondrial dysfunction with radically decreased numbers of functional mitochondria. A disruption of your circadian rhythm, and therefore your secretion of melatonin and subsequent effect on mitochondria, has been associated with aberrant cell proliferation and cancer.12 Mitochondrial dysfunction also plays a central role in insulin resistance, the hallmark symptom of diabetes.13,14 Glucose and lipid metabolism are principally dependent on mitochondria to generate energy. Insulin resistance from mitochondrial dysfunction may contribute to subsequent increases in heart disease. Cell death and survival are critical to neurodegeneration, and mitochondrial function is an important determinant of both.15 The relationship between melatonin and mitochondrial function has led to the emergence of melatonin as a potential therapeutic tool for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.16 How Much Light Is Too Much? Your body requires exposure to bright daylight, especially in the early morning, to produce healthy amounts of melatonin each night. While melatonin helps regulate sleep and protects your mitochondria, that isn’t all it does. It is also a free radical scavenger that helps support your immune system and thymus gland, and helps you feel good in the morning. It also may protect your brain against aging. Your body secretes all the melatonin it needs based on natural circadian rhythms that are largely reliant on light. Getting sunlight in the morning is one way to help reset your circadian clock daily. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight sends a strong message that it’s time to rise and shine. In this way, your body is less likely to be confused by weaker light signals later in the day. My rule of thumb is, if there is enough light in your bedroom at night to see your hand in front of your face, then there is too much light. Your body requires light during the day to produce healthy amounts of melatonin, but at night light inhibits production. So, it’s difficult to get too much light during the day and easy to get too much at night. The problem of light pollution has become so pervasive that the American Medical Association (AMA) has issued statements warning against light at night. In 2012, during their annual meeting, the AMA voted on a policy recognizing that exposure to light at night can disrupt sleep and LED street lamps could create dangerous driving conditions.17 In 2016, the AMA again voted on guiding principles for the selection of public lighting options.18 The policy statement specifically addressed the new “white light” LED street lamps being erected around the U.S. to save energy, and the vote was unanimous.19 The concern is prompted by the color spectrum used in the LED street lights. The AMA recommends a color temperature no greater than 3000 Kelvin (k). The color temperature of the LED lighting currently being installed ranges between 4000 k and 5000 k, containing high levels of short-wavelength blue light in the spectrum. Color of Your Light Matters As detailed in my interview with Dr. Alexander Wunsch, a world class expert on photobiology, lighting is an important health consideration. Natural sunlight simply cannot be beat, but unless you spend a majority of your time outside, you'll need to give some serious consideration to the kind of artificial lighting you use at home and at work. Not all artificial light is created equally. The LED lights installed in major cities are harsh, triggering complaints from local residents. Blue lighting from LED lights reduces contrast at night and therefore reduces visibility. While this limits everyone’s ability to see potential danger, it is especially difficult for people over 50 to see well in this lighting.20 According to the AMA statement:21 “Unshielded LED lighting causes significant discomfort from glare. Discomfort and disability glare can decrease visual acuity, decreasing safety and creating a road hazard. Various testing measures have been devised to determine and quantify the level of glare and vision impairment by poorly designed LED lighting.” Electric lighting is not inherently dangerous to humans or animals. However, it is important to balance safety at night against long term health. Light pollution has an effect on plants and animals, including preventing some trees from recognizing seasonal variations, and affecting the breeding cycles and foraging of wildlife.22 According to the AMA statement in 2016:23 "Despite the energy efficiency benefits, some LED lights are harmful when used as street lighting. The new AMA guidance encourages proper attention to optimal design and engineering features when converting to LED lighting that minimize detrimental health and environmental effects." Additionally, the AMA estimates that LED street lights have a five times greater impact on natural sleep rhythms than conventional street lamps they are replacing.24 Recent surveys have found these brighter residential blue wavelength street lights are associated with excessive sleepiness during the day, impaired daytime functioning, obesity and dissatisfaction with sleep quality. These effects may be improved when cities begin using LED lighting options operating at 3000 k or less, often called warm white lights. These lights help balance the need for safety, reduced financial cost and smaller carbon footprint against your long-term health and the health of plants and animals exposed to external lighting. Use REVERSE Sunglasses After the Sun Sets In addition to eliminating all light exposure when you go to bed, it is also really important to filter light after sunset. The only light source our ancient ancestors had at night was from fire, which has virtually no blue or green light. Exposure to these light frequencies after the sun sets virtually assures that you will lower your melatonin and melanopsin levels. It also increases your risk of blindness from macular degeneration. So, head on over to Amazon25 and pick up a pair of reverse sunglasses to protect your vision after dark. The glasses are only $9 and they are far superior to traditional blue-blockers as they also filter out the yellow and green that can impair retinal health. They are my absolute new favorite now, and I only use the amber blue-blockers during the day when I need to lecture in a dark hall illuminated by artificial light. Also Beware of Electromagnetic Frequency Emitted From Electronic Light Sources While wearing a sleep mask may help reduce the amount of light seeping through your eyelids, it is also important to address the electromagnetic field (EMF) emitted from electronic devices that is at least as dangerous as the light. Although blue light at night reduces your melatonin secretion, and therefore antioxidant protection for your mitochondrial function, EMF from electronic devices also damages mitochondria by producing oxidative damage. Thus, your computer, cell phone and other electronic devices may be doing double duty health damage. One major concern of exposure to EMF has been the development of cancer.26 Scientists have long believed that cancer is initiated by damage to a cell’s genetic structure, but the initial damage can actually be traced to mitochondrial damage. DNA damage triggered by EMF also leads to changes in cell function and cell death. EMF sources in your home, such as WiFi routers, cell phones and microwave ovens, may increase your risk of cancer.27,28,29 In 2011 the World Health Organization (WHO) classified cell phone radiation as a 2B carcinogen, or possibly carcinogenic to humans.30 It is REALLY important that you turn off your Wi-Fi every night before you go to bed to minimize your exposure. In future articles I will discuss how you can use a Faraday cage to really improve protection from these sources. EMF also has a detrimental effect on the health of your brain, altering function and potentially fueling dementia. Even though measured EMF from cell phones is considered low, studies have demonstrated it can alter your brain function and activity.31 EMF from cell phones and Wi-Fi is also linked to changes in brain neurons that affect memory and the ability to learn.32 Interestingly, EMF from cell phones may also reduce the number of antioxidants available in your saliva, one of the first lines of defense your body has against microbial infections.33 Talking on a cell phone for up to one hour may reduce your salivary antioxidant levels by 25 percent. The proximity of your parotid salivary glands to where your cell phone is held during a conversation increases exposure to EMF. EMF Found Where You May Not Expect It and How to Guard Your Health Protecting yourself from EMF radiation begins by knowing what devices are emitting EMF and then developing alternatives to reduce exposure. This is not an exclusive list, but while you may have expected to see some of the devices on the list, others may come as a surprise. ✓ Cellphones ✓ Cordless phones ✓ Bluetooth headsets ✓ Refrigerators ✓ Radios ✓ Televisions ✓ Wi-Fi modems and routers ✓ TV remote controls ✓ Microwave ovens ✓ Alarm clocks ✓ Lamps ✓ Outlets ✓ Powerlines and cell phone towers ✓ Smart meters (transmitting your utility usage wirelessly to your utility company) ✓ Computers including laptops, e-readers and tablets The importance of the health of your mitochondria cannot be overstressed. Read about how you can protect your mitochondrial health in several of my previous articles: How Your Mitochondria Influence Your Health Are There Benefits to Blue-Blocking Glasses? Want a Good Night's Sleep? Then Never Do These Things Before Bed Cancer as a Metabolic Disease — A New Look at an Old Foe One of the strategies I’ve recently started having great success with is a modified Faraday cage over my bed. You may easily incorporate shielding material at home using different types of EMF conductive fabric for different applications, such as bedding, curtains or canopies. Remember, as you spend at least seven or eight hours each day in your bedroom, it is an important place to start reducing EMF exposure. If building your own bed canopy with proper conductive material is not something you want to attempt, you can purchase a bed canopy kit fitting twin to king size beds.

#VitalityPath

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harleytherapy · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Harley Therapy™ Counselling Blog

New Post has been published on http://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/what-is-paranoia.htm

What is Paranoia? And are you Suffering From It?

By: Benjamin Watson

Uncertain modern times can leave us all feeling a little paranoid now and then.

But when does paranoia shift from moments of uncertainty to a real psychological concern?

What is paranoia?

As a general term, paranoia is the belief you are being threatened or secretly persecuted by something or someone, even if you have no proof that you are. The thoughts might be occasional or constant.

Many of us experience general paranoia at some time or another. Global events can be a trigger – suddenly you feel afraid to do things you previously took for granted (read our piece on ‘Anxiety from Global Events‘ if this sounds familiar).

Otherwise, you might experience paranoia from a period of high stress, too many days without sleep, or after using drugs or alcohol.

But for most of us, paranoia is fleeting. It’s when paranoia is long-term and directly affects the quality of your life and your ability to relate to others that it becomes a problem.

Long-term, psychologically acute paranoia can have many faces. It can be something small behind your paranoia, like being certain the colleague you sit next to at work is out to get you, or something far bigger, like being sure that the government is spying on you.

Symptoms of Paranoia

The following can be the signs you are suffering from paranoia:

anxious thoughts that are irrational (you can’t prove them correct)

feeling very suspicious and unable to trust those around you

bouts of fear and feeling powerless

feelings of anger and argumentative

physical signs of anxiety (heart racing, muscle tension, etc)

sure that others are ‘out to get you’

constantly accusing others of things

possible belief you are the victim of a conspiracy

always looking for hidden motives

feeling betrayed

difficulty forgiving others and often hostile

defensive and sure everyone is criticising you even when they claim they are not

hyper-vigilance (always on the lookout for threat and can’t relax).

When is it just paranoia, when is it a psychological disorder?

By: Son of Groucho

It depends on how long paranoia has been a problem for you, how acute your paranoia is, and how pervasive it is.

Paranoid personality disorder involves being distrustful and suspicious of others since at least young adulthood. And this way of thinking will pervade all areas of your life (read more in our piece on ‘What is Paranoid Personality Disorder?).

If your long-term issue is more than suspicion, but that you consistently feel you are being watched or followed, it could be a sign of schizophrenia.

But I’m not having delusions, am I paranoid or not?

Delusions happen when your irrational paranoid thoughts grow so strong you are completely convinced they are real, even when others show you solid proof they are not.

So you are can still suffer from paranoia without it getting to the delusional level where you think, for example, that you are connected to royalty (delusions of grandeur) or that you are being stalked by extraterrestrials.

If your bizarre beliefs continue a month or more, you might have what is called ‘delusional disorder’. Note that this disorder only affects your thoughts, contrary to any idea that you ‘see things’ (read our article on ‘Delusions vs Hallucinations‘ for more on this).

I worry a lot about bad things happening, am I paranoid?

If you have always been the sort to worry that the world is dangerous, it might be a character trait or a core belief from an unstable childhood. It’s only when you feel that things will go wrong because other people or forces are out to get you that your negative thoughts are paranoia.

Of course if your worry is leaving you with the symptoms of anxiety, it’s worth talking to a counsellor or psychotherapist about it.

What do paranoid thoughts sound like?

By: Paul Downey

Sometimes thoughts of an impending danger are not paranoia, they are practical and very real. For example, if there is a local park where several people were recently attacked, you’d be right to be nervous and avoid it at night.

Paranoid thoughts are generally not based on any facts, they can be vague and stories that change track, and other people will not share your thoughts. Instead, others will be surprised, and either reassure you or try to prove to you how your thought is not true at all. Of course if you really are suffering full-blown paranoia, this won’t help. You’ll still feel worried and afraid.

Here are some examples of paranoid thinking:

Everyone at school is always trying to upset me on purpose, I’m sure of it. For example, it is no accident that when someone threw food in the hall it landed on my locker.

My family is secretly plotting to steal all my money and bring me down.

My supervisor is always speaking in tricky ways with double meanings and little hints, all designed to make me feel inferior.

My neighbour wants to kill me, that’s why they left broken glass outside.

My council has cameras set up to watch me.

Every time I go to work there is a man on the same train platform as me and I am sure he is sent by my ex-wife to spy on me.

What causes people to have problems with paranoia?

Like most psychological conditions, paranoia tends to be a mix of different factors that change from one person to the next.

An unstable childhood or childhood trauma can be a factor. This could be an unstable parent, an environment that proved real danger to your wellbeing, or a parent who was unnecessarily strict and disciplining.

A childhood growing up in poverty could also be an influence. The feelings of powerlessness, victimisation, and discrimination that living in a lower socioeconomic bracket can bring have been found to contribute to the thought patterns that lead to paranoia.

Some people who suffer paranoia have been found to have brains that work differently to others. They don’t have the same faculties of reasoning. If this does not directly cause the paranoia, it causes social stress which would could then lead to paranoia.

Mental health conditions related to paranoia

Conditions that have paranoia as a symptom include:

paranoid personality disorder

psychosis

schizophrenia

schizoaffective disorder

delusional disorder

social anxiety.

Mental health issues that often come hand-in-hand with paranoia include:

depression

anxiety

sleep problems

relationship problems

constant loneliness.

Do I need help for my paranoia?

You don’t have to be convinced you have a serious mental health disorder to get help for your paranoia. In fact it’s much better to seek professional support before things worsen.

Paranoia is known to leave many people feeling isolated, lonely, and depressed, all of which is difficult to manage

In general, it’s time to seek support if you find your paranoia upsetting, or if it’s directly affecting the quality of your everyday life and your capacity to function well.

Of course if you do feel you might have a mental health disorder, do seek a proper diagnosis. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has also been found to be helpful for treating extreme paranoia. And the trusting relationship therapy creates can help you understand others and their intentions better and with time feel less guarded and fearful.

Would you like to speak to someone about your paranoia? Harley Therapy puts you in touch with some of the UK’s top therapists. Unable to reach one of our London locations? We also connect you with Skype therapists.

Still have a question? Want to share your experience of paranoia with our readers? Use the comment box below.

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