Two Ways to Forget About a Guy

Classisa is 12 years old. She has been dating Geordie for about a week. In this week, dating has meant that they’ve sat next to each other at lunch, and on the weekend, they went to the movies and held hands.

Clarissa got dropped off by her mom at her friend Jamie’s house. After fumbling with the doorknob since she was holding two sweaters and two nail polish containers in her hands and didn’t have a bag with her, she went in and upstairs to Jamie’s hot-pink-color room. Jamie’s mom always left the house door open for the neighbors to come in at any time.

Jamie was on her bed reading some Asimov (a hand-me-down book from her brother) with Modest Mouse blasting on her computer. Clarissa dropped her small armload onto the end of the bed, and said, dramatically, “That’s it. I want it to be over.” Jamie blew a watermelon-smelling bubble, turned over, closed her book, and sat up. “Why?” she asked slowly, wanting to draw out the details from Clarissa patiently and slowly.

“I think he likes Liz,” answered Clarissa, looking towards the hardwood floor. Continue reading “Two Ways to Forget About a Guy”

Should You Try to Get Out of a Bad Mood?

It’s a bit contradictory but in the holiday season at the same time that people get into great moods being around friends and family, sometimes people also get into bad moods. And it might have to do with the more somber winter weather. It might have to do with exercising less and eating more. Or it might have nothing to do with anything, and might just be a temporary, brief bad mood – which could happen to any person in any season for any reason.

What do you do? The first question is, should you try to get out of your bad mood, or should you stay in it, and sulk in it, and breathe it in, and bathe in it?

It depends whether the bad mood is from a temporary occurrence or from something significant. If somebody died, or a person breaks up with a girlfriend or boyfriend, or if a close friend moves far away, or if a work project goes terribly, awfully wrong, then that is likely much more than just a bad mood. That is the significant end of something. You may need to be alone. You may need to grieve. Grieving is extremely important in order to go “through” an experience as opposed to denying that something exists. As a wise friend of mine says,

Remember to feel what you feel.

Feelings are there to be felt. Especially in times of grief. A science-expert friend of mine told me that she heard that it is clinically considered that the average period of grief for a person’s death is two months, and that after two months, grief is considered psychiatrically abnormal, and psychiatrists often start to prescribe medications. I think that is absolute baloney. Grief takes as long as it takes. And it takes a different length of time for different people and for different situations.

On the other hand, if the bad mood comes because one person said something mean to you or because of no reason at all, then that may very well be a bad mood you want to ditch. If it’s temporary, if it’s a bad mood for a small reason, then there’s no reason to dwell on it. In the long run, just about everything seems small, so if it’s a small thing, then why not drop it? Why not live forward?

And if the bad mood is for no reason at all? A gardener friend of mine used to say,

Sometimes sadness is just the last drop that overflows the barrel.

And to me that was always very visual because I could see the barrel below the front porch, and I could imagine a light rain overflowing it slowly. Sometimes a bad mood comes on just like that.

This is primarily the case I want to talk about – the bad mood for no reason. Yes, a person could stay in that mood for a long, long time. A person could decide not to go anywhere, do anything, no exercise, no going out to see friends, and just dwell and sulk in the bad mood.

But that bad mood would stay. That’s the problem. If you do nothing to get rid of it, it is very easy for a bad mood to stay around. Why do bad moods , if not countered, stick around?

  • Because people are inertia-prone. People prefer not to change things. So many products offer money-back guarantees… because people don’t return things once they receive them.
  • Because the more, the more. The more you go out and enjoy life and, for example, go bowling with other people, the more you’ll enjoy it and want to do this more. And the more you stay in bed and don’t do anything, the more you’ll want to do this.
  • Because something needs to occupy your mind space, and only actively driving out the bad mood can make it leave your mind space. Unless you push bad moods out of the way, bad moods do not leave on their own. A reason to go away does not “just appear”. One of two things has to happen: you find something that occupies your time more than the bad mood or the bad mood has to be so bad that you start to rebel against it (the bad mood may have influenced you to act in ways that do worse things to yourself). In both cases, you need to actively drop the bad mood (by focusing on something else or by rebelling against the bad mood) in order to move on.

So given that bad moods need to be actively shaken off, how generally do you do it?

A friend of mine is a doctor, and when she was first in medical school, she decided that she’d do an experiment on herself. One week, she got terribly sick with a flu-like cold, and all the symptoms of headache, runny everything, no voice, drowsy… and her roommate got sick the same way. So they decided to see who would get better faster – one person was the control who would do nothing – just stay sick, sulk in it, stay in bed, grumble. And one person would take hot showers three times a day to clear up the breathing, wash off the old sickness, would put on clean clothes, clean sheets. Who do you think got better first? Voila, unsurprisingly, the girl who kept removing signs of the sickness.

So one answer is to know that you will need to take some action to shake the bad mood off (the metaphorical equivalent of lots of hot showers and change of clothings). If you’re trying to get out of your bad mood, what specifically should you do? To be addressed in detail tomorrow.

The Secret History of Thanksgiving

As we celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie or pumpkin pie, and gathering family and friends, what do we remember about the origins of this tradition? We’ve heard that this tradition grew the first year when Pilgrims settled into Plymouth, Massachusetts when the Pilgrims brought together all their harvests and celebreated their bountiful foods.

The big secret is that the Pilgrins arrived in the fall of 1620, and the first year of harvest of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, 1621, was absolutely terrible, and resulted in a famine. So did the second year. And then in the third year, 1623, something dramatically changed about how the Pilgrims chose to govern themselves, and it is that that led to the bountiful first harvest, and to the gathering around and sharing the great food.

Here is the first person account by the Governor of the British colony in Plymouth at the time, William Bradford, of the years between 1600 and 1622:

* 1621, The first harvest was shared communally among all the families and was very small. Furthermore, from the time they had arrived, abundance had decreased significantly.
“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter … every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees).”

* There had been very little supply up until 1623.
“All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery.”

What was the something that changed before the harvest of 1623, the first abundant harvest? William Branford writes:

* This was the DECISION OF THE PILGRIMS in 1623:
To give each family some land to farm on their own as opposed to having communcal farming and communal land
.
“At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other thing to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”

Why did having the private land for each family result in much stronger crops than having a communal shared farming? William Bradford answers this question also with his 1620’s explanation of shirking – he claims that there is no increased happiness in communcal living and that shirking goes away when people farm for themselves as opposed to for others.

* No increased happiness from communal living.
“The experience that was had in this common course … that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”

* Communal living had hurt everyone – young men, strong men, aged men, and women who were as slaves, says Bradford.
“For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.”

* In fact, and Bradford writes firmly about this point, communal living and treating all people the same actually ‘diminish[es] and take[s] off the mutual respects’ that people would naturally have towards one another.
“Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike … it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. … I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them. “

In 1623, there was a DECISION that changed everything, and it is because of that decision that we now celebrate Thanksgiving.

Lesson and Take-Away: People take incomparably better care of something that belongs to them personally than they do of communal property.

Sources:
* William Bradford: History of Plymouth Plantation, c. 1650 (exerpts, entire book in google books)
* More information about the secret history of Thanksgiving can be found here, here, here, and an account dating to 1607 with the Virginia settlement before the Plymouth settlement here.
* If you want to google and search for this real history of thanksgiving, search for the words “thanksgiving private property“.

My 10 Favorite Books

My favorite ten books – that I would take to a deserted island, that I return to every year or few years, that I think about often, that I give copies of to my friends … here they are!

Number 10 – several book tie for tenth:
Learned Optimism by Seligman, The Happiness Hypothesis by Haidt,
The Resilience Factor by Reivich/Shatte, Aging Well by Vaillant

Number 9 – The Best Short Stories of the Century

Number 8 – The Pathway by Laurel Mellin

Number 7 – The Grasshopper: Life, Games and Utopia by Bernard Suits

Number 6 – The Dot and The Line by Norman Juster

Number 5 – In My Father’s Court or Passions by Isaac Bashives Singer

Number 4 – The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Number 3 – Cheaper by the Dozen by the Galbraith children

Number 2 – The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Number 1 – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

What are your top ten favorite books?
Or top three favorites, off the top of your head?

This list will, of course, change from time to time, and I’ll update it here.

“Ivan and Abdul” by Bernard Suits – Whole Story

Ivan and Abdul – Part I
Ivan and Abdul – Part II

The story of “Ivan and Abdul” is by Bernard Suits, and ellipses are used to make sections briefer. If I had only ten books to take with me to a deserted island, this would be one of them: The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia by Bernard Suits, a story-based philosophical discussion about what makes games into games.

“Ivan and Abdul” by Bernard Suits – Part II

Continued from yesterday, Bernard Suits’ story of “Ivan and Abdul.” All words are by Bernard Suits. I have used ellipses to make some sections shorter.

———————————————————-
… unbeknownst to Ivan and Abdul, their game did indeed contain at least one rule of the required kind…. Let us awaken Ivan just before dawn on the appointed day and put this question to him.

‘Ivan, are you awake?’
‘I am. Who is it?’
‘I am the Voice of Logic, and I have a question to put to you.’
‘What time is it?’
“An hour before dawn.’
‘Put your question, then, but please be brief.’
‘The question is a short one. Why didn’t you destroy Abdul just as soon as you had decided to have a fight to the finish with him?’
‘Here is an equally short answer. Because I have no interest in destroying Abdul per se. I am interested in seeking to kill him only so that I can be battling him.’
‘Let me test that allegation, if you don’t mind.’
‘Test away.’

‘Very well. I tell you that Abdul is at this moment fast asleep in his bed. You can easily gain entrance to the embassy and kill him in his sleep, thus winning the battle with a minimum of risk by a stunning surprise attack.’
‘As you can see, I am not leaping from my bed and speeding to the embassy.’
‘Yes, I do see that, and it puzzles me very much.’
‘I don’t see why it should. If I kill Abdul before the game starts, then I can’t very well fight him, can I? If I killed him now, our game could never begin.’
‘You are saying that this game you are going to play has a starting time.’
‘Of course.’

compass ‘In other words, there is a rule which forbids you to make a move in the game before a certain agreed upon time.’
‘A rule, you say?’
‘Yes,’ responded the Voice of Logic inexorably, ‘a rule.’
‘Then,’ said Ivan, frowning and sitting up in bed, ‘our fight to the finish is not really a game without rules.’

‘Not if you stick to your dawn starting time.’
‘And I thought we had finally found a game without the artificiality of rules. How could we have missed this business of a starting time?’
‘Perhaps it was because you were so busy eliminating an ending time. But it is perfectly clear, is it not, that a starting time is just as much of an artifice as a finish time?’
‘Yes, it is.’

‘And now that you know this, you will of course at once sneak up on Abdul in his sleep and kill him, right?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have answered that question twice already. Damn it. I don’t want to murder Abdul – I like him, for God’s sake – I just want to play a game with him.’
‘Yes, I understand that. And you also want to play a game without rules that artificialy limits the means at your disposal for achieving victory. Isn’t that correct?’
‘Yes, it is.’ …

‘Well, if you are prepared to play such a game, I don’t see why you aren’t prepared to play any game. If, that is, you are prepared to accept what might be called an unnecessary obstacle in order to be able to play this game with Abdul, why not accept other unnecessary obstacles and play chess or tennis or golf with Abdul instead, and give up this folly of a fight to the finish? Either that, or admit that there is no reason to wait for the starting signal and kill Abdul now.’ Golf-Tennis

There is silence as Ivan turns this over in his mind. Then he leaps from his bed, flings on his clothes, and rushes wildly from the room.
‘Where are you going?’ cries the Voice of Logic.
‘I must reach Abdul before dawn!’ cries Ivan from the staircase.
‘To call off the game or to kill him?’ disjunctively queries the Voice of Logic.
But Ivan’s shouted reply is too muffled to understand as he rushes pell-mell through the dark and deserted streets.

statue Nearly half way to Abdul’s embassy Ivan sees a figure approaching at the opposite end of the short boulevard. It is Abdul. Has Abdul, too, been listening to the Voice of Logic? And is he hurrying to Ivan to call off the game, or to make a surprise attack? If Ivan can be sure that Abdul is making a surprise attack, then it is no surprise and the game can begin, for it has gained a starting time and the time is NOW.

But how can Ivan be sure that it is NOW unless he knows what Abdul’s purpose is? And Abdul may, of course, be in the same quandary. Ivan might shout, ‘Let’s call off the game!’ But Abdul might very sensibly take this to be a ruse on Ivan’s part for gaining an advantage. And Ivan, if Abdul called out the same proposal to him, would be foolhardy indeed to accept it out of hand as a genuine offer. Both stop in perplexed indecision.

And there they stand to this very day, in the form of two marble statues facing one another along the length of the Boulevard Impasse in the capital city of Rien-à-faire. At least that is the story the guides of Rien-à-faire tell to explain the sculptured confrontation along embassy row.
———————————————-

Thanks for reading! The story of “Ivan and Abdul” is by Bernard Suits, and ellipses are used to make sections briefer. If I had only ten books to take with me to a deserted island, this would be one of them: The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia by Bernard Suits, a story-based philosophical discussion about what makes games into games.

chess

“Ivan and Abdul” by Bernard Suits – Part I

What would you do if you were a retired general? At first, two generals in this situation are happy to reminisce. But soon they become bored, and start to wonder about what could be the ultimate game and competition between the two of them. The following is Bernard Suits’ writing from one of my ten favorite books of all time, and ellipses indicate where I have removed longer sections… enjoy!

———————————————————-
Ivan and Abdul … had been officers of general rank before each was retired and ‘elevated’ to the post of ambassador in the backwater capital of Rien-à-faire.

Medieval War Both had established brilliant military careers in the service of homelands which had frequently been at war with one another…. So the two warriors were overjoyed at the opportunity their appointments afforded them for going over all of their old campaigns together. But after a few month, when they had reviewed all the victories and defeats from every possible angle…, they grew weary of their reminiscences and sought other diversions.

Sport seemed an obvious pastime for a couple of shelved warriors to take up, since sport seemed to them to be a kind of substitute, or polite, kind of warfare. It soon became evident to them, however, that sports were like warfare only in the most superficial respects. Specifically, they found that sports were hedged round with the most outrageously arbitrary restrictions.

In golf, for example, you were expected to use a golf club to get your ball out of a sand trap even when your opponent could not see what you were doing. And in tennis, you were expected to call a ball foul or fair honestly even when your opponent was not in a position to check your call. Chess was no better, since surreptitiously to alter the location of pieces on the board — obviously an effective tactic — was ruled out. Golf-Tennis

But since they could find nothing better to do to occupy their time, they continued to play these games, although — as the diplomatic colony to its delight soon became aware — with a difference. Whenever the rules could be broken without detection or retribution, they were broken. …

Things reached their fated conclusion in a climactic chess match. … The first game proceeded normally for six moves. Then Ivan made the move which was the beginning of the end. Utterly ignoring the rules governing movement of the pieces, he illegally moved his queen to a square which put Abdul in check. The fascinated audience waited breathlessly for Abdul’s response to this outrage. It was not slow in coming. He simply removed Ivan’s queen from the board and put it in his pocket. Ivan in turn was quick to respond. In a trice he had nimbly rearranged the pieces on the board so that Abdul’s king was in checkmate, crying, ‘I’ve won!’

charlemagne chess

‘Wrong, my friend,’ screamed Abdul, and gathering up all of the pieces except his king, he flung them to the floor.
‘Abdul, you can’t do that,’ said Ivan in outraged tones. ‘I won the game the moment you were in checkmate.’
‘So you say,’ responded Abdul, ‘but you were obviously mistaken, for there stands my king, quite free to move.’

Ivan had not, of course, expected such a transparent tactic to succeed with the wily Abdul. It had merely been a diversionary move so that he could, while his opponent was momentarily distracted, secure Abdul’s king to the board with the quick-drying glue he had all along held ready in his hand beneath the table. Then, of course, before you could say ‘scimitar,’ Abdul snatched a bottle of solvent from his tunic and freed his king. Ivan’s hand immediately shot out towards the king, but Abdul grabbed his wrist in time to forestall the assault. For a full minute they were locked in a frozen tableau of force and counterforce (evoking spirited applause form the audience), before they broke apart, leapt from their chair and began to circle each other warily. …

They fought all that night
Neath the pale yellow light,
And the din it was heard from afar.
Huge multitudes came,
So great was the fame
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.

The legend then incorrectly goes on to recount the game as ending in a tie with mutual destruction of Abdul and Ivan, followed by some sentimental reference to a tomb rising up where the blue Danube flows….

In fact, the two friends met the following afternoon at their favourite cafe. Said Ivan, ‘My friend, that was the best chess game I’ve ever played.’
‘Oh, unquestionably,’ replied Abdul.
They drank their aperitifs in companionable silence. Then Ivan spoke again.
‘Still, there is something that bothers me.’
‘Indeed,’ said Abdul, ‘Perhaps, you know, the same thing is bothering me.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. If you are thinking what I am thinking you will have realized that it will be impossible for us to ever play chess again.’
‘Just so. The instant of setting out the pieces for a game would be the signal for us to start a battle whose weapons had nothing whatever to do with chess, since the only moves either of us will accept are moves that really coerce, either by force or by deceit. For, since we will not abide by the rules of the game, the winner can be only he who has gained final mastery of the situation. And, of course, it’s not only that we can no longer play chess. For the same reason, we can no longer play any game, for games require that we impose artificial restraints upon ourselves in seeking victory, and we refuse to do that.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ivan. …

‘…But an awful lot of people do seem to play chess and golf, you know, without getting into a brawl.’
‘Civilians, old boy, civilians.’
‘Still, Ivan, look at all we’re missing. I sometimes wish I could play by the rules.’
‘Wishes don’t cost anything, Abdul. The question is, can you play by the rules?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Of course not. We are what we are.’
‘Then it looks as though we’ll have to go back to reliving our past glories for the rest of our days. Maybe it’s just time to pack it in, Ivan, as a noble Roman would have done.’
‘I don’t think it has quite to come to that, my friend.’
‘You have an idea, Ivan, I can tell.’
‘A germ, Abdul, a germ. I’m going to sleep on it, however. Tomorrow at the same time?’
‘Very well. Till tomorrow.’

Next day Abdul found his friend already seated at their table at the cafe smiling broadly at the tumbler of vodka before him.
‘Tell me your idea at once, Ivan,” said Abdul, seating himself at the table.
‘At once, my friend, at once. I have thought about it all night and most of the day, and I am satisfied that the logic is absolutely compelling. There is one, and only one, game left for us to play.’
‘What game, Ivan? What logic?’
‘A fight to the finish, my friend.’
‘What! Ivan, you must be mad!’
Continue reading ““Ivan and Abdul” by Bernard Suits – Part I”

Penguins

Have you seen March of the Penquins? GREAT MOVIE! I highly, highly recommend it.

March of the Emperor Here is a great penguin spoof by CANAL+ about how sometimes it’s better to see a movie than talk about it!

In Europe, “March of the Penguins” was called “March of the Emperor.” ENJOY IT!!!

Also, here is the song Somebody by Queen from the movie Happy Feet.

penquins singing

Finally, in chinatown in NYC, there are chinese bakeries that make super-good-looking Penquin cookies!