Month: March 2016

I’m worried about the polarization

of human political discussion.

In my lifetime, I’ve never before felt like the everyone is either a Conservative or a Liberal. I didn’t even think about their political thoughts.  I just met them as people.  Their political leanings didn’t enter into my judgement of their character.  But over the last 10 years, I have evolved an unconscious bias of judging people based on conservative or liberal.   ITS VERY DISTURBING.

The reason that I do this new character assessment is that for the last 10 years I have been breathing the ether of the internet on a daily basis.   When I’m on Twitter or Tumblr or Reddit – politics is everywhere.  Memes abound.  And what is interesting is that these people who post all seem to agree with ME.

Because the internet serves us our portions with algorithms that assess what we like and then give us more of that, our politics become a defining character of our internet experience.  Google, Twitter, Tumblr  all know that I’m liberal.  They feed me what I want to see.

Some of it I do to myself.  I chose my followers in Twitter – my first social media experience based on some things I was avidly interested in at the time.  Those things tend toward the liberal side of the coin – science and skepticism.  Then I started to play Favstar on Twitter.  I naturally followed the other people whose funny tweets I liked.  I, of course, thought tweets that reinforced my own liberal bias were funnier.   So I was choosing my own echo chamber.   I started on tumblr by following all my twitter followers and so it went.

I’m keenly aware that I’m living in an internet bubble because I work in a conservative fish tank.  There are 3 liberals and 47 conservatives where I work.   And this reminds me daily that being a conservative is NOT a character flaw.  Which is the message that is served to me daily in twitter and tumblr.

I’ve tried not to create my own echo chamber at WordPress.  We will see if it works.

Here’s the thing.  These echo chambers isolate our viewpoint.  They reinforce it and coax it out toward the edges of extremism.  Because there is nothing to temper it.  To remind us that perfectly reasonable people have different views.

The isolation of a viewpoint is how they create a terrorist.  They physically isolate them from seeing any other viewpoint and then keep hammering in the same ideas.  And those ideas become the ONLY way.  The only right thing.  It makes an unnatural extremism seem normal and right.

On the internet, we don’t have to physically isolate ourselves to only see one view point.  We only have to go to our favorite hangouts.  And the algorithms and our natural tendency to choose people who agree with us will do the rest.   Of course we all experience real life, so we aren’t in danger of being terrorists, but we ARE in danger of creating an unnatural dichotomy.  Of a confirmation bias that is setting us up for failure.

I’ve read from credible sources that this extreme polarization has happened before in the US, and I suppose it’s happened elsewhere.  But I can’t help seeing that uniqueness of our current lives on the internet is contributing.

That girl with the bad attitude.

I think there are 2 different kinds of “bad attitude” people. (In the US we often label complainers as having a bad attitude)

There’s people who resent having a job that for one reason or another they don’t like. So everything is wrong and they have no interest in a solution because they get their satisfaction from the complaint.

And then there’s the people who care. They care deeply and they get angry when things are going badly and no one is fixing it. They complain as well.

A key to good management is sorting the difference. You can turn the people people who care into idea generating dynamos. They come up with effective ideas and make managers look awesome.

The thing is – it is easy to just lump anyone who gripes into a pile of bad attitude and dismiss them with a big “no one likes change” response. But the reality is that it is a bad management technique not to listen to anyone. And it is worse if you can’t discern who is complaining because they resent the job and who is complaining because they actually care about the job.

Complaints are the most important thing a manager can listen to. That is where you get the information you need to make things better.

Female Warriors, a metaphor with troubles.

I struggle with depression and anxiety.  I’ve recently adopted a personal metaphor of being a warrior against the parts of my brain that don’t function as they should.

So occasionally I search for a female warrior image that matches the emotional state of my struggle.

And this is when I became hyper aware of the weird fetishizing of women as warriors.  Maybe I shouldn’t even call it a fetish because those images predominate.

It is nearly impossible to find an image where the breasts are not carefully delineated and huge.  And many just show the breast naked. I’ve seen images where the woman is naked and has a leather strap around her waist while she carries a sword.

Then there’s the weird poses.  You know the ones I mean.  Just look at the cover of any book or movie poster with women in action roles and they are arching their back awkwardly to push forward the breast or their hips.  They are angled so their butts show, their dress is slit and their leg is up to show the thigh.  And generally the perspective of the viewer is such that a body part like the breast is the predominant feature of image.

In other words they are selling sexual suggestion.  The thing is that this is so predominant that it’s normal and I never paid much attention to it.  It’s been that way my whole life.  But when I wanted to select images that reflected my particular emotional state it became suddenly clear that finding images with any emotional state besides sexuality was going to be something of a challenge.

So I try very hard to avoid images that turn the woman into a sexual object instead of a warrior.  Its so demeaning to the very concept of warrior, isn’t it?  It basically says this woman is actually just a toy for men that is playing at being a fighter.  Don’t take her seriously.

I prefer my images to be she’s serious and possibly deadly.cb48c4d911ccc83280384d5f8cc963c7

Weekend Triumphs

imageI ended the week on a high note.  My brain has decided to climb over the rim of the Abyss of my depression and see the world.  Sunlight and Energy and Optimism.

I cannot even begin to tell you how magnificent that is.  I know it won’t last, but while I’m here I’m glorying in it.

Friday I looked up 3 recipes and put together a grocery list for them and then after work I went to the grocery store and shopped like grown up for the ingredients.   Most of you are wondering why that sentence is something wondrous to me.  Well, I hate to shop, I buy the same things everytime shop, and those things are always cheap frozen meals and sandwich fixings and cat food.  So this was a triumph of mental energy for me.

Yesterday a UTI that had been hovering annoyingly in the background for 2 days decided to get serious.  So I went to the Little Clinic and got tested and meds.  Like a grown up.  Again, you are thinking – uh, that seems like a normal thing to do, Sara.  YES.  It is.  It’s a totally normal thing which last week I would not have done.  I would have abused ibuprofen and tried to drink more water and hoped/pretended that it would just go away before I died of a kidney infection.  Seriously.  So.  I’m loud and proud about my normal action to get antibiotics.

Then I came home and cooked and cleaned.  Like that was just a thing I do.  I know!  Its so weird and wonderful.

Today I want to buy shoes.  This, of course, sounds like a wonderful fun thing to do.  But for me its a THING.  First of all, I want to buy some expensive shoes from Mephisto because I’m a fat middle aged woman who needs good shoes.

So I had to wait for my tax refund to get them.  I got that on Thursday.  But then I spent my shoe money on my UTI.  This is annoying.  Now if I buy the shoes I am going to be using the money I had earmarked for car repair/maintenance.  That seems like a frivolous way to spend potentially necessary money for car stuff.

So now I’m debating.  I need new shoes in any case.  I think my ankle pain is because my current shoes have worn soles and so they are putting pressure on the joint in an odd way.   Also I’m fat.  I keep saying that because the scale yesterday was VERY RUDE to me.  I may need to start facing my eating habits.  But that’s off the subject.

The point, which I keep wandering away from, is should I buy the expensive shoes or just go to DSW and find something from the clearance rack?

I should probably go to DSW.  Sometimes you can find a great quality shoe for stupid cheap on clearance.  But that NEVER happens when you are actually looking for it.  It only happens when you are killing time while your friend is buying shoes or just shopping to be social with your sister or something.  Intention is never part of good deals.

Anyway, I’m in a good enough place that going to DSW is an actual possible thing I could do.  So that is in favor of that plan.

What do you guys think?  Go to the locally owned shoe store and get a good pair of shoes or just go to DSW or just stay home and cook?

Next up on It’s A Thought…. Women Warriors.  A metaphor with challenges.

Foolish Assumptions

So, the other day a troll landed on my site and told me I couldn’t use the term “It’s a Thought” because he wrote a book with that name.

I decided not to feed the troll and among the very valid reasons was a petty one.  I thought he used “It’s” wrong because he used an apostrophe.  I have been using its instead of it’s for the contraction it is.  Convinced that I was doing it right.

Then K E Garland and I started to chat about it and she pointed out, quite kindly, that I was wrong.  

Here’s the thing.  I was utterly sure.  I didn’t question myself.  I didn’t check it.  I was SURE so there was no need to check it.

Think about that for a while.  I mean apostrophes are unimportant in the grand scheme of things.  It’s just a funny “I’m an idiot” story.  I have had this happen to me before.  On a much larger and more soul horrifying way.  But it points to the fact that I am wrong about other things that I don’t even know to question.

How many things in my life are there that I am so convinced of that I don’t even think about them and I’m WRONG.  How Many?     This is a silly reminder to stay vigilant to my assumptions.

Hundreds and Hundreds of tiny assumptions and some of them are WRONG.

Review of A Cat

3 out of 5 stars

Seller did not mention that parts continually fall off the model. Small, barely detectable parts then accumulate on all surfaces in detectable amounts. Its apparently supposed to do that, but its seriously inconvenient.

There was an attempt on the part of the manufacturer to create a system, within the model I obtained, to collect the parts before they fall off and then eject them in one place. But this is VERY disgusting and the ejection often takes place in a place inconvenient to myself.

Overall, I cannot recommend the model to anyone who has an issue with deep cleanliness.
There are redeeming “cute” and “cuddly” features, which keeps me from just throwing out the model in favor of a new vacuum cleaner. It’s probably a personal preference.

If you choose to keep the model, I would recommend training yourself to accept and ignore the constant interference that will be inflicted on you.  Since you chose to keep it, you probably love it, so throwing it across the room is not an option, however justified it may seem objectively.  Instead you must learn to adjust your daily functions to accommodate for whatever it wants to do. Because, its going to do it regardless.

Its the People, Not the Stuff

I think life is not about what you have, or where you are, or even what you have done.  Life is about who you are with and the moments you share with them.

We forget that because our culture emphasizes what kind of home you have, what kind of clothing  you have, what kind of phone you have.  The first thing people want to know about you is what you do.  And we play the ‘places we have been” at parties like its a trump card.

We pursue the larger home, the better career, and newest thing because we think these things are the key to happiness.

But all of that is just the supportive structure for who you are with.  Because the interactions between people are how we define ourselves and how we enjoy our lives.

Our happiest moments are when we are with people we love.  People are important.  Everything is just support for that forgotten fact.

We think that going on vacation will make us happy.  But its not the vacation, its the people we enjoy the vacation with that make us enjoy it.  We think having a large home will make us happy, but not if you are lonely in your large home.

I’m a depressed introvert and I still know this is true.  I may not always want to in the same room with people, but people are the substance of all the best moments of my life. And the worst.

Our culture has made us forget the essential thing that makes human life bearable is humans.  The moments between us are the real value in our lives.

 

When where you live is not your home.

“How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough.” – Patrick Rothfuss

Two and  a half years ago I moved into this apartment.  I did not choose it.

This apartment is part of a housing subsidy for the mentally ill.  I qualified because my depression had been so nonfunctional that it caused me to be homeless.

I was grateful to get it.

However, my sisters, in an utterly misguided attempt to help a homeless woman with a mental illness, had put most of my belongings into a storage locker for me so I wouldn’t lose them while I was homeless.

They effectively turned my belongings into a physical reminder that my stuff had more value to my sisters than I did.   And so as much as I longed to just never see my stuff again, I had to let my sisters get it out of storage because they were paying a monthly fee for it.

They moved my things into my new shelter.  An apartment I didn’t choose.  They unpacked a few boxes that day before they left.

I didn’t unpack anything else for 2 months after they left and then I flunked my first inspection because I didn’t unpack.  So I unpacked.  MOSTLY.

I left 3 boxes – one with all of my pictures, one with a bunch of kitchen stuff and one with I don’t know what.  I have never opened it. And clearly I don’t miss it.

Before this time, I was very particular about the space where I lived.  I always decorated and surrounded myself with things that I loved.  Things that mattered to me.

But those things that I used to surround myself with belong to a different me.  Those things, in boxes now, represent a lot of emotional turmoil for me.  They didn’t belong to me anymore.  They belong to my sisters, who paid for their continued existence.  Just like this place where I live doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the depression.

I have enough.  I have shelter and furniture and safety.  I eat food. I have enough.

I used to have things that were a delight to me.  I used to have a home.

I want a home.  I want to be able to take delight in the world that surrounds me.  I’m thinking about how to make that happen.

I do not picture myself throwing out everything in the apartment in a great purge.  Although it sounds rather delightful.

I think I need to throw some things out and make friends again with others.  I think I need to allow myself to decorate this apartment.  To let it be a home.

Amazon is drunk. Someone call a taxi.

I clicked on “My Amazon” – which is a list of recommendations based on my viewing history.  Its seemed kind of OK.  And then it became clear that Amazon was abusing the punch bowl at this party.

First was the insult.tumblr_inline_o3xvjlc1251rnoq8u_540

Then it got that weird thing where things don’t add up:tumblr_inline_o3xvpslrmb1rnoq8u_540

And then it just stopped making any sense AT ALL:tumblr_inline_o3xvrjxosf1rnoq8u_540

And then things just got to be freaky creepy: tumblr_inline_o3xvtxb1ir1rnoq8u_540

Someone REALLY needs to call the taxi for Amazon.