Wind and Sand

I grew up near the Indiana Dunes. I spent many wonderful hours and days in the park--climbing dunes and running down at breakneck speed, playing on the beach, tobogganing down the hills in winter, making out with my high school boyfriend. Something about the sand, the wind, and the water made them a special place. I spent the last few days on Cape Cod. Not quite the dunes, but sand and wind for sure. The hills are smaller, the water bigger, but the feel is very similar. Walking along the beach looking for shells and stones, walking through dune grasses, sand in your shoes, wind in your face--LOTS of wind in your face! It has been a nice refreshing break from work, especially after the last few weeks.

Metaphors, Part II

So, it turns out that today my lecture in Population Issues was about world population growth and some of the concerns about overpopulation. Over the years I've collected quotes about population and shared a few with my class. I asked them to think about what kind of metaphors we use to talk about population. Most are "animal based." We talk about breeding like rabbits, for instance. One quote talks about the population resembling a writhing mass of maggots...very colorful.

But, if we use that language to talk about population growth, what are we saying. By comparing overpopulation (really, unchecked fertility) to animals we are comparing the people who have "too many" kids to animals. They can't control their animal instincts; they breed or mate, rather than bear children; sex is not a romantic encounter, but an uncontrolled mating act. Of course, if we take away the human dimension, it makes it easier to see the problem as an animal control problem--sterilization, planned culls of the herd, etc.

How does the language we use change the way we view the problem and the solution?

Metaphors

I've always been a big fan of metaphors, although I never paid much attention to them. I have to admit that it wasn't until a graduate course in the sociology of medicine that I really understood how the language we use to discuss an issue conveys multiple meanings. I was a late bloomer....We were reading Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor." Obviously, it was about metaphors. It was the first time I had thought about terms like "war against cancer" "magic bullets" "battling disease"...like I said, a late bloomer in the language department. But, since then, I've been fascinated with the way we talk about life. In todays NYTimes, David Brooks wrote about just this topic in a column "Poetry for Everyday Life." Research shows that we use a metaphor every 10 to 25 words...Wow, that is a lot of metaphorical speaking.

These are some of his examples...

"George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, two of the leading researchers in this field, have pointed out that we often use food metaphors to describe the world of ideas. We devour a book, try to digest raw facts and attempt to regurgitate other people’s ideas, even though they might be half-baked."

"But when talking about money, we rely on liquid metaphors. We dip into savings, sponge off friends or skim funds off the top."

I know I've talked about my life as a walk in the woods, with sunny clearings and steep hills. I've also tried to out the sand dune metaphor, with shifting landscapes and changing shorelines. Brooks points out that we are not very good at spiritual or abstract thinking, so we need metaphors to provide concrete anchors for our thoughts. We need to compare new things to things we already know, we need to create those connections to make sense in our world. Metaphors are a way of doing that, a way of creating sense. What I really like about this though, is that metaphors are the cornerstone of poetry. It makes us all poets.

Gamification

So, I heard this story on NPR this morning about "gamification." The idea is to apply principles of games to everyday problems and situations. The example given was an effort in Sweden to control speeding. In addition to issuing tickets and fines for those who exceed the speed limit, drivers who were caught driving at or under the limit were entered into a lottery with the chance to win a portion of the fines. It is an apparent success. The argument is that positive incentives, a key feature of games, are more powerful than negative sanctions.

What I found more interesting in the story was the SAPS model described by a marketing guru. SAPS stands for status, access, power and stuff. The guy, Gabe Zicherman, argues that these are the things that motivate people, and in that order.

I know in academia we often talk about needing to show someone the love--that faculty members like to be recognized, made to feel important, thanked for their efforts. Sure, we all like money, but money is not all that we need or want. Isn't it the same in most business and personal relationships? What we want is to be recognized, to have access to another person, to feel powerful? "Stuff" is way down the list.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/27/134866003/gamifying-the-system-to-create-better-behavior

Work-Family Boundary issues

The most recent issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior has an interesting article about the stresses created by the blurring of the work-family boundary. The study looked at the effect of the frequency of work-related contact outside of normal work hours on feelings of guilt and distress. They measured things like taking work-related calls at home or bringing work home. The use of cell phones and email make such contact increasingly likely. I would say there isn't a day that I receive work related emails after 5 pm or a weekend day in which I receive no work-related emails. And, the expectation usually is that I will respond to those that evening or on the weekend.

The study concludes that this "boundary spanning" between work and family has a negative psychological effect on women, but not men. This distress is exhibited mainly through feelings of guilt by women. This guilt tends to persist even when the actual performance of the role is controlled. That is, women feel guilty even if they are not diminshing their performance at either work or home.

I have set aside one full week a year in which I don't look at email and don't answer the phone. There is a little bit of withdrawal, but overall, I find it quite liberating.

Living longer

In my population class last week we were talking about aging and longer lives. I asked whether any of them would be interested in extending their life by 50 years, and got few takers. (I did ask this, though, just as we are approaching midterms, the March doldrums, and have had over 150 inches of snow. Still, my class has me a little worried and I've decided we need to lighten things up a little in there...)

By chance, I was just reading a NY Times article about David Murdock and his quest to live to 125. That is the about the oldest age ever recorded, and about where many scientists put the maximum human life span. His efforts have led him to adopt a diet rich in vegetables and whole grains. He has cut out dairy products, red meat, and sugar.

There is considerable doubt that such a plan will really work. But, it will be interesting to see how well he does. So far, he is looking pretty healthy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06murdock-t.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Apodictic

ἀποδεικτικός

I learned a new word the other day...apodictic. It means "clearly established, incontrovertible, beyond dispute." I love it! I only wish I could apply it to some real world situation.

I ran across the word while reading an article on immortality to prepare for class. The article talks about some of the potential drawbacks for long life. One of these, perhaps, could be the inability for us to remember our earlier "self."

I usually ask my class about their earliest memory. For most it is around age 4 or 5. If I think back about my childhood my earliest memory seems impossible. It involves taking my older sister to nursery school. I imagine it was in the spring, so the year would have been 1959 and I would be just 2 years old. On the road to the nursery school water has covered a large section, it is flooded. My mother tries to drive through the area and our car stalls in the middle. Here she is with 3 young girls, stuck in the flooded road. A farmer comes with a tractor and pulls us out. Do I really remember that event? I think I do. I know I remember being in the nursery school building before I myself went there. On the other hand, I always tell my class I remember virtually nothing of third grade. I don’t remember where my classroom was in the building, although I remember every other one. I don’t remember the name of my teacher. The only thing I remember from that year was being kept in from recess one day to be tested to see if I should skip to fourth grade. I failed, and stayed a third grader.

Does it matter if we can remember things from our earlier life? One theory is that the brain has limited capacity for storage and so "trivial" events are jettisoned. At the same time, the memories we keep may not be very reliable over time. They are shaped by later events, by changes in feelings and the stories of others.

So, here is the quote that caught my attention: "Whether or not that 'memory' is veridical is probably impossible to determine, but its role in giving coherence and continuity to existence does not depend on the memory being apodictic." My interpretation: It doesn't matter if what you remember is an accurate recall of reality. It only matters that it means something to you.