And then you find something like this

And it makes your whole day a bit better. Because ultimately it's about people doing original and inventive things.

Fizzle

I haven’t written for a long time. The reason is, quite simply, that I didn’t want to. The reason for that (there’s always a reason for everything) was that I was simply too exhausted. Correction, I just am too exhausted. Well, not at this exact moment in time. I just slept for two hours on the couch and I think I can summon the energy to write a post. I guess some people might be getting worried about me; after all, this is the only way that some people can still check up on me. Is he posting? Good, he must still be alive.

My job has been demanding all my energy. First it was physical energy and now it has turned into mental energy. My body has been trained now, it can take running around for ten hours, five days in a row. The muscle aches are gone. The problem is that the job is becoming more and more mentally demanding.

And my brain is suffering. It isn’t used to getting hundreds of things stamped into it every day – at least not in the way that is required here. It isn’t used to the stress anymore. After all, from nine months of no full-time job I was thrown into something quite intense. It is adapting. New connections are being made and such; soon I’ll be able to do all that is required from me and still have energy afterwards, but I haven’t quite got there yet.

This is showing up in a couple of places. Firstly my memory has been shot to hell. Things slip out of it constantly. I lose pieces of paper, phone chargers and keys; I forget important days, other people’s business and what I’m doing. It is actually accompanied by a feeling. It feels like my brain is fizzing.

Secondly I’ve lost motivation. I’ve stopped reading anything mildly challenging, as it’s pretty much pointless; it won’t stick anyway. I’ve stopped posting here, as it won’t be worth reading anyway (my brain is generally far too scattered.) I’m way less positive than a few weeks ago; in fact I might be slipping into one of my regular depressions. Hopefully realising it might mean I can do something about it.

Don’t worry, it will all pass. In fact, that fact that I’m posting here might mean I’m starting to come out the other end. Or it might be that two hours of sleep I just had. Maybe it’s both. Besides, I know I’m learning. My brain is being rewired to deal with this line of work, which will no doubt be very useful somewhere in the near future. It’s important to be able to remember dozens of things at the same time. You never know when that will be useful.

I’m looking forward to the rewiring being done, because it’s so frustrating when things slip from your mind that you really should remember. I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes over the last few weeks and I hate making any kind of mistake, especially stupid ones. The brain is immensely adaptive and changeable. So hurry up and fucking well adapt. I’m getting sick of functioning below par.

Mass Hysteria

My three months in Goa still seem to be having their effect. I feel no desire to go out and party, dance or stay out all night. For the time being I’m content reading, working and learning. The only real excitement that I’m permitting myself is the football – and with good reason, for this is the one European Cup where the Dutch actually have a chance to win.

Truth be told, that isn’t the only reasons. I must say that I find the up welling of nationalistic quite entertaining. Over the years I’ve been in many countries and I’ve seen the different ways that people celebrate their country’s victories in different competitions and I have to give that to the Dutch, they certainly celebrate in more style than most. When I was in India, for example, and they were playing their world cup cricket matches the resulting exuberance was frightening at times. It was a type of mass hysteria that threatened to get violent on occasion. I haven’t had that feeling over here.

What is funny though is what my girlfriend mentioned two days ago. She said that in anthropology they talked about an observed phenomenon during mass rituals where people can do things that they normally wouldn’t be permitted to do. When you look at the orange mob on the TV screens they are engaged in behaviour that in normal circumstances would be odd at best, but is now considered acceptable and actually encouraged.

I had never considered that that is what festivals allows us to do (and that I had actually engaged in a similar type of behaviour) and that festivals are a sort of venting mechanism where we get to give in to a kind of hysteria and have it not be frowned upon by the people around us. And that, in turn, explains the attraction of festivals. It is where you can safely go nuts or watch other people go nuts.

Which, in turn, shows us the attraction of all going to Switzerland and Austria (places that aren’t really that far away) without stadium tickets and just go along with the insanity. It’s a lot like Halloween – except then for grown ups.

The implications of this thought haven’t completely registered on me, but I almost directly see parallels in other areas in life. For instance one thing that has always struck me as funny, but that fits perfectly with this kind of exuberance is what I call ‘the bikini phenomenon’, whereby it is perfectly acceptable to walk around with only a little bit of fabric covering your ‘private bits’ (i.e. on the beach or at the swimming pool) while in other places it would draw some completely shocked reactions (i.e. on a busy shopping street or on a terrace). The amount of clothing doesn’t change, how hot it is doesn’t change, but somehow the social acceptability changes completely.

And don’t even think about arguing that it’s acceptable in the former because we go swimming there while it isn’t acceptable in the latter because there’s no water nearby. Lots and lots of people go to the swimming pool to sunbathe without even going into the water once! And only two days ago I went to a fake beach (where I discussed the mass hysteria mentioned above) in the middle of a city, without anywhere to swim or get wet (no dirty thoughts here please) and it was still perfectly acceptable for everybody to wear bikinis and swimming shorts.

Sorry about the long pauses

Sunday I sent out my research article. I’m quite happy with it, actually. It was the best I could do with the time available and – unless they wanted me to analyse the numbers – it should be more than good enough to get me in. I wouldn’t have been able to write that kind of an article at the end of my time in university and then I wrote essays that generally got me A grades if I knew what I was talking about, so hey.

For the rest I’ve been working my ass off. I’m not exactly how many hours I worked in the last five days, but it was certainly over the legal limit. That doesn’t really bother me (I think that the rules which officially restrict you to like 38 hours are ridiculous) but what does bother me is the muscle aches I’ve been left with. My body really isn’t yet used to the kind of abuse that running around like a mad monkey of on steroids requires.

And that’s what my job requires. I realised a few days ago that since I started working at my job I hadn’t gone to the toilet even once during a shift. I simply ran all the liquid out of my body that I drank (which has led to the occasional headache, I admit).

It kind of feels like when I first started training my body. Everything hurt for weeks. Then I just kept going and after a while the pain went away. I’m hoping the same will happen here, because that’s the only option I’ve got (I can’t work slower, as then everything would fall apart. Nor do I want to work slower. Working fast is what makes this job survivable.)

So how long will I do this job? I imagine I’ll stop after the summer. It is fun, but I’d rather use my brain a bit more and my body a little less. It’s great to learn more control over my hands, feet and body in general (which is what jobs in bars, pubs and café teach you. After all, you can’t drop too many glasses in a day without losing your job!) but you should do what you’re really good at. I’m good at words, thoughts and ideas – not so much coffee, carrying plates and cleaning ashtrays.

Still, there’s still a great deal to learn here and while there’s something to learn (and money to be made) there’s a reason for me to be there.

Let’s hope there’s still something to learn till the end of the summer.

The Cafe Job

Isn’t it funny that the only time I’ve spent talking about my job has been when I just got it? Especially considering that I really do spend quite a lot of time there. Last week I worked four days (at an average of more than eight hours a day) and this week I’ll be spending five days there. I think that the reason is, quite simply, that it is just a job. It’s a way to make money so that I can continue doing the other things in my life that I need to do.

Not that I don’t like my job; it’s actually quite entertaining! Nor is it that I’m not learning anything; I’m learning a great deal about people management and other things involved in small businesses. It’s just that I know that ultimately I can do better than this. I’m not ashamed of the job, there is nothing wrong with giving good service to customers, I just want to do things that make more of a difference than serving individuals (exceedingly good) pieces of pie.

Still, when I’m at my workplace I give myself completely. There’s something I’ve realised: when you’re working in a service industry (like bartending, banking or sales) if you give you, you get so much back! If you smile, work hard and try your best – people will appreciate it and send back energy that will keep you going and going and going, till long after ordinary batteries have run out of steam.

What I’ve noticed, though, is that it doesn’t just work with customers, it also works with other staff members. I’ve got numerous complements; either directly or through management. People just like working with me. They haven’t told me exactly why they like working with me, but they do.

My personal hypothesis is that they like working with me for a number of reasons. I work hard, I have fun, I don’t complain and I lead by example. Another thing is that I have a much more nuanced understanding of people’s moods and attitudes. This was forced into me through my years in Asia and my time spent learning how to read people. I now often know how people feel about me (and when they are unhappy) when they think those feelings are perfectly hidden. You can’t believe how great of an advantage that is - when you can start altering your behavior, before people have even started complaining and when you already have an answer to a person’s question before they’ve asked it (because you knew it was coming).

Of course I might be completely wrong. It has happened before and it will no doubt happen again. Still, I don’t think so. I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on what’s going on and I think I’m going to do alright.

The question is more, how long will I keep working there? Well, I don’t really know. Probably till I start my university (They pay isn’t the best in the world, but it’s a good environment and I feel I can actually make a difference here. This is the kind of place that I can actually make better).

Plus, of course, I’m learning and that is ultimately a vital key to every job. Well, at least for me.

Ugly Duckling

Why do I want to study psychology? Because I believe that one of the most important understandings you can have is an understanding of self. Each of us is different and a unique set of strengths and weaknesses; but each of us is also part of the human race and that gives us all a set of collective strengths and weaknesses. Do you know what those are? I’m discovering more every day now, because of my reading and I’ve come to realise that I truly don’t understand myself; but I can.

Psychologist in the last couple of decades have been researching amazing subjects, from how words influence behaviour subconsciously (which is called priming) to our inability to actually recall emotion associated with an experience; with the current emotional state instead making you reinterpret the past experience. Then there’s the studies that have looked into how our visual picture is formed and how many assumptions we must make just to be able to see (it’s by manipulating those assumptions that we can see optical illusions). And the research that discovered that emotions are not just mental, but also physical (as in the way you carry your body influences your mood and not just the other way around).

And you know what the cool thing is? If I get in to the Social Psychology Research Masters I’ll get to add to all that great stuff out there. I’ll get to find out how we’re put together.

From my letter of motivation:
“I’ve become fascinated by people. This wasn’t always the case. For the longest time I was far more interested in thoughts than in the people that had them. That changed when I read about Antonio Damásio’s research in which he suggests that emotions are a fundamental part of every decision. Suddenly my entire world image flip[ed] – I realised that thoughts can’t be considered separately from the people that have them.”

(Notice the square brackets above. I added this just now because I made a mistake in the original letter and sent it with without the ‘ed’. I’m kicking myself)

I’ve always felt that I had to add something to the world. It’s been a driving force inside me for as long as I can remember. I think that over the next two years I can add something. That fills me with a warm feeling inside.

I better get back to my paper. I still have to make sure they take me.

Is this one of those ‘don’t count your chickens before they hatch’ moments?

Response

I unfortunately feel the need to write this post in response to Pyrrhus’ tirade on my last post several days ago. I really have no desire to write it, but I feel it is necessary.

Pyrrhus: The last entry was provoked by your comment, but it was not an attack. It was simply something I believed and continue to believe strongly. If you feel personally attacked I am sorry. It wasn’t my intention. As for all you said; well I can’t really respond to it. It’s impassioned and eloquent. It is also clearly what you believe. You see, a lot of the basic premises that you hold up as absolute truths I just don’t agree with. You seem to believe the state is evil and wicked – I don’t. You seem to believe that an open market will resolve all ills – I don’t.

Though I do believe an open market with few restrictions is better than a controlled market and I am against a lot of the trappings of socialism – I don’t believe that you can trust the market mechanism completely. This is my personal belief and can’t be argued for the simple reason that no country has ever let its market be completely free and therefore any argument is mere speculation.

What I do want to talk about is your form of argumentation. If you want to convince me you’ve got to argue from my perspective. You argue (and I see this a lot) from a completely different base. It’s a lot like how the religious argue against the non-religious. This has actually happened to me on a number of occasions where a person says ‘this is so because it says it in the bible’. Then I try to explain to them that I don’t consider the bible an authorative source, but they don’t understand that. We but heads, we cool down, we try again. I try to explain something from a scientific perspective and they look at me like I was born on another planet. For them putting science on par with the bible is impossible; the latter is obviously – quite literally – the more authorative source.

The same thing is happening here. You argue from how you beliefs about how the world should be which obviously clash with mine. You want a state as free as possible from government intervention, because you believe that every man, woman and child should be free to lead their own lives as they want. I have no problem with that belief and agree with it to a large extent. I just don’t see it as the end all. I ultimately am more interested in the future of our species and our evolution into something more than we are today.

For that we need education for all that want it, as cheaply as possible. Yes you’ve got your sales men, your Bill Gates types and your Enron scandals (all of which are big news, of course, because they go against the grain, but never mind) but that doesn’t change the fact that people’s average chances improve with education and that the more each individual can do, the better off we are all together (you can’t get more capitalist than that).

Oh and lastly, simply because I argue against an idea doesn’t mean I automatically embrace the available alternative. If I argue against capitalism that doesn’t mean I’m promoting socialism. There is always a third, possible alternative, which might still need to be discovered. Just like if somebody manages to poke a hole in evolution theory that doesn’t necessarily mean god exists (there might be a third alternative) me saying that capitalism doesn’t have all the answers doesn’t mean I’m embracing socialism or communism.

Education for Free

Education and information is one of the great equalising forces of our society and should therefore be available to all who desire it. To limit education is to limit opportunities. Not all people are born equal, that’s a fact; but we should still strive to give everybody equal opportunities as long as the costs do not outweigh the benefits.

To restrict education is to restrict those of great potential but little wealth from adding their full value to society, as a result society is poorer and – in effect – we are all hurt.

To believe that capitalism is the cure all and end all is silly, it is not perfect, nor is it ever going to be. We should never put our full faith in any one system but should always by looking for alternatives. To modify a famous quote by Winston Churchill, Capitalism is the worst system except for every other system we’ve ever tried. (For those of you unfamiliar with the quote, the original quote was about democracy, not capitalism).

I’m not saying that the socialist model used in Europe is necessarily better. Obviously the investment in education and research is greater if the returns are greater and this is one of the reasons why in many ways the top educational facilities in America are envied the world over. On the other hand, I refuse to believe that a system that restricts access to research to the rich and those that are members of established institutions is the right way to approach education and the spread of information.

Though admittedly there seems to be a correlation between intelligence and wealth, this is a weak correlation at best and even if the correlation was strong then that would still not prove anything, as it might be that wealth allows people more access to learning, thereby raising average intelligence (besides, there are as yet no intelligent measurement systems that can truly be trusted).

In purely capitalist societies, such as the United States, social mobility is actually lower than in socialist states (in other words, if you want to live the American dream it is better to go socialist states like Sweden, Denmark and, yes, the Netherlands). I believe, though this is conjecture, that the reason for this is largely in the accessibility and differences in quality of educational institutes.

Ultimately, dollar for dollar, education is one of the best ways to raise people’s chances to take care of themselves. It is better than social welfare, it is better than charities and it is better than armed intervention. It is also one of the best ways to reduce crime rates, raise social awareness and improve people’s understanding of government policies.

This does not mean I’m advocating that every person should be educated. That is ultimately a choice that every person should make for themselves. What it does mean is that I believe every person should have the opportunity to receive a good education and any system that does not allow this – like a purely capitalist system – is ultimately sabotaging itself.

Even one of the most purely capitalist systems I have encountered, namely the system in Singapore, realises this and heavily subsidises education. Singapore does not need to spend a great deal of cash on social welfare, law enforcement or other systems to aid its population. What is more, they don’t feel the need to use protectionist measures to safe guard their people. Instead, they retrain the people to fill a needed niche – thereby keeping their people working and their country relevant.

We all know the adage by now, ‘give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.’ The best way to teach a man is to give him access to places where he can learn.

Science Journals

I’m sitting on the internet right now trying to do research on my article. More specifically, I’m trying to get access to a number of journal articles written by the same people who did the research I’m supposed to write about, but then after they completed the one I’m supposed to be discussing.

The conclusion I’ve come to, so far, is that I’m going to have to pay about 30 US per article to get the articles. It might be possible to get them cheaper, but I don’t know how and I don’t have a great deal of time to find out either.

Of course, if I was a student right now I wouldn’t have to pay a dime, because both of the universities in Amsterdam will no doubt have the journals in their database. I’d have free access to the journals to do my research and write a more in depth report about the article I’m supposed to be discussing.

But I’m not a student, nor am I rich enough to really go around splashing cash on research articles that might very well not be terribly useful to me in the long run. So what’s left for me to do? Find illicit copies, of course. Hopefully some anarchist somewhere decided that it was horrible that journals dare charge us poor sods that much for access to a single article and therefore put the entire journal I’m trying to find online for free. So far I’ve found a couple of psychology journals online (and I’m downloading them as we speak. You never know when they might be useful!), but not the one I’m looking for.

Not too surprising really, as those people that are interested in the type of reading I’m interested in are generally not of the anarchistic persuasion. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that people don’t really think they are helping the anarchistic movement (an oxymoron to begin with) by putting psychology journals online for free. They’d be right, as me reading these articles will not help anybody but me (and I’m certainly no anarchist), but nonetheless you’d think they’d be a bit more empathic towards struggling individuals like myself.

Why are these journals so bloody expensive anyway? How can researchers look the common people in the eye when they charge prohibitively large sums for their journals? I thought science was all about helping everybody, but instead it seems to be very much a matter of helping only those in the ivory tower – or those rich enough to pay the entry fee.

The only open source journal I found charged the authors instead of the readers; which is also ridiculous. Why can’t it just be free? Why does anybody need to be charged for making research available? Who the hell decided that discovery had to be so damned expensive?

Research Article

After I handed in my application they sent me my research assignment from the university. If I finish that satisfactorily then I should be accepted. The research assignment is based on an article called ‘Visceral Drives in Retrospect’ by Loran F. Nordgren, Joop van der Pligt, and Frenk van Hurreveld. It’s actually a really interesting article that I – funnily enough – already read about six months ago.

The research shows that our memories are mood dependent. If we feel different from the time when a memory was stored then we attribute our actions to different things. So, for example, if we were really angry when we hit somebody but now we’re much calmer while we remember we’re bound to think that we hit that person for a very logical reason, rather than an emotional one.

This fits right in with research that has been done into memory storage and memory recall, wherein it was discovered that our memories are often false and change over time. I’ve spoken about that very frequently over the last year or so, with very good reason. After all, if we believe that our memories are trustworthy when they are not, then that is bound to lead to a great deal of conflict, while if we’re all aware that we can’t trust our own memories very far, then we should be able to avoid confrontations with our loved ones.

I know I avoid quite a bit of conflict by saying ‘I’m not quite sure how it went, maybe it went like you said’. Of course, I have my own version of events in my own head, but who is to say whose memories are to be trusted? Maybe he’s right, maybe I’m right, maybe neither of us are; what’s the use in getting into a fight over it? After all, nearly ever conversation that is longer than five minutes has at least one false memory in it (yes, even for you. I’ve found I’ve got much further in life since I’ve started accepting my own limitations. If I understand what I – and others – can and cannot do, then I can play on my strengths and cover for my weaknesses.)

Anyway, back to the essay. So I have two weeks to finish writing a two page response (well four double spaced, but whatever) and it should all go well except for one little problem, they want me to discuss the methodology – which is academic speak for the mathematics used to analyse the statistics. The problem is I’ve well and truly lost all my statistical analysis skills. I’ve got a book on statistical analysis that I’ve nicked from my girlfriend and hopefully that will be some use, but that does worry me.

But then I always seem to be worried about something and it generally seems to end up going alright, so I’ll just do my best and hope that that is good enough.