Monday, November 27, 2006

Personal Happiness

Theory:

For quite a while we have been giving some thoughts to what would make the world a better place. Who doesn't think about that some times? An interesting concept that I have proposed is one where everyone can be granted personal happiness. To me this is my idea of a Utopian setting. Imagine if you will the facets of that statement.

Personal happiness assured for each person does not mean that everyone adopts the same or similar codex but rather it simply states we are all happy with our lives as it is.Using the concept of personal happiness means that someone who is happy fighting will find an equally happy opponent content to fight with them. Those seeking peace ought to be equally happy that anyone else seeking peace shall have it.

Happiness with one's life can therefore take many forms. Ones' experience need not prejudice an others experience. In this way personal happiness if it existed could extend to the entire world. Presuming that one is personally happy whatever the condition then that environment appears to allow one to be always content.

I do not think that anyone could wish for more than that, at least not realistically.

Where then is the rub, if the answer is so simple?

The biggest problem with this theory is that conflicting visions of personal happiness exist. Matching up those folks who what the same things in life is currently not possible. This may not always be the case however.

I recall in one television show from the 1970's and 1980's where human society was divided into like-minded sections using the astrological signs of the person to predetermine with whom the person should interact and co-habitat. It has long been presumed that folks born under complimentary stars (which determine their astrological sign) are destined to find contentment together. Individuals born under conflicting stars are destined to be at odds.

Stress - the not so silent killer

A lot of times we hear about Stress being a silent killer. I think that the news outlets have it all wrong. Stress makes a lot of noise. In many situations the noise that stress makes begins in our gut. One may hear sounds as chemical reactions occur in response to stressful emotions or thoughts. In general the result of stress is a physical/emotional outburst of some kind from the individual under stress.

Hypothesis:

Experiencing Stress can't be helped - suffering from stress can be reduced by exercise, medicine, and most often some form of meditation.

What to do about it:

Recognize that mental and emotional factors cause a great deal of stress. The induced stress appears to also coincide with chemical reactions in the body. Overall it appears to be important to control one's thoughts and emotions during stressful periods. Finding ways to relieve stress is an endless exercise.

Stress relief can come in the form of a variety of activities that induce other physical reactions. We must recognize that we are not reliving stress so much as we are counter-balancing the stress with other more healthy stresses. An example of this would be exercising in a gym. It's painfully obvious that stress is a killer. Unfortunately, with some of us, the slightest things can prove to be an irritant. Like a chain reaction such irritants can set us up with huge amounts of stress.

General Tips:

Recognition of the early stages of stress will help us to control this dangerous disease. Stress management techniques can be found at a variety of locations including;

http://www.ehow.com/how_11960_reduce-stress-with.html
http://www.aboutstress.com/DEV/default.asp
http://www.ehow.com/how_3830_reduce-stress-life.html
http://wehow.ehow.com/how_2000066_relax-reduce-stress.html
http://www.stressmanagement.com.au/
http://www.ehow.com/buy_13213_stress-relief-product.html

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Human Endurance

Hypothesis:
Humans are flexible, adaptable and can overcome many if not all of the phobias that accompany the effects of psychological trauma. Previously I have written about the drama, mental and emotional stresses facing New Yorkers who are in essence pawns in the war on terror. Despite the stresses placed on them many people are finding ways to cope with the changes occurring in our environment.

Next Steps:
Onwards and upwards we must strive to continue to conquer our fear of "just about" everything. One example of this is the fact that I came to Japan following a major earthquake occurrence and the report of a tsunami that was supposed to follow the earthquake. Common sense would dictate "turn-around" but stubbornly I refused to cancel the trip. A lot goes into making such decisions but the basic fact is that humans continue to act in spite of fear.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Paranoia Abounds

Isn't it surprising how many of us are actually insane? I do not find it unusual in the least for me to genuinely fear a certain loss of anonymity. The lack of protection by standing out in front of an audience (such as those in a blog) seems to represent a larger cultural issue as well. How many of us wonder what ever happened to the inventors of the electric car, water powered engines that leverage better efficiencies without the use of gasoline and other such incredible inventions?

Many folks have always believed that such inventors must surely have been killed off by the government, (oil/auto/tire) industry, congress, the mob or all of the above. It might sound like tales from the dark side but when one is trained to believe that whatever is reported is typically the opposite of what is true then it is easy to understand the cynicism of much of America.

It is therefore quite clear to comprehend how we as a society developed this sense of paranoia. I guess to be fair it is only paranoia if the suspicions being pondered are untrue - otherwise this is called insight.

Hypothesis:
Humans develop a series of pathological responses to percieved threats in their environment. For example in New York City I noted the departure of a good many co-workers who could no longer cope with the pressure caused by the Terror attacks. It is interesting to note that not everyone responed the same way to the events of 9/11/2001. Some of us just have great difficulty getting to sleep.

Next Steps:
The way forward may lie in a trip to the past in this instance. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once declared "There is nothing to fear except fear itself". In fact he was quite right, the stress associated with human' fears may cause us much more damage than the effects of the object of our fear. One argument in support of this point of view can be located in this article.

We need to move beyond the sometimes skewed signals being decoded by a tired or overstressed mind. Acknowledging that sometimes we, as Dr. Ostrow observed in the Forbidden Planet, are "Monsters from the id". (source)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Under Pressure

One theory that I have for the reasons why we have so much human discord and confusion is that a person under pressure is very likely to lash out after reaching a particular threshold (let's call it a boiling point). Essentially this is expressed as anger, yelling, bad feelings, thoughts and other actions that impact our behavior with strangers, friends, family, co-workers and even ourselves.

Hypothesis:
People in and of themselves attempt to maintain a self-image that is typically an idealized version of their true selves (some refer to this as their soul or moral center). In this idealized state (let's call this normal), humans will exist in harmony with their environment and other humans. However, when acted upon by an external force that causes physical, mental or emotional stress (I term this pressue) -- humans tend to respond with physical, mental or emotional responses. The act of the external pressure on a person can cause internal and external manifestations to appear in response to said pressure.

Examples of the propagation of such stresses are clear in everyday life. A customer calls your boss with a complaint. Under threat of a loss of business the boss complains to your supervisor, the supervisor yells at you -- you get defensive in response to this pressure and yell at the supervisor or in many cases carry the resulting emotional stresses around with you until it is released by someone asking a question or performing a slightly off-kilter activity that may set off the built up pressure. The person receiving this released pressure then absorbs it and passes it on to the next person in the chain of human connectivity (a friend, a neighbor, a stranger, a waitress, etc.)


Next Steps:
It is about time that we realized as humans that inherently we all want to be thought of as good people. The customer who complained in the above example was naturally simply exorcising the built up pressure which had been previously absorbed. Without such pressure we would all no doubt lead happier lives. Given that it is difficult to expect that everyone can understand the nature of this physio-emotional-mental pressure and understanding that the conflicts which result do not emanate from within oneself but are the result of external pressure -- it appears that we need a way to manage this force so that it does less harm in our human societies.

One idea I propose is that we simply acknowledge to ourselves that the other person is under the influence of this external pressure. We ought to recognize that the pressure is not intended for us as a result of who we are but rather that the pressure exists as an external discordant force travelling among humans. When placed in the proper perspective this realization of pressure and its roots will not stop us from framing an initial response of anger, defensiveness and resentment but it will allow us to free ourselves of the prism of transferring this energy to others.

The Sleep Dimension

I theorize that sleep is a bending or distortion of the space time continuum. It seems highly unlikely that we should see time pass in the blink of an eye while the entire waking world experiences those same eight hours of rest as a brutal, seemingly unending work day. It is also interesting that in the interim we (males) grow full beards and long nails. It is almost as if the growth cycle of our bodies is accelerated.

Hypothesis:
Sleep is a bending of the space time dimension. Observations made during the sleep cycle occur in a dimension that we know little about. The mind-body-spirit appears to be performing work that enhances growth and repair of cellular tissues. External observations of sleep cycle participants are flawed because the viewer is not also a participant in the sleep dimension. Extra dimensional observations cannot accurately reflect the environment and therefore fail as a measure of scientific evidence.

Next Steps:
We must consider alternative tools and processes to measure observations of the sleep dimension (actually the time-space-dimension called sleep).

Zweble

This blog is starting as a test of the new beta blogger version. Just as a way to be sure that my account will be able to publish to this new site. However, since I am here I may try to use this space for some of my theoretical insights in life and humanity (no they are, I think, not the same).

Why 'Zweble'? Well the curt answer is why not, but that is just the quick-witted New Yorker response in me. Actually zweble is a name I came up with to describe some network equipment (just as an arbitrary moniker for distinguishing devices) and it popped into my head when I was presented with the screen to create my blog. Also, along this line of thought is that previously I used Chinese characters in my other blog and this time I created the current blog in a virtual machine where I do not currently have the input language configured to allow me to input Chinese so I am working with what I have available.

Having given the need for a second blog about a millisecond in terms of reflection I realized that I may actually want to keep this blog active and put together some of my more unusual thoughts. It does occur to me (I am not sure about everyone else but it would be surprising to me if it did not) that blogs may easily meta morph into books. In fact one is already publishing with a blog without the Editors (unless we count the blogs public comment space which may lead one to self edit).

The perceptions that I will store on zweble are thoughts and insights which I have had in the past and hopefully any future ideas regarding the human condition. It seems that once given free reign the mind may take this blog a bit further than I initially anticipated. For instance, imagine writing down the oddest thoughts that one may have about oneself and life in general.

Why create a site like this - one that poses the ultimate questions about humanity?
  • It seems to be a rare opportunity to take introspection to the extreme.
  • It appears to be fulfilling my need to vent many of the unspoken feelings that accumulate daily in ones' life.
  • It helps postulate the theory of everything.
  • It answers the call for the 'Watcher', the 'Observer' or the 'Reporter' in each of us (or is this just me?)
  • This site may give voice to every crazy idea and hair brained scheme I can dream up.

This is my second blog ever (here is the first) and it seems that the initial experience has given me the confidence to simply write. Therefore, this is my new beginning.

Welcome to Zweble

Contained within this site are what will seem to the reader to be a series of short stories. Such a description would be dead wrong. For the most part these are my travels into the dream scape where some believe that we exist in other realities (our spiritual presence seemingly cannot be argued since we awaken with a vision of the environment).

Many of us have constant, deep and richly filled dreams. The sad thing is that most of these experiences go undocumented. This blog attempts to close the loophole of lost dreams.

In addition to dreams we sometimes explore the fantastic and improbable stark reality of our waking world. Topics appear on this blog that only our imaginations can dream up. If you would like to be able to post your dreams, please send an email to tcarternyc(at)hotmail(dot)com.

(t)(j)