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Parritz, R. H., & Troy, M.F. (2014) Disorders of childhood: Development and psychopathology (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

fear//make.french.toast

It is finals week here in college world! What an in to a discussion of FEAR.

I've been thinking about FEAR because I feel it, I'd say, 95% of the time, at least a little bit. A sense of FEAR seems to be perpetually looming. Both its presence and its absence come in waves. The FEAR waves just permeate less suddenly, and for longer.

hello i am either FEAR or no FEAR!!!!!!!!!

In the past two days, FEAR has turned from a feeling to an explicit thought. FEAR has ceased soaking the background of my consciousness and is now dripping in a puddle of its own pee downstage. FEAR is wet; like liquid, it pours. And recently, FEAR has been soaking up the spotlight–and is able to be seen through, for now. 

Flows of FEAR are usually followed by an ebb; now they are consciously monitored, analyzed, deliberated. Part of this temporary change, I think, was inspired by Liz Garbus' documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? I had heard about the flick for a while, and decided to see for myself what all the speculation was about. I am not going to make the space here for the discussion that her life and legacy deserve, but I recommend that you watch the doc. 

FEAR is also centerstage, downstage to Garbus' investigation into the musician's life and career. It is often humbling to remember that FEAR affects most people, even those who seem to have no reason to fear anything at all.

Maybe that's the relationship! I thought. Maybe it's as direct as that:

freedom = no FEAR. 

The absence of FEAR leads to freedom; freedom is only experienced in the absence of FEAR.

In appreciation of the human ability to THINK about THOUGHTS, I wrote a little thing:

what I could do if I had no fear!

how would i do it?:

extract the amygdala there are two and they are almonds but especially on the right

side 

rip it out 

with the fear of anaphylaxis from the one allergic

to tree nuts.

FEAR ancestors who were fearful lived by skirting

situations and saying 'that does not seem safe' while hiding

in caves.

but we are safe! we are safe in piles of laundry

still with this fear of having

nothing to put it into nothing

to promise a ripping out of.

it comes to malaise

I BECOME the cave.

think about my strange position!:

I am not the one seeking shelter;

I am not the predator;

I am the cave!

just standing and people

may visit. looking

for something.

i may see threat growing 

from the outside!

but i am standing

and i do not know how big I am.

I'm hoping to turn this stream of consciousness into a poem, but I believe that streams of consciousness are poems, too. 

This blog helps me face fear. By writing, I challenge fear with words. Every time I sit down to write a post, my syntax is shaking; I'm afraid that my points can't be articulated due to some inherent incapacity to communicate. 

But this is communicating.

I would like to think that the feeling will go away, that this will all get easier. Maybe for things to 'get easier', I will need to look straight through FEAR; maybe FEAR will go away when I look straight through it; maybe staring through what I don't want to even THINK about leads to freedom. 

If that 5% of the time that I don't feel FEAR is freedom, I could quantify its existence by assessing if, somehow, the FEAR waves begin to ebb 6%, 10%, 50% of the time.

If I could have that, half of my life, no fear.

If you are soaking in fear, try soaking bread instead. Ready for french toast, love?

VEGAN FRENCH TOAST RECIPE. 

IN CAPITALIZED COURIER TYPEFACE.

LET ME TELL YOU,IT ALL BEGINS WITH A BANANA IN SOYMILK AND FEAR.

this recipe does, anyway.

VEGAN FRENCH TOAST ON A SUNDAY.

INGREDIENTS: 

-2 slices of hard, stale bread that you were about to throw away before you saw this. (I used wimpy bread. I should have used hard, stale bread. There's where the name comes from, after all: pain perdu, or "lost bread".)

-1 nanner (banana yeh)

-1 cup soymilk or whatevermilk.

-cinnamon, vanilla extract, and nutmeg to taste.

PROCEDURE: 

1.) Pour whatever walk of milk you have in a blender or food processor. I used a nutribullet and am lucky to have one.

2.) Tear your nanner in 3 or 4 pieces and drop them in that lovely pool of whatevermilk. I feel like "tear" is not apt for describing what I advise you do to the banana.

3.) Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg in there, too.

4.) Blend all that up in your handy machine.

hah! get it? handy?

5.) Pour that mixture into a bowl and dip your (not wimpy) bread into it.

 

+

wimpy bread from Wegmans.

=

6.) Pour oil or butter in a pan. Remember to keep it vegan if you want to keep this recipe vegan. Vegetable oil, canola oil, and butter are good alternatives to animal products.

have no fear! the wimpy bread soaked it up already!

my hippocratic oath//presidential valentines

Notes from the notebook of yours truly:

Neuropsych, 1/31/2016

Clinical and Lesion Studies: Relating Brain Damage to Abnormal Behavior:

Clinical and lesion studies focus on identifying brain effects (specifically, brain lesion effects) on behavior. 

Clinical studies look at cases in humans, do not inflict harm; lesion studies look at cases in animals after manipulating brain tissue.

            
Notable Clinical studies: Medical Observations

                        (e.g., Hippocrates, Galen, Broca, Wernicke)

Hippocrates (460-380 BC) believed the “brain hypothesis” – that the organ that influences all senses and movement is in fact the brain.

-He was one of the first to deny epilepsy as proof of demonic possession.

-Hippocrates was also the first to note that the brain processes information and controls the body contralaterally.

Learning about "key" historical figures is like testing your faith in iconography. When individuals are wrapped in accolades, deemed the harbingers of some great and no-longer-to-be-questioned discovery, I wonder: was Hippocrates, a Greek physician, “father of medicine,” really the FIRST, or the ONLY ONE, to think these things?

Probably none of which was written by him??!?!

I tend to need some insight beyond this computer's Apple dictionary to define my own understanding. PBS is a good, corroborating source:

While Hippocrates, the so-called father of medicine, lived in the early 5th century B.C., the famous oath that bears his name emerged a century later. No one knows who first penned it.

Often I'm afraid that what I learn is lying to me. Sometimes the syllabus seems to gloss over, simplify things indefinitely. I hear and see that these people did these things and are these things and webbed some sophisticated finding into society's modern network of knowledge. 

But I find it difficult to think that someone was the sole "discoverer" of anything. And when every textbook tells you so, it's like doubting your own birth certificate as proof of your existence.

We really just need a face, someone to look to; a body to wear the cape of some concept. Because if we said this was just "Medicine's Oath," what possible version of ourselves would be available to believe in?

Valentine's day is bordered by Presidential birthdays.

Coincidence??!?!?!

(this person loves iconography)

A concise//explanation as to why the economy and your body need to be the same

Reading not only helps you think differently, but, on particularly clarifying occasions, it leads you to feel as though conceptual nerve endings have cohered within three pages.

Red doesn't scare me.

Mr. Chang–professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge–wittily organizes his selected arguments about capitalism into 23 "Things." Chapters progress by "Thing #"

Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3...

Each chapter name, or "Thing #," is followed by an argumentative sentence, summing the analyses that subsequently unfold. For instance, Mr. Chang includes the almost curt yet possibly alluring

Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be (Thing 3)

Assume the worst about people and you get the worst (Thing 5)

Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich (Thing 7)

More education in itself is not going to make a country richer (Thing 17)

Despite the fall of communism, we are still living in planned economies (Thing 19)

Kirkus Review says 23 Things "Shak[es] Economics 101 assumptions to the core." I feel grateful to have been suggested the book by a professor of Sociology 102.

I'm majoring in psychology, so I think a great deal about people. Naturally, I relate Chang's recurring points to my studies of the mind.

here we go.

Why the economy needs to be exactly like you

Scribbles of a purple sticky note, transposed:

General take-aways

-What is better for the economy regulates productivity for the long term.

-There hasn't been enough investing for the long-term (GM, a good e.g.; 195)

Redirect your attention to the hovering cookie. I did not include the pastry nor the recognizable "KS" of the Starbucks logo for aesthetic effect, but to visualize my point. If regulation benefits the economy, the human body can be used for comparison.

This cookie. This cookie was really good. I think it's a new type of those mass-produced Starbucks goodies, and it's good. (I don't say "mass-produced" with scorn, because how else could we feed all these people if we didn't mechanize some expedited easy-bake oven?!?)

Back to the cookie–"Toffeedoodle," it's called. I highly recommend it–a blend of cinnamon and sugar, using toffee pieces as the chocolate chunks consumers might be hankering after in a cookie. And these toffee pieces–they offer the salt. In concert with market enthusiasm for blends of sweet and salty, such as caramel sea salt and chocolate-covered pretzels, this Toffeedoodle pleases.

While reading the above description, you might feel hungry. After clicking on phrases like caramel sea salt and chocolate-covered pretzels, you might feel like you could eat an entire bag of halloween-sized Take 5 bars. But that wouldn't be good for you in the morning.

OF COURSE I wanted to eat all of it immediately; I watched the barista transfer the Toffeedoodle to her comrade, and listened for her comrade to rustle it into the patented paper bag. I wanted to get that instant gratification. and when I finished it, I wanted more.

But then I waited–sometimes, my body needs to catch up. What did I just do? I ate a cookie. Do I need another one? Could I even take another one? Maybe. 

As it turns out, I neither needed nor could take another one today.

What is regulating my cookie-eating activity here? My mind.

What regulates economy? Regulations.

In the words of Mr. Chang: "Sometimes regulations help business by limiting the ability of firms to engage in activities that bring them greater profits in the short run but ultimately destroy the common resource that all business firms need" (197).

So, in simple terms, if my mind did not regulate my cookie-eating behavior, you, blog-reader, would never have any cookies ever again.

On to Chang's examples. They avoid the mental image of Sarah Simon ransacking your cookie jars:

Fish farming: "regulating the intensity of fish farming may reduce the profits of individual fish farms but help the fish-farming industry as a whole by preserving the quality of water that all fish farms have to use."

Child labor: "it may be of interest of individual firms to employ children and lower their wage bills. However, a widespread use of child labor will lower the quality of the labor force in the longer run by stunting the physical and mental development of children."

THE 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS: "Individual banks may benefit from lending more aggressively. But when all of them do the same, they may suffer in the end, as such lending behaviors may increase the chance of a systemic collapse."

Restricting banks and businesses may force them to act in the interest of the long-run. What do you to to preserve yourself for tomorrow?

My mama always said: honey, it's balance. And balance is easy to say, easy to recommend, easy to see the benefit of. But it's as if our survival depends on the ability to resist the flight of bodies and minds, and stay grounded. Restriction might bum out the individual, but it's in the collective interest:

So, Marx, why didn't the Soviets succeed? Because PEOPLE NEED TO FEEL LIKE THEY OWN SOMETHING. So let me have this cookie. Just regulate me in the act of eating it.

Communism has failed for the same reasons unregulated capitalism has ruined lives: These systems do not operate in accordance with the body. The former assumes us unselfish; the latter assumes us rational. We are neither one nor the other all the time. So how can an economy, a collective pooling of our interests, constantly be what we are not constantly, and succeed?

The only way humans would thrive in a completely centrally-planned or utterly unregulated economy would be if Dr. Walter Freeman II were resurrected and we all begged him for transorbital lobotomies.

The Dr. does have a sparkle in his eye.

for more information on what a transorbital lobotomy is, follow the embedded link. i recommend paying particular attention the first paragraph as well as the last 4 paragraphs of the page. the descriptions are graphic, though, so don't be eating cold cuts right now.

this is food's share of the blog post. see you soon. i promise there will be more food next time. and a special guest. if things go to plan.