On Being Moody..

This is a response to Bryan Acton's post. He asked: "Do you find it interesting that the occurrence of mood disorders is a lot higher in economically developed countries then other countries? Explain."

I'm not at all surprised that economically developed nations have higher occurrences of mood disorders. This is because many "disorders" may not be disorders at all. At least in the U.S, we are quick to give pills to people. Now that pills are being advertised regularly on T.V, audiences can see "symptoms" that they normally wouldn't think twice about and realize, "Oh no, I must have *disease name here*." However, there are of course people who do have legitimate disorders. There may be more people like this in developed countries than developing countries because of the pressure we put on ourselves. We have to get good jobs to make money, we need to "find happiness", get good grades when we're students, make ourselves look good ("beauty" is cause for stress around here, especially to teenagers). It's no wonder that there are so many people with anxiety or depression who feel that they haven't fulfilled their lives just yet, or who are worried that they will never find "true happiness", whatever that may be.

In developing or impoverished countries, I think the people have a very different mindset than us. They are focused on living from day-to-day and are most likely grateful for things that many of us take for granted, such as food, shelter, and education. Many people do not even have those, but still remain positive where we would feel hopeless.

Do you think that true happiness comes solely from within, or does it have some outside factors affecting it as well?

-Megan

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." -Tombstone

Platolotics Reply

This a reply to the question: "In my mind this [having people represent different classes of society in office] would make for the most effective means of political power change within society, do you agree?"

I would agree with that. I think that having multiple classes represented within the government would greatly help equality in a society. However, at least in the case of the United States presently, I believe it would not be possible. It costs millions to run for office (at least, Presidential office) and, needless to say, someone from a poor community would not have enough money. They couldn't pay for the campaign ads and whatnot. We also have to consider that many people who run for an office have had very expensive, higher educations. At least this is achievable through financial aid and scholarships, but then we return to the issue of raising money for the campaign itself.

I would enjoy having more diverse classes in office, but right now I don't think it would be possible. What changes in society would have to take place for this to be possible?

-Megan

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." -Tombstone

Memories

Somewhere in our discussions in class, we stumbled upon memory. Though the discussion was brief, it got me thinking. How does memory work? What about human instincts? So I looked into some interesting theories, and one caught my eye: Genetic memory.

In psychological terms (according to Wikipedia)"genetic memory" is based on an idea that a species' common experiences become incorporated into its genetic code. Some other theories, however, believe that humans have the ability to tap into the memories of their ancestors. Some believe we could also see into past lives. It also tries to explain human instincts, such as infants knowing they have to suck on a bottle or their mother's nipple to get nourishment. While others argue this is simply a built in response to a stimulus, advocates of genetic memory say that we know what to do because our ancestors passed on the knowledge, whether we know it or not.
I think that the idea of having genetic memory is very interesting, though I do not agree with part of it. I don't think we could see into our ancestor's memory. I don't think memories can become written into genetic code. However, when it comes to past lives, I think we could (with much training) learn how to see those. I believe our soul stays the same from life to life, so perhaps it retains some memory from each life before this one. However, that is simply my opinion and belief, and is straying from the main point: Ancestral genetic memory.

What's your opinion on genetic memory? Do you think we are subconsciously able to learn from our ancestors, or even "see" their memories?

-Megan

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." -Tombstone

What Feels Good

The question from Alex: "If feeling good makes what you are doing good, than are the people we see as evil just taking pleasure by doing bad?"

I would say yes. I do not know why anyone would want to do something that makes them feel bad, so I suppose someone doing something that we perceive as "bad" feels good about what they are doing. I think that the person does the evil act because they have convinced themselves that it is a good deed, and therefore do not feel bad in doing it. What we perceive as a "bad thing" is probably very different from their perception.

However, when you take into account the people who do bad things BECAUSE they are bad, this theory is thrown off. So my question for this blog is: Why do people do things that are evil when they know that it is evil and it makes them feel evil?

-Megan

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." -Tombstone

Listening to Ourselves

This is a response to Nicole's question: Should we listen to our conscience all the time? Well, I believe that a conscience is a reliable way of determining whether or not a situation is positive or negative. I know that if I suddenly feel very uneasy about doing something or going somewhere, I don't. However, should it be listened to all the time? No. In my opinion, your conscience fluctuates with your emotions, and when under stress or clouded by anger, your conscience can tell you to do things that you would not normally dream about doing. My friend had a story that proved this. She had seen a verbally violent fight between two people that were close to her. Well, "fight" isn't really the right term, because only one of the two people was yelling while the other listened. My friend felt threatened by the person yelling, and became upset that the person would dare to yell in the first place. She wanted to protect her friend, and the first thing that came to mind was to kill the person yelling. That way, she would not have to hear the yells or curses, and she and her friend would no longer feel threatened.

Obviously, she did not kill the person. But when under enough worry, anger, and stress, that was the first option that was logical to her self-conscious: Remove the threat. So no, I do not think relying on your conscience all the time is a good idea.

Is there a situation where relying on conscience when under stress may be a good thing? Or should logic always take over?

Scents

This is (are you ready?) a response to a response to a response. Yikes. The Question: Do you think we would react differently to certain smells, if we weren't raised to like or dislike them?

Well, I think what smells good or not does depend on how you were raised, in many situations. Sense of smell can remind us of where we were raised, which depending on the person, may be good or bad. As for how the same people would react to one smell: Take the example of smoking. I was raised in a non-smoking household and I cannot stand the smell of cigarette smoke. My friend Missy, on the other hand, has a mother and older sister who both smoke. She barely notices the smell in her house, and doesn't seem to mind it as much as I do. She is used to it by now, whereas I was raised without it and taught that it was bad for me.

However, if I was not raised to dislike cigarette smoke, maybe I would not feel this way. People have been smoking for years, so it's not like humans are naturally set against it. In fact, I love the smell of woodsmoke (different than cigarette smoke of course, but still smoke.) I also believe that the other senses have an impact on whether or not a smell is good or bad to us. Example: I do not like the taste or texture of Deviled Eggs, and I think they smell really bad. Even the egg in potato and egg salad smells bad to me, and it's masked with other things. And today, as another example, I had a bite of some grilled chicken that tasted repulsive. For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, the smell of chicken was making me sick, and I usually love chicken. The senses all affect each other.

If one of our senses stopped working, how would the others be affected?

-Megan

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." -Tombstone

Passive-Aggressive

This is a response to Bryan Acton's blog. The question: "Is there any situation in life when you should not act passively towards aggressors? And, If so, when should you not act passively?"

I believe that if your health and life are in serious danger, that would be the time to stop being passive aggressive. Say you are being attacked repeatedly by someone and you have not struck back, but now you are on the ground and being kicked. I'd say that would be an ideal time to give one solid kick or punch to them. Just enough so that you can run away. There is no need to be excessive. All that would matter in a situation like that is getting out in good health. Perhaps some people, such as Gandhi, would disagree, saying that violence is never an answer. Surely Gandhi was an admirable figure, but personally I would fight back at that point rather than risk my well-being any further. Again, I wouldn't fight excessively, just enough to escape. And if I ever saw my attacker again, I wouldn't feel a need to attack them back. Don't be excessive, but keep safe. I believe that should be a rule of being passive-aggressive.

Then there are extreme situations such as military, where being passive aggressive is not the best idea (usually.) Though if someone is uncomfortable with violence, they probably shouldn't be in the military anyway.

Attacking people is, of course, not a good thing. I think I will end with a question that combines this and what we have been talking about in class (religion): If there was no reward (ex. Heaven) for doing good, would we do wrong more often?

-Megan

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life." -Tombstone