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Optimism vs. Helplessness |
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Thursday, 05 August 2010 |
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When I was young I could have got a PhD in Rumination and yet another in Learned Helplessness, if such things had existed at the time. Where you were, Dr Seligman, when I needed you? From what I can tell, the book he coauthored, Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control, was written in 1993. By then I was already examining the rubble of my former personality and putting together a more functional one - having done it the long, painful way, as was common in the pre-self-help era. In Seligman's follow-up book, Learned Optmism: How to Change your Mind and your Life, he refers to a scientific study I mention in one of my essays, What David is Worried About. He also refers to Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, who was one of his star students back when they were studying depression in women. I also refer to her findings in my essay Downer, which is not freely available online (but is in my book). Ah well! I was born too late to be helped by all this good stuff that was published when I was already in my 30s - but what the heck! Going through all that made me stronger, right? (How's that for an optimistic view!) |
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Sunday, 25 July 2010 |
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The only reason a dollar, or a franc, or a Euro has any value is because we have a stable system in which people are known to accept these pieces of paper in return for something valuable. Or, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman puts it, "the pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks they have value." Wonderful, innit? |
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Special Care Instructions |
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Friday, 11 June 2010 |
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During a recent cupboard-cleaning binge in the kitchen, I came across - and threw out - various instructions for the maintenance of high-maintenance items like pure steel (Edelstahl) knives, titanium-coated pots and much else. I didn't even bother to reread most of them before punting them into the recycling.
After years of kidding myself, I have accepted that everything that gets used in our kitchen gets jammed into the dishwasher and taken through the 50° wash cycle, because that's the only one that mostly works to my satisfaction.
This would explain why our pots and cutlery are stained, blotchy and unsavoury-looking.
Life is too short to be spent hand-washing anything. Let alone separating things that are PURE steel from those that are only PARTLY steel and those that look like steel but are really pewter, or something else. Give me a break, Jake!
Time to invent stuff that doesn't have to be babied.
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