Optimisery

[muckefuck]

Feeling under the weather today, but it's hard to distinguish the effects of a cold indirectly effected by poor sleep from the direct effects of poor sleep. If it is a cold, then it shoots to hell my theory that deep freezes are healthier, since I was healthy as a horse through all those weeks and weeks of damp cold. The past three winters have been some of our best ever in terms of avoiding sickness, and they've also been some of the mildest in living memory. Hmm...

I've got a new coat (thanks, monshu!) whose capacities I'm still trying to nail down. Some days, I wore too many layers under it and got overheated, others I wore too few and felt chilly. It got me thinking: When you're cold, your body burns calories in order to stay warm. So allowing yourself to be less-than-toasty while outside would be equivalent to doing extra exercise, right? However, straining to keep warm also stresses your body and makes your more liable to get sick. So (leaving comfort aside for a moment here) where is the optimal trade-off in term of health benefits? Perhaps health-fasters have something to say about this...

On a related note, I was thinking about what lhn posted years ago about the persistence of shameful memories. There's actual research (which I can't be arsed to find) which shows that memories of humiliation are recalled more vividly than even moments of intense pleasure. Last week, I had the insight, Well, maybe the wicked schoolteachers of my past were on to something after all. Consider this: How many facts are fixed forever in your memory because of the embarrassment of getting them spectacularly wrong once? On the other hand, too much abasement would make you either give up the subject altogether or be unable to do anything with it without constantly burning from shame. Again, there must be some perfect balance between constantly cringing and never forgetting.

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

too much abasement would make you either give up the subject altogether or be unable to do anything with it without constantly burning from shame.

That's pretty much happened to me, where running RPGs is concerned. Even though I haven't gamed in years I still get struck from time to time by cringeing attacks over my more abject failures, back when I did occasionally GM. That doesn't stop me doing a bit of casual world-building and fantasizing about using it someday. Mostly it just gets in the way of research, though.

[zompist.livejournal.com]

There's actual research (which I can't be arsed to find) which shows that memories of humiliation are recalled more vividly than even moments of intense pleasure.

Really? Neat... I ran into that only as an offhand comment in a book by David Berlinski, but I've found it to be true. I can recall moments from seventh grade and cringe.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to sand these down when they come to mind by reminding myself that they happened to a very different person than the one recalling them today; I'm at best semi-successful.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I'm hampered by the fact that, experience notwithstanding, I'm not sure how different I really am at the core. This is reinforced by watching my nieces and nephews grow up-- on the one hand, their capabilities grow by leaps and bounds and their ephemeral interests change every time I see them. But on the other hand, there's a lot in my now almost ten-year-old nephew that was very much there before he could talk. prilicla and I often recall incidents from our own childhoods that demonstrate that despite an overlay of (assumed) maturity and education, we're pretty much the same people now that we were then. (Though of course there may be some selection bias there.)

I remember a discussion with princeofcairo where he argued, somewhat persuasively, that iconic fictional characters were actually more realistic than a lot of character development arcs. Lives, circumstances, and relationships change, but underlying character changes less, for most people most of the time. (Or, as another philospher had it, "No matter where you go, there you are.")

[wwidsith.livejournal.com]

"can't be arsed"?! Love it! I'm guessing the "translation" to ass wouldn't work in this instance...?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Nope, the nearest American equivalent I can think of is "can't be bothered" but this isn't nearly vulgar enough to suggest the actual degree of indifference involved. You take this round, Brits!