The Insiders

Cormac McCarthy Writes a Letter to The Editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, by John Kennan

thanks monstromo for the alert!

overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out

• Arthur C. Clarke wrote, in addition to many books, stories & such, 2001: A Space Odyssey (along w/ Kubrick). Apparently very unhappy with how it all turned out, poor Art. I myself have not yet seen it; holding out until I can see it on the big screen.


• Charlton Heston. Had he not starred in one of the best films of all time I might not have such a tender spot for the ol' curmudgeon (Michael Moore's melodramatic exploitation of the early-Alzheimer's era Chuck likely contributed to the smooshiness).


• Albert Hoffman. What my teenage years would have been like without the work of this man, I can't say. Died a centenarian. Believed that natural scientists could not avoid becoming mystics. Worked in cycle after cycle with ergot fungus, one compound resulting in methergine, an effective treatment for puerperal hemorrhage. The 25th compound was lysergic acid diethylamide. [Interestingly, during my own puerperal strife I had a healthy injection of methergine that resulted in reminiscent physical sensations, sans psychedelia. Now *that* was trippy.]


• David Foster Wallace. No, I have not read Infinite Jest, and I'm not sure I'll ever read it in its entirety. But I appreciate that he did nearly everything, including writing, including tennis, and hanging himself (though this is the work I would have preferred he leave off in favor of writing another article for Gourmet about lobster season). Though I will never, ever appreciate the endless "brightest stars are always horribly tormented" eulogistic ranting all over the internet.


• Martha. I miss her.

barf on xmas eve

• Discussing forming a sibling book club; Brother suggests Vonnegut. I say 'Vonnegut makes me barf', and continue with the ways in which Vonnegut makes me barf, until Brother misunderstands and thinks my discourse includes the phrase 'insolent barf'. Someone else contributes 'insouciant barf'. Ultimately decide on a Cormac McCarthy novel. More on that, later.


• After the discussion including insouciant barf, the topic turns to food, and Father invokes The Beets and The Peas. Reminiscent of last year's culinary challenge of creating a dish using mushrooms and grapefruit, Brother presents another culinary challenge using the aforementioned barforifics. More on that, later.


• I suggest to Manfriend we make a pleasure trip to Costco: Interesting exercise in patience, people watching, and manipulating the emotional states of shoppers by making unexpected eye contact with strategic facial expressions ensuing. Plus there's all the stuff to look at. Purchase a large quantity of toilet paper. Manfriend is more animated with the shopping cart than expected, but no one is insulted. The scrapbook supply aisle reeks of a recent barfing. All in all a pleasant excursion.


• Withered Leg Reunion. Decide that some songs could be comprised of the title sung over and over and over, with generous refrains of "Oh Lord!" To make this topical, we should definitely do a number about barfing. And The Lord.

Smart People, Geekines Ensues

Viewed irritating Smart People, and was consequently compelled to watch again only slightly irritating Good Will Hunting. SP lacked the aesthetic chops of GWH (the former full of caricatures & contrivances, but it was geeky fun to see such a clear example of copy process* in the overachieving, misanthropic-but-lonely daughter), but the ending was more plausible. There was no indication that the wounded, once basically capable, interpersonally pricklish professor experienced major personality change, only that he finally thawed some as a result of important relationships. "Will Hunting", on the other hand, went from emotionally broken to 'healed' and gloriously in love in what was portrayed as only a few months. But his character didn't merely need a thaw, he needed long term, interpersonal, reconstructive therapy, which, of course, is incompatible with a movie timetable. The therapy wasn't "bad" per se, but the catharsis model (muck about until the traumas are uncovered and at last have a good, healing cry) doesn't work so well. Certainly not for changing the 'wiring'. And certainly not a helpful ending for us saps who get all dreamy over the intellectually gifted but emotionally/interpersonally bereft.





*Excerpt from abstract: Studies connecting childhood experience and adult psychopathology often focus on consequences of abuse and neglect. Copy process theory (Benjamin, 2003) states that constructive as well as destructive experiences shape adult behavior with surprising interpersonal specificity. Childhood perceptions and social learning are encoded in memory and then “copied” in 3 basic ways in subsequent relationships: Identification (behaving as he or she behaved), Recapitulation (behaving as one behaved when with him or her), and Introjection (treating oneself as he or she was treated). From Critchfield, K.L. & Benjamin, L.S (2008). Internalized representations of early interpersonal experiences and adult relationships: A test of copy process theory in clinical and non-clinical settings. Psychiatry: Interpersonal & Biological Processes, 71, 1, 71-92.

You are what you ate

Nice, skeletal sum of attachment theory, childhood into adulthood, invoking (at the end) the linguistic implications of adult attachment (i.e., the stuff I look for when coding Adult Attachment Interview transcripts, and when I listen to patients talk about their parents/early experiences/contemporary intimate relationships). Maybe a little jargony for the layperson, but sparsely so.

The child seeks the caregiver's security and protection for many reasons, but particularly in moments when he or she is frightened or in danger. Thus, careseeking often takes place in moments of high affective arousal, arousal that is then--optimally--regulated by the caregiver And by virtue of her role as regulator and container of that affect, the mother's response to the infant's affect becomes a part of that affective experience.

Children quickly figure out how to seek care in a way that will minimally disrupt their vital relationship to their caregiver. One of the things they must learn in this process is which affects are tolerable to caregivers, and which are not. They learn this via the repetition [...] of a particular relational drama around the expression of careseeking. Over time, their efforts to regulate their affects in such a way as to maintain their primary relationships become organized into what attachment theorists refer to as attachment patterns [....], characteristic ways of seeking care from and preserving closeness with the caregiver. And it is these ways of protecting the other and ultimately the self from affects that disrupt careseeking and caregiving that become internal representations of attachment or -- in analytic terms -- central aspects of psychic structure.

Because the survival of infants is dependent upon success in their careseeking efforts, these are psychologically and physically critical events. Without proximal care and containment, infants cannot function [...]. Thus, they must shape themselves (and their experience of affect and arousal) to ensure that their needs are met. They must obtain care, at whatever cost to their functioning. Aspects of self-experience, and especially affective experience, that preclude the maintenance of attachment relationships are disavowed reversed, fragmented, or dissociated. Knowing, thinking, and feeling emerge within the context of maintaining vital connections, [snip]. Children quickly learn what kinds of thoughts and emotions can be borne within the context of their primary attachments. It is within his or her earliest relationships that a child's core sense of self in relation to arousal, to affect, and to careseeking is laid down [...].

In adults, these same patterns are reflected in the way an adult regulates affect within the structure of narrative. Early moments of regulation live on in the structure of speech, of thought, and of affects. When we listen carefully to the contradictions, dysfluencies, and disruptions in narrative, we are witnessing the representation in language and thought of early dyadic experinces of disrupted careseeking and dysregulation.

From Slade, A. (2007). Disorganized Mother, Disorganized Child. In D. Oppenheim & D.F. Goldsmith (eds.) Attachment theory in clinical work with children: Bridging the gap between research and practice (pp. 226-250). New York: Guilford Press.

Links!

• Mail Goggles. Unfortunate Google has not yet created something similar for text messages, instant messaging programs, and live-in-the-flesh behavior. Oh wait -- that's called 'impulse control'. Also a shame Google has also not yet conjured up a program what does away with stabbing regret, heel calluses, and vanity sizing.


• interactive artist daniel rozin works in a very particular artistic milieu, making mirrors from unreflective surfaces. one of his creations, 'the wooden mirror'...uses 830 square pieces of wood which are hooked up to an equal number of small motors which move the wooden blocks according to a built in camera. the camera picks up movement in light and somehow transfers the signal to the wood. the result is an eerie representation of reality depicted in tiny wooden pixels.


• While I'm not going to advocate communal bathing rituals for all (i.e., almost everyone I know), doing this falls in the top five most pleasant experiences of 2008.


• Yes, a tiny N (qualitative research), but I feel like sending the authors of this article devoted to ambivalence a greeting card.


• It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. NYT piece about Palin's "pom pom palaver".

Editor's note: Compelled to remove photo of Sarah Palin to preserve the blog's tenuous aesthetic. You can view it here.

ABSTRACT: People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

Kruger, J. & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 6, 1121-1134.

Full text (pdf)

in summary

• Both theist and atheistic purviews are relatively easy to cultivate. I can, if given time and the proper inputs, develop religious beliefs and the conditions for which so-called religious/spiritual experiences occur. It may be that I have an atheistic baseline; after all, atheism does not preclude feelings of wonder and awe, or even the sense of being part of a larger whole (though, despite ideological wishes to the contrary, this is not an especially familiar feeling).


• Creating the circumstances in which infatuation and potential love-type feelings are likely to occur is not so difficult as one would imagine. It's those (rare) occasions in which I've been unexpectedly smitten (meaning socked in the guts such that normal functioning is impaired) by an unlikely party that continue to leave me baffled, psychoanalytic explanations aside.


• Whether it sounds clichéd or not, raising a child has been the most important, most valued endeavour of my life. My own psychotherapy falling second. Developing intimate relationships with a select few, over time, though we may share physical proximity only on occasion, is either tied with the psychotherapy or a close third.


• Over the phone this afternoon, my son successfully coached me to operate the dagburnt VCR at L's house so I could watch the Presidential debate. So I'm a mother; it's really real.


• Habitual responses to others, no matter how socially desirable or seemingly noble, feel more and more empty. This includes the desire to soothe, to assist, to make comfortable, the care-taking instinct. Not that any of these things are inherently undesirable, but I'm wary of my own proclivities.


• State dependent learning bites. I haven't had a satisfactory dance experience (aside from tango) since moving out of my house.