clevermanka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clevermanka) wrote2015-01-22 10:12 am
clevermanka) wrote2015-01-22 10:12 am
Breathe it in and breathe it out and pass it on, it's almost out
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gamera_spinning gave me the heads up on this: J. Michael Straczynski To Write Spike TV’s ‘Red Mars’ Drama Series Project. Okay, so Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy is among my favorite SF ever, and definitely my favorite SF series. I just...I loved it. Straczynski as screenwriter gives me some hope, but I am really worried about the fact that this is on Spike TV. I don't know a lot about the channel, mostly because it's kind of horrible, or at least it used to be. All MANLY MEN stuff with some seriously problematic stuff--everything you might imagine with a television channel FOR MEN. One of the things I liked about the Mars trilogy was Robinson's women characters who were pretty much just people, you know? Not Strong Female Characters. One of them does use her beauty and body to get what she wants (power), but it's not presented in a negative way (not the way I read it, anyway), and it's not like she isn't smart as a whip. She just uses all her qualities to her advantage. She happens to be attractive and charismatic, so she uses that just like she would any other tactic. Anyway. I'm trying not to dwell on it too much. It could be amazing, but. Well. I'm not getting my hopes up.It's been a while since I bought any fandom tee shirts, and I've been trying really hard to avoid buying more (because, really, enough tee shirts already) but then this showed up on Tee Fury today, and...oh it's just so pretty.
A very interesting article on a possible reason for addiction came across my internet desk today.
...In the 1970s, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver called Bruce Alexander noticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Professor Alexander built Rat Park. It is a lush cage where the rats would have colored balls and the best rat-food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat about town could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, will happen then?
In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn't know what was in them. But what happened next was startling.
The rats with good lives didn't like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did.
The article goes on to talk about a situation in which it was observed that the same thing happens with humans. Go read the whole article if you're interested. It's worth it if you have any interest in how our environment can affect our brains and bodies.
Stories and articles like this make me think about my daily life and what I can do to make it more rewarding if not always enjoyable. I want my life to get better as I age. I want to make the next twenty-five years more amazing than the previous twenty-five, and then the twenty-five after that I want to be incredible. A realistic attitude has me figuring things'll slow down once I start closing in on 100, so I'm not putting hopes and expectations past that. But seriously, what can I do to ensure a rewarding quarter century to come? Something to think about.
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That "park" is important. Good for you for thinking of ways to enhance your own.
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I miss dancing with you, btw. *sigh*
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me too.
Actually, I agree on all of it. My downstairs neighbor (much as I like her) hears everything, so I am generally pretty quiet which makes me edgy sometimes. I say dance!
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I'm with you on enhancing life. I'm not sure I'm in agreement with the rat experiment, I mean, if there's NOTHING else available to do, of course they'll choose the drugs. It's the only probability for having nothing.
But that still doesn't explain addiction in celebrity lifestyles and those with lots of friends and support.
It does put me in mind of another rat study where violence increased with overcrowded conditions, so I'll have to give it a read.
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Just because they're surrounded with people doesn't mean they actually have a trustworthy support system. Actually, to me, it makes celebrity addiction more understandable. It's lonely at the top.
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I'm not doubting that this is a huge part of addiction, I'm saying that it's far more complicated and has to have more causes than just a lack of a good environment. There has to be some sort of internal disconnect in those cases.
On further thought, this can explain why 12 step programs and recovery groups work so well for so many, they finally have a connection to others, even if forced by the group therapy environment, and help finding joy around them.
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