One Red Hot Country Mama!

VW Golf – black and white
Originally uploaded by Sigurdur Birkir.

This morning, after meditating, stretching and eating a healthy breakfast I was on my way for an early arrival at work when found that my car had been broken into. I tried putting my key in the lock, but it was tampered with – the vandals left a gaping hole where my lock used to be. I calmly checked:
- the ignition – no sign of further tampering
- my change for coffee – full amount accounted for
- my leather attache case from my sister- it was fine

Unsuccessful thieves – they must have called it a day before they had even finished the job. It surprised me since the car was in my underground garage, of my very secure building in a safe neighborhood in Toronto, one of the safest large cities in North America. I did nothing risky, I did everything right but I was still broken into.

I was at the VW garage and dealership for three hours watching images of poor Anna Nicole Smith, reading a business book and perusing the latest Jetta diesel models on display, then left several hundred dollars lighter and dutifully went to the office. And so it went. I went to work like a dutiful little lamb to begin paying the bill unfairly created by these unsuccessful thieves.

The Athenians used to believe that when they got sick, they were being punished by the Gods. That meant that they were hurt two-times – one for feeling regretful for what they had done, and two for actually being sick. I used to believe something similar – if I lived up enough to what I believed to be right, somehow I would be protected from the things that go wrong in life.

If I was
- smart enough
- loving enough
- hardworking enough
- disciplined enough
- compassionate enough
- healthy enough
- had enough of a sense of humor about things
…somehow I would build an impermeable shell around myself, protecting from painful and expensive happenings. These are my own versions of good but you can insert your own bullet points since this seems to be a common belief. But, how does that work? Who metes out the rewards and punishments? Since I don’t believe that cancer victims, people born in third-world countries and victim of crime "deserve it", there has to be some allowance for randomness.

So – if living up to your own values does not leave you impermeable and safe, what is the point to living up to them? It is the satisfaction of having lived up to them of course. Does that sound like too small a prize?

I looked forward to seeing him every Friday night, even though it took us months to talk to each other. A couple of years ago, after a few years of partying, drinking and smoking, I got sick of it all and decided to get healthy again. It wasn’t easy, but looking back it was worth it. As part of my new discipline, I went on these late-night Friday swims at the local community center… to fill the activity void created by not going out anymore, and replace it with getting healthier.

Anyone who has done distance swimming knows that it is a pretty focused activity. Everyone is pretty much in their own world, some timing their laps, some measuring their distances, and some counting the minutes until they are in a hot shower. One night I started casually taking my breath between laps and I saw this guy diagonally across the pool looking back at me. And that was it.

The next week, we looked at each other again a bit between laps. A few weeks later, he came over to my lane and we swam together and at one point I got the courage (I am very shy in these situations) to say "Hi". And that was it.

A week later, we started talking in the pool on breaks and we did that for a while. One Friday, I was walking out of the pool and onto the street and a man came up to me and introduced his name. He said that he admired my swimming and hoped to see me again soon – I didn’t recognize him at first without his goggles, but it was the same guy!  Then I moved and never saw him again. I have since started swimming in that pool again, but he doesn’t seem to go there anymore. Too bad! 

On the other extreme, the other night I was at the gym and a guy kept looking at me in that hungry, intimidating way with a creepy, unblinking smile. As I went through the circuit of machines, he stared at me the way the Doberman down the hall stares at my cat (which is especially intimidating since my cat is 3/4 the size of normal ones). Of course I felt very uncomfortable with this guy at the gym and wanted nothing to do with him.

I wish that more people would realize that flirting is a back-and-forth. It is like an auction, where you keep bidding up and up. A look turns into a conversation and a conversation turns into a date etc. etc. Like an auction, sometimes it ends at just one bid (a look), sometimes the stakes get very high. But if the other person does not perceive the value in you and you go too far, you intimidate rather than attract.   

Don Crowdis, Torontonian and one of the oldest bloggers alive at 93 still has places he wants to go and things that he wants to write. In his post It Bothers Me that I Have to Go he explains that even though he understands that he is old, he still wants to postpone death… to do the things that he always wanted to do.

I remember talking to my Grandfather, a British Royal Navy WW1 and WW2 veteran, about this subject. Even though in his 80s his daily life was simple (living with my Mum and having difficulty walking, seeing and hearing) he said that he didn’t want to die at all. He still felt he had something to live for, and he did, since he warmed the hearts of my family and everyone he came in contact with until he died last year.

It is very cool that Don is blogging at 93, contributing to this giant sea of ideas. He is also inspiring me to get things done while I am still young (relatively ). And lately, with these damn winter blahs upon me, I need all of the inspiration that I can get!   

After finishing It’s the Crude Dude by Linda McQuaig (which I don’t recommend – see review on the left) I started thinking again on the track of energy independence. Although there are many flaws in McQuaig’s logic, such as ignoring  basic economic principles of supply and demand and glazing over historical events such as Saddam Hussein’s brutal treatment of his own people, she did have one shining good point… we have to find alternatives to oil to fuel our energy demand.

She states that the oil industry is actually subsidized in many ways, through:

• government subsidies to the energy sector
• car sector that encourages this mode of transportation over rail
• tax advantages promoting the use of the car
• billions of dollars on the construction and maintenance of roads (which outweighs the amount collected in gasoline taxes)

She also mentions the multi-billion-dollar invasion of Iraq as a hidden cost of oil. Whether you agree with McQuaig’s political views or not, at least one of the points above must resonate. Imagine if we leveraged even a fraction of those billions of dollars towards researching and distributing alternatives to oil such as hydrogen energy?  We would certainly be ahead of the of where we are today.

With the Global Warming Effect now nearly certain according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported by the BBC:

In 2001, it said that it was "likely" that human activities lay behind the trends observed at various parts of the planet; "likely" in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90% probability.

Now, the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet’s surface.

Why don’t we move our money and subsidies to non-polluting, renewable resources? I was happy to see at leat one US politician, Hillary Clinton, talking about the potential to move the US (who has 4% of the world population and produces 25% of the emissions according to McQuaig) in a direction of alternatives. 

This is another topic which it is easy to get discouraged by, but the fact that there are alternatives if we reach for them offers at least some optimism for our future. It also allows us to move to a world where we are relying on science for our energy rather than on a non-renewable resource at the center of many of our world conflicts.

bear on ice
Originally uploaded by Marlis1.

Many of us crave thinking in black and white… but psychology offers little of this type of guidance, with its multiple theories and interpretations. One of the few black-and-white pieces of advice they offer (cognitive behavioral theory in particular) is to not engage in the 10 cognitive distortions. You can see a list here.

For example, statements like "never" or "always" are distortions. Someone could say "I will never get out of debt" – but of course, it is possible that they could. Even if they are not very good at saving money, they could somehow get a windfall in the form of a great job or an inheritance. They could also possibly find a bag of money on the street… or a myriad of other options. Who knows, but "never" is discounting many possibilities, so if someone is saying it, it means that their thinking is distorted.

Another example is when someone labels themselves as "stupid". Maybe that person has made some stupid decisions or is stupid in some or many areas, but they are not stupid in every single aspect of their life. Even if they are not genius in any way whatsoever, they are may at least be average in some areas.

At the heart of the distortions is illogical thinking – and this thinking occurs when we are under stress. So, anyone who values thinking rationally, will like the black-and-white rule of not indulging in the distortions… and will try to battle them whenever they come up for themselves and with others.

My friend and I have a little mnemonic device to remember the distortions (which will explain the polar bear ).

It is: Polar bears fly over the globe while pretending to mind control. The end.

Or: Polar (Polarized thinking) Bears (Blame of self) Fly (Filtering-mental) Over (Overgeneralization) the Globe (Global labeling) while Pretending (Personalization) to Mind (Mind Reading) Control (Control fallacy). The End (Emotional Reasoning).

Okay, maybe not exactly inspirational, but at least it helps us recognize the cognitive distortions (which is difficult under stress), realize that they aren’t real (the definition of a distortion) and most importantly, combat them with logical thinking.

So, it seems that the black-and-white advice offered by psychologists… is to always think in greys. Leave it up to them to be so cryptic!