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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (65761)	11/6/2004 9:23:49 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

C2- I put off the article yesterday til this morning because of its length, and am glad I didn't try to rush through it. It was excellent. I think you are right about some sort of sea change with this election. It's not been verbalized well yet; so far we are still hearing about the scary knuckledragging religious right, but I don't think it's about that. There are a lot of people voting for Bush who aren't prolife homophobic extremists. Like me. A lot of normal people who feel things have gone too far. When you travel in the rarefied atmosphere of the intellectual liberal (and there are many I respect around here), this is a hard admission and has me examining my knuckles and my tolerance to make sure they are intact. My dad never mentioned his war experiences, and my father-in-law, who lost a leg and was left for dead at the Battle of the Bulge, doesn't, either. On the other hand, they both drank- so I'm not sure about the resilience. They coped- but they had their supports. X and I joke a lot about how we think we should be allowed to take drugs just to keep us pleasant on bad days. (I was very sad when my vicodin ran out after my back trouble.) I hate that people are made to feel less than whole for taking prozac or meds. My mother refused hormones during menopause and living with her was torture. Her favorite sayings were, "Grit your teeth and bear it", "Tie a knot in the rope and hang on", and "The Lord Helps Those That Help Themselves". (This was a biggie). And they DID have those martinis. There must be a happy, healthy medium in all this.

To: carranza2 who wrote (65761)	11/6/2004 3:58:40 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 71178

<“When I talk about our research, I say to people, ‘I’m not telling you that bad things don’t hurt,’” Gilbert says. “Of course they do. It would be perverse to say that having a child or a spouse die is not a big deal. All I’m saying is that the reality doesn’t meet the expectation.”> That's been my experience. Children are apparently not too worried about a parent's death as long as "Who will make my lunch for school?" is answered so they won't have a worry. It's all about them. And, as adults, it's all about us, so when bad things happen, we run a security check [subconsciously] and if we come up in the clear, we move on with a tear and a shrug and a memory. Even our own demise I can imagine isn't such a big deal. Having worried about it all our lives, which nature dictates we must, or we'd be dead too soon, when the inevitable arrives, we seem programmed to just go with the flow. But not me. Personally, I'm planning on making a break for it. You can go with the flow if you like. I'm outa there. Heading for the hills or somewhere. The reality certainly doesn't suit my expectations. Mqurice PS: I did chance upon it. Now, I'm outa here. [I noted correct spelling of Brylcreem, thanks].

To: carranza2 who wrote (65761)	11/9/2004 2:01:01 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

I was reading Richard Feynman's description of his young first wife's death from tuberculosis in "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" this morning (CW gave it to me to read) and thought of our discussion. They had only been married five years as opposed to people who had had a lifetime together, but as he says, this is "a quantitative difference, the psychological problem was still the same." (which gives you a feel for how he looks at things- I am really enjoying it). He writes: I was surprised I wasn't feeling what I thought people were supposed to feel under the circumstances... I wasn't delighted, but I didn't feel terribly upset, perhaps because we had known for a long time that it was going to happen. It's hard to explain. If a Martian (who, we'll imagine, never dies except by accident) came to Earth and saw this peculiar race of creatures-- these humans who live about seventy or eighty years,, knowing that death is going to come-- it would look to him like a terrible problem of psychology to live under those circumstances, knowing that life is only temporary. Well, we humans somehow figure out how to live despite this problem: we laugh, we joke, we live. He went back to Los ALamos where he was on a project and when someone asked what happened, he said, "She's dead. And how's the program going?" He also admits that a month later, he walked by a dress shop and thought, Oh, Arlene would like that, and finally cried. So I don't know where people store hard things, or how they deal with them, but I think it's important to recognize that each of us has his own way of coping, and there is no right or wrong; the wrong is when we judge these reactions.