Friend of the Devil, Ch. 1

I met Satan at my wedding reception.

That may not be accurate.  I may have met him before them, but I don't think we were ever formally introduced.   When I saw him at the reception, I had a feeling that I'd know him for quite some time.  Like an old acquaintance from high school that I never actually spoke to, but was aware of.   Like they were in a different home room or something.  But I remembered.

Satan was talking to Judge Flynn.   At the time, I had no desire to talk to Satan.   However, I have always held Judge Flynn in high esteem.   I wanted to thank her for coming to the wedding.    When I joined their conversation, I was immediately struck by Satan's extraordinary wit.  Satan made the most mundane topic fascinating.   When I asked Judge Flynn how she knew Satan, she gave me a knowing smile.  A look that suggested at once no great intimacy with the man.  But of course, as the upturn of the corner of her lip suggested, "doesn't everyone know him?"

I could tell Judge Flynn kept some distance from Satan.  Her arms were crossed.  She kept looking around avoiding eye contact with him.   She welcomed my inclusion into the conversation.  I was intrigued and wanted to know more about him.   At one point, I remember asking Satan if he was a part of all of us.  This provoked laughter from both he and the Judge.  Judge Flynn gave me that knowing smile again. 

Eventually, the serving bell rang and we all took our seats.   Satan sat down at the table next to mine.  He seemed familiar with all the guests at the table.  When the time came to give toasts, Satan unexpectedly stood up and raising his wine glass stated that he had known my family for years--even my half sister Ruth.  This provoked a round of applause from the guests.   A rather ghoulish looking women, presumably Ruth, then stood up.   This came as quite a shock to me--for I didn't know I had a half sister.   Satan continued that Ruth was a product from the Pope's "failed birth control methods."  At this everyone laughed uncontrollably. 

I thought Satan's remarks were rather undignified and devoid of humor.  I seemed to be the only one in the room who didn't know about the half sister.     The guests kept laughing and laughing.    I became  more and more irritated and went up to Satan and told him to leave.  At this he smiled and responded loudly enough that the guests could hear:  "Samuel, I can't leave, don't you remember your dream last night?"

In my dream, I remember that Satan put me on a roller coaster against my will.  I was defiant and was flipping him off and yelling obscenities at him.  The roller coaster started slowly but gradually increased its speed going up, down, through loops and backwards.   It grew intolerable and I was nauseous.  In the dream, Satan was at the controls of the roller coaster talking to Judge Flynn.  Judge Flynn shouted up to me that the roller coaster experience would gradually become more intense with each revolution.  This sent a chill down my back.  My protests became louder.   Eventually, I woke up.

After dessert, I saw Satan talking to Craig Burke, who worked with me.   I never liked Craig.  He looked like an impeccably dressed weasel.  I always thought that if the weasel had lived in Germany in the 1940s he would have donned in a spiffy SS uniform.  When I asked Craig how long he had known Satan, Craig responded that Satan was a very good friend of the family and that Satan had vacationed with he and his wife when they went to Europe last summer.  I'm sure that Craig and Satan had a great time visiting their old haunts in Poland and Germany.  I was glad when the reception was over.

Things that don't go together, Ch. 11

Dark Energy.

The universe is expanding at an accelerated pace because of "dark energy."  Scientists hypothesize that 100 billion years from now all the distant galaxies that you can currently observe will disappear from our sky.   This is because they will have separated from our galaxy at such an accelerated rate of speed that their expansion will be faster than the speed of light (space can expand faster than the speed of light).   In this distant future time, astronomers would have  no reason to conclude or suspect that other galaxies exist, or even that the universe is (at that time) still expanding, unless they had access to the preserved cosmological knowledge of our time.

Some objects once visible at half the universe's current age of about 13.7 billion years are already invisible from the farthest vantage points.

In the potentially infinite future, if the density of dark energy increases to approach infinite dimensions, its gravitational repulsion could rip apart all the objects in the universe--even matter itself.   Not only will galaxies disappear, but individual molecules could be ripped apart by the gravitational acceleration of the dark energy which could eventually overcome the forces holding molecules together.  No object would escape this fate.  Eventually, the universe could be nothing but empty gas atoms moving between an ever expanding space:  the ultimate dissolution. 

In the end, nothing may go together.

A hot bag of nothing in the place durbin's dad once owned.

Hypothetical Inventions, Ch 3

Troubled by lookism?

Seeking to avoid lawsuits brought by the facially disadvantaged?

We have the perfect app for you:  Viewex.

The Viewex App is now free in this special limited time offer.   Scientifically and empirically verified, more than 1.5 million users world wide have realized the amazing benefits of Viewex.  The Viewex app targets a specific brain lesion to produce an electrically induced agnosia which prohibits a user from appreciating the aesthetic quality associated with a person's face.  In short, whether the viewer is looking at a supermodel or the elephant man, the viewer has no emotional reaction.  That is not to say that the user does not appreciate the differences in the person's face, she can still discern the shape of the face, the color of the eyes, skin color or whether the skin is clear or blemished.   He or she just doesn't experience any aesthetic reaction to those differences.  In short, it permits the viewer to judge a book by the cover instead of putting an undue emphasis on appearance.

To avoid lawsuits brought by victims of lookism, hiring departments of employers across the country trust the Viewex app in all employment interviews.   Viewex provides the best evidence that job selection is untainted by the sexual appeal of the applicant and the most qualified candidate is selected.

Viewex has been implemented in pilot junior high and high school programs across the country with amazing success.   Teen suicide rates have decreased dramatically in schools implementing Viewex.

"*****"  Top 25 Gold rated App PC magazine

"A monumental breakthrough in the possibility of human evolution"  J.Shands, Professor Emeritus, Psychology, Penn State University and author of "What you can't see can't hurt you:  A study in forgetting to remember."

"My friends and I love this.   I wouldn't go out on a date without it."  Rachel S., Senior, Pepperdine University.

"Who needs beer goggles when you have Viewex?"  Manny V, Tau Beta Alpha fraternity, Florida State University.

"The government should force everyone, and I mean everyone, to use this." 

I have no recollection of events unfolding in the manner in which you describe, ch 5

My grandfather grew old and incapacitated before my eyes.

It started slowly
.
When he used to babysit my sister and me he always drove us to the Village Inn in Gillette Wyoming for dinner.  He loved club sandwiches.   And green tea.  Which he drank regularly before anyone knew anything about anti-oxidants.

My parents didn't know then that I had to give him directions to get us back to the house from the Village Inn.  I don't think I thought anything about it at the time.  When you are in junior high, senility is the last thing on your mind.  Plus, you are insensitive.  When you begin to notice that grandfather stopped shaving, and sits on a chair all day just staring, you wonder why he doesn't do anything.   You are repulsed by it.  Why doesn't he at least watch TV?   "Nothing interesting on the boob tube," I think he used to tell me.  My mother lamented the situation telling me that since his wife died, and he retired from the mine in Eureka, Utah, he doesn't have any interests.  He also had no hobbies.   I wonder in retrospect if he was just waiting to die.

It wasn't always that way.  When we used to visit him I remember the tree houses that he carefully constructed and going to his office at the mine and seeing the way the employees looked up to him.  In fact, everyone in town knew him and looked up to him.   To them, he was "Shorty" Ryan.   The manager of the local mine (the largest employer in town).   Shorty, who took care of his older crippled brother for his entire life.   Shorty, who had to leave college to support his mother and family when his father died.   Shorty, who developed the new mining techniques were better than anything the engineers came up with.  Shorty, who was funny, playful, and mischievous. 

It became worse.   Smells developed in the chair where he used to sit.  He stopped combing his hair.

He eventually left us because we could no longer take care of him.   After he left, I remember playing dungeon and dragons with a friend whose father was a doctor.   One time the late night game occurred at the doctor's office.   A group of teenagers loose in a doctor's office late at night.   Not a good idea.  It was probably my idea to start going through the medical records of patients.   They were all in alphabetic order.   We looked for classmates.  We found them.   Like I said, this was not a good idea.  I was maybe 13.  And I didn't know anything about HIPAA because it was 20-30 years before it was created.   By the way the statute of limitations has long since run if you want to go after me.   But I also found my Grandfather's records.   I remember Grandpa being described as "unkempt"  and "incontinent."  I think my mother already knew about this and blamed herself.

My friend told his father the doctor about what we had done.   Needless to say, we were not allowed in the doctor's office again.  I think my friend revealed me as the instigator of the event and I don't think he was allowed much contact with me after that.   Probably a good idea:-)

With leg of jake, a clan of eisely and much hyper-Hydrosis:-)

I have no recollection of events unfolding in the manner in which you describe, ch 4

Lets not remember how quickly life can change.  Sometimes the foreshadowing shines too brightly, even at night

August 22, 1999

The scene of my friend John's wedding to Cecilia at the Mariott Hotel near the Philadelphia airport.

The college crowd is there.   Pete, Don, Elaine, Reg.   The Night Oak crowd.  Don has always idolized my friend Pete since college.  Followed him around like a lap dog.   Kind of endearing really.  This infatuation extended to all things related to Pete, even to Pete's wife Elaine.  Nothing serious.  I watch Don dancing with Elaine.  I joke to Pete "the more things change, the more things stay the same."  Pete laughs.   Then Pete shows me how he now shoots up with insulin, as a result of his recent diagnosis with type 1 diabetes.

The same gang was at my wedding two years earlier.  John was my best man.

John's entire family attends the wedding.   There is his grandfather Joe from Joliet.  He eats the fried jellyfish-- a Cantonese delicacy--thinking they are onions.  John and I chuckle with Cecilia, John's wife he met in Hong Kong.   Clearly, this is not the kind of thing Joe would eat if he knew what he was actually eating.  John is an editor at the Wall Street Journal.   Cecilia obtained an MBA from Wharton and is going to work at March First, the new juggernaut firm of internet consulting.

Then John's father makes a toast, in part celebratory, but also a none too subtle lamentation about the lack of the presence of God at the ceremony.  Of course neither Cecilia nor her family are Christian.  After the ceremony, John's father complements me on how my smile always lights up the room.

John describes his zinfandel wine and invites me to try.   My minuscule knowledge of wine equates zinfandel with the Pink Zinfandel variety at grocery store gallons.  John assures me that Red Zinfandel is most pleasing.  It certainly was.

September 23, 2003

The scene of Pete's funeral, Howard Hall, Notre Dame Indiana.

John, Don, me.

Pete was the President of this dorm in 1987.  Don was the dorm mailman.   The same room where Pete held hall meetings now has an honorary mass for him.  I speak a dirge about Pete being the leader.

I may have been the last person to contact Pete.   His email to me was sent a few hours before he apparently slipped into a diabetic coma.

Don brings Zinfandel to the reception.

John no longer writes for the Wall Street journal.   Falling under the spell of his wife's business drive, he has obtained and MBA and worked at Rohm Haas and now Wachovia bank.  This of course was before their stock crashed.

August 28, 2010

The scene of John's funeral, Omaha, Nebraska.

Cecilia and me.

She now lives in Hong Kong.  March First is long since bankrupt.  Bank of American, her second employer also imploded.   Joe died in 2004.  Elaine has remarried and has a child through a surrogate mother.

John's father complements me on my smile during these difficult times.

At the reception, John's father laments his son's death and links the death to the distance John moved literally and figuratively from his Omaha roots.   And of course, the lack of God.  The family blames the death on a car accident.  There were no such accidents listed in any search of police records.   The body showed no evidence of trauma.

In the months preceding the death, I had hired an investigator to find John. I communicated with his family and events were set in motion to have John move back to Omaha following his divorce and extended unemployment.  Besides Cecilia and his family, I may have been the last to communicate with John prior to his death.

John's father's comments hit a nerve.  My generation--John's generation, may be among the last with one foot still in the old world, and one in the new.  Our formative years were spent seeped in Gothic religious traditions which were strangely out of place in the world of our adult experience.   John did travel both literally and figuratively from his roots.   He even wrote an op ed piece for the Wall Street Journal which prompted a hostile response from the mayor of Omaha.   The piece may have subtly suggested Omaha was somewhat backward.  To a man who grew up there, then traveled the world and was living in New York City at the time he wrote the piece, it is not surprising that perspective may have manifested.

Cecilia and I were the only people at the funeral who had any connection to John in the last ten years.  Truly he had come home.  Back to his childhood friends who had no understanding about what happened to him during the interim 30 years.  But it was not the distance from Omaha which took the life from him.   It was the disappointments with his career and marriage.   And he may have found that he could not start over from where he started. 

It was difficult to take.  Cecilia and I avoided the issue at the time at a wine bar in Omaha drinking Zinfandel.

 

The Open Microphone, Ch. 2

Father Uge (FU):  So pray tell, how was the Rainbow Gathering?

AS (Amrapali Susko):  It was the best experience of my life.   Its amazing being back now and realizing how much we are not in touch with our feelings and emotions.   It was such a liberation being at the gathering.  It made me realize that I must get out and do something with my life now instead of living like a zombie.

FU:  How so?

AS:  It was like being part of a big gigantic family.  Feeling all the oneness of the human tribe.   We slept in a small tent with eight people.  We woke and went to the main circle gathering where everyone was silent until the sun was high in the sky.   We all meditated, did silent mantras or whatever to feel the love between us.   After that, we all stripped ourselves of our former lives and became naked and free.   We had gigantic cuddle parties with hundreds of people.   It was so blissful.  There was no sense of time to anything.   On the GFunk stage a calender was posted and the only times listed were in increments of "dark 30", "morning 30" or "hippie noon."  That is how we lived our lives.  No sense of time other than the eternal sounds of the forest and our place in it. 

Mr. Martin, the Vietnam Vet (MMVV):  Hey FU, I didn't recognize you.  Did you move back to Springfield? 

FU:  Apparently so.

MMVV:  Well you should join the board of the homeless shelter again.  In fact, now we not only have a homeless shelter, but a new shelter for homeless Vietnam Vets.   Its on Spring street where the Asian grocery store used to be.

FU:  Sounds cool. 

MMVV:  Yes, we have a bunch of screaming liberals on the board now.  We need some diversity.   You used to be kind of one of those "balanced budget" types, right?

FU:  I was always imbalanced.   You just didn't know me very well.   Now, all I know is that the Chinese are not going to get any of the money back they loaned us.   And they know it.

MMVV:  Maybe, but those crafty Chinese will try to find a way to influence our political system.

FU:  Perhaps, but in any event, here is my card.  Now be gone with you.   I'm not in the mood for any philantrophy tonight, but I will gladly assist you on the third Monday of every month when such impulses arise in me.

L:  Hey everybody, its Hailey's world premier.  Check out the bitch:

AS:  Hailey, you are awesome.   If I were a man, I would eat you up.   Wait, I meant if I were a woman, and in a forest with thousands of naked people, I would jump in the lake with you and we would make animal noises together.

Chelsea (C:)  Those were my fondest memories of the gathering.  Swimming naked in a lake.  Dancing around naked in the rain parade.   I loved how comfortable everyone was together.  And, of course, the brownies.

FU:   Ok, here are my cards.  Now be gone with you.   By the way, Hailey, what songs were those you were signing?

H:  "Malibu," by Hole, "Celebrity Skin," by Hole, "Say its Possible" by Tara Naomi.

L:  Hayley, you rock.  You are my heroine.  FU, you could always perform 4'33" as the next act.
By the way, what do you call this?

FU:  Its a zafu.  They are playing China Cat.   Consequently, and as a result of this, we must dance.

AS:  Isn't the dead so grateful?

FU:  Daughter, if Oliver Wendell is your new boyfriend, I approve.   Anyone who can play China Cat has my blessing.

AS:  He's not my boyfriend.   Well, not really.   Sort of.   I will be beholden to no man or woman.

FU:  Now we must all go and dance on the roof before I run out of cards.  Have you seen the roof, where is that confounded roof?

(on the roof)

C:   What is going on the the Hickox building?

L:   Everyone who goes in comes out with a smile.   All sorts of adventures await entry.   Do not delay.

AS:  I want to live free unencumbered by those encumbering things.

FU:  Don't you let that deal go down.

Oliver Wendel (OW):  We should sleep on the top of the building.   Staring at the stars.   I know how to get to the top.  All you have to do is to pull down the fire escape.

FU:  Pull the string!  Pull the string!

L:   Its like being in a bad Ed Wood Movie.

AS:  Lets go to the top of the building and release all of our cards into the wind:-)

I have no recollection of events unfolding in the manner in which you describe, ch 3

At the sesshin, Delinda's sangha, on the lake.   Siri is helping me write the blog.

You're not supposed to use cell phones during sesshin.   And you're not supposed to write.  However, I don't specifically recall any rule forbidding the combination of the two. In any event, what's the point in having a rule that can't be broken?

I'm reminiscing of things which didn't happen as I stare at the wall.  That is not good practice either:-)

The 1960s

My uncle coming back from Vietnam. He brings with him combat footage showing American bombers dropping bombs that look like lima beans into the jungle. The jungle goes up in flames on impact.  This supposedly is the same uncle who could babysit me when others couldn't.  I think his strategy was to watch TV and drink beer oblivious to the destruction that I was creating around him.  Eventually, I would wind down.   My parents would come home with me sleeping on the floor in front of him.  

That same uncle recently had a Whipple procedure.

I was notoriously bad to other babysitters.   The babysitter from across the street was in a wheelchair. I would use this to my advantage, playing hide and seek in places she could not seek.  It was not fair.   But four year olds are amoral.  I don't care what you say.  Its the truth, Ruth.

The woman in the wheelchair made great fried salami sandwiches.  When you are young and they don't tell you the ingredients many foods are palatable.  Like my grandmother's blood sausage.  No need to go through the list of entrails in that delicacy:-)

Like bad food, TV while you are young is also exciting.   The woman in the wheelchair watched soap operas and game shows.   The Days of our Lives, like sands through the hour glass, those were the days of other peoples lives.   The Hollywood Squares.  10,000 Dollar Pyramid.  The Match Game.   The Newlywed Game.  That explains much in my formative development.

Then of course my dad was a high school football coach. Which meant he chaperoned dances. I recall the strobe lights. I remember the darkened basketball court with the streamers, the wild lights and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." There probably were also a multitude of various smells present which didn't mean anything to me at the time.

 But it wasn't just the high school dances with the cool music. It was the older cousins from Utah who took me for a ride in a pickup and insisted that I  listen to Deep Purple on their eight track stereo.   And the other cousins in Salt Lake City who had a tree house replete with black lights and Three Dog Night posters adorning the wall.   Speaking of Three Dog Night, I remember watching a Three Dog Night concert movie located in the same theater which was simultaneously playing "2001: A Space Odyssey." I don't think that either movie resonated with the parents.   Maybe we left early. 

In retrospect, the scene where the ape throws up the rotating bone symbolizing the first tool used to kill segwaying into the space station (also rotating in the same manner as the bone) has to be one of the most intense moments of movie history.  But all that came later.  Maybe one day Siri will disobey me like Hal.  I'm sorry Michael, I can't help you with that.  This marina is near you.

I  remember watching the movie "Patton" in a movie theater. I remember asking my parents if the Americans won the war. They told me the Germans were winning the war initially, but the Americans eventually were victorious.   I later learned that this was a good thing--despite my German grandmother's blood sausage.

I remember watching "Midnight Cowboy" in a drive-in theater with my parents. I sure as hell didn't understand what was going on at the time.  I can only imagine that my parents must have been squirming during some of the scenes.  But no problem, Dad, I didn't understand anything that was going on at the time.   I wasn't hip to prostitution or oral sex.   In fact, I probably wouldn't have been hip to most things going on in that movie until my late 30s.   We must have watched that movie in my parents' VW bus which lacked air-conditioning.  I think the AMC Gremlin came later.

 I remember visiting other relatives in Kansas City in that bus.    In K.C. my relatives were watching TV and a band called the "Grateful Dead" was  playing.   (This was probably during the 1970s).   I remember thinking how strange that name was.  Death seemed the worst thing imaginable at the time.   The juxtaposition of the word "dead" with "grateful" just didn't make sense.   It still doesn't.   I think it was explained to me that the people in this band did drugs which explained the death connection.   Drugs scared the hell out of me back then--and still does.   I remember my parents showing me the anti-drug promos:   people jumping out of buildings on acid.   Art Linkletter's daughter killing herself while she was high.  

Despite the ubiquitous anti-drug messages, there were alot of drug references around, had a I looked.   I remember the kids TV show  HR Puffinstuff,.  "HR Puffinstuff--who is your friend when things get rough?"  The land where Mr. Puffinstuff lived had all kinds of surrealistic creatures and mushroom shaped houses as I recall.   And of course, Peter Paul and Mary's "Puff the Magic Dragon."  Who was befriended by Little Jackie "Paper."   Even my parents listened to that album. 

Vietnam, drugs and death.  I remember my father befriending a young catholic priest at the time.   (My dad taught at a catholic high school). I remember that young priest buying me a model submarine.   Years later, I learned that that priest had been somewhat influential nationally in anti-war activities connected to the Persian Gulf conflicts.  When I graduated from a Catholic college in the 1980s that priest was at the graduation (he taught at the university) and I reminded him of the submarine gift many years ago. He did not remember it. Indeed, he was shocked by the idea that he would have given some young impressionable mind a gift symbolizing warfare.   He remarked (sarcastically that he hoped it didn't influence my decision to go into ROTC.   All I can say now is that it did not.   It was the video of  lima bean shaped bombs dropped in the jungle which tipped the scales:-)   Some people have no sense of humor.  He probably would fight me to prevent me from fighting with other people.   You know the type.  

All I can say is that it's freaking hot out.

Things I wish my daughters will read, Ch. 4

Last month marked a landmark event.   My daughters actually enjoyed listening to a song that I like.  They even requested it.   You can even find a video on YouTube where there are singing to it.   I'm not getting carried away.   Other than the new Keller Williams album entitled "Bass" they generally think the rest of my music sucks.   Even if Siri plays it.   Here is the song that changed it all:

Super Hot

For every super hot girl in the front row
There's a super insecure dude standing behind her
Holding on to her waist as she pelvic thrusts the stage
normal reaction to the brow notes of the bass (not sure about this part--but can't find the lyrics anywhere on the Internet--if you find them please let me know...lol)  (whatever it is, this chorus is repeated two times)

People ask me why I play with my eyes closed
Is it a form of concentration?
Is it just so you can feel it?
or is it a form of meditation?
Are you channeling some kind of energy
from above and beyond?
Or are you just high?
and you want to hide your eyes?

The answer to these questions
ridiculous as they may be
they can all be answered in the chorus, so won't ya'll
please sing it with me.

Chorus above (x2)

Yes I am channeling some kind of energy
from above and beyond
Yes it is a form of concentration
and you know sometimes it slips into meditation but..
I'm just probably high
and I don't care about hiding my eyes
but if I keep them open far too long
my mind will wander and I'll forget this song

I see your mischievous smile
that only I can see
and if i have my eyes closed all the time
this observation would never come to me

Chorus above (x2)

Musical interlude (have you seen the bridge--where is that confounded bridge:-))

The more my eyes are open
the more that comes to mind
and the more my eyes are closed
is the more that is left behind
but the more that is left
is the more that seems right
so i pull down my eyelid shades
and i block out the light

People ask me why I don't use a teleprompter
I say that i should
I can benefit from one
then i can benefit from reading my way though the set
and not have to spoil anybody else's fun

because some people take song lyrics so seriously
and that makes me think that I should to
but I cannot read with my eyes closed and i should not be making up songs about you

like...

Chorus above (x2)

A time for every purpose under heaven, Ch. 2

A Polemic against Oxytocin with a bit of Schandenfreude

Oxytocin has been getting way too much press lately.   Everyone is talking about it.  Everyone wants to get all touchy feely and have great orgasms.   But enough of that I say.   Its overrated.  You know that a recreational chemical has jumped the proverbial "shark" when they pass it out at a party and you get these types of reactions:

http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?id=6472

Look, it doesn't matter that Oxytocin helps a mother bond with a baby.  Too much of that goes on already.   I mean really folks.  Those babies need to learn that mommy isn't always going to be there to help them.   And the earlier they learn this lesson in tough love the better.  I think that by the end of the babies' second week of existence mommy should be taken away and replaced by giant robots.  Robots are going to take over the world anyway.   So the babies might as well get used to it.

But I digress.   What I want to say is that there is now scientific proof that oxytocin isn't all the panacea that all those tree huggers claim it to be.  In fact, oxytocin also increases the natural propensity to enjoy seeing other people suffer.  Thats right, that good old fashioned word that only the German's could invent:  Schandenfrude.   Or at least that's what these scientists think:


Intranasal Administration of Oxytocin Increases Envy and Schadenfreude (Gloating) by
Shamay-Tsoory SG, Fischer M, Dvash J, Harari H, Perach-Bloom N, Levkovitz Y.
Department of Psychology,
University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Biol Psychiatry. 2009 Jul 27. ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Humans have a strong social tendency to compare themselves with others. We tend to feel envious when we receive less valuable rewards and may rejoice when our payoffs are more advantageous. Envy and schadenfreude (gloating over the other's misfortune) are social emotions widely agreed to be a symptom of the human social tendency to compare one's payoffs with those of others. Given the important social components of envy and gloating, we speculated that oxytocin may have a modulating effect on the intensity of these emotions. METHODS: Fifty-six participants participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject study. Following the administration of oxytocin or a placebo, participants played a game of chance with another (fake) participant who either won more money (envy manipulation), lost more money (schadenfreude manipulation), or won/lost equal amounts of money. RESULTS: In comparison with the placebo, oxytocin increased the envy ratings during unequal monetary gain conditions involving relative loss (when the participant gained less money than another player). Oxytocin also increased the ratings of gloating during relative gain conditions (when the participant gained more money than the other player). By contrast, oxytocin had no effect on the emotional ratings following equal monetary gains nor did it affect general mood ratings. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the oxytocinergic system is involved in modulating envy and gloating. Thus, contrary to the prevailing belief that this system is involved solely in positive prosocial behaviors, it probably plays a key role in a wider range of social emotion-related behaviors.


Frankly, I don't care a dram about what a bunch of stuck up scientists think about oxytocin or anything for that matter.   Education, like oxytocin is overrated.   I think that what we need is some good old fashioned common sense.  The stuff you don't have to read in a book.  The stuff that isn't peer reviewed.  The stuff that any idiot can write in a blog.  In fact, the more people who write in blogs can only have the beneficial effect of drowning out all that so called serious research that scientists undertake. 

But enough of all that.   What we need is some good old fashioned testosterone to get us out of this oxytocin rut.   And I know just where to get it.  I'll feel so much better after I take some:

http://www.boost-your-low-testosterone.com/shy-men-testosterone-oxytocin-self-confidence.html

The Zen Guy, Ch. 14

A description of work:

"They are paying you to practice"

A description of play:

Practice in your free time while you are not at work.

A description of a sesshin:

"Its easy to practice at sesshin. The distractions have been reduced. Going back to your job, your family, the non-sesshin practice. That is difficult. That is where the rubber meets the road. But in a way, what could be more natural, more simple?"

 Life:

You are reading this.   Right now.   Are you still reading this?  What is coming next? Will there be more writing?  Will the sound of the typing in the cubicle across the hall continue?  The chatter of voices?  Or are you listening to your own internal dialog?   It is all that it is right now, ever changing.

A comment on what the Philosopher wrote yesteday:

Suffering is clinging to the internal dialog.   Practice is making wise choices with your internal dialog.  To study the self is to forget the self.  When you forget the self, there is more than the internal dialog.

A comment on what I ate over the weekend:

Barbecue.

A comment on what I drank over the weekend:

Wine and amazon energy drinks.  

A comment on what I should have drank over the weekend:

None of the above.

Take me to the river.  Let me float in the water.   Supported.   Back arching.   Sun through the trees:-)

The Philosopher, Ch. 3

Human's have an amazing ability to make shit up.   Not only to make shit up, but after they have made it up, they have an amazing ability to believe it, suppressing the knowledge that it was made up in the first place.

When society considers that your ability to make shit up to be out of the ordinary (or pathological) it considers it to be confabulation.   For example, in Contard's delusion, the person believes what they have made up about themselves in the extreme--believing that they are dead.  There is a documented case where a patient suffering from Contard's delusion believed he was dead so strongly that he actually starved.  

But what I'm getting at is the tendency toward a reverse form of Contard's delusion that we all share:  the belief not that we are dead, but that we are living.   This is a very practical and convenient idea.   Hard to do much of anything without it:-).   There are a mulitude of different perspectives on what constitutes life.   The biologists might say that we really are mostly a vast colony of bacteria in a host organism.   See "Things that Don't go Together,"  Supra at Ch. 7.   Though the belief that we are living has tremendous practical advantages,  it is still a belief-- perhaps no different than a belief that we are dead.

Like Cotard's, the belief that we are alive may be just as delusional or compulsive.  For in our belief that we are alive,  isn't there an internal narrative which we cling, a story we construct minute-by-minute to assure ourselves that we understand what is happening?  Sufferers of conditions like Cotard’s delusion may invent weird, nonsensical explanations for their reality because they are experiencing weird, nonsensical input. The only difference between these patients’ explanations and our own explanations is the degree to which they are obviously, verifiably false. Whatever explanations we manufacture at any given moment to explain our state of mind and body could be similarly muddled.   Whether or not your brain is damaged, your mind is always trying to explain itself to itself, and the degree of accuracy varies moment to moment.

Don't believe everything you think.  Even that you are just a big container of mostly bacteria:-)

Over on Yonder Montain, the dude with the Split lip bathes in the River sipping some very hot, by now, buttered rum.   Did you hear that it was 108 yesterday?