Friday, July 24, 2009
Antimatter from bananas
Sunday, July 19, 2009
How to live: community or individual?
- more emotional support. Loneliness is a major disease of our times. Living with others prevents or relieves it in many cases.
- more material and financial support. Living in a family gets you more help in many practical matters that, altogether, improve one's lifestyle. Think for example of how your family members can give you a ride, lend you money, etc.
- easier connection with the community. Family connections often lead to social connections. It could be through the schooling of children, through a spouse's colleagues, etc.
- better healthcare and therefore better health. More material support often means more care when you are sick at home and therefore better health and longer life. Think of all the elders who die just because nobody is with them when they fall at home. A family member that nurses you when in need has no substitute and is priceless. Seniors know that very well.
- more satisfactory sex life. If you are an adult and live with your family, most likely you are married. Well, it seems that married people have more and better sex than single ones, in spite of the myths about how fun dating is. Dating becomes less and less fun when you are not in your early 20's anymore.
- more wealth. Statistics show that living with family makes you richer. You may choose higher paying jobs to meet the higher needs of the family, of you may just be saving money by sharing costs. You can also marry someone rich, of course!
- better chances of having children. As I said, if you are an adult and life with your family, most likely you are married. Married people have more children. So this statement about better chances of having kids just follows logically.
- better chance of parenting happy children. Studies show that children living only with their single parent are more likely to suffer from poverty, school failures, neglect, etc.
- higher social status. The better social and material support of a family often results in higher social status, difficult to acquire with one's own effort alone.
- less individual responsibility. A family allows the luxury of sharing duties. You balance the checkbook and I cook. Isn't that a great arrangement?
- more flexibility in decisions. Living alone you can do whatever you want most of the times. It feels great, I have to admit.
- more opportunities for travel and other diversions. There are many activities that living with a family makes impractical. People who live alone can travel more. Also, have you noticed how most people at social, sports and cultural events are singles living alone?
- more privacy. Not sharing spaces means more privacy, that's obvious.
- more opportunities of personal growth. Living with others often quenches personal initiatives. Probably because less time is left for them. Also, in a group you need to compromise a lot for the sake of peace, and this often means giving up the rebellious or more independent side of yourself.
- less stress. When I live alone I am stressed from work, but when I am on vacation and stay with my family I get awfully stressed from handling the complex family dynamics. It's highly personal, but I tend to think that, on average, the stress is lower living alone, since you have more control on your living conditions.
- more financial power. Above I wrote that living in a family makes you richer. True, but the wealth is shared, and the needs of a family a much larger (especially if there are kids to send to college). So, many single person households have lower income but enjoy higher power for it.
- more time for professional enterprises or life passions. There are certain activities that are simply incompatible with a family. For married women, it may be having a career. For men, it might be a job with a lot of travel. Other examples: becoming a catholic priest, or a buddhist monk, doing a 10 year trip to Mars, etc.
- less personal conflict. To live with others inevitably means conflict. It happens in the happiest families. Of course, the advantages of a family can more than compensate for it, but not always. Certainly, living alone is better than living with a dysfunctional family.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Human nature
Lately I have been struck by how so many, if not all, human behaviors and circumstances ultimately trace back to the basic traits of human nature. The strongest of them is the instinctual drive to seek health, wealth, love, and status, all of them with the common goal of reproductive success.
While browsing magazines at a store, I tried to look at them with the eyes of a non-human visitor, and I saw how easy it was to recognize the same theme over and over again... every single magazine cover contained at least one - but usually many more - of the basic messages, in the form of female bodies ("get more reproductive success!"), muscular men ("become a desirable reproductive partner!"), items of actual or perceived high value ("here's how to get wealth") and people of actual or perceived success ("here is how to get status").
Even messages of less material tone contain these themes, even though perhaps more indirectly: it is not by chance that so many of them are about the joy of parenthood and family (reproductive success), or healthy living (health) or achievement in sports, arts or careers (status).
What about messages that speak about contentment, acceptance, letting go, etc., that are nowadays so much in fashion? Same thing: the idea is "less is more".... giving up something to ultimately get more of the really big stuff: health, wealth, love and status.
Have you ever read a magazine on how to get less wealth? Or how to decrease your status? I haven't.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
An italian divorce
I think Ms. Berlusconi is doing the right thing, for many reasons:
now she can finally move on in her personal life, after many offenses swallowed in silence.
probably she has realized that to initiate a divorce rather than waiting for one (which was probably coming anyway) might be to her advantage.
she is doing a favor to the country: it is hoped that, in a still family-centric Italy, her exposing Berlusconi as a bad husband might damage his public image (I think it's unlikely, but I would like to see this).
She is sending a powerful message of political dissent that I hope will spread.
She is sending a message in defense of women's dignity.
I never especially liked her, especially because her complaint about her husband's not-so-saintly behavior sounds a little hypocritical, considering that he was married when she first met him... But now I admire her for finally standing up for herself.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
IT and Asperger syndrome
Out of curiosity, I took the autism test online (I have no idea of how reliable it is). The result? 26 points, compared to an average of 16 for a sample of normal people as claimed by the website, and to 32 as the minimum of a sample of individual with autism. Mmh.....
