A (Manic Depressive) Man’s Best Friend
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
Also, while reading this anyone else here reminded of the totems (the spinning top, weighted dice, etc.) from the movie Inception? Small objects that remind you what's real and what's only a dream.
Yes, this. Cats can be stabilizing too. I can't be depressed around a cat. I haven't had a manic episode for several years so I don't know if cats have anti-manic properties or if I've just been lucky. But pets are great for mental health, no question.
His experience is different from mine. For him, the dog is a neutral character (a generally innocent animal of fairly average temperament) he has intense emotions toward, and he's begun to recognize that negative feelings toward the dog indicate a deteriorating mental state. For me, I rarely feel negative emotion for any animal except humans, and cats (and, to a lesser extent, dogs) are a stabilizer, a reminder that happiness (and not that fleeting manic kind) exists in the world. I'm pretty sure that one of my cats is a Zen master (except when in the presence of boiled or fried chicken).
Please don't say that. Most animals that are owner-surrendered to open-admission shelters will be killed. (No-kill shelters are a better option, but tend to involve a waiting list in the 2-4 month range.) And being remit to the shelter system is arguably a severe emotional stress for the animal. I hate this idea that it's OK to abandon an animal because the puppy became an 80-pound dog, or because you're moving across the country. People should understand what they're getting into, and have plans that don't involve remitting the animal to the (overcrowded) shelter system. I have a friend who's agreed to take on our pets if my wife and I die traveling, for example.
Shelter pets are not for everyone either, although avoiding pet store puppymill pets is obviously desirable.
Most shelter animals are just fine. I got two cats (bonded pair) from a shelter in August 2013 and they've been a dream. Shelter life isn't easy for animals, but it doesn't typically break them (a few handle it badly, but most are psychologically normal after a couple weeks in a new home).
You're taking a bet with any kind of new pet, but you're probably getting a healthier animal, on average, with a mutt from a shelter than if you get a breed animal, even from a "responsible" (i.e. not puppy-mill) breeder. The better shelters don't do that much psychiatric damage, and most of it's not long-term. This idea that shelter animals are all psychiatric/behavioral basketcases is both untrue and very damaging.
I prefer no-kill shelters for finding pets. Part of it is selfishness (I don't like feeling like not choosing an animal will condemn it to death) and some of it is ideology (I don't agree that it's "euthanasia" to kill healthy feral animals; who are we to decide that they'd be better off dead?) but I also know that NK shelters (which source from "kill"/open-admission shelters, so you're still saving a life) are staffed by people who are experts (at least, relative to me) in selecting adoptable, healthy animals who are unlikely to have behavioral problems.
In most cases, bills of that magnitude only arise in a context where euthanasia would have been a viable option anyway.
I’m a proponent of total honesty, and I have always found this quote from Brad Blanton inspiring:
”If you are in an ongoing relationship with any person there will probably be times when you hurt their feelings. Probably the most often used rationalization for lying is ‘I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.’ I recommend you hurt people’s feelings and stay with them past the hurt. I also recommend that you offend people. We can all get over having our feelings hurt and we can get over being offended. These are not permanent conditions; they are feelings that come and go. On the other side of that reaction is a conversation in which your mutual honesty creates an intimacy not possible if you are hiding something for the sake of someone’s feelings.”
You might be walking down the street with your girlfriend, and see a smoking hot girl come the other way. You turn to look, your girlfriend all but expects you to, she knows the kinds of girls you like because you've talked about it a dozen times before.
She might tease you about it or mock being angry, but she's not going to fly off the handle just because you expressed a sexual interest in someone that's not her. Any more than you would on her.
How does 100% honesty work with people in authority over you, and what about unpopular opinions. I'd wager most of us hold at least one opinion that would make us social pariahs.
If you tell your girlfriend about all the women you're attracted to, do you tell every attractive woman you meet that you're sexually attracted to her? I can't imagine that going over very well.
If we're in a setting where that sort of interaction is more or less expected, like a bar, sure I'll tell her that I'm attracted to her.
With authority and work, it's something you work on. Of course you don't want to tell your CEO that he's a fucking idiot when it comes to technology, but you don't want to be a doormat either. He's relying on your expertise, you need to be able to correct his incorrect views in an appropriate fashion. You can express displeasure but not disdain. You filter the expression of whatever emotion you're feeling, but you still express it.
100% honesty makes more demands on your amygdala than not having a filter. You have to become clearer about exactly what you're expressing and why. Precision when you're communicating negative emotions is paramount. You also have to be willing to apologize whenever you miscommunicate.
To me that sounds a lot like acting like an ordinary mature adult. I don't think what you're expressing is what most people mean when they talk about 100% or radical honesty.
I think you need to be 100% honest with yourself before you start removing your filter or it won't work and you'll end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. 100% honesty is as much about knowing yourself as it is about not misleading others. Only once you understand yourself and your motivations can you start to experiment with just saying stuff that's on your mind without thinking about it first. The things you say will clue you in on deeper motivations that you can then work on being honest with yourself about.
I have a family member who went through a time when he absolutely wouldn't tell a lie. Because of this, when he had information he didn't want other people to know, he would spend time going through complicated verbal gymnastics to avoid actually lying.
When he was cheating on his diet, instead of telling his wife he was going to McDonald's, he'd try to slip out without her noticing. Then she'd notice and start asking him questions that he'd try to dodge. He made it look like he was cheating on her instead of his diet.
The point is, you can be just as dishonest by not saying something. The 100% honesty thing is just ridiculous and impossible.
It's not ridiculous, it's not impossible. You won't get the knack of it overnight, but you can get it.
Everyone has thoughts and actions that they don't want made public--if you make up silly rules like "I'm never going to tell a lie", you'll eventually find yourself coming up with other ways to keep those thoughts and actions private.
If someone asks you something that you don't want to tell them, tell them you don't want to tell them that information. You do not have to be dishonest in order to not tell someone something, nor do you need silly rules. You can do that in an honest and straightforward fashion.
When I was in middle school my mom cut my hair to save money. I was embarrassed by this. I dreaded people asking me questions about my haircut because I didn't want to tell them my mom cut it, but I didn't want to lie about where I got it cut.
If someone asked me where I got my hair cut and I respond with "I don't want to talk about it", that answer would have revealed just as much sensitive information.
I started changing my behavior to avoid this question--getting my hair cut at the beginning of a long break, so I could avoid people right after it was cut when they were most likely to ask.
All I was doing was finding new ways to hide information.
Now the obvious solution would have been to stop worrying about what other people thought. But I couldn't do that. We all have information like this, and we can be honest with ourselves and realize that 100% honesty with other people is a joke, or we can try to come up with other means to keep the information hidden that we think are morally superior to direct deception.
Some people are in situations where they cannot be honest. The only real way out is to leave the situation. A lot of people end up cultivating a network of friends outside of their crappy situations where they can be honest with each other and feel freer. 80% honesty is better than none. But you should be working on increasing that percentage by changing your circumstances, because being able to be honest with yourself and others is practically what it means to be happy. And as I said earlier, it's a prerequisite to self-actualization.
I would agree that 80% is better than 0% honesty.
My problem is not with honesty, it's with the goal of 100% honesty. I believe it's neither possible, nor desirable in the world we live in. In some situations I value politeness and brevity over honesty, and there's nothing wrong with that.
How does it help me or my Secret Santa to learn that I'm displeased with her gift because I like dark chocolate more than milk chocolate?
I think it's healthy to realize that there are situations where deception is the optimal solution.
Take the most confident self assured person you can find, and I can guarantee they are self-conscious about something. I refuse to believe that anyone has transcended so far above petty human concerns that they don't care what other people think at all...about anything. Sure some people care less than others, but this transcendent person would have to be a complete narcissist.
That being said, the story of being embarrassed was just an example of information you can posses that you don't want other people to know.
It's very likely you hold at least a few opinions that would cause you pretty serious harm if you voiced them, even if they don't embarrass you. Paul Graham wrote an essay a while back that hypothesized that everyone has opinions like this.
>To say that your own problems mean that "100% honesty with other people is a joke" is impossibly closed minded.
If you've deceived yourself into thinking you are 100% honest with anyone, then you're being dishonest with yourself.
I actually can't imagine what someone would have to ask me that I would have to lie. I guess we just have drastically different life situations.
So what you're saying is you have absolutely nothing to hide, you are so self confident that you aren't embarrassed by a single thought or action (or at least not embarrassed enough to hide).
And in addition to not having done or thought anything that you are personally embarrassed by, you don't hold any opinions that could cause trouble for you (personally or professionally) if they were made public?
I'll quote Paul Graham's essay on this point.
"Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told.
The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you'd also have to make the same mistakes. "
> I literally can't remember the last lie I told.
I believe you might not remember the last time you told a lie, but that doesn't mean you're 100% honest.
Secret Santa at the office gives you a Christmas gift that you absolutely hate. What do you do?
Except the thoughts being discussed aren't crazy because they're expressed in a crazy manner. They're crazy because their content is perceived as crazy.
What you're actually talking about is that you get feedback and adapt your thoughts in response to that feedback, rather than responding to yourself in a self-reinforcing loop of imagination.
It's just another form of self-censorship. It's, you know, a healthy and natural kind but it's not actually any different.
Part of being an adult is learning not to voice inappropriate thoughts. Talking about sleeping with family members is definitely not appropriate. What if you found her mother attractive, or her grandmother? Would you say the same thing? If not, then you're still filtering yourself.