these two things

Okay, friends, it’s apparently been about a month and a half since I last wrote something —anything, come to think of it. I felt like writing today, and I’m a bit rusty. I hope you’ll bear with me.

I want to write about two things I’ve read that stick with me and I refer to mentally when things seem overwhelming with, well, everything the way it is these days.

1. This article from Smithsonian magazine (“Why I Take Fake Pills”, link added): In summary, it says that placebos work. Typically, when looking at the placebo effect in pharmaceutical studies, the assumption is that the drug doesn’t work if it does no better than placebo. This article covers it from a different angle: do placebos work, and if so, how? My takeaway from it is that, to some extent, if you think something will work, it will. It lightly touches on the nocebo effect, which is when you anticipate negative side effects and they occur. For me, it helps me keep self-fulfilling prophecies in perspective. We’re very suggestible creatures. Give yourself a ritual, tell yourself it will work, and go about your business.

2. This study (“Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During Mental Rotation”, link added) by Gregory Berns and his team at Emory University based on the work of Solomon Asch. There have been several articles about it, and I came across it while reading Quiet by Susan Cain (an excellent book that says introverts are wonderful, so how could it be bad?). It essentially says that peer pressure is not only a social thing, but it actually affects your perception of the world. They planted people getting the wrong answer in a group and watched fMRIs while most of the participants changed their minds to conform to the incorrect response of the most decisive participant, the person who had been planted to mislead everyone —not only did they change their minds, but it altered their perception. People who did not go along with the group activated a different part of their brain associated with fear, because it’s hard to be rejected by the group. I think about this work when I think about why I agree or disagree with things, and also to remind myself, it is possible to be right and still have to deal with rejection and that’s okay. I have a tendency to want to see all angles, but sometimes, that’s not appropriate.

I’m sharing these with you today because maybe they can help you. Also, I’m trying to get back in the swing of writing on a semi-regular basis. Thank you for reading.

when we've forgotten how to have fun

At some point in our lives, we’ve all had fun. All of us. For some of us, it may have been a fleeting second sometime in 2005, but we have all had something happen to us, with us, around us that brought a smile to our face and a lightness to our being.

It’s hard to have fun these days for a number of reasons. The obvious one, of course, is that there are people running things at the moment who seem to get off on causing misery.

There must be other reasons, however. There usually are. For me, personally, it’s waiting—I don’t deal well with uncertainty and so I’d like to know right away what I need to do to prepare for that vague something that’s ahead of all of us. It might be other reasons for you, personal reasons that only you know.

I’m not writing to recount why we’re all anxious and miserable, though. No, I’m writing to remind you (and perhaps myself) how to have fun.

I am thinking back to the most fun I’ve had and here are some common elements:

• Spontaneity

• Laughter and humor

• Good company, not always with familiar people

• Doing things for the sheer joy of doing them

• Feeding curiosity (otherwise known as “What happens when I push this button?”)

• Music

• Liquor and cursing a blue streak (sometimes, not gonna lie)

I used to be funny—perhaps this is just me humoring myself. I used to laugh far more often than I do now. Then again, satire used to be funny, too, instead of just frighteningly prescient.

I will laugh again. I look forward to more joy in my life, however short or long it may be.

I have glimpses of joy now and again. It’s still there. You must have seen it, too. How do we enjoy it?

I think the elements that worked before still work. Good company is always good company. Music is always music. They’re classic. The things that lift our spirits never go out of style. And though they may be hard to see, the things that bring us joy are always just under our noses.

We can do this. We haven’t forgotten how to have fun. It’s just that we might need a refresher. We can do this.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to practice my spontaneity and go streak the neighbors …