1. Baby sis (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
shivani_smith)sent me the dancing videos from wherethehellismatt.com because it reminded her of me (she thinks I dance like a nut). So I sent her proof that the dancing is not my fault... it's genetic. My parents dance the same way!
2. Inspired by my filmmaking abilities Baby sis collated some videos from our last holiday which captures the range of talents (singing, rapping, rocking and even dancing) my BIL (Brother in law) and his BIL (ie me) keep displaying in public places much to the embarrassment of the rest of the family. It's called the BIL & BIL show. We have not got a TV network deal yet.
3. This is a video of my Baby biwiavantika getting drunk on her surprise birthday party and trying to blow out some trick candles that can't be blown out - in her 'Tullu' state it caused her quite a lot of confusion.
shivani_smith)sent me the dancing videos from wherethehellismatt.com because it reminded her of me (she thinks I dance like a nut). So I sent her proof that the dancing is not my fault... it's genetic. My parents dance the same way!2. Inspired by my filmmaking abilities Baby sis collated some videos from our last holiday which captures the range of talents (singing, rapping, rocking and even dancing) my BIL (Brother in law) and his BIL (ie me) keep displaying in public places much to the embarrassment of the rest of the family. It's called the BIL & BIL show. We have not got a TV network deal yet.
3. This is a video of my Baby biwi
avantika getting drunk on her surprise birthday party and trying to blow out some trick candles that can't be blown out - in her 'Tullu' state it caused her quite a lot of confusion.I read a great book book "How to make love all the time" by Barbara de Angelis. One point I've been thinking about a lot is how so many relationships are screwed up by poor communication. People don't know how to express themselves or how to decode others.
For example a typical interaction might go:
Husband - I'm going to watch the tennis match tonight
Wife - You never spend any time with me
Husband - That's not true, I took you out for a candle light dinner just yesterday. It's impossible to make you happy!
Now the thing is that behind every angry thought are many other unexpressed emotions that if they were properly communicated would lead to a very different result:
1. Anger and blame
2. Hurt and sadness
3. Fear and insecurity
4. Remorse and responsibility
5. Intention and wishes
6. Love, forgiveness, understanding and appreciation
If the wife had said instead:
1. Anger - I feel like you never spend any time with me
2. Hurt - I'm hurt that you would rather spend time watching a match rather than talking to me
3. Fear - I'm worried that I'm not a very interesting person and that you'll get bored of me and stop loving me
4. Remorse - I'm sorry that I sometimes nag you and that I don't take more interest in things that are important to you and that I need so much attention
5. Intention - I'd like to spend more quality time with you and have a really comfortable deep relationship with you
6. Love - I love you and appreciate that you took me out yesterday for such a lovely evening. I also understand that you have a lot of hobbies that are important to you to unwind from the stresses of your work.
... then the guy would have probably reacted very differently. Of course, even if she hadn't he could have been the one to express himself fully instead of just expressing his surface level irritation.
I'm beginning to understand that all negative and obnoxious reactions are as a result of a positive intention expressed in a poor way. We need to learn to interpret other's language because it's the only language they know.
I used to get irritated when my dad would tell me to save more money or when my mother would keep asking me about my health and whether I was eating properly. That's how stupid I was!
And once again I have to ask .... why is all this not taught in schools?
For example a typical interaction might go:
Husband - I'm going to watch the tennis match tonight
Wife - You never spend any time with me
Husband - That's not true, I took you out for a candle light dinner just yesterday. It's impossible to make you happy!
Now the thing is that behind every angry thought are many other unexpressed emotions that if they were properly communicated would lead to a very different result:
1. Anger and blame
2. Hurt and sadness
3. Fear and insecurity
4. Remorse and responsibility
5. Intention and wishes
6. Love, forgiveness, understanding and appreciation
If the wife had said instead:
1. Anger - I feel like you never spend any time with me
2. Hurt - I'm hurt that you would rather spend time watching a match rather than talking to me
3. Fear - I'm worried that I'm not a very interesting person and that you'll get bored of me and stop loving me
4. Remorse - I'm sorry that I sometimes nag you and that I don't take more interest in things that are important to you and that I need so much attention
5. Intention - I'd like to spend more quality time with you and have a really comfortable deep relationship with you
6. Love - I love you and appreciate that you took me out yesterday for such a lovely evening. I also understand that you have a lot of hobbies that are important to you to unwind from the stresses of your work.
... then the guy would have probably reacted very differently. Of course, even if she hadn't he could have been the one to express himself fully instead of just expressing his surface level irritation.
I'm beginning to understand that all negative and obnoxious reactions are as a result of a positive intention expressed in a poor way. We need to learn to interpret other's language because it's the only language they know.
I used to get irritated when my dad would tell me to save more money or when my mother would keep asking me about my health and whether I was eating properly. That's how stupid I was!
And once again I have to ask .... why is all this not taught in schools?
I think I'm going to encode my blog to start every post automatically with "I read an interesting book called ___ by ___" because that's pretty much how all of them start. It'll save me time over the long term.
Anyway the book was 'The Happiness Hypothesis' by Jonathan Haidt. There is an interesting chapter on how disgust and divinity are opposite ends of the same scale.
Disgust has evolutionary origins and its purpose is to help us avoid things that will make us sick. Animals that routinely eat or crawl on corpses, excrement or garbage piles trigger disgust in us (rats, maggots, cockroaches, etc). We're also disgusted by body products of other people such as excrement, mucus and blood which are often carriers of disease. Disgust also gives us a queasy feeling when we see people with skin lesions, deformities, amputations. Disgust has also an important role in sexuality guiding us to the narrow class of culturally acceptable sexual partners and sexual acts.
Disgust turns off desire and motivates concerns about purification, separation and cleansing.
In fact most cultures use these disgust signals to demarcate humans from animals. Our bodies do all the things that animals do - eating, copulating, excreting, bleeding, dying and rotting. But culturally we reject our animality. If we see someone crapping or having sex doggie style in the middle of the road or eating a chunk of raw animal flesh we feel disgusted or 'degraded'.
So there is a dimension where man can be 'degraded' downwards to the level of animals. If we go in the other direction on this continuum then we feel 'uplifted' 'ennobled' 'inspired', etc. It is the feeling we get when we're in a holy temple or when we watch a beautiful sunrise or when we watch an act of great courage or generosity. It is a real experience and in our culture we extrapolate it upwards so that the full continuum is:
Animal - degraded man - man - ennobled man - angel - God
And I guess this is where religion is able to keep its hold on people. I don't think religious ideas could ever stand up to logical scrutiny. But religious people don't believe in God because they are just indoctrinated into it - it's also because they 'feel' God's presence. They feel uplifted in a temple, mosque, church. They feel moved, ennobled when they read religous texts. They feel uplifted in the presence of nature and the universe. And when they ask themselves 'What is this feeling due to?' they wrap it around the ideology that they have grown up with and it makes sense. In fact it makes so much sense that they 'know' it's true because of their direct experience of 'God'.
And this is the biggest misunderstading that atheists and religious folk have with each other. Atheist bang their heads against the wall screaming 'but it doesn't make any sense, how can anyone believe this stuff', not realising that people don't believe because of the logic in the holy books but because of their real experience of something 'higher'.
And religious folk pity atheists because they assume that atheists don't experience the 'uplifting, touching, reassuring' presence when of course in reality, many atheists they do - they just don't attribute those feelings to a higher power. Religious folk look at the universe and go - 'this is so beautiful only God could have created this' and atheists go 'this is so beautiful that it's impossible that anyone could have created this' - but the feelings and experience of awe and wonder and spirituality is the same for both.
Of course on a slightly different tangent this 'divinity continuun' explains something else - why dirt, blood, crap, pork are considered polluting in so many religions (in Islam I think the men are told not to go near their wives when they are menstruating). And also why bathing and purifying fire are considered such an intrinsic part of so many religious rites. If pollution is one end of the divinity spectrum it only makes sense that cleanliness is next to Godliness.
And it also explains why Sex and religion have such a tough time getting along together. Many religions see sex as the ultimate reminder that we are no different from animals. Hmm... it probably explains why humans are the only animals that do it 'missionary style' instead of 'doggie style' :)
Anyway the book was 'The Happiness Hypothesis' by Jonathan Haidt. There is an interesting chapter on how disgust and divinity are opposite ends of the same scale.
Disgust has evolutionary origins and its purpose is to help us avoid things that will make us sick. Animals that routinely eat or crawl on corpses, excrement or garbage piles trigger disgust in us (rats, maggots, cockroaches, etc). We're also disgusted by body products of other people such as excrement, mucus and blood which are often carriers of disease. Disgust also gives us a queasy feeling when we see people with skin lesions, deformities, amputations. Disgust has also an important role in sexuality guiding us to the narrow class of culturally acceptable sexual partners and sexual acts.
Disgust turns off desire and motivates concerns about purification, separation and cleansing.
In fact most cultures use these disgust signals to demarcate humans from animals. Our bodies do all the things that animals do - eating, copulating, excreting, bleeding, dying and rotting. But culturally we reject our animality. If we see someone crapping or having sex doggie style in the middle of the road or eating a chunk of raw animal flesh we feel disgusted or 'degraded'.
So there is a dimension where man can be 'degraded' downwards to the level of animals. If we go in the other direction on this continuum then we feel 'uplifted' 'ennobled' 'inspired', etc. It is the feeling we get when we're in a holy temple or when we watch a beautiful sunrise or when we watch an act of great courage or generosity. It is a real experience and in our culture we extrapolate it upwards so that the full continuum is:
Animal - degraded man - man - ennobled man - angel - God
And I guess this is where religion is able to keep its hold on people. I don't think religious ideas could ever stand up to logical scrutiny. But religious people don't believe in God because they are just indoctrinated into it - it's also because they 'feel' God's presence. They feel uplifted in a temple, mosque, church. They feel moved, ennobled when they read religous texts. They feel uplifted in the presence of nature and the universe. And when they ask themselves 'What is this feeling due to?' they wrap it around the ideology that they have grown up with and it makes sense. In fact it makes so much sense that they 'know' it's true because of their direct experience of 'God'.
And this is the biggest misunderstading that atheists and religious folk have with each other. Atheist bang their heads against the wall screaming 'but it doesn't make any sense, how can anyone believe this stuff', not realising that people don't believe because of the logic in the holy books but because of their real experience of something 'higher'.
And religious folk pity atheists because they assume that atheists don't experience the 'uplifting, touching, reassuring' presence when of course in reality, many atheists they do - they just don't attribute those feelings to a higher power. Religious folk look at the universe and go - 'this is so beautiful only God could have created this' and atheists go 'this is so beautiful that it's impossible that anyone could have created this' - but the feelings and experience of awe and wonder and spirituality is the same for both.
Of course on a slightly different tangent this 'divinity continuun' explains something else - why dirt, blood, crap, pork are considered polluting in so many religions (in Islam I think the men are told not to go near their wives when they are menstruating). And also why bathing and purifying fire are considered such an intrinsic part of so many religious rites. If pollution is one end of the divinity spectrum it only makes sense that cleanliness is next to Godliness.
And it also explains why Sex and religion have such a tough time getting along together. Many religions see sex as the ultimate reminder that we are no different from animals. Hmm... it probably explains why humans are the only animals that do it 'missionary style' instead of 'doggie style' :)
I've been reading a lot on violence and genocide recently. It all started when I realised I didn't know a lot of the new countries that had sprung up since 1991 so I should update my Geography and History. But the more I read the more I realised that almost all of the new nations had had a violent birth. They were all different nations historically that had been artificially fused by imperialist forces. When the occupying forces left... sooner or later the cohesion unravelled and the countries split into their original constituent nation states.
And that reminded me of India - how India had been a bunch of different countries pulled forged into one by the British. We've already had our bloody wars of partition but what scared me is that there is still a long way to go. Will we ever get to a stage where after Pakistan, Kashmir, Some North Eastern states, we get more and more States demanding their own countries. Will the Shiv Sena take the route of demanding that all non Maharashtrians leave the state. Will the Tamilians ever fight a war of Independence. There are enough nutty politicians bent on inflaming local chauvanism for their own gains. Or is there something about India that is different from other countries like Yugoslavia and the Sovient Union? Is it as Jawaharlal Nehru said 'held together by strong but invisible threads ... a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive'.
The conflicts that have happened in other parts of the world in the last 20 years are mainly due to Communist uprisings, Islamic fundamentalism, ethnocentric secessionism not to mention genocide all things that have happened in India before and could happen again if the politicians get out of hand.
75-on Angola: Marxist government backed by Cuba vs rebels. 350,000 dead.
92-95 Bosnia and Herzegovina: Muslim government vs Serb Orthodox insurgents supported by Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing took place. Over 200,000 dead.
97-on Democratic Republic of Congo: Government supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe vs rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda. 200,000 dead.
79-92 Mozambique: Government supported by Zimbabwe and Tanzania vs RENAMO guerrilas assisted by South Africa. 200,000 dead.
75-90 Lebanon: Christian Maronites with Israel vs Muslim shiites with PLO and Syria. 170,000 dead.
90-96 Liberia: Government overthrown by two rebel groups who then fought with each other. 150,000 dead.
91-on Burundi: Tutsi led government vs Hutus. 100,000 dead. 800,000 Hutus placed in 'regroupment' camps
96-on Uganda: Government vs Christian fundamentalists (who have kidnapped thousands of children to train them to become soldiers). 100,000 dead and 220,000 refugees.
92-on Algeria: Government vs Islamic rebels. Government declared cancelled polls when it looked like they would lose elections to Islamists. 100,000 dead.
82-on Somalia: Government vs Somali national movment and clan based guerrilas. 85,000 dead.
78-on Afghanistan: Communist government supported by USSR vs Mujahedin. From 96 the war continued between Northern Alliance and Taliban. 60,000 dead.
94-on Russia: Government vs Muslim secessionist republic Chechnya. 60,000 dead. 200,000 Chechen refugees in Ingushetia
92-98 Tajikistan: Communist government vs Islamist and Democratic alliance called United Tajik opposition. 50,000 dead.
80-92 Nicaragua: Civil war between leftist government and right wing guerilla contras supported by US. 43,000 dead
79-98 Cambodia: Pol Pot vs Vietnam's puppet government. 42,000 dead.
72-on Philippines: Maoists vs government. 40,000 dead.
82-on Peru: Civil war between right wing governement and left wing rebels. 28,000 dead.
89-on Kashmir: Dispute between India and Pakistan. 25,000 dead.
79-92 El Salvador: Civil war between right wing government supported by US and left wing guerrilas. 25,000 dead.
84-on Columbia: Civil war between right wing government and left wing rebels. 22,000 dead.
85-on India: Government vs Sikh insurgents (till 93) and separatists in Kashmir and Assam. 19,000 dead.
89-93 South Africa: Political violence between ANC and Inkatha Freedom party while trying to end Apartheid. 19,000 dead.
78-91 Tigray: Tigrean People's Liberation Front vs Ethiopia's leftist government supported by Sovient Union and Cuba. 15,000 dead.
48-on Israel: Muslim Palestinians opposed to creation of Jewish Israel. 800,000 Palestinians displaced. 13,000 dead.
83-on Sudan: Muslim Arabic government vs Christian and Animist sub saharran rebels. 12,000 dead and 4.5 million people displaced.
80-90 Chad: General who lost elections retook it by force with French help. Rebels were supported by Libya and defeated him. 11,000 dead.
91-94 Croation: Croatian (Catholic) secessionists vs Yugoslav (Orthodox) government of Milosevic in which ethnic cleansing took place. 10,000 dead
90-94 Azerbaijan: Government vs secessionists of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia supported separatists. 10,000 dead.
75-91 West Africa: War for land between Mauritania and Morocco after Spain pulled out. 10,000 dead
83-on Burma: Government vs Karens and other ethnic groups demanding autonomy. 7,000 dead.
94-94 Yemen: Secessionists trying to establish South Yemen. 7,000 dead.
98-99 Kosovo: Milosevic vs Kosovo Liberation Army. 5,000 dead.
69-94 Northern Ireland: UK Government vs Provisional IRA. 3,400 deaths.
91-93 Georgia: Secessionists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia vs Governemtn. Georgia lost control of Abkhazia. 2,500 dead.
97-99 Congo Brazzavile: Government with Angolan support vs former political leaders. 2,000 dead.
89-on Indonesia: Government vs Islamic Free Aceh Movement. 2,000 dead.
94-on Philippines: Islamic secessionist groups from predominantly Catholic country. 2,000 dead.
97-99 Senegal: War for control of Casamance territory. 1,000 dead.
98-99 Guinea Bissau: Mutiny by General. 1,000 dead.
83-on Sri Lanka: Government vs Northern secessionists from LTTE. Unknown deaths.
75-99 East Timor: Secessionists from Indonesia. Unknown deaths
94-02 Sierra Leone: Government vs rebels. UN force disarmed 45,000 rebels. Unknown deaths.
91-96 Guatemala: Civil war between government and left wing rebels. Unknown deaths.
98-on Rwanda: Government vs Hutu rebels. Most fighting takes place on Congolese territory. Unknown deaths.
74-91 Eritrea: Eritrean Liberation Front and Eritrean People's Liberation front joined forces to end Christian Ethiopia's rule over Muslim Eritrea. Unknown deaths
84-02 Turkey: Secessionists from Kurdish Worker's Party vs Government. Unknown deaths
91-on Iraq: Government vs Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Unknown deaths.
91-on Iran: Islamist Government vs Mujahedin e Khalq. Unknown deaths
And that reminded me of India - how India had been a bunch of different countries pulled forged into one by the British. We've already had our bloody wars of partition but what scared me is that there is still a long way to go. Will we ever get to a stage where after Pakistan, Kashmir, Some North Eastern states, we get more and more States demanding their own countries. Will the Shiv Sena take the route of demanding that all non Maharashtrians leave the state. Will the Tamilians ever fight a war of Independence. There are enough nutty politicians bent on inflaming local chauvanism for their own gains. Or is there something about India that is different from other countries like Yugoslavia and the Sovient Union? Is it as Jawaharlal Nehru said 'held together by strong but invisible threads ... a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision, and yet very real and present and pervasive'.
The conflicts that have happened in other parts of the world in the last 20 years are mainly due to Communist uprisings, Islamic fundamentalism, ethnocentric secessionism not to mention genocide all things that have happened in India before and could happen again if the politicians get out of hand.
75-on Angola: Marxist government backed by Cuba vs rebels. 350,000 dead.
92-95 Bosnia and Herzegovina: Muslim government vs Serb Orthodox insurgents supported by Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing took place. Over 200,000 dead.
97-on Democratic Republic of Congo: Government supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe vs rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda. 200,000 dead.
79-92 Mozambique: Government supported by Zimbabwe and Tanzania vs RENAMO guerrilas assisted by South Africa. 200,000 dead.
75-90 Lebanon: Christian Maronites with Israel vs Muslim shiites with PLO and Syria. 170,000 dead.
90-96 Liberia: Government overthrown by two rebel groups who then fought with each other. 150,000 dead.
91-on Burundi: Tutsi led government vs Hutus. 100,000 dead. 800,000 Hutus placed in 'regroupment' camps
96-on Uganda: Government vs Christian fundamentalists (who have kidnapped thousands of children to train them to become soldiers). 100,000 dead and 220,000 refugees.
92-on Algeria: Government vs Islamic rebels. Government declared cancelled polls when it looked like they would lose elections to Islamists. 100,000 dead.
82-on Somalia: Government vs Somali national movment and clan based guerrilas. 85,000 dead.
78-on Afghanistan: Communist government supported by USSR vs Mujahedin. From 96 the war continued between Northern Alliance and Taliban. 60,000 dead.
94-on Russia: Government vs Muslim secessionist republic Chechnya. 60,000 dead. 200,000 Chechen refugees in Ingushetia
92-98 Tajikistan: Communist government vs Islamist and Democratic alliance called United Tajik opposition. 50,000 dead.
80-92 Nicaragua: Civil war between leftist government and right wing guerilla contras supported by US. 43,000 dead
79-98 Cambodia: Pol Pot vs Vietnam's puppet government. 42,000 dead.
72-on Philippines: Maoists vs government. 40,000 dead.
82-on Peru: Civil war between right wing governement and left wing rebels. 28,000 dead.
89-on Kashmir: Dispute between India and Pakistan. 25,000 dead.
79-92 El Salvador: Civil war between right wing government supported by US and left wing guerrilas. 25,000 dead.
84-on Columbia: Civil war between right wing government and left wing rebels. 22,000 dead.
85-on India: Government vs Sikh insurgents (till 93) and separatists in Kashmir and Assam. 19,000 dead.
89-93 South Africa: Political violence between ANC and Inkatha Freedom party while trying to end Apartheid. 19,000 dead.
78-91 Tigray: Tigrean People's Liberation Front vs Ethiopia's leftist government supported by Sovient Union and Cuba. 15,000 dead.
48-on Israel: Muslim Palestinians opposed to creation of Jewish Israel. 800,000 Palestinians displaced. 13,000 dead.
83-on Sudan: Muslim Arabic government vs Christian and Animist sub saharran rebels. 12,000 dead and 4.5 million people displaced.
80-90 Chad: General who lost elections retook it by force with French help. Rebels were supported by Libya and defeated him. 11,000 dead.
91-94 Croation: Croatian (Catholic) secessionists vs Yugoslav (Orthodox) government of Milosevic in which ethnic cleansing took place. 10,000 dead
90-94 Azerbaijan: Government vs secessionists of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia supported separatists. 10,000 dead.
75-91 West Africa: War for land between Mauritania and Morocco after Spain pulled out. 10,000 dead
83-on Burma: Government vs Karens and other ethnic groups demanding autonomy. 7,000 dead.
94-94 Yemen: Secessionists trying to establish South Yemen. 7,000 dead.
98-99 Kosovo: Milosevic vs Kosovo Liberation Army. 5,000 dead.
69-94 Northern Ireland: UK Government vs Provisional IRA. 3,400 deaths.
91-93 Georgia: Secessionists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia vs Governemtn. Georgia lost control of Abkhazia. 2,500 dead.
97-99 Congo Brazzavile: Government with Angolan support vs former political leaders. 2,000 dead.
89-on Indonesia: Government vs Islamic Free Aceh Movement. 2,000 dead.
94-on Philippines: Islamic secessionist groups from predominantly Catholic country. 2,000 dead.
97-99 Senegal: War for control of Casamance territory. 1,000 dead.
98-99 Guinea Bissau: Mutiny by General. 1,000 dead.
83-on Sri Lanka: Government vs Northern secessionists from LTTE. Unknown deaths.
75-99 East Timor: Secessionists from Indonesia. Unknown deaths
94-02 Sierra Leone: Government vs rebels. UN force disarmed 45,000 rebels. Unknown deaths.
91-96 Guatemala: Civil war between government and left wing rebels. Unknown deaths.
98-on Rwanda: Government vs Hutu rebels. Most fighting takes place on Congolese territory. Unknown deaths.
74-91 Eritrea: Eritrean Liberation Front and Eritrean People's Liberation front joined forces to end Christian Ethiopia's rule over Muslim Eritrea. Unknown deaths
84-02 Turkey: Secessionists from Kurdish Worker's Party vs Government. Unknown deaths
91-on Iraq: Government vs Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Unknown deaths.
91-on Iran: Islamist Government vs Mujahedin e Khalq. Unknown deaths
My favourite music is just a singer with an acoustic guitar or piano. I don't play in a band so I guess it's sort of inspiration as to how I could sound one day if I practiced a lot.
Anyway my current top 8 sexiest young acoustic singers at the moment are below (for the ladies complaining about the sexism - I have included 2 guys at the end)
8. Miaa Rose
She's cute but no more. She's got an average voice and is nothing special on the guitar. So why is she in this list? Well, it's just because she looks like she's completely in love and that's kinda sweet. Although the start of the song is a little less than overwhelming bear until the chorus where she lights up. Sometimes she gets involved with the exertion/concentration of singing but take a gander at her face everytime she mentions Lawrence's name in the song. She has this infectous flirty bubbliness that spills over and make you hope that her romance lasts a long long time. Her smile as she blows the kiss at the end of the song is classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C00pcghT
7. Marie Digby
Something about her soft is very feminine and soft but not girly (sort of how I would describe her looks as well). I like the way her singing is connected to the words she's communicating. She plays the piano as well. Oh.. and I like people who write their own songs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR8EyPH4
6. Esmee Denters
She sneaks into this despite not playing an instrument because she sings with just a piano accompaniment. Nice voice but I think she could let herself go more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Grnh7Q
5. Sheena Melwani
Had to get an Indian chic in here somewhere. A little over formalised at times and her second voice recording at the end is a little loud. Nice voice and quite a pleasant rendition of this song (for those who haven't heard the original by Jordin Sparks - do!). I'd love to see her develop an 'attitude' (a bit of Avril would be like wow!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqlsMoi9
4. Hayley
She's just broken through with the band Paramore but I think she's going to get really famous as she gets older. Diamond in the rough just now but attitude, looks, talent - she's got everything. The first girl I've ever seen who makes bright red hair look good! See her belting vocals on the chorus. I bet the guys on the guitars will spend the rest of their lives getting over her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiR838VO
3. Avril Lavigne
Ok. She's already made it (and how) but I've still got to include her because she doesn't need a band to rock the house (they do join in for the last minute but make no mistake this is a solo performance). If Hayley was the diamond in the rough - Avril is the finished article. I love how she lets rip with her voice and it's still so natural and distinctive. She sounds so polished with just one electro-acoustic! This is someone who was born to do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66MF
2. Tamar
As we reach the heady heights of No 2/No 1 you may notice that the singers have suddenly become suspiciously good looking. I admit it - I'm very shallow. I have a theory that you can tell everything about the class of a performer from the first line they sing. Tamar proves it here - you don't have to hear more than the first line. This is not an easy song to sing at all - high notes, low notes, soft and loud, slow tempo, faster. But she nails it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqxGpK0v
1. Ana Free
What a voice! There are a lot of singers with good control but what hers has really got going for it is an instantly recognisable distinctiveness and great phrasing of the notes. Huskier than you would expect from looking at her. I'm not going to mention her looks - I'll go to jail for perving at underagers. But for those willing to risk the lockup check out her pyjama party style duet on her bed with her friend Miaa Rose (imho - worth the risk).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPOEhsaC
And for the ladies moaning at the sexism of this post I've got the men:
2. Lionel Neykov
Looks like a geeky guy and the first few seconds you'll think he's just ok but the performance, his stylized voice and the old jazzy style strumming grows on you and after about a minute you suddenly realise her's actually very good. (Stop complaining about looks ladies - I never said I was going to hunt out good looking guys for your top 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-iHtNtZ
1. Alejandra Manzano
Fine - here's a good looking guy to keep you happy. In additoin he has just an awesome voice, plays great guitar AND piano. Kinda what I'm aiming for. For those who have time you should listen to his other covers. Most of them are better than the originals. I wish he would stop doing other people's music and write his own stuff though. I think he could be very big if he let out his own originality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOasai3
Anyway my current top 8 sexiest young acoustic singers at the moment are below (for the ladies complaining about the sexism - I have included 2 guys at the end)
8. Miaa Rose
She's cute but no more. She's got an average voice and is nothing special on the guitar. So why is she in this list? Well, it's just because she looks like she's completely in love and that's kinda sweet. Although the start of the song is a little less than overwhelming bear until the chorus where she lights up. Sometimes she gets involved with the exertion/concentration of singing but take a gander at her face everytime she mentions Lawrence's name in the song. She has this infectous flirty bubbliness that spills over and make you hope that her romance lasts a long long time. Her smile as she blows the kiss at the end of the song is classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C00pcghT
7. Marie Digby
Something about her soft is very feminine and soft but not girly (sort of how I would describe her looks as well). I like the way her singing is connected to the words she's communicating. She plays the piano as well. Oh.. and I like people who write their own songs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR8EyPH4
6. Esmee Denters
She sneaks into this despite not playing an instrument because she sings with just a piano accompaniment. Nice voice but I think she could let herself go more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Grnh7Q
5. Sheena Melwani
Had to get an Indian chic in here somewhere. A little over formalised at times and her second voice recording at the end is a little loud. Nice voice and quite a pleasant rendition of this song (for those who haven't heard the original by Jordin Sparks - do!). I'd love to see her develop an 'attitude' (a bit of Avril would be like wow!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqlsMoi9
4. Hayley
She's just broken through with the band Paramore but I think she's going to get really famous as she gets older. Diamond in the rough just now but attitude, looks, talent - she's got everything. The first girl I've ever seen who makes bright red hair look good! See her belting vocals on the chorus. I bet the guys on the guitars will spend the rest of their lives getting over her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiR838VO
3. Avril Lavigne
Ok. She's already made it (and how) but I've still got to include her because she doesn't need a band to rock the house (they do join in for the last minute but make no mistake this is a solo performance). If Hayley was the diamond in the rough - Avril is the finished article. I love how she lets rip with her voice and it's still so natural and distinctive. She sounds so polished with just one electro-acoustic! This is someone who was born to do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66MF
2. Tamar
As we reach the heady heights of No 2/No 1 you may notice that the singers have suddenly become suspiciously good looking. I admit it - I'm very shallow. I have a theory that you can tell everything about the class of a performer from the first line they sing. Tamar proves it here - you don't have to hear more than the first line. This is not an easy song to sing at all - high notes, low notes, soft and loud, slow tempo, faster. But she nails it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqxGpK0v
1. Ana Free
What a voice! There are a lot of singers with good control but what hers has really got going for it is an instantly recognisable distinctiveness and great phrasing of the notes. Huskier than you would expect from looking at her. I'm not going to mention her looks - I'll go to jail for perving at underagers. But for those willing to risk the lockup check out her pyjama party style duet on her bed with her friend Miaa Rose (imho - worth the risk).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPOEhsaC
And for the ladies moaning at the sexism of this post I've got the men:
2. Lionel Neykov
Looks like a geeky guy and the first few seconds you'll think he's just ok but the performance, his stylized voice and the old jazzy style strumming grows on you and after about a minute you suddenly realise her's actually very good. (Stop complaining about looks ladies - I never said I was going to hunt out good looking guys for your top 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-iHtNtZ
1. Alejandra Manzano
Fine - here's a good looking guy to keep you happy. In additoin he has just an awesome voice, plays great guitar AND piano. Kinda what I'm aiming for. For those who have time you should listen to his other covers. Most of them are better than the originals. I wish he would stop doing other people's music and write his own stuff though. I think he could be very big if he let out his own originality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOasai3
Baby sis sent me an email yesterday saying that this video reminded her of me. It's an awesome video in it's own right but as I watched it an I felt an eerie connection to the guy offering free hugs.
His story was that he was living in London when his life went upside down so he returned to Australia but as he stepped outside the airport he realised how alone he felt and how he wanted to get hugged by someone like the other people. So he took a cardboard sign saying 'Free Hugs' and walked around. Most people ignored him but the first person who hugged him was a lady whose dog had died that morning (the first anniversary of her daughter's death). That hug started the free hugs movement and the site documents it's rise (http://www.freehugscampaign.org/).
But what I identified with was starting a business in which I'm likely to face a lot of cynicism (my bosses have already warned me of what they had to face when they started it in other countries). They've warned me to be prepared for people thinking I'm a nut.
I'm ready. I'm proud of what I'm doing.
His story was that he was living in London when his life went upside down so he returned to Australia but as he stepped outside the airport he realised how alone he felt and how he wanted to get hugged by someone like the other people. So he took a cardboard sign saying 'Free Hugs' and walked around. Most people ignored him but the first person who hugged him was a lady whose dog had died that morning (the first anniversary of her daughter's death). That hug started the free hugs movement and the site documents it's rise (http://www.freehugscampaign.org/).
But what I identified with was starting a business in which I'm likely to face a lot of cynicism (my bosses have already warned me of what they had to face when they started it in other countries). They've warned me to be prepared for people thinking I'm a nut.
I'm ready. I'm proud of what I'm doing.
Please LJ friends, I need to know - Where do you live?
I'm currently in Bandra West, Mumbai and will move to Chembur in a few months.
Also - feel free to add me on Facebook/ Orkut (I use Facebook more extensively). That way if I ever put an update saying "I'm going to LA" then you can message me "Kanishka... please don't stay in an expensive hotel. Stay with meeeeeeeeeeee!"
Would love to catch up with folk for coffee, etc when I'm in your town (esp if your town is Mumbai!)
I'm currently in Bandra West, Mumbai and will move to Chembur in a few months.
Also - feel free to add me on Facebook/ Orkut (I use Facebook more extensively). That way if I ever put an update saying "I'm going to LA" then you can message me "Kanishka... please don't stay in an expensive hotel. Stay with meeeeeeeeeeee!"
Would love to catch up with folk for coffee, etc when I'm in your town (esp if your town is Mumbai!)
(joining mid way through a bizzarre sms conversation. I wish I could say that the preceding messages were saner but honesty forbids)
Cheerfully cynical: I didn't know you smoked weed?
Rationally exuberant: Of course I do. In fact I smoke so much that I'm partly responsible for the rising grain prices
Cheerfully cynical: I hope you know that weed causes impotence
Rationally exuberant: : I guess so. People have always told me I have an inflated sense of my own impotence
Cheerfully cynical: Hmm... Omnipotence! Bad pun or Freudian slip?
Rationally exuberant: : Omnipotence is someone who gets aroused at anything (like omnivorous). Textbook definition of a guy
Cheerfully cynical: If being plenipotentiary is not enough
Rationally exuberant: : Or if it's not enough to subscribe to the philosophy of antidisestablishmentarianism
Cheerfully cynical: And when the need for floccinaucinihilpilification is upon them. Must be tough being a man
Rationally exuberant: : Yes but there are the occasional joys of supercalafragalisticexpialadociousing from time to time
Cheerfully cynical: But won't the pot smoking cause Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon
Rationally exuberant: : Stop this. You know perfectly well I've got hippopotmonstrosesquippedalio!
Cheerfully cynical: Well that's just the quintoquadagintillionnth time you've told me that. Just be a man about it, k
Rationally exuberant: : You have no sympathy! Go to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapoka
Cheerfully cynical: No!
Rationally exuberant: : Fine! Then go to Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Buirrom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit!
Cheerfully cynical: (no reply)
I think you'll all agree that I won that one. (Bows low)
Cheerfully cynical: I didn't know you smoked weed?
Rationally exuberant: Of course I do. In fact I smoke so much that I'm partly responsible for the rising grain prices
Cheerfully cynical: I hope you know that weed causes impotence
Rationally exuberant: : I guess so. People have always told me I have an inflated sense of my own impotence
Cheerfully cynical: Hmm... Omnipotence! Bad pun or Freudian slip?
Rationally exuberant: : Omnipotence is someone who gets aroused at anything (like omnivorous). Textbook definition of a guy
Cheerfully cynical: If being plenipotentiary is not enough
Rationally exuberant: : Or if it's not enough to subscribe to the philosophy of antidisestablishmentarianism
Cheerfully cynical: And when the need for floccinaucinihilpilification is upon them. Must be tough being a man
Rationally exuberant: : Yes but there are the occasional joys of supercalafragalisticexpialadociousing from time to time
Cheerfully cynical: But won't the pot smoking cause Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanocon
Rationally exuberant: : Stop this. You know perfectly well I've got hippopotmonstrosesquippedalio!
Cheerfully cynical: Well that's just the quintoquadagintillionnth time you've told me that. Just be a man about it, k
Rationally exuberant: : You have no sympathy! Go to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapoka
Cheerfully cynical: No!
Rationally exuberant: : Fine! Then go to Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Buirrom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit!
Cheerfully cynical: (no reply)
I think you'll all agree that I won that one. (Bows low)
Ram, Shyam and kanishka_sinha were sitting together bragging about how they had set their new wives straight on their duties.
Ram bragged that he had told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning that needed done at their house. He said that it took a couple days but on the third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put away.
Shyam bragged that he had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and cooking. He told them that the first day he didn't see any results, but the next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.
kanishka_sinha boasted that he told avantika his house was to be cleaned, dishes washed, the cooking done and laundry washed. And this was all her responsibility. He said the first day he didn't see anything and the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day some of the swelling had gone down so he could see a little out of his left eye!
kanishka_sinha were sitting together bragging about how they had set their new wives straight on their duties.Ram bragged that he had told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning that needed done at their house. He said that it took a couple days but on the third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put away.
Shyam bragged that he had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and cooking. He told them that the first day he didn't see any results, but the next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.
kanishka_sinha boasted that he told avantika his house was to be cleaned, dishes washed, the cooking done and laundry washed. And this was all her responsibility. He said the first day he didn't see anything and the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day some of the swelling had gone down so he could see a little out of his left eye!When you are being yourself you feel good and you are achieving the results you want to. Being yourself is a natural state of being unique to each person.
But we have a certain image of ourselves that we are subconsciously committed to and quite often, especially in stressful situations we revert to this image even if it is unhelpful because we say 'this is who I am'.
Let me illustrate with an example. Let's look at two people - one is naturally independent (Ram) and one is naturally relationship oriented (Sita). In the same situations they will react differently based on their unique personalities:
They have to find their way to a party.
Ram may decide to go by himself and find the location on a map before he sets off. Sita may ask some friends to pick her up because she has no clue where the place is. They're both comfortable with their choices and they both reach on time so they achieved the result they set out to achieve. They were both 'themselves' in their own unique way.
However let's assume that Ram can't find the place on the map. He decides to go to roughly where the neighbourhood is and ask around. He gets there but nobody knows the place. He doesn't want to call up and ask someone to pick him up because he's 'independent'. So he wanders around and gets to the party late. He makes an excuse about some work that had cropped up which delayed him or maybe blames the traffic but feels stupid inside - Here his 'image' has got in the way of being 'himself'.
Sita's friends cancel at the last minute so she decides not to go because she doesn't know how to get to the party. She really wanted to go and feels disappointed that she can't and also a little resentful of her friends who cancelled at the last minute. In that case she hasn't considered the option of going herself because her own self image is of someone who goes only if her friends go.
If instead of wandering around for hours Ram had called a friend or Sita had just decided to go find the place by herself they would have felt good and achieved their results. That would still have been 'being themselves' because 'being yourself' is a naturally flexible state. They got trapped in their image of themselves as 'independent' or 'relationship oriented' that limited them and made them feel bad needlessly.
Sometimes you don't get the results you want but you can still 'be yourself' if you react to the event with the frame of mind that you can learn from it. Failure is a natural part of life and can be accepted by the natural person. However if you feel bad about the failure then you're definitely not being yourself - you've got married to the image of yourself as competent and the failure threatens the self image. Just to make the point it's perfectly possible to be naturally competent and perceive yourself to be as such. It's only when that self image causes you bad feelings that it has become an 'image' or 'ego' or 'saving face' issue.
How can you spot when you're not being yourself? You feel unhappy, angry, disappointed, dislike, powerless, small, out of control, confused, wronged, etc.
Almost all the problems we face (relationships, work, health, etc) are as a result of limitations we place on ourselves because of our commitment to maintaining our 'self image'. But maturity is the process of losing our image and being free to be ourselves.
But we have a certain image of ourselves that we are subconsciously committed to and quite often, especially in stressful situations we revert to this image even if it is unhelpful because we say 'this is who I am'.
Let me illustrate with an example. Let's look at two people - one is naturally independent (Ram) and one is naturally relationship oriented (Sita). In the same situations they will react differently based on their unique personalities:
They have to find their way to a party.
Ram may decide to go by himself and find the location on a map before he sets off. Sita may ask some friends to pick her up because she has no clue where the place is. They're both comfortable with their choices and they both reach on time so they achieved the result they set out to achieve. They were both 'themselves' in their own unique way.
However let's assume that Ram can't find the place on the map. He decides to go to roughly where the neighbourhood is and ask around. He gets there but nobody knows the place. He doesn't want to call up and ask someone to pick him up because he's 'independent'. So he wanders around and gets to the party late. He makes an excuse about some work that had cropped up which delayed him or maybe blames the traffic but feels stupid inside - Here his 'image' has got in the way of being 'himself'.
Sita's friends cancel at the last minute so she decides not to go because she doesn't know how to get to the party. She really wanted to go and feels disappointed that she can't and also a little resentful of her friends who cancelled at the last minute. In that case she hasn't considered the option of going herself because her own self image is of someone who goes only if her friends go.
If instead of wandering around for hours Ram had called a friend or Sita had just decided to go find the place by herself they would have felt good and achieved their results. That would still have been 'being themselves' because 'being yourself' is a naturally flexible state. They got trapped in their image of themselves as 'independent' or 'relationship oriented' that limited them and made them feel bad needlessly.
Sometimes you don't get the results you want but you can still 'be yourself' if you react to the event with the frame of mind that you can learn from it. Failure is a natural part of life and can be accepted by the natural person. However if you feel bad about the failure then you're definitely not being yourself - you've got married to the image of yourself as competent and the failure threatens the self image. Just to make the point it's perfectly possible to be naturally competent and perceive yourself to be as such. It's only when that self image causes you bad feelings that it has become an 'image' or 'ego' or 'saving face' issue.
How can you spot when you're not being yourself? You feel unhappy, angry, disappointed, dislike, powerless, small, out of control, confused, wronged, etc.
Almost all the problems we face (relationships, work, health, etc) are as a result of limitations we place on ourselves because of our commitment to maintaining our 'self image'. But maturity is the process of losing our image and being free to be ourselves.
I've never really gone out of my way to stay upto date with my friends' blogs. Just too much effort to go and check each of the sites individually to see if anything has been updated. So I stick to just reading my friends page on Livejournal. But a lot of my Livejournal friends are scattered all over the world whereas my friends in Mumbai who are bloggers are on various other sites (wordpress, blogspot, their own custom blogs, etc).
Just found out about feeds but I'm not really sure how to use them optimally:
1. Should I use IE or Firefox? What are the advantages or disadvantages (I've always used IE till now)
2. Do the list of feed folders show which blogs have unread posts or do I have to check them all manually
3. Do I subscribe to atom or RSS when presented the choice
4. On firefox the options for feed are 'Live bookmarks', 'Outlook', 'Bloglines', 'Yahoo' and 'Google reader'. Which one is best or what are the advantages/disadvantages. Do the same options exist in IE?
5. What I'd really like is one page where all the recent posts from all my blog friends are collated in reverse chronological order so I can just scroll through all of them rather than hop from one blog to another. Is that possible?
Need help from my geek friends and blogging experts
Just found out about feeds but I'm not really sure how to use them optimally:
1. Should I use IE or Firefox? What are the advantages or disadvantages (I've always used IE till now)
2. Do the list of feed folders show which blogs have unread posts or do I have to check them all manually
3. Do I subscribe to atom or RSS when presented the choice
4. On firefox the options for feed are 'Live bookmarks', 'Outlook', 'Bloglines', 'Yahoo' and 'Google reader'. Which one is best or what are the advantages/disadvantages. Do the same options exist in IE?
5. What I'd really like is one page where all the recent posts from all my blog friends are collated in reverse chronological order so I can just scroll through all of them rather than hop from one blog to another. Is that possible?
Need help from my geek friends and blogging experts
Recently I got some shocking feedback - the Director of training felt I wasn't showing up in a way that would inspire confidence in me as a trainer and it was uncertain whether I could become a trainer or not.
And it's true - I've been a little nervous and hesitant in situations where I've had to deal with client presentations and with senior trainers and when addressing a large audience. But in the past most people who've known me have said that I'm very confident (won the best speech prize at an HLL annual conference, every one of the 32 study groups at ISB in my batch voted for me to be one of the 2 guys to represent ISB in debates, etc).
So I'm clearly going through a crisis of confidence. And this is the second time in my life. The first time was when I was at HLL and I was adapting from my academic life to the challenges of becoming a sales manager in chaotic India without knowing Hindi and taking over one of the worst performing areas in the country. There the crisis was because I was always at the bottom of the performance ratings. Once I turned the area around, got the Director's award, highest ratings, etc then I was far more confident even with the highest levels in the organisations. I was very direct and said exactly what I felt.
This time the crisis is because I'm setting up a new business and feel the pressure of getting the first few clients. Every client contact seems like the most important job interview. Since I'm the only person in India I have few interactions with my bosses in Singapore and the few times I see them I feel like I have to impress them in those few moments and that puts pressure on me. And when I'm in front of a classroom full of managers many years older than me I feel like I don't know enough to stand there and that I'm pretending to know more than I do.
My confidence comes from competence. It comes from knowledge. It comes from results. It comes from building a relationship over a longer period of time. It comes from demonstrating value. Throughout my academic life I was considered pretty smart, good at sports, funny (cute even) so confidence was always there. At HLL I was given time to demonstrate value so it eventually came through. But as a salesman and as a trainer it's vitally important to make an instant positive impression to get the required credibility. And being new to the field of self awareness trainings and coaching my familiar sources of confidence are not there. So I'm looking for new sources. Reliable sources
( How to always be confident - My understanding )
I sort of play three instruments - the guitar, the keyboard and the mouth harmonica in order of my playing ability
I can sort of strum along on the guitar ok on most tunes though I'm definitely no virtuoso.
On the keyboard I can memorise a piece of written music after playing it a number of times and actually make it sound that I know how to play but a few days later I'll completely forget the piece and won't be able to remember a note. For years I've been able to play piano music by reading but can't play anything by ear.
Then I found a pretty interesting youtube video which said that learning was of two types - one was like a baby learning to talk. He learned one word, then two and so on and he learned how to mix and match them as his vocabulary grew. The other type is to learn like a parrot - the parrot can speak even complex sentences by memorising them but doesn't really understand what he's saying.
I realised that the way I learned guitar was a lot more like a baby learning to talk and the way I learned keyboard was a lot like the parrot. I bought the course (it was a sales pitch) and found that the course taught how to play the piano by learning a few basic chords and singing over it (rather than playing harmonised notes of the melody). This technique is called pattern piano and is very similar to the way I learnt playing the guitar (ie play simple chords on the guitar while singing rather than picking the actual tune).
Much simpler. Wish somebody had shown me this before. I'd have been a pretty good piano player by now.
I can sort of strum along on the guitar ok on most tunes though I'm definitely no virtuoso.
On the keyboard I can memorise a piece of written music after playing it a number of times and actually make it sound that I know how to play but a few days later I'll completely forget the piece and won't be able to remember a note. For years I've been able to play piano music by reading but can't play anything by ear.
Then I found a pretty interesting youtube video which said that learning was of two types - one was like a baby learning to talk. He learned one word, then two and so on and he learned how to mix and match them as his vocabulary grew. The other type is to learn like a parrot - the parrot can speak even complex sentences by memorising them but doesn't really understand what he's saying.
I realised that the way I learned guitar was a lot more like a baby learning to talk and the way I learned keyboard was a lot like the parrot. I bought the course (it was a sales pitch) and found that the course taught how to play the piano by learning a few basic chords and singing over it (rather than playing harmonised notes of the melody). This technique is called pattern piano and is very similar to the way I learnt playing the guitar (ie play simple chords on the guitar while singing rather than picking the actual tune).
Much simpler. Wish somebody had shown me this before. I'd have been a pretty good piano player by now.
I read a very interesting book recently - "You are what you say". The author, Matt Budd is a Doctor who studied medicine at Harvard. Over the course of his career he started seeing connections between the ailments of his patients and their personalities. He realised that our personalities are an external manifestation of the thoughts we have internally. Our entire experience of life is in fact just a conversation, sometimes with others, in the form of spoken words but mainly with ourselves in the form of thoughts. Conversations are built using the building blocks of language and so the way we use language determines the reality we create.
But the thing is - language is remarkably easy to categorize. There are only 5 types of statements. They are:
1. Requests - A request for someone to fulfill an underlying need of yours
2. Promises - A promise to fulfill someone's request
3. Declarations - A statement of intent, it 'creates' something in the universe that actions will make exist in the material universe at a later point in time.
4. Assessments - An understanding of something that is the basis of choosing an appropriate action
5. Assertions - A statement that can be proved or disproved
By using these statements without skill we can completely screw up our happiness and even create disease in our body.
( The 9 most common mistakes we make in our conversations: )
But the thing is - language is remarkably easy to categorize. There are only 5 types of statements. They are:
1. Requests - A request for someone to fulfill an underlying need of yours
2. Promises - A promise to fulfill someone's request
3. Declarations - A statement of intent, it 'creates' something in the universe that actions will make exist in the material universe at a later point in time.
4. Assessments - An understanding of something that is the basis of choosing an appropriate action
5. Assertions - A statement that can be proved or disproved
By using these statements without skill we can completely screw up our happiness and even create disease in our body.
( The 9 most common mistakes we make in our conversations: )
I've been stretching for the sky but the inspiration from the sight of the sun ran out and I got tired. And as I ponder that at dusk realisation dawns. I can only go as high as my roots are deep. I let the moist cool earth nourish me again. And wait for the morning.
The bulb bathes me in squeaking fan cut intermittent yellow. Outside my room the city sleeps, a dog barks and the waves never tire.
And at a quarter past one I feel a violet peace return I hadn't realised I'd misplaced. It's because my friend is back and I have so much to tell. A fuller story.
So I climb out onto the roof with my guitar and I sing another story of mine quietly. The night listens like she always does.
And at a quarter past one I feel a violet peace return I hadn't realised I'd misplaced. It's because my friend is back and I have so much to tell. A fuller story.
So I climb out onto the roof with my guitar and I sing another story of mine quietly. The night listens like she always does.
This is another inspirational video about a guy who becomes blind and in defiance of his disability he decides to start painting. And his paintings are... awesome!!!
Reminded me of the guy with cerebral palsy who decided to become a stand up comedian
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
Reminded me of the guy with cerebral palsy who decided to become a stand up comedian
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
My belief system
The game of life: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
My purpose
The vision: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
The mechanics
(Be) Lie - the secret of self transformation: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
(Do) Mastery: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
(Have) New Year's Resolution 2008: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
Rainy day notes
Changing perceptions: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/3
The game of life: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
My purpose
The vision: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
The mechanics
(Be) Lie - the secret of self transformation: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
(Do) Mastery: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
(Have) New Year's Resolution 2008: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
Rainy day notes
Changing perceptions: http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/3
Current quote
Do not accept the tyranny of the 'OR'. Embrace the genius of the 'AND'
Focus areas
Incorporation
Get it touch with India's top 100 companies HR contacts
$1,000,000 targeted sales
First Basic in Mumbai
Tiku's goals
Mimi's Advanced course
Start investing Rs 20,000/month at least
Move Health to 10/10
Move discipline to 10/10
Move presence in the second circle to 10/10
Relearn Quantum Physics and Relativity
Become an expert in psychology, reading people and the coaching discipline
Do 4 short stories, learn to play along chords by hearing, cartooning and to balance things off - juggling
Do not accept the tyranny of the 'OR'. Embrace the genius of the 'AND'
Focus areas
Incorporation
Get it touch with India's top 100 companies HR contacts
$1,000,000 targeted sales
First Basic in Mumbai
Tiku's goals
Mimi's Advanced course
Start investing Rs 20,000/month at least
Move Health to 10/10
Move discipline to 10/10
Move presence in the second circle to 10/10
Relearn Quantum Physics and Relativity
Become an expert in psychology, reading people and the coaching discipline
Do 4 short stories, learn to play along chords by hearing, cartooning and to balance things off - juggling
A couple of days as I was on a flight I was reading a book on happiness. One of the questions was how happy I was on a scale of 1-10. For the first time ever in my life I gave the question a 10. I usually hover between 7 and 8. Almost never at 6 or 9. So 10 came as a bit of a shock but I have got various areas of my life pretty much in balance now.
- I was flying off for my ISB 5th year reunion to see some old friends at a place that means so much to me
- I was with my perfect wife on a long holiday alone after nearly a year and a half.
- After ISB I was taking her to a surprise destination with all the bookings, taxis, itinery worked out by one of my ex-subordinates who just told me that he wanted to do something for me because as he said he had no idea what he was doing in his career until he had worked for me.
- I had just got a call from a friend I'd helped with MBA applications who said she'd got in and wanted to take me out for dinner
- Two other friends had popped in on us and had dinner with us
- I had stayed with friends places (one old pal and another who I had just met twice in my life) when I had been to Singapore a few days earlier
- I had exercised every other day for the prior week
- I was going to come back from my holiday to get cracking on the biggest project for the year that should kickstart the Indian business I'm building in a job I love
- I had just had some coaching calls with people who really were excited about making a big difference in their lives
- My parents had been with us a few days earlier and I had sort of figured out a way to meet up with my sister and them on holiday in Indonesia and Singapore while on work so we could spend time together
- I was reading a book on positive psychology which I was now certain was my purpose in life
Things are going so well. Just need to keep pushing that flywheel.
- I was flying off for my ISB 5th year reunion to see some old friends at a place that means so much to me
- I was with my perfect wife on a long holiday alone after nearly a year and a half.
- After ISB I was taking her to a surprise destination with all the bookings, taxis, itinery worked out by one of my ex-subordinates who just told me that he wanted to do something for me because as he said he had no idea what he was doing in his career until he had worked for me.
- I had just got a call from a friend I'd helped with MBA applications who said she'd got in and wanted to take me out for dinner
- Two other friends had popped in on us and had dinner with us
- I had stayed with friends places (one old pal and another who I had just met twice in my life) when I had been to Singapore a few days earlier
- I had exercised every other day for the prior week
- I was going to come back from my holiday to get cracking on the biggest project for the year that should kickstart the Indian business I'm building in a job I love
- I had just had some coaching calls with people who really were excited about making a big difference in their lives
- My parents had been with us a few days earlier and I had sort of figured out a way to meet up with my sister and them on holiday in Indonesia and Singapore while on work so we could spend time together
- I was reading a book on positive psychology which I was now certain was my purpose in life
Things are going so well. Just need to keep pushing that flywheel.
Fats, High fat/Sugar Snacks, Food and Drinks
30g low fat spread or 15g butter/margerine. Use fats high in monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats. Limit fried foods to 1-2 times a week. Only have small amounts of high fat/sugar snacks and drinks and not too often
Meat, Fish and Alternatives
1 serving = 60g lean meat or poultry; 90g cooked fish (eat oily fish); 2 eggs; 60g cheese; 90g nuts
Milk, Cheese and Yoghurt
1 serving = 150ml milk (have low fat); 1 carton yoghurt; Milk pudding made with 150ml milk; 30g cheese
Fruit and Vegetables
1 serving = 1 small glass of fresh juice; 1 medium sized fruit (apple, orange, banana); 2 small sized fruit (plums, mandarin, kiwi); 3-4 desertspoons of cooked vegetables and salads including beans and peas (have leafy green veg); 1 small bowl of homemade vegetable soup; 3 desertspoons of cooked or tinned fruit (not in syrup)
Breads, Cereals and Potatoes
Eat these foods at every serving. High fibre is best
1 serving = 1 bowl of cereal; 1 slice of bread; 3 desertspoons of cooked pasta or rice; 1 medium boiled or baked potato
I've always struggled with mornings. As a physics student at College when I was asked about the speed of light I would always groan it was too fast, especially at dawn. I've lost count of the number of times I said that mornings were a terrible way to start the day. Throughout my Undergrad and MBA or holidays where I had a certain amount of freedom to set my schedule I would find myself waking around 12:30pm and after lunch and getting ready, my day would only really start at around 4pm. My studies would start around 6pm and I was most active between 9pm and 2am after which I would start thinking that I really should get some sleep and I'd go to sleep at around 4:30am. This is similar to a regular day but shifted by about 6hrs. Today once again I'm up with insomnia at 3am in the morning figuring out how to get my sleep cycle back on track and finally I decided to Google it because I knew there were some people who are larks and some people who are owls - but what I wanted to know whas how do owls cope with a world that lives during the day?( Read more... )
Best way to read these posts is to right click url and open in new window
Getting pretty frustrated with my job
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Feeling that there was more to life but not knowing how to fill the hole
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Taking a much needed break at Diwali 2004 to try and get myself out of the funk
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Which worked to an extent
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
My first brush with my future career as a self awareness trainer which I thought at the time was a really cool career
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
But one I never considered because I didn't have a degree in psychology so I kept searching
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Despite the fact that all the signs told me it was right for me
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
And so I continued getting even more frustrated
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
Feeling that time was running out for me to figure out what I was going to do in life. Interestingly in this post I define what my ideal job would be but still can't see how to do it
'If I could pick one thing to do I'd like to become a preacher who changes the way people think about themselves and about events to achieve emotional well being. That would stop all wars and arguments and disappointments and sadness.'
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
And maybe it was my wife who inspired me by quitting her job as a corporate lawyer to do something she found meaningful (teaching slum children through NGO Akanksha)
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
So I started reading career books and evaluating my options (option 3 is where I'm heading now)
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
Finally getting nudged towards understanding that I'd like to do something in psychology, psychiatry, training, self-help or something along those lines
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
And putting that as one of my career options in my Dec 30, 2006 career options chart. My new year's resolution was to take risks in 2007 in understanding what excited me
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
I promised myself I'd leave on a high rather than running away from my job
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
But kept obsessing about what the purpose of my life was
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Since I was determined to leave a legacy during my limited time on earth
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Decided that my purpose was to help others find fulfillment in life
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
And worried that I'd fail in trying to change careers so late
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
But finally stopped telling myself I was being silly and flew to KL to do the Basic course
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
I realised that it was what I wanted to do but wansn't sure how to become a trainer but I was told that I could only apply to the company after I had done all three courses so I went for Advanced as well
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Then I got pretty excited but had to think about HLL vs Google (where I was into the final round) vs TWP
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Finally decided on TWP and gave my reasoning to my shocked parents
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Now I feel that I'm doing something that's really important to me
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
And in retrospect all my favourite moveis and books tie into what the company is about - getting people aware of what's really important to them and why they aren't pursuing those things effectively so they can get on the right track and live much more fulfilling lives. But first you need to learn to do that for yourself and the entire training period I'm now undergoing is all about self mastery. Only then will I be able to train.
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Said goodbye to HUL
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
And set off towards my new dream
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
Getting pretty frustrated with my job
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Feeling that there was more to life but not knowing how to fill the hole
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Taking a much needed break at Diwali 2004 to try and get myself out of the funk
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Which worked to an extent
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
My first brush with my future career as a self awareness trainer which I thought at the time was a really cool career
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
But one I never considered because I didn't have a degree in psychology so I kept searching
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/7
Despite the fact that all the signs told me it was right for me
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
And so I continued getting even more frustrated
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
Feeling that time was running out for me to figure out what I was going to do in life. Interestingly in this post I define what my ideal job would be but still can't see how to do it
'If I could pick one thing to do I'd like to become a preacher who changes the way people think about themselves and about events to achieve emotional well being. That would stop all wars and arguments and disappointments and sadness.'
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
And maybe it was my wife who inspired me by quitting her job as a corporate lawyer to do something she found meaningful (teaching slum children through NGO Akanksha)
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
So I started reading career books and evaluating my options (option 3 is where I'm heading now)
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
Finally getting nudged towards understanding that I'd like to do something in psychology, psychiatry, training, self-help or something along those lines
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/8
And putting that as one of my career options in my Dec 30, 2006 career options chart. My new year's resolution was to take risks in 2007 in understanding what excited me
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
I promised myself I'd leave on a high rather than running away from my job
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
But kept obsessing about what the purpose of my life was
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Since I was determined to leave a legacy during my limited time on earth
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Decided that my purpose was to help others find fulfillment in life
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
And worried that I'd fail in trying to change careers so late
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
But finally stopped telling myself I was being silly and flew to KL to do the Basic course
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
I realised that it was what I wanted to do but wansn't sure how to become a trainer but I was told that I could only apply to the company after I had done all three courses so I went for Advanced as well
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Then I got pretty excited but had to think about HLL vs Google (where I was into the final round) vs TWP
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Finally decided on TWP and gave my reasoning to my shocked parents
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Now I feel that I'm doing something that's really important to me
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
And in retrospect all my favourite moveis and books tie into what the company is about - getting people aware of what's really important to them and why they aren't pursuing those things effectively so they can get on the right track and live much more fulfilling lives. But first you need to learn to do that for yourself and the entire training period I'm now undergoing is all about self mastery. Only then will I be able to train.
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
Said goodbye to HUL
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/9
And set off towards my new dream
http://kanishka-sinha.livejournal.com/1
Read a great book by George Leonard recently called Mastery. It's main point is that there are three things that stop us from mastery
1. Giving up because it's too hard
2. Trying to hard in our search for immediate results and not enjoying the process
3. Reaching a certain level of achievement and being satisfied with that
The cure to this is a perennial 'white belt' or constant learning frame of mind and learning to enjoy the plateus which is where you spend 95% of your time on the journey rather than just the 5% of the time you spend at the top of a peak.
Basically the ones who go furthest are the ones who keep walk steadily all their lives and not those who give up straight away, run fast for the first mile and then give up exhausted or those who walk
for a while and then stop. And that reminded me of areas in my life where I had given up or accepted my current level. Now with a new understanding I've resolved to enjoy the plateus and commit myself to lifelong mastery of certain things:
Being me and being present. Making an instant impact and connection with everyone.
Breaking limitations of what's possible by being creative, effective and resilient
Reading people, understanding their innerview, knowing what they need to do to be more fulfilled
Communicating it in the best way so it gets through in a way that inspires action
Giving time and love to wife, family and friends
Networking brilliantly and building lasting mutually supportive relationships
Health, vitality and relaxation
Enjoying the moment and letting go of judgement
Mastering time and pressure
Mastering money and investment
Mastering knowledge and learning
Hobbies - Juggling, Singing, Guitar, Painting, Drawing and Cartooning, Creative engaging Writing, Fitness (strength, endurance, flexibility, co-ordination), Constant learning of interesting subjects (Physics, Psychology, Art, Philosophy, Strategy, Management, Self Help, History, Health, Ecology, etc)
1. Giving up because it's too hard
2. Trying to hard in our search for immediate results and not enjoying the process
3. Reaching a certain level of achievement and being satisfied with that
The cure to this is a perennial 'white belt' or constant learning frame of mind and learning to enjoy the plateus which is where you spend 95% of your time on the journey rather than just the 5% of the time you spend at the top of a peak.
Basically the ones who go furthest are the ones who keep walk steadily all their lives and not those who give up straight away, run fast for the first mile and then give up exhausted or those who walk
for a while and then stop. And that reminded me of areas in my life where I had given up or accepted my current level. Now with a new understanding I've resolved to enjoy the plateus and commit myself to lifelong mastery of certain things:
Being me and being present. Making an instant impact and connection with everyone.
Breaking limitations of what's possible by being creative, effective and resilient
Reading people, understanding their innerview, knowing what they need to do to be more fulfilled
Communicating it in the best way so it gets through in a way that inspires action
Giving time and love to wife, family and friends
Networking brilliantly and building lasting mutually supportive relationships
Health, vitality and relaxation
Enjoying the moment and letting go of judgement
Mastering time and pressure
Mastering money and investment
Mastering knowledge and learning
Hobbies - Juggling, Singing, Guitar, Painting, Drawing and Cartooning, Creative engaging Writing, Fitness (strength, endurance, flexibility, co-ordination), Constant learning of interesting subjects (Physics, Psychology, Art, Philosophy, Strategy, Management, Self Help, History, Health, Ecology, etc)
A lot of this post is purely speculative.
If our behaviour as adults is dependent on incidents that happened to us before the age of 6 and most specifically the way in which our parents loved us or didn't then what kind of background leads to what kind of behavioural defences?
My guess is that it is possible to 'love' a child too much. Give him freedom without limits. This would spoil a kid but also leave him with a sense of doubt about whether he really was 'the smartest kid in the world' if he came across evidence to the contrary. He would grow up to be someone with an entitlement mentality, with poor discipline especially for mundane chores. Probably narcissistic, thinking no end of himself. A certain sense of touchiness about people's perceptions about him because deep down he wonders if he really is worth it (though probably not at a conscious level)
Also if a parent was overly clingy or emotionally suffocating (didn't give the kid enough space) then he may grow up avoiding relationships. He would be distant and unemotional.
To love a child unconditionally and to set the right firm boundaries would lead to a well adjusted life and a well adjusted adult. Someone who has confidence in himself and his ability to handle things, finds things and people interesting and sees things pretty much as they are. Defenses he would use in stressful situations would be suppression (consciously deciding not to think about it), altruism, sublimation (using the feelings as inspiration for poetry, writing, etc), appropriate humour and proper planning.
If love was conditional on being perfect then the kid would grow up always feeling the pressure to excel. He would be very demanding of himself and probably others. An insecure over achiever. He would need for controlling things (to the point of self denial of feelings) and may be very picky and pushy. Likely to suffer from procrastination because if you need to be perfect you don't want to start unless you're in the perfect mood. Sometimes that self denial could lead to being extremely aggressive against those things (ex people who campaign vociferously against porn). It could also lead to pointing fingers at others for feeling things rather than admit it about themselves (I'm not angry - you're the one who's angry). This is known as projection. Again the person probably harbours a sense that they're defective - unless they have the perfect house, car, job, etc. If nothing they do is good enough to please their parents they may decide that
Or the child may be one who got love when he used guilt (crying, etc). He would become a 'martyr' and use passive aggressive defenses and guilt to get his way when he grew up. He may be dependent and clingy.
If the guilt mechanism didn't work the kid may have thrown a tantrum. In which case growing up the kid would learn to be blaming, jealous, angry, impetuous and emotionally unpredictable in relations and work.
But it maybe that the child never learnt to control his parents fully. Perfection, guilt and tantrums weren't foolproof. Sometimes his parents responded and sometimes they didn't. The world was unpredictable and therefore dangerous. The kid would grow up to be anxious, jumpy and hypervigilant. People may try to control their anxiety through numbing addictions to people or things or chemicals.
But even worse than unpredictable love is the certainty of no love. If things were really bad then the kid has three choices:
One is give up. These people would grow up to be depressed passive people who would assume that they're not lovable and that expectation would set them up for relationships, careers and situations where they were rejected - a self filling prophecy. They would be apathetic, low energy and be acted upon rather than active. Listless people would have listless lives and they may have to do things to distract them from their position - shopping, drugs, etc. People who are jumpy would need things to calm them down and people who are sedate would need things to give them a sudden buzz.
Another option is invent a better world in their minds. This in worst case scenario would lead to schizophrenia, a divorce between the inner world and outer world.
Finally if instead of just the ommission of love there was actually animosity - an abusive drunk father for example, the child may learn to protect himself and move to the I'm OK you're not OK position. The self serving sociopathic view that everyone is out for themselves, you can't trust anyone and people are merely tools to be exploited. They would be highly mistrustful and Machiavellian but could on the surface be suave and charming.
There may be another mechanism by which children learn and that is by observation. So they coud become anxious because of what happened to them or it could be imprinted in them that their parents are anxious and so there must be a genuine reason for them to behave in that way.
If our behaviour as adults is dependent on incidents that happened to us before the age of 6 and most specifically the way in which our parents loved us or didn't then what kind of background leads to what kind of behavioural defences?
My guess is that it is possible to 'love' a child too much. Give him freedom without limits. This would spoil a kid but also leave him with a sense of doubt about whether he really was 'the smartest kid in the world' if he came across evidence to the contrary. He would grow up to be someone with an entitlement mentality, with poor discipline especially for mundane chores. Probably narcissistic, thinking no end of himself. A certain sense of touchiness about people's perceptions about him because deep down he wonders if he really is worth it (though probably not at a conscious level)
Also if a parent was overly clingy or emotionally suffocating (didn't give the kid enough space) then he may grow up avoiding relationships. He would be distant and unemotional.
To love a child unconditionally and to set the right firm boundaries would lead to a well adjusted life and a well adjusted adult. Someone who has confidence in himself and his ability to handle things, finds things and people interesting and sees things pretty much as they are. Defenses he would use in stressful situations would be suppression (consciously deciding not to think about it), altruism, sublimation (using the feelings as inspiration for poetry, writing, etc), appropriate humour and proper planning.
If love was conditional on being perfect then the kid would grow up always feeling the pressure to excel. He would be very demanding of himself and probably others. An insecure over achiever. He would need for controlling things (to the point of self denial of feelings) and may be very picky and pushy. Likely to suffer from procrastination because if you need to be perfect you don't want to start unless you're in the perfect mood. Sometimes that self denial could lead to being extremely aggressive against those things (ex people who campaign vociferously against porn). It could also lead to pointing fingers at others for feeling things rather than admit it about themselves (I'm not angry - you're the one who's angry). This is known as projection. Again the person probably harbours a sense that they're defective - unless they have the perfect house, car, job, etc. If nothing they do is good enough to please their parents they may decide that
Or the child may be one who got love when he used guilt (crying, etc). He would become a 'martyr' and use passive aggressive defenses and guilt to get his way when he grew up. He may be dependent and clingy.
If the guilt mechanism didn't work the kid may have thrown a tantrum. In which case growing up the kid would learn to be blaming, jealous, angry, impetuous and emotionally unpredictable in relations and work.
But it maybe that the child never learnt to control his parents fully. Perfection, guilt and tantrums weren't foolproof. Sometimes his parents responded and sometimes they didn't. The world was unpredictable and therefore dangerous. The kid would grow up to be anxious, jumpy and hypervigilant. People may try to control their anxiety through numbing addictions to people or things or chemicals.
But even worse than unpredictable love is the certainty of no love. If things were really bad then the kid has three choices:
One is give up. These people would grow up to be depressed passive people who would assume that they're not lovable and that expectation would set them up for relationships, careers and situations where they were rejected - a self filling prophecy. They would be apathetic, low energy and be acted upon rather than active. Listless people would have listless lives and they may have to do things to distract them from their position - shopping, drugs, etc. People who are jumpy would need things to calm them down and people who are sedate would need things to give them a sudden buzz.
Another option is invent a better world in their minds. This in worst case scenario would lead to schizophrenia, a divorce between the inner world and outer world.
Finally if instead of just the ommission of love there was actually animosity - an abusive drunk father for example, the child may learn to protect himself and move to the I'm OK you're not OK position. The self serving sociopathic view that everyone is out for themselves, you can't trust anyone and people are merely tools to be exploited. They would be highly mistrustful and Machiavellian but could on the surface be suave and charming.
There may be another mechanism by which children learn and that is by observation. So they coud become anxious because of what happened to them or it could be imprinted in them that their parents are anxious and so there must be a genuine reason for them to behave in that way.
If I speed up too fast resistance kicks in
And punches me in my Adam's apple
I search my bag of guilt for causes
Pick a few and assign them the chosen ones
Invisible splinter points I've accidentally touched
Set off cataclycmic crunches
And suddenly I see the black cats shadow
Yellow unblinking eyes in the sliver of neon
The demon joker fleets and vanishes
Leaving his reverberatory laughter
I straddle ignorant bliss and watchful fear
Push my terrifying knowledge into the distant crevices of my mind
And live again.
This psychiatric analysis is also pinched from "What do you say after you say hello?" The basic premise being that accidents don't happen. They can be prevented easily because the vast majority of them can be foreseen and circumvented unless you are script driven and playing games.
First of all why would a mother send her young naive daughter into the wolf infested woods alone. Clearly she was either trying to get rid of her or playing the game 'Ain't it awful - You can't even walk in the woods nowadays without being eaten up by wolves'
If Grandma was so helpless why did mother leave her in a hut so far away in the middle of wolf infested woods. Clearly she was fed up of the old crone as well.
Also Grandma clearly had a death wish. Probably she wanted to be eaten so that her daughter would finally feel guilty and say "If only I had looked after Grandma better". Grandma is willing to die to get the grim satisfaction of hearing that admission from her daughter.
LRRH is no saint either. When she first bumped into the wolf in the forest she told him that she was on her way to see her Grandma who lived alone and gave directions to the wolf who went and ate Grandma and then got into bed and pretended to be her when LRRH reached. LRRH GAVE DIRECTIONS TO A STRANGE CARNIVOROUS WOLF on where to find her li'l ol helpless weak granny. Clearly something was not right between Granny and LRRH's relationship. Perhaps LRRH was resentful for being made to walk through the woods for Silly old granny who refused to move in with them.
LRRH is clearly looking for action too. She gets in bed with the 'Granny' and pretends to swallow the story about the big teeth and big eyes (all the better to see you with). Clearly a sucker for flattery, she also wants to get into bed and pretend to be innocent. Then she can claim that she was tricked into bed. Then she gets a lumberjack to help her kill the wolf. This is the extreme form of 'Frigid woman' game called 'Rapo'. Typical!
The Wolf is clearly overreaching himself by leaving rabbits and such easy prey to deal with cunning little girls. He is out of his depth and loses his life. He probably had a death wish scripted into him at a young age and also wants to get validation for his childhood stance of 'You can't trust anyone'.
The moral of the story is that innocent young wolves should not go around traipsing in LRRH infested forests or they will be entrapped and killed. Be warned.
There are different types of basic transactions in TA. Ex - Parent-Parent ("Teachers nowadays don't have a clue how to teach". Some pairs of transactions are complementary like a Parent child transaction to which the response is a child-parent transaction ("You should have done your homework" "I never get any time to play") and some are crossed transactions like a Parent-Child transaction which is met with a Parent-Child response as opposed to a Child-Parent response (ex "You never cook a nice meal for me" "If you helped around the house maybe I'd have some time to do stuff like that"). Another example of a Crossed transaction is where a simple Adult-Adult transaction is met with a C-P or a P-C transaction ("Could you pass me the newspaper please" "You're always reading the bloody newspaper and you never talk to me" (C-P). The Adult response might have been "I feel like we're spending less quality time with each other than we used to and I miss that. I'd like to talk about how we can change that"
There are a class of transactions that proceed in a predictable way and in which the surface transaction appears to be one thing but the actual stuff going on underneath is completely different. For example "I've reviewed your report and found a few mistakes" could be a genuine Adult-Adult interaction. But it could also be someone trying to show himself to be superior to the subordinate in which case the concealed (but real) nature of the transaction is a Parent-Child transaction. The justification is that he is just trying to get the report right and develop his subordinate but if the errors are really small and this happens on a regular basis then his actual reason is to make himself feel better about himself. That's his real payoff and comes from the life position 'You can't trust others', something he would have adopted as a kid. He will probably play this 'game' on a regular basis. Payoffs are also sometimes known as trading stamps because they result in the person feeling a certain feelings that they have become comfortable feeling since early childhood (guilt, anger, fear, resentment, etc) and when the person has collected enough trading stamps they are used to justify some action (divorce, job loss, losing temper). This is known as cashing in the stamps. Some people cash in stamps regularly and some collect a lot and then blow up as they cash them in all at once.
The psychiatric term 'Games' (from the book by Eric Berne 'Games People Play') is also where terms like 'mind games' and 'I don't understand the games you keep playing' come from.
For a game to be played there are a few elements:
C+G=R X P
The person playing the game 'Cons' someone through the other person's 'Gimmick' (a weakness in the other persons personality that allows him to fall for the game). The other person responds with R. Then the game player pulls the switch ("X") which leads to the payoff (P) for him and leaves the other person feeling stupid/angry/frustrated.
So for example A might use the 'Con' of asking for help "I can't get the project to work" which sucks the other person into giving advice. The gimmick is B's weakness for giving advice to feel sagelike and smart and better about himself - so he falls into the trap. But then A pulls the switch and keeps saying "I've tried that" or "Yes but..." to everything and finally B admits defeat as he can't come up with a solution that makes A happy. The payoff for A is that he feels that he really has tried everything because nobody else could come up with a solution that he hadn't already tried. He's not actually looking for a solution at all though on the surface it looks like he is. Obviously B is left frustrated. B is not that innocent either because he got sucked in because he wanted to play the game 'I'm only trying to help' where he's looking for the feeling that 'I'm a good person who's misunderstood' and 'Other people are ungrateful' and that helps him feel good about himself.
People attract other people to them who play complementary games. They wear their attitude ('sweatshirts') that signal to complementary game players that they're ready to play a game with them. So the woman who has low self esteem and is scared of life wears "Poor helpless me". She will be attracted to someone who is commanding and authoritative (who in turn is attracted to someone meek he can rescue and look after). If the players don't grow up in the relationship she will adopt the "If it wasn't for my bossy husband I'd be doing all these wonderful things" resentful attitude and he will adopt the "You'd be nothing without me" self righteous attitude. The game would be broken up if the husband became permissive (this would freak the woman out because she now no longer has any excuse for her lack of business sense, interesting life, etc and would have to face some pretty stark facts about herself before she can move on). The game would also be broken up if the woman inisted on her right to self determination (the man would feel threatened and useless since his psychological prop of 'I'm a commanding man who other people need' is gone.
People who have rid themselves of the need to play games don't fall for 'games'. A self confident girl, out on a date with a domineering guy would not enjoy herself and not repeat the experience. A needy girl would feel dominated but also cared for and protected and so would eventually end up with him.
In game theory there are no accidents. We attract the sorts of situations and people in our life to artificially corroborate views about ourselves and others that we formed in early childhood.
A list of some of the games that have been identified so far by psychiatrists are:( Read more... )
There are a class of transactions that proceed in a predictable way and in which the surface transaction appears to be one thing but the actual stuff going on underneath is completely different. For example "I've reviewed your report and found a few mistakes" could be a genuine Adult-Adult interaction. But it could also be someone trying to show himself to be superior to the subordinate in which case the concealed (but real) nature of the transaction is a Parent-Child transaction. The justification is that he is just trying to get the report right and develop his subordinate but if the errors are really small and this happens on a regular basis then his actual reason is to make himself feel better about himself. That's his real payoff and comes from the life position 'You can't trust others', something he would have adopted as a kid. He will probably play this 'game' on a regular basis. Payoffs are also sometimes known as trading stamps because they result in the person feeling a certain feelings that they have become comfortable feeling since early childhood (guilt, anger, fear, resentment, etc) and when the person has collected enough trading stamps they are used to justify some action (divorce, job loss, losing temper). This is known as cashing in the stamps. Some people cash in stamps regularly and some collect a lot and then blow up as they cash them in all at once.
The psychiatric term 'Games' (from the book by Eric Berne 'Games People Play') is also where terms like 'mind games' and 'I don't understand the games you keep playing' come from.
For a game to be played there are a few elements:
C+G=R X P
The person playing the game 'Cons' someone through the other person's 'Gimmick' (a weakness in the other persons personality that allows him to fall for the game). The other person responds with R. Then the game player pulls the switch ("X") which leads to the payoff (P) for him and leaves the other person feeling stupid/angry/frustrated.
So for example A might use the 'Con' of asking for help "I can't get the project to work" which sucks the other person into giving advice. The gimmick is B's weakness for giving advice to feel sagelike and smart and better about himself - so he falls into the trap. But then A pulls the switch and keeps saying "I've tried that" or "Yes but..." to everything and finally B admits defeat as he can't come up with a solution that makes A happy. The payoff for A is that he feels that he really has tried everything because nobody else could come up with a solution that he hadn't already tried. He's not actually looking for a solution at all though on the surface it looks like he is. Obviously B is left frustrated. B is not that innocent either because he got sucked in because he wanted to play the game 'I'm only trying to help' where he's looking for the feeling that 'I'm a good person who's misunderstood' and 'Other people are ungrateful' and that helps him feel good about himself.
People attract other people to them who play complementary games. They wear their attitude ('sweatshirts') that signal to complementary game players that they're ready to play a game with them. So the woman who has low self esteem and is scared of life wears "Poor helpless me". She will be attracted to someone who is commanding and authoritative (who in turn is attracted to someone meek he can rescue and look after). If the players don't grow up in the relationship she will adopt the "If it wasn't for my bossy husband I'd be doing all these wonderful things" resentful attitude and he will adopt the "You'd be nothing without me" self righteous attitude. The game would be broken up if the husband became permissive (this would freak the woman out because she now no longer has any excuse for her lack of business sense, interesting life, etc and would have to face some pretty stark facts about herself before she can move on). The game would also be broken up if the woman inisted on her right to self determination (the man would feel threatened and useless since his psychological prop of 'I'm a commanding man who other people need' is gone.
People who have rid themselves of the need to play games don't fall for 'games'. A self confident girl, out on a date with a domineering guy would not enjoy herself and not repeat the experience. A needy girl would feel dominated but also cared for and protected and so would eventually end up with him.
In game theory there are no accidents. We attract the sorts of situations and people in our life to artificially corroborate views about ourselves and others that we formed in early childhood.
A list of some of the games that have been identified so far by psychiatrists are:( Read more... )