THE SECOND RIVER
I was the book
you all see in dreams.
~ Osip Mandelstam
Osip, how many times did you cross
the Styx —
river lamps, the bridges in fog —
the Neva gleams,
a steely northern glitter.
Official cause of death: heart failure.
Winter is a beautiful woman.
In the stars a goatlike sky
has shattered and burns like milk
Footsteps on the midnight staircase.
A razor hidden in your shoe
for cutting your wrists.
One a.m., a knock on the door
Now comes the deafness of spiders
At the Second River transit camp,
black-water swamps
webbed with veins of ice.
Windowless trains
go east into nowhere.
Daylight stutters between bruised clouds,
the barbed wire repeats
its crude asterisks.
We’ll meet again in Petropolis
where we have buried the sun
Shivering, crouched
behind the garbage dump,
Osip, did you remember you would turn
into an undreamed-of book; did you see
the black sun and six-winged
Judaic angels, did you hear
the huge rustle
of those pages and wings.
~ Oriana
“The Second River” was the name of the transit camp in Siberia where Mandelstam died. The official cause of death was “heart failure.”
By the way, March 5 is the anniversary of Stalin’s death (1953) — poisoned with rat poison! I document this in a past blog: https://oriana-poetry.blogspot.com/2017/03/stalin-killed-with-rat-poison-removing.html
Talk about the world becoming a better place once the monster was dead! Cautiously at first, the “destalinization” began to take place. Political prisoners, often jailed and tortured on false charges, were released — and that reprieve from terror was just the beginning. As Oscar Wilde said, some people make us happy when they go.
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I hope that no reader will think ill of my choice of a poem honoring a Russian (or Jewish-Russian, for those who find this distinction important) poet, considering Putin’s crimes in Ukraine. Osip Mandelstam was a victim, not an aggressor. Even more important, Russian literature belongs to all of humanity. The current dictator does not diminish Russia’s great cultural contributions.
I chose this poem to remind readers that the Russian people have also suffered greatly through the centuries. Autocrats, be they tzars or former KGB agents, hurt their own people first of all.
Here is what Mikhail Iossel says:
~ The enemy is not the Russian people. The enemy is the deranged war criminal, fascist Vladimir Putin and his crony-state totalitarian apparatus.
Still, the hard truth of the matter is, it was Russia that produced Putin and saddled the world with him, and it was the Russian people, in their large majority, who supported or at the very least tolerated Putin for more than twenty years — and so it must, in the end, be up to the Russian people to rid the world of him.
Germany carried responsibility for Hitler. Russians will have to do the same when Putin is gone.
And the West will now go through its own reckoning. It has allowed itself to be corrupted by Putin's criminal money. Now it's paying for it. ~
Oriana:
I fear that the Russian people are as helpless when it comes to removing Putins as the Germans were to remove Hitler. I don’t know what it would take. It would probably have to be an inside job, the way Khrushchev was removed (without actually being killed — that was a novelty in the Soviet Union).
But let’s not forget the impact of being constantly exposed to official propaganda — which insists the army is conducting a “special operation of liberation.” This is supposedly also a de-Nazification campaign — Russians are saving Ukraine from Nazis.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60600487
What Nazis? I slowly recalled that at the beginning of WW2, some Ukrainians greeted the German invaders as liberators from the Soviet yoke, and collaborated with them. Their leader was Stepan Bandera. In 1959, he was poisoned the KGB. He remains a divisive figure: some see him as a national hero fighting for independence; others see him as a fascist. Putin is apparently trying to brand all Ukrainians as “Banderites,” and Ukraine as a “Nazi” nation.
Sandy:
I wouldn't be surprised if China is playing the long game, encouraging Russia into another quagmire. China already have lots of "technical advisors" and infrastructure in Siberia and would be the logical "next owners" if Russia collapses and has to sell or give away territory.
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“IT FEELS LIKE A SCENE FROM MACBETH”
~ This is Putin's war, and it is grotesque. I listened to Putin's majestic Crimea speech eight years ago. And I listened to Putin's speech last Monday presaging his intention to invade Ukraine.
This is no longer the master chess player, the shrewd grand strategist. He is no longer a rational actor, even in the coldest and most cynical sense. He seemed unwell and unhinged: “We're ready to show you what real decommunization means for Ukraine. . .”
This no longer felt like a man playing a high-stakes chess game. Now it felt like a scene from "Macbeth." My intuition was that an aging man facing his own death had decided to destroy the whole world. Ukraine is very possibly fighting for all of us. ~ Marci Shore, a historian, CNN
A tear for Ukraine, by Cardiff street artist MyDogSighs.
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DID COMMUNISM EVER ACTUALLY EXIST?
~ One could say, together with Derrida, that communism never existed in the sense that communism is a utopia, and all utopias are meant by their very essence to remain in a virtual (ie,, ideal, not materialized) state. As soon as you implement a utopia, it becomes a dystopia--because it should never be materialized in the first place. The very embodiment of any utopia carries within itself its hellish consequences. Only in this sense, can one say that communism never existed--because its very existence is impossible. People who believe that communism is possible refuse to understand the separation between reality and fiction. ~ Alta Ifland
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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
~ The source of the current tragedy is Vladimir Putin’s insistence on eliminating Ukraine’s independence — because that independence, representing Ukraine’s intolerable freedom (in the Russian president’s eyes) to choose between Russia and the West, is the ultimate reason why violence has come.
As someone who witnessed the dissolution of the old cold-war dividing line while studying abroad in West Berlin in 1989, it is hard to fathom that a latter-day version of it will now return, only further to the east, and with the Baltic states playing the role of West Berlin. I certainly did not expect to see the return of this division in my lifetime.
The outbreak of war in Ukraine means, among many other consequences, that we need to view the cold war’s end through a new lens. Its most lasting consequence, tragically, may not be the optimism that it inspired in the many, but the damage that it did to the one: Vladimir Putin. To assuage his grievance about the loss of Soviet status and above all Ukraine, he has commenced a major land war in Europe — and written the requiem for the post-Soviet peace. ~
https://www.ft.com/content/742f15fc-675a-4622-b022-cbec444651cf?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Oriana:
It startles me to ponder that, much as Tolstoy struggled against the idea that men such as Napoleon play a great role in history, a single man such as Putin can exert an enormous power to shape events. Imagine if Hitler died of a massive heart attack just as he was about to launch WW2. Or indeed imagine that, in spite of his paranoid precautions, someone did manage to poison Putin. With a major bully gone, the world would instantly become a better place.
Let me follow this with a repost of an article on bully removal from an earlier blog:
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THE BENEFITS OF REMOVING THE BULLIES (THE GREAT SECRET OF MORALS IS STRESS REDUCTION)
~ “It’s one of my favorite Darwin quotes—"He who understands baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke"—scribbled furtively in a notebook between visits to the London Zoo in the summer of 1838. Twenty-one years would pass before On the Origin of Species would shock the world, but Darwin already knew: If man wanted to comprehend his mind, he’d need to train an unflustered gaze into the deep caverns of his animal past.” ~ Oren Harman
The man who probably understands baboons better than anyone is Robert Sapolsky, a primatologist who spent a lot of time studying one particular troop (from Wikipedia: After initial year-and-a-half field study in Africa, [Sapolsky] returned every summer for another twenty-five years to observe the same group of baboons, from the late 70s to the early 90s. He spent 8 to 10 hours a day for approximately four months each year recording the behaviors of these primates].
The story is that of a “tragedy”: the alpha males, the bullies of the troop, all died after eating TB-infected meat. What happened later is what makes me want to cheer: without the bullies, the health and well-being of the troop markedly improved. The levels of cortisol went down, and with them high blood pressure and other markers of stress and inflammation. Secure from aggression and harassment, the surviving animals were thriving. But the most striking result of this stress reduction was a “cultural” change toward cooperation and affection. Occasionally a male from another troop would join, and after a while adopt the non-aggressive ways.
The very presence of “dominators” is stressful to the subordinates, causing health problems.
Remove the bullies, and everyone benefits. In human cultures, this should start with zero tolerance for child abuse and the abuse of women. Safe from abuse, a mother can provide more and better nurturing for her children. Stroking, grooming, speaking in a soft voice. Good mental and physical health starts right there.
The title of this post was inspired by Shelley’s “The great secret of morals is love.” But for love to flourish — and by love I don’t mean the storms of romantic passion but mutual nurturing — there has to be sufficient freedom from stress. Under heavy stress, the goal is sheer survival. Love — or call it nurturing, or tenderness, or affection — grows and blossoms when stress is down to manageable levels.
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The reader may wonder how the alpha-male system evolved, if the removal of alpha males is so beneficial. It probably evolved because the alpha males are the strongest defenders of the troop in case it gets attacked. Then they become the front-line warriors. But just how often do baboon troops get attacked? Most of the fighting takes place within the troop, as adult males fight with each other for dominance.
The dominant males do most of the mating, so the genes related to aggressiveness get passed on.
It’s interesting to ponder that humans at least developed prisons
for removing the most noxious bullies for protection of the public. Of course there is much that is wrong with our prison system, but, as with the police, we are on the whole safer given this imperfect system of bully removal than we would be without it.
Mary:
On the matter of bullies and elevated cortisol… I know I give a lot of personal examples, but this is one I've never worked my way past. My father was prone to sudden rages, frightening outbursts that seemed to come without warning, and not even always directed against a particular bad behavior. Whoever raised his ire was usually included, but the punishments took in even bystanders, which he would justify by saying we probably deserved it. And the punishments were physical, which was not that unusual at that time. But that voice raised in anger!!
To this day I can be all but incapacitated by a raised angry voice. It's a visceral reaction, fear, hands shaking, heart rate increased, and I can't, literally can’t, think straight. It's a kind of mental/physical/emotional state of panic, immediate and almost paralyzing in effect. I think it's a form of PTSD, and very solidly rooted. Even if I know there is no physical threat, the raised voice itself knocks me into panic. Many find this reaction an exaggeration, or an unfounded objection, but it is very real.
Oriana:
You're describing classic PTSD. And you fully understand what caused it. I too grew up anxious (a long story, with many contributing factors, rather than a one-time trauma). Receiving love seems to the best therapy, and dogs appear to be superior to humans. Dogs were bred to be loving and forgiving. Humans are just barely, barely beginning to understand the most basic principles of treating others, and the lasting harm caused by child abuse.
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“Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the most unforgivable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.” ~ Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
HOW TO STOP OVERTHINKING
Overthinking is an anxious tendency that I encounter often in my psychotherapy practice. There are many ways we tend to overthink, such as rehashing the past — replaying the same scenario over and over in our head. Worrying is another form, in which we obsess over what the future might bring.
I can empathize. When I was younger, overthinking decreased my quality of life. Research has shown that overthinking can decrease energy, limit creativity and cause sleeping problems.
Eventually, I knew I needed a healthy way to cope, and I created a career out of helping other people do the same. Here are three strategies I use every day to stop overthinking:
POSITIVE REFRAMING:
This is often confused with “toxic positivity,” which asks people to think positively — no matter how difficult a situation is.
Positive reframing, on the other hand, allows you to acknowledge the negative aspects, then asks you to evaluate whether there’s another way to think about the situation. Perhaps there are benefits or things you can change about it.
Example:
You constantly find yourself complaining: “I hate being a boss. On top of all these deadlines and responsibilities, it’s hard to manage so many complex personalities. It’s emotionally and mentally exhausting. My job just sucks.”
Venting might feel good for a second, but it doesn’t solve anything. And you’ll likely continue to dwell on how much you hate your job or how bad you think you are at managing.
To practice positive reframing, replace the thought above with: “Things are challenging right now and I’m feeling disconnected from some things on my plate. I wonder if I can change anything about this situation or my expectations about it.”
This thought pattern gives you the power to change your situation. You could start small by examining what important tasks needs to get done first, then either delay or delegate the rest until you are feeling less anxious. The key is to take a step back and deal with things one at a time.
2. WRITE DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS ONCE, THEN DISTRACT YOURSELF FOR 24 HOURS
When our brains think we are in conflict or danger, a built-in alarm system goes off internally to protect us.
One thing I have found success with is writing down my feelings and waiting at least 24 hours (or just a few hours if it’s an urgent matter) before replying or taking any sort of impulsive action.
Then, I put that draft away while I distract myself with another task.
Example:
You just received an email about something that went awry. You are upset, your heart starts to race, your breathing gets shallow, and you become hyper-focused on what’s going wrong and why it’s your fault.
If you respond to the email while your brain is in “alarm mode,” you might say things you’ll regret later on, which may then fuel the vicious cycle of overthinking.
Writing negative thoughts down takes the power out of them; I often don’t feel the need to take action based on my anxious thoughts once I’ve written them down.
3. PRACTICE SPECIFIC GRATITUDE
we know that expressing gratitude can increase our happiness. It can help us contextualize our frustrations against what we love and help us connect to something larger than ourselves — whether that’s other people, animals, nature or a higher power.
But I find that repeating the same gratitude practice over and over again can become rote and diminish the returns. For me, it can start to feel like a meaningless chore instead of a mindful practice. So, I like to practice something that I call “specific gratitude.”
Example:
Instead of writing in my journal every day that “I am grateful for my health,” I’ll write something like, “I am grateful that I woke up today without any back pain and have the ability to do today’s workout.”
This helps me stay focused on the here and now, rather than overthinking on general abstractions. Tomorrow, I might still be grateful for my health, but I might specifically be grateful that I have enough energy for a long run.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/25/a-psychotherapist-shares-the-exercises-she-uses-every-day-to-stop-overthinking.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Oriana:
I’m familiar with “positive framing” — except by the name of “cognitive reframing.” It’s a powerful technique for those of us who enjoy mental challenges. Trying to reframe the problem basically teaches you to think in a deeper, more specific way. When you do that, chances are that you will notice something positive about the situation, or else a way to get out of the it.
Writing is basically thinking. Then you turn the problem over to the unconscious. The answer will come spontaneously at some later point, perhaps when you are in the shower. Or you may be on the freeway, and the joy of clarity and having the answer could make you miss your exit. Alas, the unconscious doesn’t care about inconvenient timing. The joy of having mental clarity is worth anything, though.
This is my first encounter with “specific gratitude.” Perhaps. Again, it seems like better thinking, demanding specifics rather than abstractions.
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LIFE UNDER ALTERNATIVE FACTS: M. IOSSEL ON SOVIET PROPAGANDA
On the radio and on TV and in newspapers and magazines, the untold legions of official-propaganda folks talked about the kind of reality which did not remotely exist in the reality of Soviet people’s lives.
~ There was no real cognitive dissonance existing in the minds of most people in the Soviet Union of the nineteen-seventies and eighties. Everyone knew that everything said on the radio or on television, everything (with the exception of weather reports or sports results) was a blatant lie, spoken pro forma, just because that’s the way things were and had to be: outside, it was dark or light or drizzly or sunny or cold and snowy or pleasantly warm or too hot for comfort—and on the radio and on TV and in newspapers and magazines the untold legions of official-propaganda folks talked about the kind of reality which did not remotely exist in the reality of Soviet people’s lives.
Just because from dawn to dusk everyone was forced to hear on the radio and read in newspapers that everyone’s life in the Soviet land was wonderful and was going to be infinitely better still, and that everyone else out in the capitalist world envied the happiness of Soviet people’s lives, no one was duped into thinking this was actually how things were, neither in their own lives or in the lives of people all around them, in their cities and villages. Everyone knew the truth, even in the absence of any alternative, more reality-bound source of information. Everyone knew how things were in reality. How could one not? One had one’s eyes and ears and one’s own life to live.
Everyone knew that the country was mired in poverty and decay and stagnation and degradation, drowning in lies and cynicism and all-out drunkenness. Everyone knew that they, the Soviet people, lived in a veritable funhouse of a giant isolated world unto itself, in the parallel reality of that endless hall of crazily distorted mirrors. People were not fooled, to put it mildly. Still, there was nothing they, including myself and everyone I knew, could do with or about that understanding. There was no place for them to take it, to pour it out on.
Being exposed to constant, relentless irradiation by that funhouse reality, forever aswim in a sea of lies, had made people lethargic and apathetic, cynical and fatalistic, dumbfounded into mute infantilism, drunkenness, and helpless rage in the meagerness of their tiny private, personal worlds. Their worlds were small and filled with sameness. People lived their lives in a state of permanent shell shock, like dynamite-blasted fish still somehow capable of swimming.
This is what constant, permanent exposure to alternative reality does: it deafens and deadens you. ~
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/life-under-alternative-facts?fbclid=IwAR2fhbNAW4eDQkrWKVCifY5HUwAnSPOJexJ5K4TpFAv6YVMs8XXauEQatig
Oriana:
It was Orwellian: war meant peace, and slavery was called freedom. I remembering hearing on the radio that the Soviet Union was the most democratic country in the world.
In Poland everyone I knew listened to short-wave BBC and/or Radio Free Europe. But now and then exposure to the Polish radio was inevitable, with the Orwellian inversion. One additional Orwellianism was that the enemy was called "Brother" (as in "Our brother, the Soviet Union”).
Carmelite monastery, Berdychev, Ukraine
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PAUL KRUGMAN: CONQUEST DOESN’T PAY IN THE MODERN ERA
~ The economic sanctions that Russia is facing from the Biden Administration and its European NATO allies are taking their toll: the value of the ruble, according to Washington Post, has plummeted to less than 1 U.S. cent. And more sanctions are likely on the way as Russian troops, on orders from President Vladimir Putin, continue their invasion of Ukraine.
But even without these sanctions, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine would have a negative impact on the Russian economy. Liberal economist and New York Times opinion writer Paul Krugman, in his March 1 column, lays out some reasons why “conquest” is an economic drain for Russia and other countries.
“Despite the incredible heroism of Ukraine’s people,” Krugman writes, “it’s still more likely than not that the Russian flag will eventually be planted amid the rubble of Kyiv and Kharkiv. But even if that happens, the Russian Federation will be left weaker and poorer than it was before the invasion. Conquest doesn’t pay.”
Krugman goes on to explain that although imperialism could be profitable in the past, that isn’t the case these days.
“If you go back in history,” Krugman notes, “there are plenty of examples of powers that enriched themselves through military prowess. The Romans surely profited from the conquest of the Hellenistic world, as did Spain from the conquest of the Aztecs and the Incas. But the modern world is different — where by ‘modern,’ I mean at least the past century and a half.”
Krugman cites the “global economy” as one of the main reasons why “conquest” drains a country economically in modern times.
“In such a global economy,” Krugman writes, “it’s hard to conquer another country without cutting that country — and yourself — off from the international division of labor, not to mention the international financial system, at great cost. We can see that dynamic happening to Russia as we speak.”
Krugman goes on to offer some more reasons why, from an economic standpoint, “conquest is futile” in modern times.
“The first is that modern war uses an incredible amount of resources,” Krugman notes. “Pre-modern armies used limited amounts of ammunition and could, to some extent, live off the land.… But modern armies require huge amounts of ammunition, replacement parts and, above all, fuel for their vehicles. Indeed, the latest assessment from Britain’s Ministry of Defense says that the Russian advance on Kyiv has temporarily stalled ‘probably as a result of continuing logistical difficulties.’ What this means for would-be conquerors is that conquest, even if successful, is extremely expensive, making it even less likely that it can ever pay.”
Krugman continues, “Second, we now live in a world of passionate nationalism. Ancient and medieval peasants probably didn’t care who was exploiting them; modern workers do. Putin’s attempt to seize Ukraine appears to be predicated not just on his belief that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian nation, but also, on the assumption that the Ukrainians themselves can be persuaded to consider themselves Russians.… Even if Kyiv and other major cities fall, Russia will find itself spending years trying to hold down a hostile population. So, conquest is a losing proposition.” ~
https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/conquest-doesnt-pay-economist-paul-krugman-explains-why-imperialism-will-scar-russias-economy/?fbclid=IwAR0fwnH6itkqbdflzhPtEN5CkmJe4_K0Wwqk0WjwQCCeSaw4xzop5Nk2i8E
Mary:
It's very interesting that war doesn’t pay, modern war, with all its crazy technology. I was reading about some of the mobile units Putin's deploying against Ukraine, and how these are being destroyed by the opposition, or rendered useless by lack of fuel, or even sabotage by the invading soldiers themselves — and these things cost millions and millions apiece. The speculation is that war will bankrupt Russia. This is already rapidly happening, and any victory Putin might eventually have will be pyrrhic at best, and catastrophic for both countries. Of course there is also the speculation that Putin is terminally ill, and determined, if he can't restore the Russian empire, then he will take it all down, the whole world, with him as he goes. So one man can so bedevil history, that I want to agree with my father, when he said "Where are the assassins when we need them?”
Oriana:
I suspect that’s the fantasy in millions of minds now: someone succeeds in poisoning that thug, the way Stalin was likely poisoned by Beria (see my blog https://oriana-poetry.blogspot.com/2017/03/stalin-killed-with-rat-poison-removing.html ) Alas, where are the poisoners when you need them?
It’s awful that we are having these fantasies, but then we know that in the absence of democracy a dictator has to die or be killed. There is no other way of removing the Supreme Bully from office.
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THE FRAGILITY OF PEACE IN EUROPE
~ There are moments when the tectonic plates of history shift beneath our feet and Europe is violently remade. It is time to recognize that we are at such a moment. Time too, to stop saying that it is somehow unbelievable that this can be happening in 2022.
It is no more unbelievable now than it was in 1914 or 1939 - nothing predetermined that they would be years when darkness would descend. That's not to say, of course, that we are on the edge of a war that will suck in the rest of Europe or even the world.
The point is that peace is always fragile - and that what happens even in the most distant corners of Europe will always affect all of us.
The dark energy that drives Vladimir Putin is the other side of [the benefits of the dissolution of the Soviet Union). He saw Russia diminished, humiliated and stripped of what he saw as its right to a buffer zone of subordinate states.
At some point he conceived an almost mystical concept of restoring lost Russian greatness. He must have been encouraged by the way in which he got away with the annexation of Crimea - from Ukraine - in 2014. After all, four years later we were enjoying the World Cup in Russia.
Western Europe's main reaction to the end of the Cold War was to take a 30-year holiday from serious defense spending.
"With the invasion of Ukraine we are in a new era," the German chancellor told the German parliament - defining the challenge of that new era as a simple question: "Whether we allow Putin to turn back the clock, or whether we mobilize power to set boundaries for warmongers such as Putin."
Sweden, which is wealthy and well-armed but militarily non-aligned, was the first country to feel colder winds blowing from the East and perhaps the first to act. It is increasing defense spending by an extraordinary 40% in its current five-year cycle - raising new infantry regiments and buying American Patriot anti-aircraft missiles.
The Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist said simply: "We have a situation where Russia is prepared to use military means to achieve political goals."
So the rather decadent view - that the only weapon the West would ever need is economic sanctions - is out of fashion now. You can't fight tanks with banks. No-one wants to see this continent turned into an armed camp of course, but when you feel those tectonic plates shifting you have to shift with them. Acting now - buying weapons and donating money - is the easy bit when the hot sharp stab of outrage is fresh.
But this new age of containment is going to call for much more. The will to stand with Ukrainians first - but then the grit, vision and staying power to stand guard over freedom wherever and whenever the next attack might come. ~
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PAYCHECK OR WELL-BEING?
~ Erin Cech, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, said the melding of work and self stemmed from the role productivity and hard work played in culture: They're status symbols. Look no further than the worship of hustle culture, girl bosses, and unicorn entrepreneurs.
"There's a sense that the morally valuable way to have a career is aligned with a sense of passion," Cech said. "When people are working, they're doing it out of a sense of needing fulfillment in their own lives, not just to bring in a paycheck.”
This mentality is a byproduct of a certain set of American ideals in which being busy is romanticized, working more than 40 hours a week is often the expectation, and jobs are people's passions. It has roots in the Protestant ethic, in which hard work is a sign of good character. In 1905, the German sociologist Max Weber argued that Calvinism, the theological framework of America's first major settlers who laid the initial foundation for the US economy, gave rise to capitalist success. The theory has been much debated, but research has shown it has legs.
"The notion of productivity as a sense of self-worth is a social construct of our cultural space," Cech said. "In the United States economy, particularly with the white-collar workforce, there is a strong link between needing to not only be productive but to show one is productive and a sense of self-worth.”
The reason people find this self-worth in their jobs, Cech said, is that they spend so much of their time and energy there. Younger generations are leading the way. In her book "The Trouble With Passion," Cech documented how college students pursued a career based on their passions over income and job security.
Millennials have a history of picking passion over pay. Gen Z is turning out the same: 42% of Gen Z respondents to a survey this month by the talent firm Lever said they would rather be at a company that gave them a sense of purpose than one that paid them more. In a 2018 Pew Research Center survey of American teenagers (many of whom are in today's workforce) about their aspirations, 95% of them said having a job or career they enjoyed was extremely or very important to them.
But the expectation to be productive out of a personal sense of meaning ties the link between productivity and self-worth even more tightly, Cech said. It might explain why both millennials and Gen Z experience more anxiety and stress than older generations.
One way the need for endless productivity manifests, according to Guenther, the therapist on TikTok, is when people feel they should be more accomplished in life compared with others. This, he says in a video, shows up differently for people of differing socioeconomic statuses: Those with a privileged background face pressure to live up to their families' expectations, while those with a less-privileged background feel they need to be productive to survive.
Cech pointed out that people from working-middle-class backgrounds, like first-generation college students, might also feel the need to get the most prestigious, well-paying job to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
"If you are poor, you need to make ends meet, and every day is a struggle," Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at Columbia University, said. "If you are rich, your status anxiety keeps pushing you to do more because you think your worth is dependent on your net worth. And if you are in the middle, you feel that salaries have stagnated but life gets more expensive, so all the money you spent on studies and your career is not giving you what you dreamed or a home.”
He said there were clear trade-offs between professional and personal success. Working long hours might mean a bigger paycheck, but it might come at the sacrifice of relationships, health, and life itself.
"For the vast majority of our existence, we worked to live rather than lived to work," Chamorro-Premuzic said in an email, "but now that competition for talent (including workers' loyalty) is fierce, the top employers are willing to pay a lot if people devote their lives to their job or careers.”
To be sure, productivity is a core tenet of a capitalist system that has spurred economic growth in the form of more jobs, consumer choice, and innovation. It's designed to reward hard work, with paychecks going to those who provide value and profits to leaders who run the most efficient businesses.
But it also creates a system that relies on consumer spending to drive 70% of the economy, supporting those businesses and, in turn, their workers' paychecks. And it leaves behind people who aren't seen as productive enough. After all, in the US, access to basic needs like healthcare and a home rely on one thing: having a job.
America's dependence on productivity reframed the reverence of hustle culture as peoples' personal lives took precedence over their jobs during the pandemic, as Insider's Aki Ito recently explored. Look no further than the "Great Resignation," the anti-work movement, and Gen Zers slowing their output.
Some are dedicating more time to loved ones and meaningful hobbies, which is where we find true happiness, according to Chamorro-Premuzic. But he said: "The reality is that most people struggle following this advice, at times because they don't believe it and at times because they are less interested in being happy than we think, and even than they say.” ~
https://www.businessinsider.com/capitalism-tiktok-america-productivity-job-mental-health-great-resignaton-antiwork-2022-2?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Oriana:
To me, there is no dichotomy between happiness and productivity. Happiness comes from productivity. But that productivity is also fused with beauty and wisdom. And I will certainly take the time to watch a spectacular sunset, or pet a cuddly pet. The overall goodness of life feeds my productivity, so I don't experience the feelings of conflict. But I do realize that I am in a privileged situation, unexpectedly lucky and blessed.
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DOES RELIGION DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD?
~ Most British people think religion causes more harm than good according to a survey commissioned by the Huffington Post. Surprisingly, even among those who describe themselves as “very religious” 20 percent say that religion is harmful to society. For that we can probably thank the internet, which broadcasts everything from Isis beheadings, to stories about Catholic hospitals denying care to miscarrying women, to lists of wild and weird religious beliefs, to articles about psychological harms from Bible-believing Christianity.
In 2010, sociologist Phil Zuckerman published Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. Zuckerman lined up evidence that the least religious societies also tend to be the most peaceful, prosperous and equitable, with public policies that help people to flourish while decreasing both desperation and economic gluttony.
We can debate whether prosperity and peace lead people to be less religious or vice versa. Indeed evidence supports the view that religion thrives on existential anxiety. But even if this is the case, there’s good reason to suspect that the connection between religion and malfunctioning societies goes both ways. Here are six ways religions make peaceful prosperity harder to achieve.
1. Religion promotes tribalism. Infidel, heathen, heretic. Religion divides insiders from outsiders. Rather than assuming good intentions, adherents often are taught to treat outsiders with suspicion. “Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” says the Christian Bible. “They wish that you disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them,” says the Koran (Sura 4:91).
At best, teachings like these discourage or even forbid the kinds of friendship and intermarriage that help clans and tribes become part of a larger whole. At worst, outsiders are seen as enemies of God and goodness, potential agents of Satan, lacking in morality and not to be trusted. Believers might huddle together, anticipating martyrdom. When simmering tensions erupt, societies fracture along sectarian fault lines.
2. Religion anchors believers to the Iron Age. Concubines, magical incantations, chosen people, stonings . . . The Iron Age was a time of rampant superstition, ignorance, inequality, racism, misogyny, and violence. Slavery had God’s sanction. Women and children were literally possessions of men. Warlords practiced scorched earth warfare. Desperate people sacrificed animals, agricultural products, and enemy soldiers as burnt offerings intended to appease dangerous gods.
Sacred texts including the Bible, Torah and Koran all preserve and protect fragments of Iron Age culture, putting a god’s name and endorsement on some of the very worst human impulses. Any believer looking to excuse his own temper, sense of superiority, warmongering, bigotry, or planetary destruction can find validation in writings that claim to be authored [or inspired] by God.
Today, humanity’s moral consciousness is evolving, grounded in an ever deeper and broader understanding of the Golden Rule. But many conservative believers can’t move forward. They are anchored to the Iron Age. This pits them against change in a never-ending battle that consumes public energy and slows creative problem solving.
3. Religion makes a virtue out of faith. Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus. So sing children in Sunday schools across America. The Lord works in mysterious ways, pastors tell believers who have been shaken by horrors like brain cancer or a tsunami. Faith is a virtue.
As science eats away at territory once held by religion, traditional religious beliefs require greater and greater mental defenses against threatening information. To stay strong, religion trains believers to practice self-deception, shut out contradictory evidence, and trust authorities rather than their own capacity to think. This approach seeps into other parts of life. Government, in particular, becomes a fight between competing ideologies rather than a quest to figure out practical, evidence-based solutions that promote wellbeing.
4. Religion diverts generous impulses and good intentions. Feeling sad about Haiti? Give to our mega-church. Crass financial appeals during times of crisis thankfully are not the norm, but religion does routinely redirect generosity in order to perpetuate religion itself. Generous people are encouraged to give till it hurts to promote the church itself rather than the general welfare. Each year, thousands of missionaries throw themselves into the hard work of saving souls rather than saving lives or saving our planetary life support system. Their work, tax free, gobbles up financial and human capital.
Besides exploiting positive moral energy like kindness or generosity, religion often redirects moral disgust and indignation, attaching these emotions to arbitrary religious rules rather than questions of real harm. Orthodox Jews spend money on wigs for women and double dishwashers. Evangelical parents, forced to choose between righteousness and love, kick queer teens out onto the street. Catholic bishops impose righteous rules on operating rooms.
5. Religion teaches helplessness. Que sera, sera—what will be will be. Let go and let God. We’ve all heard these phrases, but sometimes we don’t recognize the deep relationship between religiosity and resignation. In the most conservative sects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, women are seen as more virtuous if they let God manage their family planning. Droughts, poverty and cancer get attributed to the will of God rather than bad decisions or bad systems; believers wait for God to solve problems they could solve themselves.
This attitude harms society at large as well as individuals. When today’s largest religions came into existence, ordinary people had little power to change social structures either through technological innovation or advocacy. Living well and doing good were largely personal matters. When this mentality persists, religion inspires personal piety without social responsibility. Structural problems can be ignored as long as the believer is kind to friends and family and generous to the tribal community of believers.
6. Religions seek power. Think corporate personhood. Religions are man-made institutions, just like for-profit corporations are. And like any corporation, to survive and grow a religion must find a way to build power and wealth and compete for market share. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity—any large enduring religious institution is as expert at this as Coca-cola or Chevron. And just like for-profit behemoths, they are willing to wield their power and wealth in the service of self-perpetuation, even it harms society at large.
In fact, unbeknown to religious practitioners, harming society may actually be part of religion’s survival strategy. In the words of sociologist Phil Zuckerman and researcher Gregory Paul, “Not a single advanced democracy that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic conditions retains a high level of popular religiosity.” When people feel prosperous and secure the hold of religion weakens.
https://www.salon.com/2014/11/17/6_reasons_why_religion_does_more_harm_than_good_partner/
Oriana:
Which of these bothers me the most? Probably the brainwashing of children, and being told that humans are weak-minded, and are helpless to do anything significant by themselves. But wait, perhaps the worst thing was being defined as a worthless sinner deserving hell fire, saved only by the torturous death of Jesus — not saved for sure, but only if I prove obedient enough and die in a state of grace. Even then, the fires of Purgatory awaited. You were innately wicked, and had to be "purified."
Having survived Auschwitz was not enough — my grandmother fully expected having to spend several centuries in the fires of Purgatory.
And yes, past a certain point there was this mystery: why were the Protestant countries (of course all Protestants were doomed to hell fire) richer and more powerful? And they didn't even believe in Purgatory . . .
Mary:
On the effects of religion...reading about Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the struggle of the Ukranian people, there is a great feeling of solidarity and support, but I am too frequently disappointed by the conclusions of these discussions with "let us pray." The exhortations to pray, with a sense that this is a good and helpful thing to do, not only disappoint, they make me angry. What exactly do they think to accomplish?? Why expect a celestial intervention when there has never been one recorded in modern times?? So much wasted time and energy, and such baseless satisfaction in the efficacy of this pathetically useless act. It's an automatic response for so many, and a "feel good" way to display virtue and compassion, but basically a diversion from anything actually useful.
Oriana:
So many activities would have been more beneficial than going to church — exercise, for one thing, or learning one more language, or skill — learning just about anything else . . . On the other hand, I am grateful for some understanding of Christianity because this way I can understand some references in literature that would have otherwise remained obscure. Still, ideally I should have left the church as soon as my grandmother died, especially since I concluded early on that prayer clearly didn’t work, and god wouldn’t move a finger to relieve suffering (true, non-action is only natural when it comes to non-existent beings). Oh well, hindsight.
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SEX OF THE FETUS INFLUENCES THE MOTHER’S ANTIBODY RESPONSE TO COVID
~ In two studies published in Science Translational Medicine, the Boston-based research teams found that pregnant and lactating women mount robust antibody responses to both vaccination and infection. The encouraging data also came with some twists that offer intriguing new clues to one of the pandemic’s enduring mysteries: why Covid-19 hits male adults, children, and infants harder than females.
“What’s striking here is that the mothers who are carrying male babies have much lower levels of antibodies to the coronavirus,” said Akiko Iwasaki, a virologist and immunologist at Yale University who was not involved in the study. “What’s interesting about that is it means that the sex of the baby can dictate how the mother responds to a viral infection.”
Since the earliest days of the pandemic, epidemiological studies have pointed to sex differences in Covid-19 patients; males get more severely ill and die more often than females. For the past year and a half, scientists like Iwasaki have been trying to tease out why that is. Last August, her team published a study showing that men and women mount very different immune responses. Males’ defenses tend to have a slow ramp-up, but then produce more pro-inflammatory molecules, which can lead to a dangerous over-reaction known as a “cytokine storm.”
In one of the new studies, the Boston researchers examined maternal blood, cord blood, and the placentas from 38 pregnant Covid patients. The placenta is the life support system for a fetus, providing oxygen and nutrients; it grows from the developing embryo’s cells, not the mother’s. The researchers found that in response to Covid infection, male placentas switched on more pro-inflammatory immune activation genes than placentas supporting female fetuses.
“The mechanism must be very different, but this is all sort of consistent with what we found in adults,” said Iwasaki. “So this may be a sort of male-intrinsic response to the virus.”
This increased immune activation might help male fetuses stave off SARS-CoV-2, but the resulting inflammation could also pose risks, said Andrea Edlow, a maternal fetal medicine doctor at Mass General and assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, who co-led the new studies.
“What the downstream effects are going to be for the child we still don’t know,” said Edlow. “But it’s definitely going to be important to follow up the development of these children on the basis of sex because we see these really profound changes in the placenta that suggest that the intrauterine environment is suddenly altered even in the setting of mild maternal disease.”
What seems more clear, and surprising, is how those changes feed back into what the mother’s immune system is doing. Covid-infected patients produced fewer antibodies if their fetus was male. And they also transferred far fewer of these protective antibodies to the developing male babies.
“We knew that maternal infection can significantly impact the fetus, but this means that there is cross-talk between the fetus and the mother,” said Iwasaki. “That’s exciting because it adds an extra layer to what we are used to thinking about.” ~
https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/19/sex-of-the-fetus-influences-the-mothers-response-to-covid-19-infection-new-research-shows/?fbclid=IwAR2AR0yA6LrPK5cI_Ba3AJ03z8pde6-PguqxVCHu02SjEQWkRQFoNPF0ySQ
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REDUCED DEMENTIA INCIDENCE FOLLOWING SHINGLES VACCINATION IN WALES 2013-2020
INTRODUCTION Chronic infection with herpes viruses is a potential contributing factor to the development of dementia. The introduction of nationwide shingles (varicella zoster) vaccination in Wales might therefore be associated with reduced incident dementia.
METHODS We analyzed the association of shingles vaccination with incident dementia in Wales between 2013 and 2020 using retrospectively collected national health data.
RESULTS Vaccinated individuals were at reduced risk of dementia (adjusted hazard ratio: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.69 to 0.75). The association was not modified by a reduction in shingles diagnosis and was stronger for vascular dementia than for Alzheimer’s disease. Vaccination was also associated with a reduction in several other diseases and all-cause mortality.
DISCUSSION Our study shows a clear association of shingles vaccination with reduced dementia, consistent with other observational cohort studies. The association may reflect selection bias with people choosing to be vaccinated having a higher healthy life expectancy.
Several observational cohort and case–control studies have shown a reduction in dementia rates post-vaccination. Twenty years ago Verreault et al. reported that vaccine exposure (diphtheria/tetanus, polio, influenza) was associated with a 25–60% reduction in later Alzheimer’s disease (AD) development.
Klinger et al. demonstrated a significantly reduced risk of developing AD in bladder cancer patients exposed to repeated intravesicalar applications of Bacillus Calmette– Guérin (BCG) vaccine, especially in the population aged 75 years and older. Scherrer et al. showed a significantly reduced rate of dementia in people vaccinated with Tdap and shingles vaccination compared to those not vaccinated using data from two American disease registers (Veterans Health Affairs and MarketScan). Liu et al. found a reduced dementia rate in chronic kidney disease patients vaccinated with influenza vaccine using data from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. However, observational studies to ascertain vaccine efficacy are not easy to interpret, and, to our knowledge, no vaccine, whether specific for dementia or with a primary target other than dementia, has been proven in a clinical trial to be efficient in preventing dementia.
People exposed to the shingles vaccine were at lower risk of all-cause mortality (aHR: 0.58), MI, (aHR: 0.86), stroke (aHR: 0.86), and hip fracture (aHR: 0.55) – but not cancer (aHR: 0.98) – and the aHRs were similar in size to the aHR for the association of vaccination with dementia. This result could indicate a non-specific effect of the shingles vaccination. We have carefully considered the possibility of a potential mechanism that explains our findings, particularly in AD. There has been escalating interest in the possibility that AD is triggered by infection and that the signature protein of AD brain, Aβ peptide, has antimicrobial activity, and thus may be a consequence rather than a cause of AD. One potential interpretation of our results is therefore that the live attenuated VZV vaccine acts as an adjuvant that plays a role in the immune responses against microbes.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.22.21260981v1.full
Oriana:
This is one of those frustrating studies that leave us with nothing more than speculation — it’s possible that those who choose to be vaccinated are healthier and already have a lower risk of dementia and — note this — the shingles vaccines is associated with a considerably lower risk of hip fracture. Speculation is intellectual fun, but as one grows older medical questions become personal. People fear dementia more than death itself. Research seems haphazard, while the sheer number of people affected with neurological diseases keeps on increasing.
And yet there is hope, because there is also decreased dementia in recipients of yearly flu shots:
~ Repeated receipt of influenza vaccinations, compared to remaining unvaccinated, is associated with lower risk for dementia. This is consistent with the hypotheses that vaccinations may reduce risk of dementia by training the immune system and not by preventing specific infectious disease. If vaccines are identified as causative factors in reducing incident dementia, they offer an inexpensive, low-risk intervention with effects greater than any existing preventive measure. ~
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X21010793
Oriana:
And it’s not just the flu vaccine — it seems that practically any anti-viral vaccine, including polio, is associated with lower risk of dementia.
So, there might be something to the theory that repeated vaccinations train the immune system, making it less likely to cause auto-immune diseases — and there is an autoimmune aspect to practically all chronic disorders, including brain diseases.
What about the Covid vaccines — could they too protect from dementia? Theoretically, yes. All this points to our need to study the role of the immune system in ALL diseases.
https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/could-covid-19-vaccines-guard-against-dementia/
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ending on beauty:
The cool that came off sheets just off the line
Made me think the damp must still be in them
But when I took my corners of the linen
And pulled against her, first straight down the hem
And then diagonally, then flapped and shook
The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind,
They made a dried-out undulating thwack.
So we'd stretch and fold and end up hand to hand
For a split second as if nothing had happened
For nothing had that had not always happened
Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,
Coming close again by holding back
In moves where I was x and she was o
Inscribed in sheets she'd sewn from ripped-out flour sacks.
~ Seamus Heaney, Sonnet 5
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