I Can Tell that We are Going to be Friends, Whatever That Means

Think back for a minute to your first day of school. If you can't remember your very first day, at least try and think of the first day you remember. Think back to looking into a room, being introduced to your teacher, and seeing the faces of 25+ strangers. In that moment you were faced, possibly for the first time, with the challenge we all face of who will be our friends and who will not. Without even realizing it, you were about to make some decisions, that while maybe seeming insignificant, would impact your social structure and the way you viewed yourself in more profound ways than you would have ever thought. You were choosing the people who would shape you, help you, hurt you, and impact you in ways that would stick with you for the rest of your life. But, of course, none of this entered into your head at that time. How we view the people around us, and the potential for any relationship, is an ever-changing process, and one we certainly didn't take into account when we were five years old getting ready to sit on a rug. In this post, I'd like to discuss the factors that make someone a friend as opposed to an acquaintance or less. I've come to this topic through random discussions with friends and colleagues recently on the ever-changing nature of friends and relationships.

When one thinks back to the first time he/she was faced with the challenge of making friends, the factors that were important are very limited. Initially, we tend to look for people with obvious similar interests. Often times, at the earliest of ages, gender is the first filter . Boys tend to seek out other boys and girls are inclined to act similarly. Once we have narrowed our choices this way, we then look for similar interests, such as sports, comic books, video games, and other things. Once a similar interest has been established a friendship can blossom.

If this explanation of early childhood friendships seems a little simplistic to you, I'd have to agree with you. However, I feel an explanation lies in the needs one has for a friendship in these early years. In my years as a teacher I have been privileged enough to observe the friendships and interactions between my students and see what this entails. In its purest sense, friendship at this age consists of someone to walk around with and be a sounding board for your life. In talking with students and fellow teachers, the most consistent need expressed by students is that of companionship; someone to be with at recess and talk to during lunch.

As we progress through our school years, social pressures begin to grow and the element of acceptance enters into the picture. This is present both in the friendship itself, but also in the need to for the friendship to be accepted by one's peers. Once someone enters secondary education and high school, it's not enough to have friends; friends also have to be cool and make you look good to others. At this point the filters become more and often times our friends become ways for us to promote ourselves. Mutual interests will still bring people together, but social circles become increasingly important and who you know becomes as important as what you do. The needs of a friendship also change. While companionship is still important, friends at this stage really are needed for the growth of one another. Who else can challenge you to be better in all regards, but the person who spends the most time with you? In high school it is our friends who make us look good and who make activities possible. When done correctly, this can be a mutually beneficial relationship, the likes of which most of us are unlikely to see again. Never again will our friendships be such a mutually-sustaining collaboration.

The reason for this is, once we graduate high school and are in an adult world, we are expected to be able to sustain ourselves, at least at some level. No longer is it acceptable to rely solely on others for social interactions and growth. Many of us enter college at this point, and for others it is the workforce that is our new home. Friendships now become a matter of convenience, as our lives are ever more constricted, while the scope of our world becomes ever greater. The people with whom we interact the most are those at our jobs or our classrooms. We see these people for eight hours a day sometimes and we learn that they come from all walks of life. In early adulthood it is the first time for many of us that we've seen people who didn't grow up exactly how we did. Because of this we may be drawn to different people and find ourselves seeking out the new. Old friendships often dwindle during this period as we are exposed to so many new things. At this point most people have begun a process of "finding themselves," or at least discovering what truly interests them and it's not enough just to have grown up with someone. To be a friend you have to bring something more to the table, whether it be some new exciting idea, or a shared passion. It is my opinion that friendships in this phase can be the most exciting, but also the most fleeting.

It is in the period of early adulthood (I'd say from about 19-25) that I feel most of us experience the most growth from our friendships. As discussed, we are exposed to a wealth of people, many of whom have traveled the world to end up in the same place we are. We are drawn to these people and we develop friendships, growing in the process. As we learn from and become close with new people, our lives are constantly changing. People graduate college, change jobs, get married, have kids, and move away. And this is why friendships in this stage are often the most fleeting. Keeping in touch isn't so easy when the circumstances that brought us together are no longer there. Many of us lament this process, feeling as though there are no "true" friends. However, I have had many discussions with people who feel that this is the "true" nature of friendship; that friends are only there for a brief period and serve a specific purpose.

To subscribe to this theory, that true friendship is that which serves a purpose and is temporary, one must accept the ever-changing nature of friendships, which I have tried to lay out in this post. As I arrive on the next phase of friendship, which I feel I am in now, I would have to agree that friendship as a whole is a fluid process, and one that becomes even more inconsistent when we add the element of gender into the process. During this post, I have talked about friendship in the most general terms, without regard to gender or feelings beyond that of simply a friend. To define "friend" in this way leaves out several levels of friendship, most of which would require their own explanation. For the purposes of this blog, I'd like to limit discussion to simply platonic and romantic.

Gender and feelings play into friendships from the earliest times, but I feel they only start to conflict with one another in adulthood. I say this because the majority of my close friends during adulthood have been of the opposite sex. These friendships have started in all manners and fashions, whether they be work acquaintances, school friends, or mutual friends. Sometimes there was an initial attraction, other times none at all, and sometimes an attraction developed. Universally, however, attraction played into the picture and the friendship stopped being so easy. More often than not, when people become attracted to each other in a friendship, this is explored, at least partially, and the friendship is affected. While the immediate effects of such things vary depending on the specific situation, I'd like to point to the consistent long-term effects of friends becoming more. Unless the friendship leads to a long-term relationship, what usually happens is the eventual dissolution of the friendship. This process can be a very quick and obvious one, but often times can take years and be a much more subtle process. However, the deciding factor in the long run is always the same; the introduction of a serious relationship.

Often times after a friendship develops into something more, only to go back to being platonic, people are able to stay friends. For a time. This only lasts until one or both parties enter into a committed relationship. I have seen this pattern consistently enough to come up with a theory, which I think helps explain this phenomenon. Once people get to a romantic place together, it is impossible to take away all of those feelings. Friendships can last for years after a break up, and people can even date other people. But old feelings will always be there, if only in memory. Then, when someone comes along that makes us want to settle down, we are faced with a dilemma; is it possible to give ourselves completely to somebody while maintaining friendships that still harbor feelings? Inevitably, the answer is no. It is impossible to enter into a serious relationship while still having relationships with a romantic past. No matter how hard we try, the nature of the friendship is changed forever.

So am I suggesting that we never give romance a try in our friendships? Not at all. But just as with all the types of friendships I've discussed in this post, we need to be aware of their ever-changing nature and accept the fact that altering the nature of the relationship willingly will end up changing the friendship forever. With this in mind, I have taken the approach of valuing all friendships, regardless of length or circumstance. I have learned more from the people in my life than from any other experience and I wouldn't trade that for all the friends in the world.

Happy Late Birthday Kia Bird

Here's to the next 30.

It Happened Today, Hooray!

One year ago today my transformation from fine to not was officially complete. This time last year I was at University Hospital, strapped to a bed, and trying to convince myself that the cause for my insanity was some divine purpose from above; some great lesson I was learning that would change my life forever, but would require this horrible experience. The experience I'm relating to you is of being trapped in a part of your mind you didn't even know existed. To be so trapped in this place that you perceive everything as a validation of its purpose. A positive affirmation that what you are doing is for a great purpose, even though it goes against everything you know yourself to be.

I experienced just this situation last year when I had my first, and hopefully only, manic episode. Until this time I had no idea that I was even bipolar. I had no history of depression or mania, nor does my immediate family. We would find out (quite obviously in hindsight) that my mania was triggered by several factors in my life. Work was insanely stressful with the 60+ students I had between three classes in two schools, in addition to the four students I was tutoring. Work stress led to lack of sleep, which led to lack of food, which led to mania. The events leading to me going to the ER at University Hospital are too personal to post, but as many of you know my stay there led to a week long stay in a behavioral health unit in Utah County. My time there was incredible and I learned some of the most amazing lessons I will ever learn. I also met some of the most amazing people I will ever have the honor of crossing paths with.

The first of these truly wonderful people I want to mention is a nurse by the name of Stephen. My first encounter with Stephen was my first morning in the hospital. After heavy sedation, I was awakened to the sound of the director of the center, Dr. Harlan, busting into my room and screaming, "Hi, I'm Dr. Harlan, I bet they didn't tell you about me!" I had been so heavily sedated that I didn't know I was in Utah County, let alone that there was a Dr. Harlan and he was the director of the place. So I have a meeting with Dr. Harlan to go over things, etc, and afterward a nurse by the name of Stephen comes in. He sits down and asks some questions, but in an amazingly understanding tone. I responded in one of the questions with a curse word, as I sometimes do, but instantly apologized and asked how he felt about swearing. He said it's not really his thing, and I proceeded to answer his questions. I mention this part because I never swore the remainder of the time I was in the hospital. This guy had my respect that fast because of the way he treated me. He was the one nurse to treat me with that kind of respect in that entire place, and he will never know how much it meant to be treated like a human being again.

The other person I'd like to mention is actually people. They are all of my fellow patients. In my encounters with them over that week I was honored to hear and share some of the most amazing experiences and stories that I ever have, and I know I will never experience anything like that again. I had some incredibly meaningful conversations with people, and every one of them left me feeling an insane amount of love and respect for my new friends. They taught me that everyone in life is where they are for a reason. None of us has the right to see someone in a situation and make any judgments or assumptions. I never would have imagined being where I was this time last year, but when I got there and met these people, I saw that we all get to places and any number of ways. Our experiences are what make us who we are and these people were amazing.

In closing I'd like to say that my initial feelings about this experiences ended up not being that far off. Although I no longer feel this experience was a divine one, I do feel it is the greatest learning experience of my entire life. I learned more about myself in the last year than in the last 28 combined. And now, one year later, as I look at where I've come, I know I'm just beginning this journey of recovering from what happened and rediscovering myself as a person. It's been a crazy ride so far, and I can't wait to see where it takes me next.

Child Abuse Awareness

It is estimated that over 900,000 children are abused annually in the U.S. (U.S. Dept. of Heath & Human Services, 2008). The abuse comes in many forms, whether it be physical, emotional, or neglect. These abuses can have both immediate and long-term effects for those being abused. Immediate effects of abuse include physical injury, kids acting out in school through fighting, acting inappropriately with other students, being abrasive with adults, and having an overall negative attitude about school. These immediate effects, in turn, lead to long-term effects that include teen smoking, drug and alcohol use, violence, and increased high school drop out rates (Kelley, Thornberry, & Smith, 1997). In addition to these overt effects, more psychological outcomes of abuse include depression, dissociative disorders, and even suicide attempts (Silverman, Reinherz, & Giaconia, 1996). Without intervention, these things can lead to a chain of violent and destructive behavior that is passed through generations that is very difficult to stop. As the old saying goes, "violence breeds violence."

In order to effectively stop the problem of child abuse in our country, we must first be able to identify the signs that a child is being abused. Physical abuse can evidence itself through minor injuries such as cuts and bruises, as well as more serious injuries, such as broken bones and hemorrhages. In addition to these physical signs, abuse can also show itself in a child's behavior, often times resulting in withdrawn, socially inappropriate, and in many cases, violent behavior. Children who are abused develop a view of adults as people to be feared or resented (more so than normal child resentment of adults). This leads to negative behaviors toward adults that can be signs that a child is being abused. The most common of these behaviors is withdrawal. Children will shut down, or go into their own world when approached by adults and refuse to communicate. Any physical contact is resisted with force and, often times, the child will become violent or abrasive with adults.

So how do we help fight the problem of child abuse in our country? Research shows that children who have been abused have a better chance of success in life when they develop "resilience," or the ability to cope or thrive following negative experiences. The biggest factors related to this resilience are self-esteem, intelligence, humor, creativity, and acceptance. These kids need to feel valued and that they are somebody worthy of a good life. And this is where we adults can come in. As adults, we have the opportunity to foster in these kids the kind of self-esteem, confidence, and knowledge that can help them cope with abuse at home. We can give them a place and support when they have nothing else. The easiest way to help in this way is to VOLUNTEER. Boys and Girls Clubs across the country have been serving as places for kids to go, have fun, and be accepted for many years. Volunteer at your local Boys and Girls Club to coach a team, teach a skill, or just help kids with their homework. If this isn't up your alley, volunteer at your child's school. School's are always looking for volunteers to help with reading, social skills, art, and basically anything you could bring to the table. Call your child's teacher or principal and ask how you can help. Many schools also offer after-school programs, which are great opportunities to make a difference in these kids' lives. The more positive experiences with adults these kids have, the stronger their resilience will become to the abuse they may be facing at home.

Finally, if you suspect that a child has been abused, report it. Don't even think twice about it. All it takes is one phone call to the Child Abuse Hotline (800) 678-9399 and they'll take it from there. This phone number is linked to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services as well as many other states' departments. In addition to the hotline, other resources include the following websites:

Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/can/

Defining Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/can/defining/

Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/

Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/responding/reporting.cfm

In closing, let me share a song that always comes to mind when I hear of a child being abused. The reason for this is a personal one for me. In my first year of teaching I suspected a child of being abused. She was a beautiful 10 year old girl with the sweetest spirit ever, but she was withdrawn and scared of adults. I discussed her situation with the school social worker and we had discovered that she was abused. Over the next year and a half we were able to work with her to put her in a nice foster home with a loving family, who I am still in contact with, and she is doing very well in her new situation. When she had left my class initially (to change grades, not schools), I had given the students a CD at the end of the year with songs that meant something to me. When I saw her the next year after summer she told me that she listened to the CD every night, and this was her favorite song.

This one's for you beautiful.

Life's one constant is time...or is it?

On this blog, I discuss openly my experiences as someone living with manic-depressive disorder. Initially, I related my experiences when I first had a manic episode last January, and later brought in some videos explaining some of what one experiences when in a manic state (Bipolar or Spiritual?). One thing discussed in those videos is timelessness, or the perception someone in a manic state might have that they are altering time. What is meant by this is that time seems to "slow down" and they can get a lot more done in a shorter amount of time. Athletes talk about this phenomenon as well, whether it be a quarterback referring to the slowing of a game and being able to read the defense, or a baseball player being able to slow down a 95 MPH fast ball and crush it out of the park.

Below is an article I found on the topic titled, "Thinking Faster by Altering Your Perception of Time." The article comes from the blog "Sentient Developments," which does an excellent job of linking scientific developments to positive lifestyle outcomes. In the article, author George Dvorsky looks at the concept of one's mind speeding up during times of stress or pressure, which alters that person's perception of time. While this is most commonly experienced during times of emergency (car accident, being held at gun point, etc) it is also common in sports, according to Dvorsky.

While the article doesn't mention this phenomenon in the context of bipolar mania, I think it is safe to make the connection to the rapid cycling of a manic person's mind. When one's mind is going at that rate, it only stands to reason that they would have an altered perception of time, and this is something to which I can personally attest. I remember blinking and almost thinking the clock had gone backwards. Regardless of my experiences, it is a very interesting read, and one that sheds a little light on altered perceptions of time. Enjoy!

April 3, 2006

Thinking faster by altering your perception of time

People who undergo extreme short-term psychological stress often claim that time slowed down for them during the experience. Traumatic events like car accidents or lengthy falls often appear in slow motion to the person experiencing it.

Is this just a recall error? Or are people literally experiencing these events at an altered subjective time rate? If so, how could such a psychological phenomenon be accounted for? Obviously, time is not really slowing down -- but something is happening to the psychological interpretation of time.

One possible answer is to compare the human brain's "clockspeed" to that of a computer's. Some scientists now suspect that slowed time elapsement is an evolved defence mechanism similar to our fight-or-flight response. When time appears to have slowed down, we have more subjective time in which to deal with a crisis situation. Put another way, extreme stress helps us to think faster.

One scientist looking into this phenomenon is David Eagleman from the University of Texas at Houston. At his 'Laboratory for Perception and Action' Eagleman is attempting to understand the neural mechanisms of time perception. His team combines psychophysical, behavioural, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the timing of neural signals.

At the experimental level, Eagleman is engaged in exploring temporal encoding, time warping, manipulations of the perception of causality, and time perception in high-adrenaline situations. Ultimately, he hopes to use this data to explore how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world.

In one of his experiments, Eagleman had volunteers perform a backwards bungee jump freefall while he transmitted a rapid succession of numbers to an LED on their wrists. He found that during the fall they were successfully able to read the numbers, which under normal conditions would have appeared too fast. [I have to say, that is one of the most interesting and original experiments I've heard of in quite time some]

Thinking about Eagleman's research at a practical level, it is thought that a better understanding of these mechanisms will result in interventions that will help people process information at higher rates. This kind of 'think faster' augmentation would slow time down in a subjective sense, which would enable an individual to operate at a higher level of cognitive efficiency.

This theme has been explored in a number of science fiction stories. In Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune, the ghola Miles Teg was able to engage in extremely fast physical combat due to his ability to rapidly process information. Teg was able to subjectively experience time in extreme slow motion. Similarly, Neo in The Matrix was able to dodge bullets by altering his perception of time elapsement. And in Greg Egan's Diaspora, uploaded posthumans had to drastically slow down their internal clockspeeds when conversing with biological humans; clockspeeds in the real world varied dramatically from the clockspeed utilized in supercomputer 'polises.' Also in Diaspora, a group of posthumans altered their perception of time to such a slow rate that they could perceive the rising and fallings of geological structures such as mountains.

Here in the real world, such neural enhancements are rare, but not entirely impossible. It is thought, for example, that hockey ultrastar Wayne Gretzky was able to perceive the flow of the game at a slower pace than his competitors, giving him more subjective time to plan his attack. This may in fact be the case. At the height of his career, Gretzky was not just a 'little better' than other players, he was dominating to a degree never before seen in sport, breaking records by extreme margins. And this from a player who was physically unremarkable--in fact, below average.

Just what kinds of interventions could enable humans to 'warp time' is a topic of some speculation. A recent Discover article titled "The Mind in Overdrive" offers some possible solutions. Psychotropic substances are one possible answer, as drugs like cocaine and amphetamines have been known to alter subjective time for users. Also, meditating Buddhist monks claim to be able to perceive time differently; through their mental discipline, they may be recreating the same effect that Eagleman is documenting.

I'm certainly hoping that something like this will eventually become accessible. It will be interesting to see how much more productive and "aware" one might be with the benefit of these sorts of interventions. It may even create an alternative sense of subjective reality.

And it would surely come in handy the next time you need to dodge bullets.

I Really Should Let the Professionals Do the Talking

If you actually read this blog regularly, you may remember my blog on 22 Aug 2010 titled "Hey! Wha' Happened?" While I did my best to make my point, author and poet Andrei Codrescu puts things much more eloquently in his commentary "Conquering A Fear of Robots."

Go ahead and give it a listen!

Atheist but Spiritual

Is it possible for someone to believe in spirituality but not believe in God? Can someone be open to the possibility that there is more to this world than what we can see yet not come to the conclusion that there is an all-powerful being in charge of it all? I would like to offer a worldview that includes spirituality but doesn't include an omnipotent being. Before I get into this, I should add a disclaimer that these views are from one man (me), so I'm very aware that many of you won't agree with me.

Let me get started by discussing what I believe to be the two "selves" that each of us are born with. First, there is our worldly self. This person is influenced by the forces that surround us and what we are told is right and wrong. Anyone with even a casual knowledge of behavioral studies is familiar with the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Well, this self would fall under the "nurture" category in that it is shaped more by its environment than any internal factors. The second self is our more natural self and the one that follows instincts and does as it feels. This, naturally, would fall into the category of "nature." When looking at these two selves, they paint a picture of the average person, but also set up a struggle for one's true self. And interestingly enough, both sides of a person act both together, and against each other, to shape who we perceive ourselves to be.

When people ask themselves the question of "who am I?" as is natural to do, there are forces both externally and from within that inform this question. First, the external forces come in to shape our view of ourselves. More often than not, this includes parents taking us to church and telling us about an all-powerful God who created us, created a world for us, and wants us to serve him to return to him. This is nourished through church, bible (or other religious text) study, constant references to God and religion in the media, and of course, prayer. From a very early age kids are taught to pray to a god for guidance and obey his every word in hopes that we will please him and return to him some day

In addition to this, there are our internal selves that are constantly asking the question of "who is the real me?" This version of ourselves is constantly at odds with the side that's constantly being told what to think. Our internal selves dare to ask the questions that directly go against what they're taught. "What if there isn't a God. Then what? What comes after this life if there is no afterlife? Is this it?

For this blog, I would like to focus on these two selves as separate entities, one being mortal and ending in this world, and the other being immortal and everlasting. It should be pretty obvious by now that I am referring to our worldly selves as mortal and our internal selves as never ending. I'd like to note here that I am not the first person to think of ourselves in these terms. Most religions will refer to this internal self as the "soul" or "spirit" and I, too, am comfortable using these terms. A person's spirit is his/her natural self that exists before we get to earth and stays living after their physical death. It is the part of us that feels things on a deep and emotional level and that allows us to be our most creative, loving, and honest. C.S. Lewis described this side of humans, saying, "There are no ordinary people. Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. No one ever talks to a mere mortal...it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors...your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

In viewing people as these everlasting beautiful beings, it seems reasonable to allow that these beings offer guidance after they have left the physical world. And this is where I believe guidance from above truly comes from. It is my belief that we, as people, are guided not by an all-powerful god, but rather by host of spirits who have passed through this world and now offer guidance where we choose to find it. Personally, I find this in the beauty and art that is everywhere in this world. I find it in the truly inspired work of great artists and musicians, in everyone who's ever created something new or performed past their normal expectations. This, to me, is the true guiding force in this universe and I love the view that we are all amazing, immortal beings that we "would be strongly tempted to worship." How much better is this worldview than saying we can't accept someone who doesn't believe the way we do.

In closing, I would just like to say that acceptance is the key in making this world one for everybody. I don't expect everyone to agree with this blog just like I don't agree with organized religion. However, I do believe that we're all amazing beings capable of amazing things and to close out any faction of our people simply because of the way they feel is a tragic disservice to the amazing people in this world.