#//the reminder that he's loved irrespective of what circumstances had bought down on him

[ronmanmob]

(a very late meme submission - for the fix-it verse) 

Therapy hadn’t been going well. The shrink was nice enough, the bills being picked up by various charities established to fund those who had survived the attack. There was just only so often Tabby could hear about having to take care of emotional scars as well as the physical ones. She didn’t want to talk about how half of the mirror in her bathroom was now covered with painters tape, ensuring no matter the angle, she could only see herself from the ribs up.

“I think you're probably the only one who understands me.” Tabby sprawled over Ron’s couch, staring up at the ceiling. She hadn’t even clocked how she was in a proper Freudian patient pose. “Or, y’know, gets it since you were there.” Ron was truly the sole person she could be normal around. Or, at least, her new normal. He didn’t keep asking if she was okay, impatient for her sunshine demeanor to return in full force. Ron understood why she was now nervous in crowded spaces. Why men of a certain build and height made her twitchy. And most of all, he never every judged. 

--you were there-

Standing at his kitchen-island, their preferred drinks to hand and just waiting to be conveyed to She of the Settee, Ron tensed against a wince so sharply his shoulders shifted for the effort. He wasn't facing Tabs just now, and while usually he'd not even consider the need to hide his expressions from anyone, in this moment he was glad she had his back. No part of the flat affect that blunted his ways and means could've touched the fixed, thousand yard glare that'd come storm-cloud-like at her mention of there - that packed out plaza where, through some accident of fate, his pixie-dressed-best-girl had wound up dying in his arms.

Twice.

They'd bought her back of course, the paramedics; they'd fought like lions for her and won but that didn't stop the truth of things being that. He'd watched life leave her eyes while he pressed his whole weight through his hands onto the wound in her guts to try and keep her together. He'd watched that twice and had still barely processed it; still lurched awake in a cold sweat, diving for his phone to double check. Triple check. That she was still with him.

His therapist told him it was as natural a trauma response as ever you'd see, not least in someone with his very specific set'a wiring. But that was all she saw of its effect on him. She'd never met the demon that lived behind his staring eyes; the one that'd ruled London and knew, to avoid a trace off bullets, to use ice in place of buckshot when hunting one very specific sort'a game.

"--I do undastand-"

The words sounded strained round their edges, like they'd been dredging up from somewhere deep and needed sound forced on them to make them hearable. Inch by inch, second by second, Ron wrenched himself back into the room. The drinks in his hands came back into his awareness, likewise the low light, the quiet music, the young lass on his couch and everything that she meant to him and as it did, as she did, the demon receded. And her Ron came back.

Like a clockwork toy coming back to life, Ron deserted the kitchen-island and made his way over to Tabby. He set their drinks on the coffee table by the settee and then settled beside it, his shoulder within easy reach of Tab's nearest hand should she want the contact. Nothing in him made the comparison in the moment, but this was a Claude the Mastiff move he was making; giving his person space and nearness at once; support and presence without the overwhelm-potential touch could bring on in delicate times.

There was a debt owed him by the cunt who'd gutted her, and that'd be collected on. It'd be paid. But Tabs didn't need the demon in him now. He had better for her, truth for her, and he spoke it plain and with much more ease than he had when first his voice had come back to him.

"-N I luv yah girl."

[hayscodings]

Been thinking abt this ask for a bit, what is your take on Penelope's sexuality?

whew, okay, this is something feel very strongly about so i apologize for the length in advance.

there tend to be two camps of people in this fandom when it comes to interpreting penelope’s sexuality and they are: (1) antis/cheryl stans who consider her to be heterosexual because they refuse to entertain the idea that she might be gay since they hate her; (2) people who have never given her character a second thought but listened to her red dahlia monologue and missed the entire point of it decided it somehow made her a lesbian.

then there are the handful of people in the parentdale fandom who know neither of those interpretations have any merit. because here’s the thing: penelope has canonically been shown to be attracted to men, and at the very least it has been implied that she’s attracted to women.

so let’s start with the former: her attraction to men.

if we think about her timeline in chronological order, the first thing we have to take into consideration is the fact that she slept around quite a bit in high school. see: “oh, it’s not that different from when i was younger and i had my pick of gentleman callers lining up every evening”. it’s important to note she says this very fondly, to the point where she does that whole looking-up-dreamily bit that one does when reminiscing about the past. keep in mind that at the time she was already aware that she was promised to clifford, and that the blossoms surely wouldn’t have approved of her going around with other boys.

there is no reason to believe she was hooking up with these guys for any reason other than she enjoyed it. she obviously wasn’t encouraged to date by her parents, she didn’t have anyone to impress considering the fact wasn’t popular, and it’s not like she could have gone around advertising these encounters anyway since she would have had to have kept them a secret from the blossoms. so that throws out any “she was pressured into it”/“she was trying to convince other people that she was attracted to boys” possibilities. the fact that she happily recalled these memories to cheryl alone casts serious doubt on them.

why excitedly bring up the memories at all if they were just reminders of a time when she was suffering as a result of heteronormativity? it’s not like cheryl encouraged her to share, or gave any indication that she would be impressed by such a revelation. penelope has nothing to prove to cheryl, anyway. the most logical conclusion is the one you get when you take her words at face value: she experiences attraction to the opposite sex and had fun exploring her sexuality in her youth. we’ll circle back to this later when we get to the subject of how comfortable she feels with sex.

so after high school she marries clifford. it’s a forced marriage, and one neither she nor clifford consented to-- but it’s what their parents groomed them for since they were children and something they’ve known was inevitably coming for years. now, for the purposes of keeping this as short as possible and not veering off topic, i won’t get into a whole analysis of their dynamic. all i will say is this: they were depicted as being entirely comfortable with one another in season one. they may not have come across as passionate or romantic, but you could tell they were partners (always on the same page, experts at nonverbal communication, trusting of each other, etc.). and what’s more than that, is they were constantly initiating affectionate gestures with each other: linking arms, putting their hands on each other, standing close together, hugging, etc.

their marriage may have been forced, but penelope genuinely cared for and felt safe with clifford. even after he died, there was a lingering attachment to him. nevertheless, that doesn’t make their situation any less traumatic. no matter how comfortable they felt emotionally with one another, the fact that they were groomed to be life companions and eventually forced to have sex with one another and raise children together, remains a very traumatic experience regardless. and we know penelope is still traumatized by it because she’s talked about it time and time again. if she was only attracted to women, that would add a whole other layer of trauma to the situation.

because if she was only attracted to women, she wouldn’t want clifford anywhere near here irrespective of the fact that they were raised together. hell, she couldn’t even close her eyes and pretend he was someone else while they were having sex. and she certainly couldn’t attempt to get to a place where the sex wasn't so awkward and uncomfortable. every encounter would be an unpleasant, pained, and traumatic experience. to the point where i can’t imagine she would want to be the recipient of any physical contact from clifford, much less frequently initiate it. in this scenario, it wouldn’t just be clifford’s relation to her that she would have to cope with, it would also be the fact that he was a man. even just going through the motions of being his wife would make her feel isolated and miserable.

which brings us to her job in s2 and probably the most solid indication of her attraction to men. in s2, we learn that the blossoms are broke and penelope is faced with the reality that she needs to get a job. let’s start with what she does to pay for the christmas tree cheryl bought: sleep with vic. was it necessary for her to do this? was it the only avenue she could have possibly taken to come up with some money in those circumstances? of course not. christmas trees aren’t that expensive-- she could have easily pawned any number of valuables in thistle house to come up with the money. hell, she could have chosen some cheryl owned to teach her a lesson. or something nana owned. or she could have simply...returned the tree. there was absolutely no reason for her to decide to sleep with vic if it wasn't something she was perfectly comfortable doing. why would this be her go-to solution if she was only attracted to women? her options were plenty.

then after this, what does she do? gets a job as a courtesan. which she delightedly describes as “providing comfort and companionship to the lonely men of riverdale”. and, as cheryl notes in that scene, she seems quite proud of herself for it. i have a very hard time reconciling how any of this would make sense if she wasn’t attracted to men. you can’t argue she was solely in it for the money, because when cheryl offers her an out via the second nick st. clair check, penelope declines to quit. in her own words, “oh, but cheryl, why would i stop, when i’m having such a good time?”. what, pray tell, would be the good time she was having if she didn’t enjoy the sex she was having with these men? keep in mind that, at this point, she wasn’t even doing any dominatrix work. at this point it was very much implied that she was focused on providing the “girlfriend experience”. so you can’t even argue that her enjoyment came from feeling empowered by dominating these men or whatever.

furthermore, not only did she hand-pick this very specific job herself and refuse to quit it when strongly encouraged and given the chance to, but she also had other options, same as she did in the situation with the christmas tree. she could have turned to hiram like cheryl suggested, she could have worked at pop’s like hermione did in s1, talked to weatherbee about a position like alice, looked at the listings in the register, or asked around about any job opportunities at highsmith, you know, the very prestigious college she graduated from and donated tons of money to and apparently sat on the board of?? the point is, penelope didn’t have to turn to sex work to pay her bills if she didn’t want to. and even if she had, she could have stoped the second cheryl handed her that check and begged her to. penelope went into sex work because she wanted to. and she's vehemently voiced how much she enjoys her work continuously and consistently since then.

then there’s her relationship with hal. this is the second strongest indication of her attraction to men. why? because she genuinely had feelings for him. when cheryl approaches her about the affair, assuming it to be a transactional encounter, penelope explains that, “it’s different, with hal. he’s not a client. it’s real”. if you pay attention to her facial expressions in that scene, you can see that there’s a certain softness and vulnerability to them. the way she delivers the line is especially vulnerable-- and penelope so rarely shows vulnerability in front of cheryl, so that alone says a lot. she then asks cheryl to “please stay out of it”. now, we don’t get to see much if any of penelope’s relationship with hal, but the bits we do see let us know that it’s not just some salacious affair. at least, not on penelope’s end. after cheryl drives hal away penelope is visibly upset and accuses cheryl of driving away her “one decent chance at a better life”.

we don’t need to unpack all of that, because penelope feeling like she can’t be happy without a man is an entirely separate issue, but the point is: she sincerely cared for hal and saw herself being happy with him. when cheryl dismissively fires back with “if that’s your idea of love”, penelope defensively snaps, “what would you know about it?”. that’s not the reaction she would have had if she had simply pursued hal because she was bored or wanted to cause some drama or was merely trying to mess with alice or something. you can’t say she was with him for money either, because: (1) she already had money at this point, (2) hal isn’t wealthy, and (3) she wasn’t getting any money out of him anyway since he wasn't a client. and if she was just looking to get hitched and settle down with a man for money, she certainly wouldn’t have gone after a married, middle class one with kids. that would not be a sensible strategy.

it’s also worth noting that nat stated in several interviews back in s2, while the affair plot was airing, that she believed penelope had real feelings for hal. she explained that penelope was lonely and, thus, “looking for a bit of warmth from somewhere”. so that’s how she was playing it.

then there's the maple club. just in case it hadn’t been established enough how much she adores her job, she had to go ahead and open a kink club. there really isn’t any need to drive the ‘she actively enjoys sex work’ point further, as i feel it’s been made explicitly clear already, but i do want to make one note, and that is that penelope was still taking clients while she was a madame. we saw her holding props in like, every other scene, and she was shown wearing nightgowns. so if anyone, for whatever weird reason, assumed she only opened the maple club so she wouldn't have to participate in the sexual encounters herself, i am here to burst your bubble.

and finally, we come to the scene that launched a thousand bad takes: the scene of the red dahlia monologue. in that scene, penelope utters the infamous words, “not people betty, men. they are the true poison”. in context, it is very clear that she is speaking from her many personal experiences with shitty men, seeing as before she delivers that quote she categorically details some of the traumas she has endured at their hands-- the murder of her son by her husband being one of them. that’s all that quote is about! the pain and betrayal she’s experienced from shitty, morally reprehensible men! it has nothing to do with her sexuality, and to make it so is to ignore and take away from the seriousness of her trauma. nothing frustrates me more than to see people misinterpret that scene and reduce it to some man-hating lesbian narrative bullshit. y’all can save that nonsense for cheryl.

also, the fact people were so quick to ignore penelope’s attraction to men in favor of calling her a lesbian feels very biphobic to me, and i will not have it. rip to everyone who thinks being bisexual is just Gay Lite™ and refuses to even consider the possibility when a character is indicated to be attracted to the same sex, but i’m different. not that that scene was any indication that penelope is attracted to women-- it was not. mistrusting men and being disgusted by their actions does not a lesbian make. that is literally just being a woman. but anyway.

the last thing i want to say before i get into penelope’s attraction to women is that there is no way she would be so comfortable with sex, or so confident expressing her sexuality, if she was a lesbian whose sole experiences with sex had consisted of meaningless high school hookups and over two decades of forced marriage to her brother. that just doesn’t add up. if she were a lesbian, s2 would have gone very differently. clifford’s death would have been liberating in more ways than one, and the last thing she would have done after finally being free of having to endure a heterosexual relationship is sleep with a random man to pay for a christmas tree, get into sex work, and pursue a relationship with a man. and go on to open a kink club. that just doesn't make sense.

so onto her attraction to women. this doesn’t require as much of an explanation, so i’ll try to keep it short and sweet since i’ve already written an obscene amount of words trying to answer this ask. i honestly can’t remember when i first started headcanoning penelope as bisexual, but i know i had been entertaining the idea of her being attracted to women long before the flashback episode aired. i’m not sure what it was, the ~vibe was just there. when i first got into the fandom i followed several people who shipped penelope and alice, and, while i didn’t care for the ship at the time (embarrassing, i know), the idea of penelope being interested in women felt very natural to me. maybe it was the violently sapphic schoolteacher/librarian aesthetic she had going on in s1, maybe it was the fact that her whole energy screamed ‘repressed’ to me. actually, i do think the latter is what initially got me wondering.

and then nat starting theorizing that penelope was attracted to women and that was very validating. i was briefly hopeful they would go in that direction in s2, but of course it never happened.

but then the flashback episode aired and bitch ?????? that one scene with sierra was gay as hell. i’m still very confused about why they played up penelope’s crush on sierra only to never go anywhere with it in present time, but  i’ll take my crumbs. all of the looks penelope gave sierra in that episode, the way she ignored her vandalizing the bathroom mirror while she grilled alice and hermione for their hall passes, the way she set up a quest just to get everyone out of the room so she could be alone with sierra, the subtle scoot towards her and “looks like it’s just you and me for a little bit, sierra” line with that dorky ass grin, the linking arms and smiling at her in the hallway??? there was nothing heterosexual about that.

and then there was the random, low-key coding in 3x12 where we learned that penelope graduated from a college named after patricia highsmith, referenced the price of salt, and used the word sapphic.....i still have questions about all of this. are we just supposed to believe she reads lesbian novels for science? and casually references them in conversation? where did she learn the word sapphic? if i asked my mom what the word sapphic meant she would have no idea what is was talking about. some food for thought.

also....her scenes with alice. that’s all i have to say.

i’m probably missing some things here, but that’s the bulk of it. i apologize for letting this get away from me...i just have a lot of thoughts lmao. anyway, i hope this was at least somewhat insightful and coherent. i appreciate the ask!

[moisfrenchadventure]

‘Everything must change, Nothing stays the same. Everyone must change Nothing stays the same.’

Taken from ‘Everything must change’.Written by Bernard Ighner – Sung by many but for me George Benson’s version lights my soul……

As Persephone tries hard to return from the underworld, and Spring struggles to bloom, I have been inspired to write this post for many reasons, not least the people that I have met and interacted with over the past few weeks;  and I hope that this post will enable others to think, and perhaps help some of them.

Firstly, as I predicted in January, things are going to change for us this year – that I suppose is a given as the words in the song say, but I know (knew) that things were going to get easier; not better because I am lucky with the life that I have, I know that, and I am grateful every day. But things have started to get easier, Rich has been offered some work that will take him into the next month or so, and perhaps longer as there are other projects in the pipeline; to know that we will have a regular income is a blessed thing.

More than anything to see my husband go to work every day and come home fulfilled and chatting about the day and how he has enjoyed his work and the people he is working with is a joy. Rich loves ‘banter’ and working with men in an environment where that can take place is important to him. He has experienced that before but it is few and far between and gardening can be a lonely job if you are a people person.

As I have mentioned in previous posts,  I have now sent my book off to a publisher, and having not heard I rang them this week, to be told that it is still being considered; this I firmly see as a positive because they have had it four weeks and they have not flung it back at me yet!!

I have also finished reading my book on the Tao, yep I have read all of the verses – it has only taken me nearly two years! But I have got so much out of it, and I understand so much more about myself and others, and the world.

Despite reading it, I know that this is now a way of life for me and that I should continue to go back to this good book as often as I can to remind myself and, because I have read it all, I also know that I will understand some of the earlier passages even more now. So I have taken to opening the book randomly and reading the passage that I have opened it on; and the first passage was the sixteenth verse, about living with constancy; and how the only constancy is, in fact. change.

‘Become totally empty

let your heart be at peace

amidst the rush of worldly comings and goings

observe how endings become beginnings….’

Dr Wayne W. Dyer (Change your thoughts change your life – living the wisdom of the Tao.)

Over the weekend we visited a lovely couple in what are sad, or perhaps another word is poignant, set of circumstances. They find themselves in a position where they have to move to smaller accommodation due to ill health; as I watched them, the love they had for each other was palpable, despite where they find themselves today. I realised how much their lives had changed in the time that they lived over here, which was, in fact, hardly any time at all, and it reminded me how fleeting our lives are.

Yes, I did have tears in my eyes because it was a reminder to me that we should cherish every day and every moment because one day what you took for granted will be gone. As it says in the song I have quoted …

‘The young become the old, Mysteries do unfold. ‘Cause that’s the way of time Nothing and no one goes unchanged.’

Also this year another dear friend has had to deal with the loss of his mum, a lady who made him the person he is today with her strength; she gave him the same courage and determination that she had, and I know that this year will be the most difficult for him and his family; and the following years will only become easier because you know you have been through all of the anniversaries and celebrations without that person once already so you know you can do it again.

And now Spring is here, bringing with her tumultuous change, yes some good as the the earth around us burst into life; but also we realise the things that have not survived, like my poor little geraniums who held on all winter only to be blasted by ‘The Beast from East.’ Or some of the trees blown down by the winter’s gale.

My dear friend who this time last year had been on a holiday of a lifetime with a person she loved, and who, this year, finds herself back in touch with me, and in love with my darling husband (as a brother, because he can always make her laugh!)  and realising that perhaps that person who she thought she loved  was not the person she thought they were all along – change in it’s many forms as they say in the song….

Winter turns to spring. Wounded heart will heal. (yes it will)  Never much too soon Everything must change

Then there is a Face Book site I follow – the Welsh Terrier Fan Club – where we all share the antics of our mad puppies, and our love of this beautiful, wilful, and naughty breed of dog; and then, suddenly, someone’s dog gets ill unexpectedly, as Harley did last year, and we all pray with them, we all pray that their dogs will survive; because we are, in truth, terrified of when that time comes for us. Sadly even this week a little one year old died suddenly from Kidney failure. But as I said to it’s distraught family, they know these little dogs, they get it, and they come here to teach us lessons – that life is too short just enjoy each day, whatever the weather.

As part of my research for my book I have read, and in fact am still reading, many blogs by people whose hearts have been broken by infidelity, and how they struggle with the fact that they are, in fact, grieving. Often they want back what they had when in fact what they thought they had has gone, it cannot be bought back to life; and often they do not seem to realise that all that they have is today, and what can be built for the future, either with their partner or on their own. But they spend each day going back into the past, going over things that cannot be changed – you can change the future you cannot change the past – reliving things over and over, driving themselves mad in what may be the last days or their, or the ones they love, lives. Trust me, I know.

This is change, it happens whatever things we put into place to protect ourselves, and if we can embrace this fact, it will not bite us on the arse as badly when it comes, because we know that it was inevitable.

There are not many things In life you can be sure of. Except

Rain comes from the clouds, And sun lights up the sky, And humming birds do fly.

So because of all this  I felt inspired to write this post in the hope that some could consider the fact that change cannot be stopped,  and that hiding from it will just make it harder in the end.  The couple I mentioned inspired me to say to people consider that things could change again by tomorrow and then you would regret what you missed today; so remember those you loved, or forget those you loved, and take them with you on your next journey as a wonderful memory, or leave them behind but take with you the lesson you learned.

We all struggle with the loss of people, or animals that we love. Some of us refuse to accept change will happen in our lives when in fact it is a constant, from losing jobs, moving home, leaving people and places that we love, people that we love leaving us, and nature giving us that reminder that – do you know what – someone else is doing the driving!! –  And someone or something that we love becomes ill, or leaves us on this earth alone; and our lives are immeasurably different, in a way we did not want.

I believe, now, that if we can accept that this is inevitable, then the pain we feel will still be immense, but not insurmountable because we will understand that this is the way of the world, and we are just part of it’s story.

As they say in the sixteenth verse of the Tao Te Ching ‘rather than viewing change as a disruptive, unwanted occurrence, you can choose to view the variances in your world as valuable influences in the cycle’ ….

There’s an immutable cycle of ‘no life, life, no life’ that we are all part of. All things come and they go….

This coming and going might seem to be a temporary condition, but it’s actually the ultimate  constant because it never ceases.’

Change your thoughts change your life – Dr Wayne W Dyer

Ultimately what it is saying is if you understand and accept that things will change, irrespective of how hard you hold onto them, then when it happens you will be able to accept it and understand that no matter how hard it may seem at the time, the ending of this one thing is the beginning of another; and life will go on, differently, but you can still find happiness out of something new – if you let yourself.

Just as the couple I described, who are embracing their new way of life, or my dear friend who now has us in her life, for her sins,  and a Welshie puppy!!!

Or my dear friend who knows that his situation cannot be changed, but that it will be easier in the future, with the help of those who love him and support him around him.

Or the poor people who lose their beloved animals, imagine off they go through the gate to rainbow bridge,  leaving room for a new gate to open and another animal to be loved by them.

‘This too shall pass – it always has and it always will.’

Or the people whose circumstances change, and they either find happiness with the ‘new’ life they have with that person, or with a new life without them. All endings are beginnings….

So sorry about the deep message on this Friday afternoon – but something to consider this weekend when things don’t go as planned; and take a tip from me play ‘Everything must change’ – the George Benson version. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry…..

The young become the old, Mysteries do unfold. ‘Cause that’s the way of time Nothing and no one goes unchanged.

There are not many things In life you can be sure of. Except

Rain comes from the clouds, And sun lights up the sky, And humming birds do fly

Have a good weekend

Moisy

You see, change is the only constant there is….. 'Everything must change, Nothing stays the same. Everyone must change Nothing stays the same.' Taken from 'Everything must change'.Written by Bernard Ighner - Sung by many but for me George Benson's version lights my soul......

[sunshineweb]

Latticework of Mental Models: Impact Bias

Nobel laureate Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity mainly with the help of Gedankenexperiment. It’s a German term for thought experiments. In a thought experiment, one doesn’t conduct an actual test in the lab but uses imagination and logic to explore problems and generate insights.

Imagination is more important than knowledge, said Einstein. So let’s start today’s discussion with a thought experiment.

Imagine there was a sophisticated device which could measure happiness. Taking inspiration from the thermometer, we’ll call our device Happymeter. Once we attach this instrument to someone’s skull, it would show the amount of happiness and content that person is feeling at that time.

We’ll select two volunteers for our Gedankenexperiment. Our Happymeter tells that the present mental state of these individuals is 1000 units each. Now, these volunteers go through (in our imagination) two wildly different events.

1. The first person wins 10 million dollar lottery. 2. The second person gets into a terrible accident and both his legs are amputated.

Can you guess each person’s mental state one year down the line after the above two events have happened? In the first case, would his mental state be less than or more than 1000?

Of course, it would be more than 1000. Isn’t it? After all, he’s a wealthy man now.

What about the second guy? Some people say that they would rather be dead than never be able to walk again. So what would be your prediction this guy’s mental-state reading on Happymeter? Isn’t it obvious it would be far less than 1000? Maybe even less than zero.

Before we dig deeper into this Gedankenexperiment, take a moment and think about what your brain is doing to generate an answer to above question. Your brain is imagining the state of mind of each person, i.e., it’s simulating each scenario by putting itself in the situation and doing a rough evaluation of how it will feel. Right?

This ability to simulate future scenarios is an ability which only human beings are capable of. Among all the species what makes human brain remarkably unique is the presence of something called pre-frontal cortex which makes us capable of simulating experiences.

For example, if I were to offer you a new flavour of ice-cream that contains pepper, salt and smells like burnt milk, you don’t have to put it in your mouth to conclude that it would taste horrible. You just simulated the taste in your mind and decided that you don’t want that ice cream.

Similarly, mother nature has gifted human beings the incredible ability to imagine experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. Unfortunately, this biological simulator isn’t very reliable because researchers found that both – the lottery winners and paraplegics – are equally happy a year after their respective fortunate/unfortunate events happened.

These are actual findings based on numerous studies conducted on real people including those who had won millions of dollars in the lottery and others who had become paraplegic.

This is good as well as bad news. Good for the negative events; not so good for the positive ones.

Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at MIT, discovered some counterintuitive insights about what truly makes us happy. It turns out that the jump between what really makes us happy and what we think makes us happy (simulation) is a mile long. Our mental simulator is very poor when it comes to predicting the impact of certain events on our future mental state. Gilbert calls it the Impact Bias, which is the tendency for our simulator to work erroneously.

Gilbert, in his book Stumbling on Happiness, writes –

From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. This almost floors me — a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.

When we think about some emotional event, we tend to over-estimate how strongly we will feel, how long this will last and other factors that impact us. This applies to both negative and positive events.

The fact is that whatever our emotions, we tend to return to a neutral home position within a relatively short time. As short as three months, according to Gilbert’s studies.

So why do we overestimate the impact of emotional events, especially the negative ones?

Scientists attribute it to something called focalism. It’s where people focus too much on the event in question and not enough on other future events. They ignore the fact that with the passage of time, other events will occur and dilute the impact of the original event in question.

So when we think about the future happiness of an amputee, tend to forget that other events in his life, as well as the general human ability to recover from a trauma, will tone down the negative feelings associated with the physical disability.

Gilbert calls this ability to recover the ‘psychological immune system.’ These psychological immune systems promote our brain’s ability to deliver a positive outlook and happiness from an inescapable situation, says Gilbert, “This is the opposite of what we would expect when we imagine such an event. People are not aware of the fact that their defenses are more likely to be triggered by intense rather than mild suffering. Thus, they mis-predict their own emotional reactions to misfortunes of different sizes.”

That’s the reason why most people, even after a loss of a loved one (parent, sibling, spouse or children), return to their normal routine within few months. When we’re reminded of the loss, it would bring the emotional pain back for a while, but at the same time, it will still feel nice to relax on the porch and watch the sunset.

Maybe there is some truth to the age-old saying – time heals all wounds.

To a large extent, the thoughts swirling in our head about current situation determine the present state of mind. A person is usually more worried about an upcoming work assignment than the death of a loved one last year, unless he actively starts thinking about the loved one. Similarly, I would be more excited about the new book that just arrived from Amazon than a new house that I bought last year.

In other words, nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

How about positive events?

Wouldn’t you agree that our culture and beliefs shape most of our experiences? For example, our culture has emphasized a correlation between wealth and happiness. Despite this belief, money does not necessarily bring happiness. Moreover, our five senses are limited in their ability to extract pleasure out of materialistic things. The fourth scoop of ice-cream doesn’t taste as awesome as the first one. Remember our discussion on The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility (DLMU)?

Interestingly, there is no limitation to the pleasure our mind can imagine or simulate. Imagination is immune to DLMU.

In other words, when predicting how an experience will impact us emotionally, events which have not been experienced are particularly devious. Often, how we think an event will turn out does not relate to how the experience is actually like.

Even if you suddenly won a truck-load of cash, many other things wouldn’t change. You probably wouldn’t be ecstatic for long because the other 99 percent of life will remain more or less the same. You’ll still have to wait in rush hour traffic. Lack of sleep will still cause grumpiness. You’ll still have to exercise if you want to stay in shape. And you’ll still have to pay your taxes, even more now since you’re richer.

Someone aptly said, “Becoming a millionaire won’t make you as happy as you think it will and poverty will not bring as much misery as you think it will.”

Put simply, extremely positive and extremely negative events don’t actually influence our long-term levels of happiness nearly as much as we imagine they would.

So how does this bias help us understand the world of business and investing?

What happened during and immediately after US presidential elections in 2016? Supporters of Trump were overestimating the positive impact he would have, and people who opposed him exaggerated the negative consequences of Trump as president. No doubt there are going to be consequences, both negative and positive, but the impact so far hasn’t been as dramatic as people initially imagined it to be.

The stock market is another place where the short term stock prices movements (including the occasional bear or bull markets) are the result of impact bias. Any news of rate cuts, new budget, change in government, etc. causes people to overestimate the consequences, and the swing in expectations send the Sensex into a tizzy.

So how do you deal with impact bias?

Firstly, think twice when considering your emotional response to events. Give yourself more credit for we have tremendous ability to adjust and adapt to the new circumstances.

Second, when thinking about how long your immediate feeling will continue, don’t ignore the possibility of other events altering your mental state.

It comes naturally to us – the tendency to fixate on what’s changing. In the canvas of life, irrespective of how big an event is, there are hundreds of other aspects which remain unaffected and those unchanged pieces will keep the balance.

By all means, imagine the change, but don’t forget about the things that stay the same. The traffic and the pleasant sunset, the unfair taxes, and the surprise gift – are the things that knit the fabric of our day to day life.

Charlie Brown (from Peanuts) has a great philosophy.

Source: Peanuts by Charles Schulz

A useful philosophy, isn’t it? It works because it doesn’t allow the mind to discount the things that will happen in distant future life.

Daniel Gilbert again –

We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures, we are at risk. When our ambition is bounded, it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value. When our fears are bounded, we’re prudent, we’re cautious, we’re thoughtful. When our fears are unbounded and overblown, we’re reckless, and we’re cowardly.

Celebrating festivals with your folks, reading a good book, enjoying the breeze and the sun – these are all pieces of the good life you can relish, with or without a leg. Mobility issues represent but a tiny part of all the experiences that life offers. Negative events can create task-specific challenges, but the human experience is far bigger and varied than that. There is plenty of room for happiness in a life that may seem very undesirable to your current imagination.

So the lesson that you can take away is that our desires and trepidations are both to some degree overblown. And the four words that can protect against impact bias are – This too shall pass.

The post Latticework of Mental Models: Impact Bias appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Latticework of Mental Models: Impact Bias published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

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Latticework of Mental Models: Impact Bias

Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity, which won him the Nobel Prize, mainly with the help of Gedankenexperiment. It’s a German term for thought experiments. In a thought experiment, one doesn’t conduct an actual test in the lab but uses imagination and logic to explore problems and generate insights.

Imagination is more important than knowledge, said Einstein. So let’s start today’s discussion with a thought experiment.

Imagine there was a sophisticated device which could measure happiness. Taking inspiration from the thermometer, we’ll call our device Happymeter. Once we attach this instrument to someone’s skull, it would show the amount of happiness and content that person is feeling at that time.

We’ll select two volunteers for our Gedankenexperiment. Our Happymeter tells that the present mental state of these individuals is 1000 units each. Now, these volunteers go through (in our imagination) two wildly different events.

1. The first person wins 10 million dollar lottery. 2. The second person gets into a terrible accident and both his legs are amputated.

Can you guess each person’s mental state one year down the line after the above two events have happened? In the first case, would his mental state be less than or more than 1000?

Of course, it would be more than 1000. Isn’t it? After all, he’s a wealthy man now.

What about the second guy? Some people say that they would rather be dead than never be able to walk again. So what would be your prediction this guy’s mental-state reading on Happymeter? Isn’t it obvious it would be far less than 1000? Maybe even less than zero.

Before we dig deeper into this Gedankenexperiment, take a moment and think about what your brain is doing to generate an answer to above question. Your brain is imagining the state of mind of each person, i.e., it’s simulating each scenario by putting itself in the situation and doing a rough evaluation of how it will feel. Right?

This ability to simulate future scenarios is an ability which only human beings are capable of. Among all the species what makes human brain remarkably unique is the presence of something called pre-frontal cortex which makes us capable of simulating experiences.

For example, if I were to offer you a new flavour of ice-cream that contains pepper, salt and smells like burnt milk, you don’t have to put it in your mouth to conclude that it would taste horrible. You just simulated the taste in your mind and decided that you don’t want that ice cream.

Similarly, mother nature has gifted human beings the incredible ability to imagine experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. Unfortunately, this biological simulator isn’t very reliable because researchers found that both – the lottery winners and paraplegics – are equally happy a year after their respective fortunate/unfortunate events happened.

These are actual findings based on numerous studies conducted on real people including those who had won millions of dollars in the lottery and others who had become paraplegic.

This is good as well as bad news. Good for the negative events; not so good for the positive ones.

Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at MIT, discovered some counterintuitive insights about what truly makes us happy. It turns out that the jump between what really makes us happy and what we think makes us happy (simulation) is a mile long. Our mental simulator is very poor when it comes to predicting the impact of certain events on our future mental state. Gilbert calls it the Impact Bias, which is the tendency for our simulator to work erroneously.

Gilbert, in his book Stumbling on Happiness, writes –

From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. This almost floors me — a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.

When we think about some emotional event, we tend to over-estimate how strongly we will feel, how long this will last and other factors that impact us. This applies to both negative and positive events.

The fact is that whatever our emotions, we tend to return to a neutral home position within a relatively short time. As short as three months, according to Gilbert’s studies.

So why do we overestimate the impact of emotional events, especially the negative ones?

Scientists attribute it to something called focalism. It’s where people focus too much on the event in question and not enough on other future events. They ignore the fact that with the passage of time, other events will occur and dilute the impact of the original event in question.

So when we think about the future happiness of an amputee, tend to forget that other events in his life, as well as the general human ability to recover from a trauma, will tone down the negative feelings associated with the physical disability.

Gilbert calls this ability to recover the ‘psychological immune system.’ These psychological immune systems promote our brain’s ability to deliver a positive outlook and happiness from an inescapable situation, says Gilbert, “This is the opposite of what we would expect when we imagine such an event. People are not aware of the fact that their defenses are more likely to be triggered by intense rather than mild suffering. Thus, they mis-predict their own emotional reactions to misfortunes of different sizes.”

That’s the reason why most people, even after a loss of a loved one (parent, sibling, spouse or children), return to their normal routine within few months. When we’re reminded of the loss, it would bring the emotional pain back for a while, but at the same time, it will still feel nice to relax on the porch and watch the sunset.

Maybe there is some truth to the age-old saying – time heals all wounds.

To a large extent, the thoughts swirling in our head about current situation determine the present state of mind. A person is usually more worried about an upcoming work assignment than the death of a loved one last year, unless he actively starts thinking about the loved one. Similarly, I would be more excited about the new book that just arrived from Amazon than a new house that I bought last year.

In other words, nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

How about positive events?

Wouldn’t you agree that our culture and beliefs shape most of our experiences? For example, our culture has emphasized a correlation between wealth and happiness. Despite this belief, money does not necessarily bring happiness. Moreover, our five senses are limited in their ability to extract pleasure out of materialistic things. The fourth scoop of ice-cream doesn’t taste as awesome as the first one. Remember our discussion on The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility (DLMU)?

Interestingly, there is no limitation to the pleasure our mind can imagine or simulate. Imagination is immune to DLMU.

In other words, when predicting how an experience will impact us emotionally, events which have not been experienced are particularly devious. Often, how we think an event will turn out does not relate to how the experience is actually like.

Even if you suddenly won a truck-load of cash, many other things wouldn’t change. You probably wouldn’t be ecstatic for long because the other 99 percent of life will remain more or less the same. You’ll still have to wait in rush hour traffic. Lack of sleep will still cause grumpiness. You’ll still have to exercise if you want to stay in shape. And you’ll still have to pay your taxes, even more now since you’re richer.

Someone aptly said, “Becoming a millionaire won’t make you as happy as you think it will and poverty will not bring as much misery as you think it will.”

Put simply, extremely positive and extremely negative events don’t actually influence our long-term levels of happiness nearly as much as we imagine they would.

So how does this bias help us understand the world of business and investing?

What happened during and immediately after US presidential elections in 2016? Supporters of Trump were overestimating the positive impact he would have, and people who opposed him exaggerated the negative consequences of Trump as president. No doubt there are going to be consequences, both negative and positive, but the impact so far hasn’t been as dramatic as people initially imagined it to be.

The stock market is another place where the short term stock prices movements (including the occasional bear or bull markets) are the result of impact bias. Any news of rate cuts, new budget, change in government, etc. causes people to overestimate the consequences, and the swing in expectations send the Sensex into a tizzy.

So how do you deal with impact bias?

Firstly, think twice when considering your emotional response to events. Give yourself more credit for we have tremendous ability to adjust and adapt to the new circumstances.

Second, when thinking about how long your immediate feeling will continue, don’t ignore the possibility of other events altering your mental state.

It comes naturally to us – the tendency to fixate on what’s changing. In the canvas of life, irrespective of how big an event is, there are hundreds of other aspects which remain unaffected and those unchanged pieces will keep the balance.

By all means, imagine the change, but don’t forget about the things that stay the same. The traffic and the pleasant sunset, the unfair taxes, and the surprise gift – are the things that knit the fabric of our day to day life.

Charlie Brown (from Peanuts) has a great philosophy.

Source: Peanuts by Charles Schulz

A useful philosophy, isn’t it? It works because it doesn’t allow the mind to discount the things that will happen in distant future life.

Daniel Gilbert again –

We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures, we are at risk. When our ambition is bounded, it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value. When our fears are bounded, we’re prudent, we’re cautious, we’re thoughtful. When our fears are unbounded and overblown, we’re reckless, and we’re cowardly.

Celebrating festivals with your folks, reading a good book, enjoying the breeze and the sun – these are all pieces of the good life you can relish, with or without a leg. Mobility issues represent but a tiny part of all the experiences that life offers. Negative events can create task-specific challenges, but the human experience is far bigger and varied than that. There is plenty of room for happiness in a life that may seem very undesirable to your current imagination.

So the lesson that you can take away is that our desires and trepidations are both to some degree overblown. And the four words that can protect against impact bias are – This too shall pass.

The post Latticework of Mental Models: Impact Bias appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Latticework of Mental Models: Impact Bias published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/