"'Amor fati' was Nietzsche’s famous expression. It is a Latin phrase with connections to the Stoic writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Literally translated, it means “love of fate.” It is a white shoe yearning for mud. It is a turkey looking forward to Thanksgiving. Or an investor stoically preparing for a bear market.
We use the term to describe the grace and courage you need to meet a complex, unknowable, and uncontrollable future. You don’t know whether the Earth is warming or cooling… whether it is good or bad… or whether you can do anything about it. You don’t know who’s doing “equal work.” You don’t know what equality is… how to measure it… or what to do about it. You don’t know who the bad guy is. It may even be you. It recognizes that we are all God’s fools, living in a world of ignorance, headed towards we don’t know where. Using our brains, we can make progress in our physical, material world. Technical thinking yields pyramids and Eiffel Towers.
Ignorance Everywhere: But there is another part of life, which has a mind of its own. It does not bend readily to our desires or yield to our intelligence. It is the part of life whose purposes are unknown. The first and most important Commandment, according to Jesus, was not to fight it, but to love it.
But ignorance can be a charm. You just have to take it seriously. And appreciate it. Recognizing your own ignorance will inform your newfound modesty. You will be aware of it. And fiercely proud. Nobody will be humbler than you are! And since you are so chummy with ignorance, you will see it everywhere – in every headline, every public announcement, every speech on the floor of the Senate… and every crackpot comment from every dummy voter in the empire.
In private affairs, you reduce uncertainty by getting as close to the subject as possible. That is, you avoid secondhand “news” and try to find out for yourself. The more you know about a company, for example, the more confident you can be about investing in it. That’s why the insiders always have the inside track, an advantage that is increased by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s phony “level playing field” propaganda. In public affairs – policy discussions, economics, politics – as you get closer, you become less cocksure. That is, the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.
In an interesting university study, people were asked to pick out Ukraine on a map… and whether they approved of military intervention in that country. Curiously, the further off they were on the geography (the average guess was 1,800 miles off), the more they favored forceful intervention. In public affairs, ignorance and confidence vary inversely.
Moral Certainty: When we first moved to Baltimore in the 1980s, we noticed this phenomenon in another context. Baltimore was a disaster. Crime, drugs, poverty, venereal disease, broken homes, unwed mothers, corruption – name a social problem; Baltimore had it. And while its leaders had been noticeably unable to solve any of these problems right in their own back yard, the city’s politically correct politicians were loud and clear on one issue: apartheid had to end… in South Africa. Had they ever visited South Africa? Could they find it on a map? Probably not. But they were sure they knew how to make it a better place.
“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority,” wrote Baltimore’s own H.L. Mencken. “The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on ‘I am not too sure.’”
“I am not too sure,” would eliminate many of the world’s myth-driven, self-inflicted ills – pointless wars, dumb arguments, pogroms, persecutions, and lynchings. And reckless spending of other people’s money.
Imagine a wise Hitler entertaining the idea of building Auschwitz as a “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.” “Hmmm… I’m not too sure that would solve it… In fact, I’m not too sure there is a problem!”
Imagine Simon de Montfort readying to attack the town of Albi to exterminate the “heretics.” When told that half the people in the town were good Catholics, de Montfort replied: “Kill them all. God will recognize His own.” Suppose he had thought twice… “Hmmm… Maybe this is not such a good idea… Maybe killing people is not what Christianity is all about… Maybe the heretics aren’t so bad… Maybe I’ll take the afternoon off.”
Unwarranted Confidence: The barroom blowhard… so sure he is right about everything… is generally the dumbest guy in the place. And the most dangerous. He’s the one who will stir up a mob… and get himself elected president. The whole system of modern public policy is built on false knowledge and unwarranted confidence. The elite claims to know what is best for you. That is how every politician can claim his proposals would “benefit the American people.” But the only program that would benefit the American people would be to let them decide for themselves what would benefit them. Give them back their money. Stop bossing them around. End the wars. Stop the empire. But who would suggest such a thing?
Rather than seeing itself as one of many nations that must get along with each other, its elites begin to see that they have a special role to play. They become the one, “indispensable” nation, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it. They are the world’s only hope in combatting evil, which they do, as then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo elaborated, with “the righteous knowledge that our cause is just, special, and built upon America’s core principles.”
Thus endowed with a special mission and special powers, and subject to the special rules of the only nation with a trillion-dollar-per-year military/empire budget, the elite develop, in Fettweis’s judgment, a fatal combination of unrestrained hubris, unrealistic paranoia, and unrepentant ignorance. They see danger everywhere, without undertaking any serious study (they assume knowledge comes automatically with raw power). And they think they have not only the right, but the means, to do something about it, even if the danger is largely fantasy.
Damned to Hell: But people always come to think what they need to think when they need to think it. “All earthly empires die,” wrote St. Augustine in 413, a few years before the Vandals destroyed his city and finally brought down the Roman Empire in the West.
The elite contribute, by taking up the myths that help it die. Certainty and ignorance vary proportionally, both on the individual and on a national level. The surer a nation is of its myths… its exceptionalism… its manifest destiny… its policies… and its position at the right hand of God… the more it is damned to Hell."
Excerpt: "Total war between the world’s largest powers reshuffled the international order defined by the previous world wars. Total war between the largest powers today - Russia, China, and the US -means a nuclear Armageddon where there are no winners and only losers. That could still happen despite nobody wanting it, but it’s not the most likely outcome.
World War 3 is unlikely to be a direct kinetic war between the US, Russia, and China. Instead, the conflict will play out on different levels - proxy wars, economic wars, financial wars, cyber wars, biological wars, deniable sabotage, and information wars. In that sense, World War 3 is already well underway, even though most don’t recognize it. Below, I’ll look at the seven domains World War 3 is playing out on and analyze which side has an advantage."
"Israel Is Evil personified. Israel Is Evil embodied."
- Scott Ritter
o
"Israel Plumbs New Depths of Genocidal
Depravity in the Weaponization of Forced Starvation"
"Transforming Gaza into a moonscape has nothing to do with ‘self-defense’. And it doesn’t have anything to do with vengeance either. It’s all about the land; seizing the land from its indigenous owners and incorporating it into a Greater Israel. That’s what Zionism is, a messianic ideology that blinds its adherents to the suffering of others, and turns intelligent, responsible people into heartless brutes capable of unimaginable savagery."
Excerpt: "A lot of people have been waiting for a meltdown of America’s financial system, but the truth is that it is already in the process of melting down. As you will see below, the size of the monetary base in the United States has gotten more than six times larger since 2008. If we continue down this road, it won’t be too long before we start looking like Germany during the Weimar Republic. But if we stop creating money at a feverish rate, we won’t be able to service our debts and we will plunge into a very deep economic depression. Those that run things desperately want to avoid short-term economic pain, and so they just continue to take the easy way out. Unfortunately, taking the easy way out time after time will only lead to heartache."
"Moscow Elite Department Store Tour: Petrovsky Passage"
"Where do Russia's Elite going shopping? Discover with me Petrovsky Passage in Moscow, Russia. What does a Moscow Elite Department Store look like inside? How does it feel to shop on Millionaires Row in Moscow, Russia?"
"Dependency upon government is a disease. Once it has been caught, it becomes chronic and does not reverse itself in a population until the system collapses under its own weight. For many years, frustrated colleagues of mine who are either conservative or libertarian have posed the rhetorical question, "When will those liberals learn?" Surely, at some point (they reason), liberals will recognise that bailouts, entitlements, and a "planned" society simply do not work. It's not even a question of whether liberalism is a laudable concept. The problem is that it just… doesn't… work.
Of course, my colleagues are correct in their appraisal of the liberal concept. Unfortunately, they are gravely mistaken in their belief that there comes a point at which the liberal "bubble" pops and suddenly all liberals wake up and smell the coffee.
Truth be told, as long as governments can benefit from maintaining a strong liberal consciousness in their citizenry, and as long as they can count on the media to maintain that consciousness, it will always be possible to convince liberal thinkers that, whatever negative events have taken place in a given country, they are the fault of the "enemy"—the non-liberal contingent.
But, surely, when there is clear-cut evidence that liberal policies have failed, liberals must accept that liberalism is an economic and social dead end. No, I'm afraid not. Let's look at how just three examples are likely to play out—not as we'd like to see them play out, but how they will play out in reality.When the bailouts end, the economy will collapse. Liberals will then grasp that bailouts do not work. Not so, I'm afraid. Although endless QE is as implausible as perpetual motion, when it is finally halted, the economy will inevitably crash, and crash badly -made worse by QE. Will liberals then realize the failure of QE? No, they will only argue that the only problem was that it was halted - that, had it continued, it would eventually have saved the day.
No liberal will hazard a guess as to what amount of QE or length of time would have created salvation; however, the blame for the crash will be placed squarely at the feet of the greedy One Percent, whom the liberals will say "engineered the end of QE in order to impoverish and enslave the middle class." Liberals will be more committed than ever to government spending as a solution.When cities such as Bradford in the UK or Detroit in the US reach fiscal collapse, liberals will realise that ever-increasing entitlements are simply not sustainable, that such tax-based benefit programs drive out thriving industries, leaving the poor behind, in a dying metropolis. Again, this will not happen. Instead of learning the obvious lesson, liberals will redouble their belief in collectivism. They will reason that the government had successfully protected inner city workers through benefit programs. However, big business, wanting to create slaves of workers, sent jobs overseas, to countries where enslavement by the rich is still possible.
By doing so, they removed tax dollars from the system, causing the impoverishment of inner-city dwellers, destroying their lives. Rather than abandon social programs as ineffective, liberals will set about creating massive relocation programs, such as moving the disenfranchised inner-city people to areas where there is sufficient local business for taxation to continue supporting those on public assistance. In so doing, those areas that were previously economically viable will also be bled to the point of fiscal failure, spreading the disease. However, the liberal conclusion will remain the same: "The problem is the greedy rich."
When the government has fully morphed into a dictatorial police state, liberals will realize that governmental overreach has destroyed their liberty. Again, this will not be the liberal view when the time comes. Instead, they will conclude, as they do now, that freedom is a small price to pay for safety. They will, therefore, not only accept, but encourage the government to redouble its Gestapo approach every time a lone gunman fires into a classroom. And any single such incident will be cause for a nationwide ramping-up of policing. (If no lone gunman appears on the scene just prior to a planned ramping-up, a suitable incident can always be created by the government.)
In each of the above cases, nothing is learned by liberals, except that they were right all along: "Don't trust the conservatives. They are evil and will destroy all good in society." These three examples should be sufficient to demonstrate that there will be no magic day when liberals figure out the failings of collectivism. In fact, quite the opposite will be true. Just as any government benefits from its own expansion of power, so governments and the media propaganda systems will ensure good that the EU and US will only become more liberal over time.
Throughout history, a basic truism has been evident: Dependency upon government is a disease. Once it has been caught, it becomes chronic and does not reverse itself in a population until the system collapses under its own weight.
A good example of this is East Germany in the early 1990's. In 1987, US President Reagan famously delivered the words in Berlin, "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall." His words were heard so loudly that Mister Gorbachev did, indeed, tear down the wall. Almost immediately, West Berliners, thrilled to be reunited with their brothers to the East, created thousands of job opportunities for East Germans. East Germans were equally thrilled, anticipating that they might now have larger apartments, higher pay, and possibly own televisions and cars. However, East Germans did not respond well to the standards of the West, feeling that employers were too harsh in their requirements and the benefits were not what they had been used to. East and west re-unified, but the transition was not a smooth one.
But, before we place all the criticism on liberals, it is well to note that, in both the EU and US, conservatives often tend to be just as dogmatic in their assessments. Whilst conservatives arguably may have a better grasp than liberals as to fiscal realities, they, too, are continuously programmed to adhere to a fixed group of perceptions.
Conservatives and liberals are both programmed to maintain ongoing opposition to each other. Conservatives are perceived as greedy and evil by liberals; liberals are perceived as naïve and stupid by conservatives. The more they can be polarized from each other, the more governments may make use of the polarity as a distraction from their own actions. The more conservatives and liberals place the blame on each other, the more governments may present themselves as the referee, whist, in fact, they do all they can to expand the mutual animosity.
When people are angry, they do not think straight. The angrier they become, the more reason goes out the window. Consequently, the more a government can stir up its minions to attack each other, the more power the government has to impose ever-greater controls on the population. In a conservative administration, a government will institute greater social controls. In the following liberal administration, the government will institute greater economic controls. And the police state will be increased under both administrations.
The net effect is overall increased dominance by government. Under the two-party system, this dominance is not only tolerated by the populace, but encouraged. The day never comes when a people convince their government to "lighten up." Relief only comes when an overly-powerful governmental system collapses under its own weight."
"Antigone", by Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927)
"The Burden of Memory"
Lessons from the past about losses in the future...
by Bill Bonner
"Then reflect, my son: you are poised,
once more, on the razor-edge of fate."
~ Tiresias, Antigone
Youghal, Ireland - "What should an old man do? What should he be? No longer raising children. No longer a captain of industry nor even a cog in the machine. No longer fit for battle or lead man in a rom-com. What is his role? Is it not to remember?
In ancient Ireland, ‘seanachies’ were employed to recall the lessons of the past. Wisemen, poets, and tellers of tales reminded kings and commoners of the great heroes of the past, their triumphs and their defeats. Some were real historical figures. Some were mythological. Scholars differ on what was real and what was not.
They told the story of the Great Queen Mebh (Maeve) of Connaught and the Cattle Raid of Cooley. She is the archetype of the independent, powerful, lusty modern woman. She’s also notable for having 7 sons, each of them named Maine. She wanted Ulster’s best bull; but this set off a familiar cycle of negotiation, treachery, murder, mayhem and war.
And who can forget the mighty Cuchulainn…who single handedly defended Ulster against Mebh’s armies? He had himself tied to a standing stone so he would be sure to die on his feet. They had their moments of glory…and their tragic flaws. Poised on the razor’s edge – all of them.
The Duty of Memory: And now, what should an old man do? Shouldn’t he remind and warn... and remember…the great snowstorm of ’58…the great drought of ’62…the flood of ’75? Shouldn’t he tell his grandchildren to stock up on firewood…and head for high ground? Shouldn’t he recall the bear market of ’66-82…the crash of Japanese stock market in 1990…the inflation of the ‘70s…and the Vietnam War?
Watching for sin with one eye and error with the other…shouldn’t the two eyes come together in a studied warning: ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you?’ Of course, the young will ignore his unbidden advice. But so what? Just because his counsel is unwelcome doesn’t diminish his duty to give it out plain and simple. And like old, blind Tiresias, he can turn on his heels with a bit of dignity and a little mockery: "Just send me home. You bear your burdens, I’ll bear mine. It’s better that way, please believe me." Later, he can have the pleasure of saying “I told you so.”
There are few advantages of old age. The ‘I-told-you-so’s are one of them. Yes, you can get discount tickets at some theaters…get in free at some museums and the all-you-can eat buffet at 5 pm at some restaurants. But the big advantage is that you have seen more Big Losses. You know what they look like.
What Could Go Wrong? King Creon ignored the blind, old man and went on to suffer the Big Loss. He lost a son and a niece. (This is Greek tragedy, after all.) And if you are over the age of 70, you’ve probably seen some Big Losses yourself. Marriages that broke up, companies that broke down…people who went broke…crashes…murders…massacres…mistakes…lies…vain and transitory glories. And all of us are always perched on a razor’s edge of fate…the sides so close together we can barely tell them apart… And yet, toppling over in the wrong direction can be tragic.
Remember the disappointment felt by investors after the stock market boom ended in 1966…the shock of inflation in the ‘70s…and the debacle of the Vietnam War? In 1966, investors had the Nifty Fifty as their version of today’s Magnificent 7. They were supposed to be ‘one decision’ investments that you could have and hold until death did you part. They were the best companies, in the best stock market, in the best economy, during the best decade, in the best nation in history. Eastman Kodak, 3M, Procter and Gamble – they had the best technology…and so much money; they could hire the best engineers and managers. What could go wrong?
And yet, where did they go after 1966? Nowhere. The group of favorites was more or less flat for the next 16 years. And that was in nominal dollar terms. Adjusted for inflation, investors lost 70% to 80% of their money.
And then came the ‘70s. Inflation came in waves, not just in one single episode. The first splash arrived in 1969, when prices shot up 6%. Then, inflation went down to 3%…and the feds said it was over. But the next wave, in 1974, pushed prices up at a 12% annual rate. After that wave crested, inflation went down to around 6%, and again people said there was no further need to worry about it. The final soak didn’t come until 1979 – 10 years after the first one, with inflation at a 13% rate. If the pattern holds, the next big wave will come in 2032…with the dollar losing about 70% of its value between now and then.
Standard Abandoned
Through much of this period, 1966 to 1975, a morbid absurdity hung over the US – the Vietnam War. The idea was to keep the domino from falling over. Those of us over 70 may recall friends who went to ‘Nam’ and never came back alive. And the US squandered so much money on the war, President Nixon felt obliged to go ‘off the gold standard’ – setting in motion the financialization of the economy…the huge rise in debt…and the approaching bankruptcy of the US empire.
We remember the arguments in favor of continuing the war, now used to prolong the proxy war against Russia: we had to maintain our ‘credibility,’ by stopping them [communists] there; otherwise, we’d have to face them in California. To turn away would be appeasement. (The closest we got, personally, to Vietnam was patrolling the coast of California in a US navy cruiser. Had the North Vietnamese actually had a blue water navy, and had they used it to launch an assault across the vast Pacific, we were ready for them.)
In the event, the domino fell and nobody cared. Americans now take vacations in Vietnam and buy cheap T-shirts and running pants from Vietnamese mills. A trillion dollars down the rathole…a million dead …apparently, for nothing. Yes, like old, blind Tiresias, we’ve seen our share of misery, crackpottery, and jackassery. Shouldn’t we say something?"
"A mere seven hundred light years from Earth, toward the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. A total of 90 hours of exposure time have gone in to creating this expansive view of the nebula.
Combining narrow band image data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, it shows remarkable details of the Helix's brighter inner region about 3 light-years across. The white dot at the Helix's center is this Planetary Nebula's hot, central star. A simple looking nebula at first glance, the Helix is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry."
“Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before him – his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless condition – no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of him - neither name nor money to bequeath – a spent-out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, “Tomorrow, success or failure won’t matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.”
"Kaufman thought his public health students at the Kennesaw State University might know more than high schoolers. During the same week, he conducted an ad hoc survey in class, “How many of you believe the American dream is dead?” He asked his class of about 25 students. “Ninety percent raised their hands,” said Kaufman. “I was just blown away.”
He asked his college students what the American dream was. Not getting an answer, he defined it for them, “The American dream is, in this country, if you work hard, you sacrifice, and you never quit, you will find some type of success in your life.” After giving the students his definition, he tried again, “How many of you still believe the American dream is dead?” Still, 90 percent raised their hands.
“If you believe the American dream is dead in this country, why are you sitting in a college classroom?” he asked. The class was silent. Students looked shocked, and one said he hadn’t thought about that."
"Back when I taught at UCLA, I was constantly amazed at how little so many students knew. Finally, I could no longer restrain myself from asking a student the question that had long puzzled me: ''What were you doing for the last 12 years before you got here?''
- Thomas Sowell
○
"The problem isn't that Johnny can't read.
The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.
The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is;
he confuses it with feeling."
- Thomas Sowell
○
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their
hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."
"I had lived thirty good years before enduring my first food poisoning - odds quite fortunate in the grand scheme of things, but miserably unfortunate in the immediate experience of it. I found myself completely incapacitated to erect the pillars of my daily life - too cognitively foggy to read and write, too physically weak to work out or even meditate. The temporary disability soon elevated the assault on my mind and body to a new height of anguish: an intense experience of stress. Even as I consoled myself with Nabokov’s exceptionally florid account of food poisoning, I couldn’t shake the overwhelming malaise that had engulfed me - somehow, a physical illness had completely colored my psychoemotional reality.
This experience, of course, is far from uncommon. Long before scientists began shedding light on how our minds and bodies actually affect one another, an intuitive understanding of this dialogue between the body and the emotions, or feelings, emerged and permeated our very language: We use “feeling sick” as a grab-bag term for both the sensory symptoms - fever, fatigue, nausea - and the psychological malaise, woven of emotions like sadness and apathy.
Pre-modern medicine, in fact, has recognized this link between disease and emotion for millennia. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Indian Ayurvedic physicians all enlisted the theory of the four humors - blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm - in their healing practices, believing that imbalances in these four visible secretions of the body caused disease and were themselves often caused by the emotions. These beliefs are fossilized in our present language - melancholy comes from the Latin words for “black” (melan) and “bitter bile” (choler), and we think of a melancholic person as gloomy or embittered; a phlegmatic person is languid and impassive, for phlegm makes one lethargic.
For nearly three centuries, the idea that our emotions could impact our physical health remained scientific taboo - setting out to fight one type of dogma, Descartes had inadvertently created another, which we’re only just beginning to shake off. It was only in the 1950s that Austrian-Canadian physician and physiologist Hans Selye pioneered the notion of stress as we now know it today, drawing the scientific community’s attention to the effects of stress on physical health and popularizing the concept around the world. (In addition to his scientific dedication, Selye also understood the branding component of any successful movement and worked tirelessly to include the word itself in dictionaries around the world; today, “stress” is perhaps the word pronounced most similarly in the greatest number of major languages.)
But no researcher has done more to illuminate the invisible threads that weave mind and body together than Dr. Esther Sternberg. Her groundbreaking work on the link between the central nervous system and the immune system, exploring how immune molecules made in the blood can trigger brain function that profoundly affects our emotions, has revolutionized our understanding of the integrated being we call a human self. In the immeasurably revelatory "The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions" (public library), Sternberg examines the interplay of our emotions and our physical health, mediated by that seemingly nebulous yet, it turns out, remarkably concrete experience called stress.
With an eye to modern medicine’s advances in cellular and molecular biology, which have made it possible to measure how our nervous system and our hormones affect our susceptibility to diseases as varied as depression, arthritis, AIDS, and chronic fatigue syndrome, Sternberg writes: "By parsing these chemical intermediaries, we can begin to understand the biological underpinnings of how emotions affect diseases…
The same parts of the brain that control the stress response… play an important role in susceptibility and resistance to inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. And since it is these parts of the brain that also play a role in depression, we can begin to understand why it is that many patients with inflammatory diseases may also experience depression at different times in their lives… Rather than seeing the psyche as the source of such illnesses, we are discovering that while feelings don’t directly cause or cure disease, the biological mechanisms underlying them may cause or contribute to disease. Thus, many of the nerve pathways and molecules underlying both psychological responses and inflammatory disease are the same, making predisposition to one set of illnesses likely to go along with predisposition to the other.
The questions need to be rephrased, therefore, to ask which of the many components that work together to create emotions also affect that other constellation of biological events, immune responses, which come together to fight or to cause disease. Rather than asking if depressing thoughts can cause an illness of the body, we need to ask what the molecules and nerve pathways are that cause depressing thoughts. And then we need to ask whether these affect the cells and molecules that cause disease.
[…]
We are even beginning to sort out how emotional memories reach the parts of the brain that control the hormonal stress response, and how such emotions can ultimately affect the workings of the immune system and thus affect illnesses as disparate as arthritis and cancer. We are also beginning to piece together how signals from the immune system can affect the brain and the emotional and physical responses it controls: the molecular basis of feeling sick. In all this, the boundaries between mind and body are beginning to blur."
Indeed, the relationship between memory, emotion, and stress is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Sternberg’s work. She considers how we deal with the constant swirl of inputs and outputs as we move through the world, barraged by a stream of stimuli and sensations:
"Every minute of the day and night we feel thousands of sensations that might trigger a positive emotion such as happiness, or a negative emotion such as sadness, or no emotion at all: a trace of perfume, a light touch, a fleeting shadow, a strain of music. And there are thousands of physiological responses, such as palpitations or sweating, that can equally accompany positive emotions such as love, or negative emotions such as fear, or can happen without any emotional tinge at all. What makes these sensory inputs and physiological outputs emotions is the charge that gets added to them somehow, somewhere in our brains. Emotions in their fullest sense comprise all of these components. Each can lead into the black box and produce an emotional experience, or something in the black box can lead out to an emotional response that seems to come from nowhere."
Memory, it turns out, is one of the major factors mediating the dialogue between sensation and emotional experience. Our memories of past experience become encoded into triggers that act as switchers on the rail of psychoemotional response, directing the incoming train of present experience in the direction of one emotional destination or another.
Sternberg writes: "Mood is not homogeneous like cream soup. It is more like Swiss cheese, filled with holes. The triggers are highly specific, tripped by sudden trails of memory: a faint fragrance, a few bars of a tune, a vague silhouette that tapped into a sad memory buried deep, but not completely erased. These sensory inputs from the moment float through layers of time in the parts of the brain that control memory, and they pull out with them not only reminders of sense but also trails of the emotions that were first connected to the memory. These memories become connected to emotions, which are processed in other parts of the brain: the amygdala for fear, the nucleus accumbens for pleasure - those same parts that the anatomists had named for their shapes. And these emotional brain centers are linked by nerve pathways to the sensory parts of the brain and to the frontal lobe and hippocampus - the coordinating centers of thought and memory. The same sensory input can trigger a negative emotion or a positive one, depending on the memories associated with it."
This is where stress comes in - much like memory mediates how we interpret and respond to various experiences, a complex set of biological and psychological factors determine how we respond to stress. Some types of stress can be stimulating and invigorating, mobilizing us into action and creative potency; others can be draining and incapacitating, leaving us frustrated and hopeless. This dichotomy of good vs. bad stress, Sternberg notes, is determined by the biology undergirding our feelings - by the dose and duration of the stress hormones secreted by the body in response to the stressful stimulus. She explains the neurobiological machinery behind this response:
" As soon as the stressful event occurs, it triggers the release of the cascade of hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal hormones - the brain’s stress response. It also triggers the adrenal glands to release epinephrine, or adrenaline, and the sympathetic nerves to squirt out the adrenaline-like chemical norepinephrine all over the body: nerves that wire the heart, and gut, and skin. So, the heart is driven to beat faster, the fine hairs of your skin stand up, you sweat, you may feel nausea or the urge to defecate. But your attention is focused, your vision becomes crystal clear, a surge of power helps you run - these same chemicals released from nerves make blood flow to your muscles, preparing you to sprint.
All this occurs quickly. If you were to measure the stress hormones in your blood or saliva, they would already be increased within three minutes of the event. In experimental psychology tests, playing a fast-paced video game will make salivary cortisol increase and norepinephrine spill over into venous blood almost as soon as the virtual battle begins. But if you prolong the stress, by being unable to control it or by making it too potent or long-lived, and these hormones and chemicals still continue to pump out from nerves and glands, then the same molecules that mobilized you for the short haul now debilitate you."
These effects of stress exist on a bell curve - that is, some is good, but too much becomes bad: As the nervous system secretes more and more stress hormones, performance increases, but up to a point; after that tipping point, performance begins to suffer as the hormones continue to flow. What makes stress “bad” - that is, what makes it render us more pervious to disease - is the disparity between the nervous system and immune system’s respective pace. Sternberg explains:
"The nervous system and the hormonal stress response react to a stimulus in milliseconds, seconds, or minutes. The immune system takes parts of hours or days. It takes much longer than two minutes for immune cells to mobilize and respond to an invader, so it is unlikely that a single, even powerful, short-lived stress on the order of moments could have much of an effect on immune responses. However, when the stress turns chronic, immune defenses begin to be impaired. As the stressful stimulus hammers on, stress hormones and chemicals continue to pump out. Immune cells floating in this milieu in blood, or passing through the spleen, or growing up in thymic nurseries never have a chance to recover from the unabated rush of cortisol. Since cortisol shuts down immune cells’ responses, shifting them to a muted form, less able to react to foreign triggers, in the context of continued stress we are less able to defend and fight when faced with new invaders. And so, if you are exposed to, say, a flu or common cold virus when you are chronically stressed out, your immune system is less able to react and you become more susceptible to that infection."
Extended exposure to stress, especially to a variety of stressors at the same time - any combination from the vast existential menu of life-events like moving, divorce, a demanding job, the loss of a loved one, and even ongoing childcare - adds up a state of extreme exhaustion that leads to what we call burnout.
Sternberg writes: "Members of certain professions are more prone to burnout than others - nurses and teachers, for example, are among those at highest risk. These professionals are faced daily with caregiving situations in their work lives, often with inadequate pay, inadequate help in their jobs, and with too many patients or students in their charge. Some studies are beginning to show that burnt-out patients may have not only psychological burnout, but also physiological burnout: a flattened cortisol response and inability to respond to any stress with even a slight burst of cortisol. In other words, chronic unrelenting stress can change the stress response itself. And it can change other hormone systems in the body as well.
One of the most profound such changes affects the reproductive system - extended periods of stress can shut down the secretion of reproductive hormones in both men and women, resulting in lower fertility. But the effects are especially perilous for women - recurring and extended episodes of depression result in permanent changes in bone structure, increasing the risk of osteoporosis. In other words, we register stress literally in our bones."
But stress isn’t a direct causal function of the circumstances we’re in - what either amplifies or ameliorates our experience of stress is, once again, memory. Sternberg writes: "Our perception of stress, and therefore our response to it, is an ever-changing thing that depends a great deal on the circumstances and settings in which we find ourselves. It depends on previous experience and knowledge, as well as on the actual event that has occurred. And it depends on memory, too."
The most acute manifestation of how memory modulates stress is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. For striking evidence of how memory encodes past experience into triggers, which then catalyze present experience, Sternberg points to research by psychologist Rachel Yehuda, who found both Holocaust survivors and their first-degree relatives - that is, children and siblings - exhibited a similar hormonal stress response.
This, Sternberg points out, could be a combination of nature and nurture - the survivors, as young parents for whom the trauma was still fresh, may well have subconsciously taught their children a common style of stress-responsiveness; but it’s also possible that these automatic hormonal stress responses permanently changed the parents’ biology and were transmitted via DNA to their children. Once again, memory encodes stress into our very bodies. Sternberg considers the broader implications:
"Stress need not be on the order of war, rape, or the Holocaust to trigger at least some elements of PTSD. Common stresses that we all experience can trigger the emotional memory of a stressful circumstance - and all its accompanying physiological responses. Prolonged stress - such as divorce, a hostile workplace, the end of a relationship, or the death of a loved one - can all trigger elements of PTSD."
Among the major stressors - which include life-events expected to be on the list, such as divorce and the death of a loved one - is also one somewhat unexpected situation, at least to those who haven’t undergone it: moving. Sternberg considers the commonalities between something as devastating as death and something as mundane as moving:
"One is certainly loss - the loss of someone or something familiar. Another is novelty - finding oneself in a new and unfamiliar place because of the loss. Together these amount to change: moving away from something one knows and toward something one doesn’t. An unfamiliar environment is a universal stressor to nearly all species, no matter how developed or undeveloped."
In the remainder of the thoroughly illuminating "The Balance Within," Sternberg goes on to explore the role of interpersonal relationships in both contributing to stress and shielding us from it, how the immune system changes our moods, and what we can do to harness these neurobiological insights in alleviating our experience of the stressors with which every human life is strewn."
“Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.
Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.
According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- “Weightless”- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.
Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.
In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you’ve got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.
Of the top track, Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, “‘Weightless’ was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous.” So don’t drive while listening to these, but do take advantage of them:
“Believe me, I know all about it. I know the stress. I know the frustration. I know the temptations of time and space. We worked this out ahead of time. They're part of the plan. We knew this stuff might happen. Actually, you insisted they be triggered whenever you were ready to begin thinking thoughts you've never thought before. New thinking is always the answer.”
"1. Life is not easy. Hard work makes people lucky, it's the stuff that brings dreams to reality. So start every morning ready to run farther than you did yesterday and fight harder than you ever have before.
2. You will fail sometimes. The faster you accept this, the faster you can get on with being brilliant. You'll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won't work. So get out there and do something! Either you succeed or you learn a vital lesson. Win, Win.
3. Right now, there's a lot you don't know. The day you stop learning is the day you stop living. Embrace new information, think about it and use it to advance yourself.
4. There may not be a tomorrow. Not for everyone. Right now, someone on Earth is planning something for tomorrow without realizing they're going to die today. This is sad but true. So spend your time wisely today and pause long enough to appreciate it.
5. There's a lot you can't control. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control.
6. Information is not true knowledge. Knowledge comes from experience. You can discuss a task a hundred times, but these discussions will only give you a philosophical understanding. You must experience a task firsthand to truly know it.
7. You can't be successful without providing value. Don't waste your time trying to be successful, spend your time creating value. When you're valuable to the world around you, you will be successful.
8. Someone else will always have more than you. Whether it's money, friends or magic beans that you're collecting, there will always be someone who has more than you. But remember, it's not how many you have, it's how passionate you are about collecting them. It's all about the journey.
9. You can't change the past. As Maria Robinson once said, "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. " You can't change what happened, but you can change how you react to it.
10. The only person who can make you happy is you. The root of your happiness comes from your relationship with yourself. Sure external entities can have fleeting effects on your mood, but in the long run nothing matters more than how you feel about who you are on the inside.
11. There will always be people who don't like you. You can't be everything to everyone. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who thinks differently. So concentrate on doing what you know in your heart is right. What others think and say about you isn't all that important. What is important is how you feel about yourself.
12. You won't always get what you want. As Mick Jagger once sang, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need. " Look around. Appreciate the things you have right now. Many people aren't so lucky.
13. In life, you get what you put in. If you want love, give love. If you want friends, be friendly. If you want money, provide value. It really is this simple.
14. Good friends will come and go. Most of your high school friends won't be a part of your college life. Most of your college friends won't be a part of your 20-something professional life. Most of your 20-something friends won't be there when your spouse and you bring your second child into the world. But some friends will stick. And it's these friends, the ones who transcend time with you, who matter.
15. Doing the same exact thing every day hinders self growth. If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting. Growth happens when you change things, when you try new things, when you stretch beyond your comfort zone.
16. You will never feel 100% ready for something new. Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means you won't feel totally comfortable or ready for it.
And remember, trying to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. Strength comes from being comfortable in your own skin. "
