28.11.12 OK, I have a little time to write before class. I wanted to write a little more about moods and happiness. I’ve been thinking about the two ideas, and sometimes writing your ideas down helps develop your thoughts even further, so here we go. One’s mood, mine at least, and most other people’s I think too, can be measured by a sine curve. For those of you who forget what that is, suffice it to say that it goes up and down, invariably, for eternity. It’s a simple suggestion for a measurement of mood, but I find it fitting. If your mood is up, then it’s bound to go down, and if it’s down, then, ironically, things might be looking up. Again, I say that this is invariably so. Your mood can never, under any circumstances, stay positive (or negative) for a long time. [Revision: Depressed people have a constant negative mood. Conclude: constant positive is nevertheless impossible.] You can try to do the things that make you happy, you can take all the anti-depressants you want, and by doing so you might manage to delay the inevitable, but eventually your mood has to go into a negative zone. This is clearly so because no matter whatever reason you have for being in a good mood, you get used to that reason’s validity, until in the end it’s no longer valid. A new car, for example, puts some people in a good mood, but does a car that you’ve been driving for a year? The car is still rather new, it might look and drive exactly the same, but it doesn’t give your ego that kick that it used to. All of a sudden your mood isn’t as high as it was at first. It’s falling, as indeed it must. The frequency of this rise and fall depends on the person and their lifestyle (i.e. the quality and quantity of anti-depressants); also the measure of the peaks and pits of your mood, the high and low points, may vary from person to person – these variations can be expressed by parameters in the sine curve formula, but in general our mood is a sine curve. For those who like to see a concrete expression, we could say, for example, that Peter’s mood is as follows: m_P(t) = P1*sin(P2*t), where t is time, and P1 and P2 measure the peaks of the mood, and its frequency of change, respectively. Having established mood, it’s easy to define happiness. I think it can be reasonably defined as the change in mood. Look, if you’re in a good mood, but your mood is going down, then you must be unhappy, because you’re losing goodness. Conversely, if you’re mood is bad, but it’s getting better, then you have something to be happy about, so your happiness is positive. In short, while mood is a sine, happiness is a cosine, and happiness is thus a derivative of mood. This makes sense. Leaving happiness aside for a moment, let’s consider only moods. I’ve put a lot of thought into what effects moods. I don’t take anti-depressants in the traditional sense because I don’t trust pills of any kind; but I do take anti-depressants in the form of physical exercise, sleep, good food and music. These all clearly affect one’s mood. The question I’d like to address someday is how other people affect our moods. When two people interact in some way, their moods might affect one another. What happens when they’re both in a good or bad mood, or if their moods are at different extremes? 1.12.12 Sasha and I have had an argument. We have arguments every once in a while, which I think is necessary in any relationship, but yesterday was an extreme in some sense. That’s not to say it was such a horrible argument. Honestly, it could have gone a lot worse. Maybe the worst is yet to come. Anyway, the topic fits right in to this blog entry. Maybe I was subconsciously aiming for an argument so that I could then write about it (Sasha will accuse me of it if she reads this.) 14.1.13 (Happy New Year!) I’ll write for twenty five minutes and see what comes out. I’ve felt a little apprehensive recently about the daunting schedule I have before me. In the previous months at work, I knew that there was a finish line of sorts, not far away: Christmas; I only had to work so much before I would be free to enjoy some time off in paradise. Now I’m looking at two single-day holidays between today and May, the rest of the time my schedule is as full as can be. Will I be able to keep such a pace for such a long time? Who signed me up for this marathon anyway, huh? It’s been almost twenty minutes. And this is it! I guess my writing muscles are sore. Oh well. By the way, I’ve been reading a lot more since the beginning of my second academic year here. I record myself reading and send it to whomever is interested, so far mostly to Sasha, although I don’t think she manages to listen to much of what I record. I thought that being a professional reader would be an interesting job, if there actually were such a profession. I think it’d require some acting skills, not to mention an ability to read complicated prose in a clear and understandable way. I don’t have any of these skills, but I’m working at it, and it’s been a lot of fun so far. Tonight, I think I might start part two of A Tale of Two Cities, or continue with Revolutionary Road or Frankenstein. 26.1.13 These words are a revision of what was previously written on 1.12.12, which ended up being a long and detailed account of an argument and how the elements of which might contribute to the study of moods and their changes. Without going into details of the argument (which was remarkable mostly in its complete lack of foundation), it’s enough to describe the day itself, which could hardly end in any other way but a stupid argument. I had had a long, miserable day, had woken up early to see an older student who rather resembles an ogre both in appearance as well as English proficiency (and if you wonder about the latter, please remember that ogres are not the most intellectually adorned of fantastical creatures), then raced off to the company on icy streets, before racing back home to wolf down lunch and desperately prepare for the last two lessons of the day and week. One of those lessons was supposed to be the last one of mine with the group, and an extremely unfortunate last lesson, for I had to give them the results of their first test, which four out of five of them failed miserably, and then report to them that as I had evidently failed miserably as their teacher, they would have another one from then on. I unfortunately failed to part with these students on a positive note, which set the tune for the rest of the evening. I remember leaving the company with Sasha late after my last class that evening. There had been an ice storm. The trees were all decked in crystals, as fragile as whatever psychological strength might keep a person from screaming bloody murder at the world. The evening was cold, not by today’s standards, but relative to the warmer days not long past, and the cold broke into my tired defenses, rendering my mood as frosty as the coming winter. It was not a good evening for a chat or a walk. I just needed to sleep. All this is evidence for claims that I’ve made before. If other people are like me (which is questionable, and if true, then only in degrees). Bad moods are caused by the following: lack of sleep; too much work; and bad weather. Does this sound about right? As for the weather, I’ve since then confirmed the observation that mood is directly related to the amount of sunshine on a given day. Or am I only projecting what I’ve heard other people say? With the New Year I inevitably fell into thinking about my future, the future year, and further. In past New Years, I had resolved not to hurry into any rash decisions and established that although I wasn’t sure of my place in the world, I was nevertheless happy enough; I was happy with being unsure. This year, after leaving a Californian paradise for this cold, cloudy, dark place that I’ve been calling home, I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious for some substantial change in my life. But then, eventually, the sun came out, and all of a sudden I realized how great life was after all. I think I’ve understood how the sun influences me, and am currently studying the effect of sardines and mustard as a substitute on weeks when the sun doesn’t show itself very often. What other things can be done to keep your mood on high? Well, there are pills and tablets of all sorts, probably filled with all kinds of vitamins from sardines and mustard and other ‘natural’ antidepressants. So why should I be so picky? I guess the inevitable truth is that your mood is never as high as when it comes off of a cloudy day. This gets back to the inevitable ebb and flow of a person’s mood. Every day could be sunny and you can have fresh fish with mustard every evening, with dark chocolate for dessert, but that can’t maintain a quality state of mind over the long term. At the very least, you’ll get used to whatever you serve yourself, be it actual sustenance, or food for the mind, no matter how ‘good’ it might be. This suggests the necessity for constant change, or at least the wherewithal not to spoil yourself with too much of any one positive thing. Just as a lack of sleep, too much work and bad weather are sure to cause the worst of moods, maybe in the end these things are necessary so that at the very least we don’t forget that they’re there. These negative experiences help us appreciate the good in our lives. It’s the Yin-Yang of our psyche. A question which arises is how much negative we should expose ourselves to in order to not lose sight of the wonderful things we have in our lives. Here I am, complaining about cloudy skies and too much work, when I’m lucky enough not to have to deal with starvation or the horrors of war. Somehow I don’t think I have to live in a war zone to be able to appreciate the peaceful cities that I’ve enjoyed living in. So I don’t have to go to that extreme in order to recognize a good thing in my life. But what does one have to experience in order to live a full life? With this question in mind, I can’t help but think that working as an English teacher isn’t a bad position to be in. Here I’ve recently got my CELTA certificate – a rinky-dink teaching certificate which is nonetheless the standard for the worldwide market – and there’s a world out there still waiting for me. Am I in a hurry to get out of my current life? I guess not, as much as that might hurt some people reading this. They’re apprehensive about my fate because my future is so unknown. It’s unknown to me too, but I still think it would be worse to put myself in the standard track of life: career, money, wife and kids. It’s not that I deny myself the possibility that I might want those things in the future, it’s only that I want to know that it’s I who want them, and not all the people around me who want these things for me. It’s easy for people who care about me, myself included, to be apprehensive about putting these things off, because besides them, they might not know what to value in life. They might not understand or believe that life can have meaning without kids playing football on Saturdays and parent-teacher conferences. I’m not sure there’s meaning out there either, aside from these traditional values; nevertheless, I don’t think it hurts to search, maybe even for a long time. Will an entire lifetime of searching end in vain? Maybe even if little is found along the way, there might have been meaning in the search itself. I feel like a fifteenth century European sailor exploring unknown seas. I may fall off the edge of the world, or my ship may sink and I’ll be eaten by sharks. Who knows what dangers lay waiting in that horrible unknown? I could easily run from it all and return to my home to set up a life for myself which will be exactly as meaningful as everyone else’s, which is to say … something would be missing. Or maybe I need to come to my senses, realize that the world is flat and that there’s nothing out there except a dismal end. 27.1.13 I’m not sure if the people who suggest that there is nothing out there can really be trusted. After all, what do they know? For one thing, they might not have searched very long themselves before they decided to follow the footsteps of whole generations, past and current. How can you tell me I won’t find what nobody knows? I’ve been reading a lot recently. I’ve started this new hobby and have really taken to it full-bore, so that I risk a relapse of boring myself with it before long. I’m currently reading three books, along with some collections of short stories intermittently. The first of three novels I’m reading is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I started this immediately after finishing Journey to the Center of the Earth, also by Jules Verne, which I had listened to but never read before. I liked the latter novel more than the current one, since there seemed to be less focus on secondary material, such as local plant and animal life of whatever ocean Captain Nemo’s submarine is sailing through. Speaking of whom, however, I have to admit that I kind of like Captain Nemo – a hermit scientist who has ostracised himself from all of humanity for reasons as of yet unknown (will I find out?) I’ve been called a hermit before, and I have to admit that while I wouldn’t want to cut every single tie with people, every once in a while I think it might be nice to spend some time in a library in a submarine a few kilometers under water. This appeal of reading fiction, I’ve discovered, is in how the reader can relate to the characters of the book. It may be selfish of me to like reading for such a reason, because in the end I’m sort of reading about myself as I put myself in the characters’ places and thus enjoy the story as it goes along, as though it were happening to me! (As selfish as it may be, I don’t think I’m the only one who has enjoyed fiction in this way.) Just yesterday I finished rereading a novel called ‘Revolutionary Road,’ by Richard Yates. This might have inspired me to express my hesitance on going down the road of fatherhood; if I was five or ten years from such an endeavor before, I’m now twice as far after reading this novel. I find it comes across as a horror story for those stuck in the quagmire of life in suburbia. Or maybe it’s a warning to people like me, who have waited patiently thus far, testing the waters of a different life before plunging into one pool or the other. I’ve also started reading ‘The Fountainhead,’ by Ayn Rand, a second time, which will probably scare my family members a little. I’ve heard plenty of criticism of Rand in the past years, mostly from my family, and although I can’t disagree with all of it, there’s still plenty of stuff that I like about this author. Again, I can easily put myself in the position of the hero, more because of his dissatisfaction with the world around him than anything else. Furthermore, I find the other characters are rather well developed, and I see them in my everyday life too. On the other hand, it might not be smart of me to apply her writing to my life, since Ayn Rand was evidently not the most tolerable of other people, and not one willing to compromise, so my adopting such an attitude might have negative effects for me at work and elsewhere. On the other hand, there are lots of people whom I just can’t tolerate. I can’t help but relate to this author. I’ve also started reading Frankenstein, and A Tale of Two Cities. They both are good vocabulary exercises. Reading them is like drinking a fine wine. It takes some effort to understand them completely. The latter novel tastes a bit like Sense and Sensibility, which I finally drudged through earlier this month. Dickens has a more varietal language, though, not as monotonous as Jane Austin or Mary Shelly. I have a list of books that I’d like to at least look at this year. I’d like to get into Anna Karenina when I’m finished with Verne, and this summer, if I get a month or two off, I might undertake something even bigger, like War and Peace, Ulysses (Joyce), and or Paradise Lost. I’ve been told that they’re worth reading. If I have the strength, I might get through one or two of them.