How Much Space Do You Need?

It is a disaster to have a man fall in love with me. They aren't content to take what I can give, they want everything from me.
- Katherine Anne Porter (1960), American Journalist

Feeling lonely even when involved in a close, romantic relationship, is not all that uncommon. This odd sort of loneliness stems from unmet expectations. In order to relieve "in-relationship" loneliness one of two things needs to occur. Either the expectations of the lonely person need to be adjusted or even replaced by ones that work for the relationship or an emotional break from the other person must be made. The expectation that is most relevant to happiness in romantic relationships is related to freedom versus connectedness.

A friend, Paloma, recently moved to Manhattan to dance, write and try to make ends meet on student loans and side jobs. She rented a one-room "hole-in-the wall", registered for classes at NYU and chatted with anyone willing. Two weeks into her new life the loneliness set in and flooded any spare moment. Although she spoke to friends and family in Ohio by telephone and e-mail, she felt utterly socially disconnected in her new life. One day, her sister mentioned that Paloma's old boyfriend, George, had also moved to New York recently. "Why don't you look him up?" she said. Paloma did not really want to date George again, but she did need a friend.

George, moved to New York City, rented a flat, and started exploring his new neighborhood, Chinatown. The intoxicating smells of fresh meat and fried delicacies, mandarin folk opera music mingled with curt yelling and the shear mass of humanity kept this Midwesterner enthralled. On his walks to and from his new job he had time to think and marvel. He felt very happy.

Two weeks into his new life, he received a call from Paloma. She was in town, working as a waitress by day and taking evening classes to complete her MFA. "Let's get together!" she said. They met for lunch. They kept in touch and eventually resumed dating. Soon free evenings and weekends were spent in each others company. Paloma was happy. Everything in her life seemed in place now that she had George to share her life. But George began to feel an unease growing inside. Paloma needed more of George. More time. More affection, love and assurance. More impromptu talks, more hugs. George needed time alone. So their conflicts began. Neither of them were quite in love and so, the relationship ended. George went back to marveling at the wonders around him, alone. Paloma began looking for her soul mate.

University of Chicago professor, John T. Cacioppo, author of Loneliness, believes it's a subjective sense of loneliness--not lack of objective social support--that uniquely predicts whether a person's psychological state negatively affects her physiological health. People who feel they are lonely exhibit depressive symptoms, chronic health conditions , and elevated blood pressure.

Each person has a unique need for connectedness and each person's expectations fall in line with that level of need. The needed level of need can not be wrong. Each is just different and this difference can cause relationships with great potential to sour. To remain happy in a relationship with a person whose connectedness needs differ from yours, your expectations must be adjusted to better fit that relationship. Negotiations must begin and a place where each person feels loved and connected needs to be found. That is why Love Is Work.

Love has to be work, because each person's need for connection is unique. Soul mates exist, but someone exactly like you, does not and never, ever will.

Music On My Mind

Are you good at tuning into the smallest nuances of human speech and its emotional variations? It could be because you started piano lessons at age seven. Neuroscientist Nina Kraus believes musical experience not only sharpens your hearing for music but also alerts you to emotions expressed in speech, such as anger or sadness. The more time (both daily and across the years) a musician has practiced the more obvious the effect. This has hopeful implications for the treatment of mental disorders related to decreased emotional connectivity, such as autism. Maybe we will soon see music lessons especially tailored for autistic children.
In Venezuela, musician Jose Abreu tailors music education to improve the lives of 300,000 poor children, one lesson at a time. Children admitted to his program sign up to practice an orchestral instrument every day they eat, for many hours. They learn classical music from expert musicians and each other. Eventually they join the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra, travel the world and gain a discipline that will forever lift them from poverty. The current conductor of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, is a graduate of Abreu's program.
You don't have to be mentally disabled or living in the poorest neighborhood of Caracas to benefit from the practice of music. Yet it is rare for non-musically trained adults to seriously take up the discipline of music. We somehow find time to hit the gym and even finish a New York Times crossword puzzle now and then.
Could it be our society is so focused on expertise and competence, that it is difficult for adults to start something, they will be terrible at for a few years, from scratch?

The Human Animal

Being able to self-regulate our emotions and our behaviors is a large part of what makes us human.
-John Cacioppo (2008), Social Neuroscientist

In the early 1960's part being human meant, among other things, being able to use tools. That theory, debunked by etymologist Jane Goodall's observations of wild chimpanzees, is no longer part of the "what makes us human" list. Today's list is focused on two main, apparently only human, attributes: Our extremely complex social systems and our ability to regulate our emotions. Yet, this new short list also begs editing.
Yes, we are socially complex, you may say. But aren't bees and ants extremely socially organized as well? They are. But they exhibit no where near our level of social interconnectedness. So, I guess, our humanness requires a certain of degree of complexity, a certain societal tipping point that occurred long ago and eventually led to the formation of the modern human brain.
But how about the emotion control point? You probably know at least one person who is frequently "out of control" emotionally. Are the emotionally volatile less human? Of course not. So, can you really make a list to define humanness? I think so, but not quite yet. Neuroscience is still in its infancy as a science and the human brain is not yet fully understood. One thing is clear, humans have huge brains and therein lie the differences between us and them.

Take Care of Your Hippocampus

The Hippocampus is the brain structure responsible for our ability to store short memories and is key in learning. This structure shrinks as we age. The more one uses its functions by constantly being exposed to novelty and new learning the less age-related atrophy will occur. But people of all ages can have premature hippocampal damage. Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University neurobiologist, is a researcher with a message for us all. "Long term stress is bad for the brain," Sapolsky says, because it produces, possibly permanent, hypocampal atrophy. The stress Sapolsky refers to is severe enough to create the life-wilting twins, "learned helplessness" and depression. The longer a person is depressed the faster her hippo campus shrinks, inhibiting future short term memory capabilities and learning. "Keep your life in perspective!" Sapolsky says. Unfortunately the people most likely to need his advice are the least likely to be able to process it. Depression is a shirking of perspective, a possibly destructive honing in on the self. Depression kicks in when sadness over life's bad turns does not resolve. Everyone experiences moments of great sadness, the people that best protect their hippo campus from long-term damage are those who have a growth mindset to begin with. People with a growth mindset expect to grow somehow through their deepest valleys of despair. They know they will come out a different person, a wiser person. Psychologist Carol Dweck believes "People can choose which world they want to inhabit." And that choice makes all the difference.

Robert Sapolsky on You Tube

Interview with Carol Dweck

Take Note

It takes longer to study a life than to live it, longer to interpret a work than to create it, longer to understand an event than it took to happen.
-Robert Davidoff (2006), American Historian

Each moment of President Obama's inauguration seemed to stand still in time. Like a tennis ball at the height of a service toss or one's gaze while holding a brand new infant, time stood, as if blinking wild with lights saying "I will remember this forever." The journalists, pencils in hand, are ready. The historians take notes too. This is a first that will be studied and analyzed and recorded. Our young daughters will remember Obama's daughters and our grandchildren will write reports on his ideas. Maybe they will ask us "How old were you when Obama became president?" just to frame whatever else we have to say about this moment in American History.
I will tell my grandchildren how new time seemed at the moment Obama said "I, Barack Hussein Obama..." I will tell them how proud I felt because he represents a new and better world; a world in which ideas drive actions and words are chosen one at a time to inspire an entire planet. I will tell them my ninety-year-old grandmother called from South America to congratulate me on America's bright future. She also could tell the world was new once more. I will tell them of hope and how powerful a human emotion it is, if only for today.

Examine Your Life, but Not Too Much

It is easy to slip into self-absorption and it is equally fatal.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (1960)

Unrelenting inner turmoil about one's needs and/or negative feelings often means one is stuck in a depressive mental pattern. The way to get mentally "unstuck" is to force an outward focus. Empathizing with and meeting the needs of someone else may be the ticket to thwart negative self-absorption. Engaging in an activity that demands extreme focus and a merging of action with awareness of that action, also helps. They key, really, is to become absorbed with the outer world.
But to be able to achieve this focus in a way that is meaningful in the long-run, one must take the time to quietly examine one's life. For, as Plato wrote

The unexamined life is not worth living.

A sort of balance between outward focus and inner examination towards intent is fodder for a meaning-filled life.
The popular life coach, Cheryl Richarson trumpets what she calls Extreme Self-Care. The name she has given her philosophy of thoughtful living is misleading and reactionary. She calls on people whom have spent entire decades catering to the needs of others, in family and even work life, to begin caring for themselves first so as to live a meaningful life. Richarson's repackaging of the age-old call towards life-examination invites a resolution based on victim hood and seems a bit whiny to me. Life is about choices and the first step towards productive self-reflection is a curt decision to make choices for oneself and evaluate those as one lives them.
My favorite books on the topic of a choice-based life, and notably not in any way espousing "extreme self-care", are both autobiographies intended as guides towards an examined life. They are the two following:

• You Learn By Living by Eleanor Roosevelt


• The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin by B. Franklin

I have read them and will read them again, and hope to pass what they teach on to my children.

Good Mirror, Bad Mirror

Be the change you want to see in the world.

-Mahatma Ghandi (1945), Indian Philosopher

Although Ghandi probably had grand social change in mind, his idea is especially helpful in more intimate relationships. Humans mirror each other all the time. Each interaction with a loved one is affected by both parties. Parents affect their children and children's responses affect their parents. The more powerful person in the relationship usually sets the mood. But the ability to block default mirroring patterns, at will, is crutial to one's happiness regardless of her place on the totem pole. A strong parent will sometimes have to ignore the overwhelming negativity his child projects. Healthy humans do this for each other; when we want to see our best friend happy, we act happy and grateful and have a great story to tell. We lift someone else's mood by picking the mood we want for the situation and acting on it. This really works!

You'll Get More Hugs If You Smile More

Emotions happen. But why?
Most of us love to feel joy. Some of us revel in angst. But what is the point?
Humans are social beings and are deeply connected to one another through a complex web of physiological signals and sensations.

The physiological sensations are called emotions, and their role is to maintain the ever stronger bonds that made humans human.

John Cacioppo, Sociopsychologist (2008)

But not all emotions connect us to other humans in the same manner. Emotions, especially negative ones, such as anger, sadness and hopelessness, may connect us to another human only when used infrequently and without guile. The famous Ella Wheeler Wilcox quote:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own

is mostly true, especially if the person weeping, weeps often and without undeniable cause. People who constantly swim in their negative emotions eventually find themselves alone. Emotions can be a repellent as well as a connector. Babies know this. They smile and giggle, and stretch their arms wide, hoping to be picked up and loved. They cry, also, hoping to be relieved from their misery. Adults do the same. But the perpetually miserable person eventually is seen as unattractive and pity towards her eventually turns to contempt.

Emotions push us socially towards others, or away from them. And many a human bond is broken because of an emotion.

Why Guilt?

Benjamin Franklin (1736) wrote a small paragraph about the death by smallpox of his son Francis (age 4). He wrote of how guilty he felt for years, because he had not inoculated his little boy. He wrote about how equally guilty parents whose children died despite inoculation must feel. Children could die with or without inoculation, he concluded, and guilt is part of grieving.
Years earlier, inoculation had been a very hot topic in the newspaper run by Franklin’s brother, The New England Courant. The Franklin brothers ridiculed inoculation and defamed its influential proponent, the Rev. Cotton Mather. I’m sure Franklin’s past history against inoculation added an extra emotional burden to his grieving process.

Franklin is right. Guilt is part of the grieving process. The question is: Why is guilt part of the grieving process?

Evolutionary psychologists may argue that loss must become sticky in an organism’s consciousness, so that loss is minimized in the future. Like burning pain prevents a child from touching a hot stove again. So burning emotional pain such as experienced by the loss of a child, should include guilt. Guilt brands culpability onto one’s consciousness and should prevent future loss.
Each child lost takes with her an infinite number of futures. Franklin himself said it best:

For the loss of one in ten
thereby is not merely the loss of
so many persons, but the accumulated loss of all the children
and the children’s children the deceased might have had,
multiplied by successive generations.

Benjamin Franklin (1785)

If an organism’s most important biological purpose is to survive until it reproduces, than guilt has an obvious function.

The pain of guilt is life’s way of saying “Don’t let this happen again.”