Psychology
What Am I?
Who and what am I now? Am I the sum of my life or only of the past months?
from ‘Flowers for Algernon’ by Daniel Keyes.
What truly defines one’s character? I am a different person to different people around me. Each one knows me as a certain person by judging and experiencing the fragment of time they have spent with me. Only I know the true me, the one who has spent a lifetime with my real self. Does that make a person’s character a constant or a variable based on everyone’s perspective?
Obsession with Sports and Dance
The mature humans’ ability to indulge so crazily in sports like cricket, football, and the like often amuses me. While playing a game requires physical and mental engagement, the sheer craziness with which they watch and enjoy these sports is simply unexplainable.
Similarly, the idea of watching dance as a form of entertainment is something that only humans seem to be capable of. Dance is essentially a rhythmic, systematic movement of the body parts, either to an external tune or, in some cases, an inner musical rhythm. It must bring joy to the one who performs it, but the human tendency to derive pleasure from merely observing this activity is quite fascinating.
Perfection or Permanent
Practice doesn’t make one perfect. It makes the habit permanent. We become of our habits.
Reading & Writing
Reading and writing helps to expand our experiences & perspectives.
Emotional baseline
You can’t feel crazily grateful to be alive your whole life any more than you can stay passionately in love forever—or grieve forever, for that matter.
Most people inevitably return to a certain emotional baseline after circumstantial highs and lows.
We Learn Nothing
-Tim Kreider
Regression to the mean
Definition: if something is measured to be unusually high or low, the next measurement is likely to be closer to the average or “mean” value.
Example 1: For someone who is going through weight loss journey, after the first few weeks, they see a dramatic drop in their weight. (due to factors like water weight, changes in diet, and the novelty of the new routine.) The rate of weight loss will likely slow down and their weight will start to move closer to their true average or healthy weight range. The initial “honeymoon” phase of rapid weight loss, followed by a leveling off as the body finds a new equilibrium is the fine example of Regression to the mean, which explains why the extreme initial results are unlikely to be sustained long-term.
Example 2: When a newly married couple is deeply in love, their feelings and emotions tend to be at an extreme high. However, over time, as the relationship matures and the couple faces the realities of daily life together, there is often a regression towards a more balanced, “average” level of love and intimacy. The extreme highs and lows of the early relationship tend to even out. The strong negative emotions expressed during these conflicts represent the lower end of the spectrum, compared to the initial infatuation. As the couple works through these challenges and finds a new normal in their relationship, their feelings towards each other are likely to regress back towards a more moderate, sustainable level of love and connection. The extreme highs and lows even out over time.
Tim Kreider says every human emotions will eventually come down to an emotional baseline after experiencing extreme highs and lows.