Good to be Bad

I feel great today! Maybe it's the meditation, or maybe it's the idea of a four-day weekend coming up. But--just for a day at least--the world seems right-side up.
Possibly it's a study on moods from Australia that's making me high on life. This morning I was reading a story on the MSN health page about improving your mental attitude. It was a 31-point list of the usual stuff about exercising, eating right, etc, etc, etc. But there, nestled in the middle of the first page was a little network news video about this study that claims bad moods might actually help you think.
The psychologists showed their subjects sad or happy movies in an attempt to induce a mood, then asked them to rate the believability of urban myths and rumors. Apparently the bad mood people were less likely to be gullible, less likely to make snap decisions and more careful and analytical in their thinking. Oh, and also, they were better at presenting a written argument.
"Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages," the study said.
Well all right then. We in the negative attitude community get tired of being beat up all the time in the media. For the past few decades, it's been nothing but a drumbeat of scapegoating. We're apparently to blame for economic downturns, social meltdowns and, most recently, our own illnesses. It's about time we had a study to call our own--one that claims the clear thinking and cogent writing that is our birthright. It's those positive people who are the ones sending money off to Nigerian princes and veering wildly between national policy viewpoints.
So there, positive people. How's it feel?
Then, while I was still gloating and chuckling, I checked into an article on GOOD about new software that can detect your mood by the type of words you use. The use of "I", for instance, shows not that you're an egomaniac, but that you're less powerful and more self conscious. Should I feel depressed about that? I'm sure I don't know how I feel yet, do I?
Toward the bottom of this article, the software's inventor said that the words were a gauge, but not a means of changing a person's mood:
"...you can’t ask someone to mindlessly repeat more “positive” words and expect them to become less depressed or suicidal. (The software's) real use is in detecting problems such as excessive worry or anger and then showing when progress has been made. When we become more mentally healthy, our language changes unconsciously, because we are changing perspectives."
Wow. Not only is it okay--no, good--to be in a bad mood, but you can't expect to change your mood by mindlessly repeating positive slogans. Like, "I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feed terrific!"
It's not usual for me to find two news items in one day that I love as much as these. Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about being negative. Maybe I don't have to change my personality after all.
The idea makes me feel...happy?
Uh-oh.

Book Corner

Just when I thought I was through with all the "mind over matter" advice givers, along comes Dan Brown with his newest, The Lost Symbol.
Now normally, I don't look to works of fiction for thoughts on how to become more optimistic (although maybe I should). The Lost Symbol was meant to be a little escape from my daily cares and worries. And it was fun, just like his other books, The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, though I think my favorite is still The DaVinci Code.
The age-old battle between belief and science is at the heart of the newest book, just as it was the others. But what makes this one different--and worth a look in the "Cockeyed Optimist"--is that it explores the way in which things that were once thought to be beliefs are becoming science. Things like meditation, biofeedback, the existence of a soul were once thought to be in the domain of a somewhat loopy new age belief system. But more and more, they're being tested by something called Noetic science. (Check out the Institute of Noetic Sciences site.)
This is not a book review. If you want the synopsis on the book, check out the official website.
Suffice it to say that as part of the plot, we are asked to buy into the idea of a set of ancient mysteries, purportedly unlocking powers of the mind that would bring about a utopian new world (or a distopian one, depending on whose hands hold the mysteries.)
[I read this book right after The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet. This book explores real life people with a plan for a Christian empire on earth, wrought by the United States. Talk about your creepy juxtaposition. Here are two books, out at roughly the same time, looking at the potential power of belief to bring about the upheaval of most of the world's stability. Whatever happens, I just hope it doesn't turn out like The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.]
But, to get back to optimism for a second...We already have a lot of studies about self-healing and biofeedback. Here's one from the Washington Post, 2005, which says experienced meditators show a marked increase in activity in an area of the brain that deals with happiness and positive thoughts. Here's an excerpt from the Post story:
Davidson's research is consistent with his earlier work that pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex as a brain region associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions. Using functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) on the meditating monks, Davidson found that their brain activity -- as measured by the EEG -- was especially high in this area.
Want something more recent? Here's one from Science Daily with this year's date saying Zen meditation appears to help alleviate pain.
Well, I've tried meditating on positive things, but I do not notice a marked increase in my happiness. Maybe I just haven't been consistent. Or maybe I'm rebelling against the idea that it's me--not the world--that needs to be fixed.
But, if I interpret the ideas of noetics correctly, we can also use our minds to point a laser beam at things outside ourselves that need to be changed. If that's true, I have quite a list.
So, beginning this weekend, I'm spending a little time each day visualizing things that I want to happen, but have no control over whatsoever. I guess this would be kind of like praying, but without all the self-editing.
We'll see what happens. In any case, it will be better than helpless worrying.

The Money Museum

Everyone needs a day off, now and then. I've found my brain just works better if I can have some time to completely squander on selfish interests. With the scramble of the past eight months, I've lost a lot of that time.
So it was that I decided to take a mental health day last week. Forget the book marketing, forget the unsent emails, the promises to my daughter.
What I wanted was a morning at the Money Museum.
The Money Museum, in case you haven't seen the billboards, is an educational area at the Federal Reserve in Kansas City. For years, I've heard about scout and school groups going there, but our kids missed out on it somehow. So last week, I decided, it was time to go.
I must admit, part of the appeal is the free souvenir--little bags of shredded money visitors can take home. Supposedly they're cut too fine to be able to piece together into a bill. But then maybe the Fed underestimates my determination.
Really, though, I just like the idea that the Fed has something called a "Money Museum." I think of museums as places you go to look at something formerly common but now rare. Like tepees and paddleboat wheels and dinosaur teeth. So it seemed perfect that I should visit one to see what this thing called "money" used to look like.
To get to the museum, you first have to go through a scary marble and glass security area with full airport x-ray equipment and guards in a glassed-in booth. Once inside, the museum occupies a corner of the building's first floor.
There are little touch-screen kiosks that tell you about various aspects of the Federal Reserve--the reason "why you can trust your bank," as one sign says. And there was a movie screen in the middle. But the thing that caught my eye was a long wall with examples of coins minted during each administration. Half-pennies, half-dimes, double eagle gold pieces. Who knew money used to be so interesting and fanciful? (How much were those gold pieces worth? And how, exactly is a half-dime different from a nickel? There wasn't any script to answer those questions.)
There were a lot of other things there, too. A gold bar worth $471,139, tantalizingly close in a display case that invited me to pull the lever to feel how heavy it is. Some war money from the Confederacy and World War II. (Didn't see any scrip from old company towns though. Probably, it's a sore subject now.)
Best was a long time line with objects from the Kansas City Fed over the years. You can start at the right and take a walk down memory lane of Federal Reserve red-letter days. I looked tenderly at the Glass-Steagall act of 1933, and then at its repeal in 1999, which has been widely blamed for the banking speculation that brought the economy almost to collapse last year. I spent a minute pondering 1935, when married women were kicked out of their jobs to make way for the men. And at that day a few years ago when banks could electronically process checks, thereby erasing the "float" on which our budget always depended.
Last stop, around the corner and down a hall, was an area I like to call the "crying room." On one side is a wall of bills (or facsimiles) behind a transparent barrier. This, we are told, is what $40 million of $100 bills looks like. You'd have to spend a dollar every second for 15 months to unload it all, according to the sign. Personally, I doubt that. How about we set up an experiment so I can test their data?
And at tour's end is a window to one last room. Two or three workers are loading stacks of bills into a conveyor on a low, gray machine. I see a window into the machine, with a flashing strobe. Apparently it's reading the money. Look closer, the visitor center greeter advised me. See that tube blowing dust up into the ceiling? That's worn out bills, on their way out of the shredder.
Aaaauuugh!
On my way out, I picked up a couple of pamphlets, a box of colored pencils (non-toxic. Made in China!) and, of course, my little plastic bag of shredded bills.
"There is approximately $165 of unfit currency in this bag," reads the label. Hmmmm.
Well, gotta go now. Got some work to do. Don't call me. I'm going to be busy for a while.

Color my glasses

There was a story in the New York Times last week. And I tried to write about it. I did. Day after day.
But as you see, I was unable to. It just didn't help in the optimism end game.
The story, by Michael Luo, was about unemployment's impact on families, particularly children. It quoted studies that suggest children in families where the primary bread winner has become unemployed suffer emotionally--to the extent that they may be more likely to drop out of school, were 15 percent more likely to repeat a grade and may have lower earnings as an adult.
First reaction: I'm grateful, for my daughter's sake, neither of us has become unemployed. But on second thought: Has anyone studied what mega pay and hours cuts do to kids? When you add the unemployed to the underemployed, you're talking about a lot of people right now. If these things hold true, then Wall Street's greed and mismanagement are even more detestable than previously imagined.
Not only have large corporations taken their workers, wrung them out and cast them off, not only have they stolen huge amounts of taxpayer dollars, but now they are stealing from our children's futures as well. And on another front, an insidious group called "the Family" has worked its tentacles into US and world politics, using religion to defend the status quo. (More about this another time. But seriously, everyone should read The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet.)
Deep breath here. See what I mean? This line of angry thinking is not very useful to me at the moment. It is not helping me be an optimist.
So instead, I'll meditate today on another story I found, this time in Slate and Newsweek. In it, Daniel Gross argues that job recovery may be sooner rather than later. He cites big gains in productivity over the past few months--meaning fewer workers are doing more work. (Economists call this productivity. Another name would be under-paying your employees.) These gains will force companies to hire sooner, because there's only so much you can squeeze out of an employee before he or she collapses. "Hamsters can only run so fast on their treadmills," is the way he puts it.
This could be very good news for all of us.
Assuming the hiring takes place in the United States.
Sigh. There I go agin.

Don't jump!

MSNBC.com did an interesting (and rather long) online post today about suicide rates and the current recession. I just finished reading it, and I have the feeling this is going to be one of those things I'll be waking up to think about in the wee hours.
The writer, JoNel Aleccia, examines suicide spikes in a few places where the recession has been longer and stronger than the national average, then looks at the possibility that we're in for an increase in suicide because of the economy. (Whole story here)
Of course, full data won't be in for a couple of years (the most up-to-date figures are as recent as 2006). But the gist is that, despite these spikes, there isn't enough evidence to say that the recession itself is to blame. Maybe some of the recession go-withs--like home foreclosure, bankruptcy and job loss--provide the last straw for already-depressed individuals. But again, you can't just pin everything on the recession.
As an occasional already-depressed individual, this intrigued me. I've certainly felt the despair, shame and anger that go with seeing your spouse downsized. But why would it be worth taking your life? Why?
The easy answer would be that it's not the money. It's the way the money affects you. It's the daily drumbeat of disappointing your kids when they ask for something even as simple as an ice cream or a movie. It's the public shame of seeing your home go for auction, and perhaps hearing malicious or clueless strangers laugh at your distress.
It's the feeling of becoming invisible.
As a work-at-home mother, I'm familiar with this feeling. In America, your job defines you. When you no longer have that corporate-employee stamp of approval, you see your self worth drifting away. Self-employed won't cut it, either. Self-employed gets you asked for your spouse's job info.
Unemployment seemed to be more visible during the Great Depression. You had bread lines, hobos, skinny kids. But because of various reforms from that era, it's less visible now. Is that a good thing?
During my lifetime, attitudes have changed to make the loss of job and money even more unbearable than it might have been in the hippie 60s where I spent my childhood. I've watched as, during the Reagan years, the ultra wealthy and those "masters of the universe" became the most celebrated beings in America. People of lesser means were blamed for their own conditions, told to "take responsibility" for their misfortune.
Weird coincidence: I just started reading The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet. I'm not very far into it--only up to the chapter on how the religious right gained traction among power brokers during the bloody battles with organized labor in the 1930s. The pitch to the executives then was that labor strife could be eliminated if only the Christ-led top men of the companies treated employees like children (presumably instead of beating them out of their pay, as was then the custom).
A lot of unions have been busted, in the intervening years. Maybe the corporate honchos took that advice. But if they're the daddies and we're the children, then I think it may be time to call Social Services. Get us a foster family. Because too many children are being booted out the door each day with no coat and no lunch money and no doctor.
So, rather than ruminate on how bad things are, we the already-depressed nation need to take some action. We need to mold society back to suit our own needs. (And why not? It's been done for decades by the other side.)
The way I see it there are two ways to go: Take up the picket sign and the megaphone (or just the regular phone) and do what you can to make things better. Or return to the lazy hippie ways of the '60s. Tune in and drop out, man. Become The Dude.
Now pardon me while I take some time to decide.

Godspeed

Call me an overemotional, preachy, patriotic spendthrift. But when Stephen Colbert announced his fundraising effort to help the US Olympic speed skaters, I couldn't resist.
The team lost it's main sponsor this week when DSB Bank of the Netherlands was declared bankrupt in Dutch court, leaving the team scrambling to find $300,000 with a short time before the competition. (ESPN story here)
I don't know what exactly it is about this that got me. Maybe it's the infuriating image of America it presents to the rest of the world.
Yes, folks, that's us. Unable to represent ourselves on the world stage because we are indebted to a foreign bank. Here are our best and brightest, helpless against the forces of high finance. Just like the rest of the country, they're willing and able to do the job, but someone else has all the money tied up.
It makes you just want to rise up, doesn't it?
And so I did. Despite our 30 percent (plus) pay decrease, I put in an online donation this morning.
And you know what? It felt pretty good to be giving to this team. If a lot of other people do the same thing, maybe it will send a message to the rest of the world.
Take that, big money elitists. When Americans decide together that we want an Olympic team (or health care, or public schools or fire protection) you don't have the final say. We do.
Now that's a message of optimism.