hearing what we want to hear

I've been re-reading Adele Hite's "As the Calories Churn" series -- and it's time for another episode, dear!  ;-)  ... SO many quotable moments here!  I was tempted to take a chunk out of her first article, which talked about how our dietary guidelines don't just ignore the science, but virtually put their fingers in their ears and say "lalalalala" to drown out the truth of our problem....

But continuing on through the first and into the second installment, i was inspired by a whole 'nother idea:  that when people read studies or the articles, discussions and twitter-storms that follow, how often their personal predilections cause them to zero in on PARTS of the message that jibe with their very own desires!

It's human nature.  The previously-fat-deprived individual hears the Good News a la Atkins, and the immediate take-away is, "i can eat all the bacon i want!!!  :-D" -- except Atkins never told us to stuff ourselves with ANYTHING.  He said to eat till we're satisfied, and pay attention to our bodies' cues so that we'll get ENOUGH, but not overload.  Conversely, the carb-addicted individual will read the voices of reason in the paleo-blogosphere and hear, "carbs are GOOD for you -- you just burn them off, and they aren't stored as fat", whereas if they were paying attention to the fine print, they'd have noticed that the caveat that causes their interpetation to be true is IF THE CARB-EATER IS BURNING GAZILLIONS OF ENERGY UNITS while in serious athletic training ... and even then candy is not an appropriate source of carbohydrate.  Sedentary individuals need not apply (this factoid to their personal experience).

The Oscar Wilde's maxim, "nothing succeeds like excess" is a very popular concept when it comes to indulging our hedonistic whims, but it really isn't as good a personal motto as "discretion is the better part of speeding valor" (oops, i was telling you my DRIVING motto, not my LIVING one).  I've always been fond of "procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday," too, and other Archie-isms....

"Truth" is likely to lie somewhere between what we HATE and what we want to hear.

On a more Ernest note -- doggone it, once i start down that Wilde road it's hard to turn back -- on an EARNEST note, once we have hit that midlife speedbump, the time for manic abandon is pretty much over!  The bacon or sweet-potato (or beer) orgies that we used to be able to indulge in our twenties with NO repercussions, and which we were able to recover from pretty quickly in our thirties, can now cause a lot more lasting damage.  A wheat, lettuce or cheese binge can make me miserable for a week.

I've digressed, which easily happens when i get in a whimsical mood.  ;-)  But yeah -- it's a temptation to read what we want to, when ambiguous research reports come within our radar.  If the message tends toward ANY extreme, we should look on it with much more cynicism than may come naturally.  Any GOOD study is likely to tell us nothing that's entirely new or revolutionary;  people HAVE been doing "good science" for a long time, even if the media pass it along very poorly, and bloggers do marginally better/worse.  The best we can hope for are refinements of what we already know.

another reason people love ELMM

...Not only is it SIMPLE and intuitive, ELMM provides self-aggrandizement to those who flock to its banners.

I was just reading Dr. Sharma's post for today, and it hit me:  it's all about oneupsmanship!  ***I*** am not overweight and you are, therefore ***I*** am a better person because ***I*** control my appetite and have the WILLPOWER to get off my butt and EXERCISE!

Now, THIS is not an original idea, but rather sad; an awful lot of people have been so misled by modern entertainment and pop-psychology that they feel they have to be special somehow, and the best way to do that is to make somebody else "lesser."  It's finally considered uncivilized to do this in an across-the-board fashion with race, "handicap" and gender, but those with a high-school-level brain (whether or not they have their PhDs) still bolster their self-importance by means of artificial logical arguments ... like ELMM.

(So how do i explain those who insist on the relevance of ELMM, but are still overweight?  Hmmmm....)

;-)

negativity

I have a confession -- there's ONE network television program i do enjoy watching, and that's What Not to Wear.  I see my younger self in some of the "frights" that are featured on the show, and i really rejoice in their ultimate realization of how good they CAN look, when a little insight is able to get them past a few preconceived notions.

Women who are past their "first youth" are frequently poster-children for the whole makeover concept.  Often, those who had their heyday in their school days cling to the look that worked for them back then, and those of us who were (speaking charitably) "cute" strive to find a style that will take us to an improved level, at least.  When we've done our subjective best to look as good as we can, the results can be ... ahem ... not what we intended.  Some are just dated or dowdy, some trampy, and some (who pride themselves on intellect, personality and imagination) go for a quirky look.  In the end, some of these individualists turn up on WNtW.

I believe that it's both a product of society and hard-wired in women to want to look pretty* (and as a corollary, feel loved).  When nature is less than generous, we turn to art to bring it about, but ... doesn't Art go through phases of being less-aesthetically-pleasing from time to time?  (Well, at least i think it does....)  Society then rewards the more attractive and penalizes the less-so, both professionally and in social relationships.  It just reinforces what we suspected all along -- if you're pretty, you win, and if you're not, the universe hates you and you're just SOL.  It's hard not to be sour and negative.

The thing you see, over and over, with these semi-unattractive subjects on WNtW is a persistent, unrelenting negativity.  One "failure" when they try on some item of clothing, and that kind of item CANNOT look good on them.  They see another item of clothing, and it reminds them of something unappealing in their past, and THAT item is tabooed.  Then, one of these items, that fits properly and is chosen mindfully, is tried on and -- miracle of miracles -- is suddenly a success.  Sometimes, a really becoming outfit is brushed aside because the wearer doesn't look the way she wishes she did, in it.  Some of them have a hard time accepting a compliment (and i credit the hosts and aestheticians, that their compliments are believable and not overblown); they've been efficiently brainwashed to not celebrate their best points, only to bemoan their worst ones.

The psychological conditioning we all experience growing up, from family and friends and society at large, is often HORRIBLE.  People who SAY they love us, frequently set us up to fail, and it takes some of us an awfully long time to rise above it ... if we ever do.  We need our successes to encourage us to more effort, and we need to view our failures in a realistic light.  None of us, not the most beautiful, is flawless.  NONE of us.  We DESERVE to be able to think well of ourselves for anything positive in our hearts, minds and bodies, even if it's a gift of nature rather than "earned."  The stupid societal proscription of "vanity" as a manipulative tool to keep people from being braggarts constantly overshoots its aim, resulting in self-defeating diffidence and feelings of worthlessness.  That's BAD.  

DAMN repressive monastic asceticism.  It's "medieval" in the worst possible way.  Keeping people in their place -- i.e., not allowing them to shine -- is a hellish practice, and will reap the karmic reward it so flagrantly deserves.

One of my friends from community-theatre days taught me a lesson that i happily practice as often as possible.  If i THINK something nice about a person, even a stranger's beautiful eyes or clothing, i tell them so.  Maybe they need to hear it.

____________________

*  it's funny -- "ugly" men can be very attractive.  Doesn't seem to work the same for women.