Ministry of Truth

It seems my worries about the latest governement crisis are irrelevant if not entirely redundant. And I am making peace with the fact that I myself am highly fictitious.

If you believe you live in Belgium, you would do well to try this link instead. Scroll down and click on "Belgium doesn't exist". Mentally prepare yourself to have your fundaments thoroughly reshuffled. When you're ready to accept your lot, come find me at my fictitious address and we can go hunt down a fictitious pint to wash away our highly fictitious troubles.

Thx Tom, for opening my eyes! It goes a long way to explaining my persistent existentialist crisis.

At 17 (Cue Janis Joplin)

The last few weeks, I've been pondering what it would be like to meet my 17-year old self again. A decade seems to have made all the difference. My intrinsic nature, quite logically, hasn't changed. But my opinions and attitudes to life, my self-perception... they've undergone drastic changes. And while that's surely a good thing, I do regularly try to tap back in to who I was when I was 17.

I remember the strong opinions I held and vowing to myself that I would never forget what I felt right there and then. And I haven't forgotten. I can recall the motivations behind those opinions, the emotions associated with them and can trace the changes all the way back to where I am today. On some things, I've blatantly taken a 180 degree turn. And while I feel I have done so with reason, I always wonder whether I would be able to explain myself to the 17-year old Le Pew.

If you could. Would you meet up with yerself? If you could go to dinner with who you were 10, 20, 30 years ago... would you? And if so, what would you try to convey to yourself, if anything at all?


I for one would like to go for dinner with Pew17, although the first issue would most likely be the choice of restaurant. Pew17 is a devoted vegetarian. I'm a reborn carnivore. However, since I'm the one most likely to pay for said meal, Pew17 will simply have to swallow the proverbial beef. I'd like to have a beer or perchance a glass of wine to accompany my meal, but Pew17 refuses alcohol or drugs of any kind. I'd confidently wear bootcut jeans, boots and a snug sleeveless top, while Pew17 is desperately trying to hide her (imaginary) Pluto-sized arse with a monstrously baggy T-shirt and one of dad's old jumpers.

Five minutes after the waitress has brought us our drinks, the ash-tray on the table will start to overflow with shredded napkin or beer cards. We're both fidgetters and it's highly likely that the labels will be peeled off both our drink bottles before the starter arrives. When the waitress walks past, we'll both sneak a quick peek at her bum. We'll feel slightly guilty at the overt sexism of our actions, but it's something we've never quite been able to control.

Pew17 will stare at me when I'm not looking, wondering how this could be her in a decade. She'll be disappointed with the fact that I've blatantly never had the guts to get a funkier hairstyle. Sad too, to see that the spots haven't all cleared. But happy that she'll succeed at shedding half a stone.

I know what the first question on her mind is. It's the one that'll keep her awake at night for another year or so. But she will wait to ask, as she's not sure I'd still understand. And I will wait to tell, as it's the topic most worth discussing. We'd need to ease into it.

I'll first tell her that I didn't become an astronaut. Not a space-engineer. No job at NASA. And that NASA disbanded the height-restrictions just before I went to uni, so that the choice not to become an astronaut, was entirely in my own hands.

She'll ask me how much longer she has to wait before she gets to move to Colorado. And I'd reply that we now have a rather distinct disdain for anything American. That the US flag got thrown in the bin a few months after we started uni. She'll growl at me. Tell me off for forgetting the promise I'd made to myself "not to settle for local". I'll tell her we didn't. That we left when we were 20 and only just properly returned a few months ago. And that it's been a fun - unamerican- wild ride.

She'll ask me who I vote for. And I would explain the concept of libertarianism. I would let her in on how things stopped being so black and white, just a few years ago. That opinions are not always a clear-cut thing. That she should watch Dogville, to understand what I mean. That it is possible for your gut to believe in one thing, but your mind to forfeit to another idea altogether. That the most important way to make a difference, is in first degree: by affecting those around you.

When my mobile phone rings, I'll pick up and say: "Hey babe! Can I ring you back in a wee hour? I'm having dinner just the now. Yeah, we're still at the restaurant. Uhuh. Yeah she ordered the vegetarian." She'll go quiet. I will let her mill it over. Then she'll take a deep breath and try: "Was that... your boyfriend?" I'll grin. "What do you think? What do you hope?"

She'll sigh and say that she honestly no longer knows what to hope for. I'll tell her it was my girlfriend and that she'd save herself a lot of time and energy, if she would only stop worrying about defining herself.

She'll scratch her neck, fiddle with her bottle and then she'll blurt out: "Does it ever get easy?" Yes it does. You'll learn to tune into yourself and pick it up in others. You'll learn not to fall for straight women. To not limit yourself to a label. To explore the fluidity of your sexuality without restraints. Without guilt. You'll figure out that you can be both genders, regardless of your sex. You'll figure out how not to be panicked by the stereotypes. How to work around them. To become your own definition. That the spectrum is there to move around on freely, without having to settle down.


She'll ask me for some advice. We've always had the inclination to skip to the final chapter of the book before starting page 1. I would like to tell her to be more lenient on others and to be kinder to herself. To ignore mirrors and explain to her the difference between good mirrors and bad ones. And that since the only good mirror is based in the toilets of a club in Dublin, all others are bound to make one look fatter than one really is, so it is best to ignore them altogether. I would like to tell her not to panic. To learn to count on herself. To never settle for second best. I would tell her to pay attention. That time goes by faster than she thinks. I'd tell her not to burn her diaries, because memory goes downhill fast. To not waste her time playing poker at the pub all day, the first year at uni. I'd tell her to trust her own instincts, because they never lead us astray.

That's the advice I'd like to share with her. But I won't. I need her to make the same mistakes all over again. To discover what I've learned. Changing her, would mean changing who I am today, and for the first time since long, I actually quite like me.


But I would tell her this, before parting ways:

"Your fear of loneliness is misdirected. What stifles you now, will become your drive. And the only thing holding you back, ever, is yourself."

As she slips onto her moped to set off home, I will shout after her: "And don't leave your moped at the house in France, once the house goes up for sale!!"

Women's Warped Sense of Time?

What does a lesbian bring on her second date?

A moving van.

This joke is funny simply because it's so painfully accurate. It's the stereotypical lesbian image: Girl and Girl meet, fall in love, start wearing each other's clothes, move in, adopt cats. All in the space of 6 months. But stereotypes are generally rooted in reality, and this one no less so. Based on personal experiences and observing some of my gay female friends, I would have to conclude that the stereotype is not too far off the mark. As a group, we have a tendency to move fast.

During a recent phone conversation about this topic with Jo (yes, the hot girl I mentioned a few posts ago), we both acknowledged that the two weeks that had passed since her visit, did appear so much longer than just two weeks. And it made me wonder whether maybe women simply have a different and unrealistic perception of time. If women perceive time differently than men do, then the time-perception of a lesbian couple is bound to be skewed. Perhaps men and women in heterosexual relationships balance each other out in this aspect, allowing them to move according to a more accurate timescale of relationship-events. While the warped-perception-of-time of two women in a gay relationship would merely aggravate the situation and therefore enhance the speed at which things move forward within the relationship.

So, I decided to browse Science Direct for a while to try and hunt down a few publications on gender differences in time perception. I found lots of publications that seem to confirm that women indeed tend to OVER-estimate duration of time, while men generally have an accurate sense of the time passed.

In light of this, it's probably no coincidence that the words "Bed" and "Death" are consistently preceded by the word "Lesbian". Lesbian Bed Death is a term used to describe the phenomenon of declining sexual activity about a year into a lesbian relationship. It's a bit of a scare-mongering term in the lesbian community and whether this concept is purely mythological or not, it is still highly debated both socially and academically. I personally think the whole phenomenon is largely exaggerated. The concept of the declining sex life is as much a straight as a gay issue in long-term relationships and depends highly on the individual couple. But I suppose that the warped sense of time could account for some instances of Lesbian Bed Death. If women systematically over-estimate the duration of time passed, then a year might indeed feel like a lot longer and I would guess that the emotional timeline would therefore reach the general long-term slump a tad sooner too.

Whatever the case, gay women seem to have developed a good sense of humor about this little "quirk" of ours to "move fast", as it's become a bit of a standing joke within the community. I'd say humor is always the first step towards awareness. Whether or not the awareness will be able to restrain us from renting out the U-Haul on a second date, is another matter entirely ;-)


References:

- Wittmann M et al. 2003, "Sex differences in perception of temporal order", Percept Mot Skills 96(1):105-12
- Krishnan L et al. 1984, "Perceived time: its relationship with locus of control, filled versus unfilled time intervals, and perceiver's sex", J Gen Psychol 110:275-81.
-Dolu N et al. 2004, "Sex-related differences in time estimation and the role of expectancy", Int J Neurosci 114(7):805-15
-Eisler AD et al. 1994, "Subjective time scaling: influence of age, gender, and Type A and Type B behavior", Chronobiologia 21(3-4):185-200
-Espinosa-Fernandez L et al. 2003, "Age-related changes and gender differences in time estimation", Acta Psychol (Amst) 112(3):221-32

The Meaning of Liff

"In Life, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist.On the other hand, the world is littered with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.Our job, as we see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society."

-Douglas Adams & John Lloyd-

I know this is old grub and I suspect most of you have read at least parts of the Meaning of Liff, but the topic of language and ideas came up in an intriguing conversation last night, and it instantly reminded me of the Meaning of Liff.

We talked about how certain terms are hijacked by a subset of people (or organisations) and taint the concepts related to the terms in such a way that people will instantly categorise them when they hear it. Take, for instance, the terms "energy" or "flow". Many people will instantly link these terms to new age concepts or "hippy-esque" ideologies, while in fact, the concepts behind these terms are universal and uncoloured by any ideology. So we discussed the importance of the evolution of language. How language needs to continuously be enriched. How concepts need to be defined by words that keep them approachable for anyone. How terminology needs to be altered so that the concepts themselves aren't instantly incorrectly categorized.

Language can be both rich and inadequate and I do believe we need to conciously and subconsciously work at its adaptations and growth.

The Meaning of Liff is a playful example of this. Do we have a word for that feeling of sitting down on a chair after someone else has just sat on it. You know... sitting down on that warmth left by a previous owner? Nope. Well, the Meaning of Liff conjures up a new word for it. And hundreds more. Fascinating and fun. You can buy the "dictionary" here.

The Weight of Words

There's few things I like more than spending an evening in conversation with a close friend over a few drinks. I'm fortunate to have friends who speak their minds at any given moment in time. I thrive off the feedback because I know that every word spoken, is softened by the warmth and safety of a strong friendly bond. My close friends - each and every one of them - have challenging minds and ways of thinking. It keeps me on my toes. It motivates me to take a step back and take stock of who I am and where I am at. It helps me redefine ideas, wear down my sharper edges or, failing that, to at least become aware of them. I might not always agree with their points of view, but I'm inclined to at least take them on board, because they come from minds I very much respect and admire.

Last night, over a quiet drink in a cosy li'l caff, the topic floated to the use of words. How to use them, when to use them and the subtle shifts between them.

It was pointed out to me that the language I use in my blog is becoming denser over time. That I increasingly use expensive words and that my sentence-structures have become more intricate. He pointed out that he didn't mean to focus on this in a pejorative light, but rather, as a simple observation. I have to admit that I wasn't really aware of any of this but he's right in that it's an important notion to consider when your writings are intended to reach an audience.

I think it's important to situate who your target audience is, because that generally determines your choice of topic and your choice of style. I gave my friend's opinions a lot of thought last night, because he of all people is someone who's viewpoints I value greatly. While his analysis is undoubtedly right, I think I've finally honed in on where I stand on the matter personally right now.


If I'm honest... I write this blog predominantly for myself. The average amount of time I spend on compiling my blogposts is about 10-15 minutes. I generally don't weigh my words nor my topics much. It's like a stream-of-conscious finding an easy outlet. My blog is like the proverbial shoebox of memories and thoughts stacked under the bed. And your part in this, as a reader, is to shine different colours of light on those memories and thoughts, so I can see more of the subtle aspects of them. So they become richer.


And the way I write, on a personal forum intended for no audience in particular, comes from deep within my belly. It's the raw, unpolished version of the language that reigns my thoughts. I love words. I love the richness of language. If I were to write science for the general public, I would adjust the level of language. But in personal matters, I revel in the richness of it all. I like thinking that my readers, like me, will go search for the meaning of a particular word they don't know yet, so words get replicated in more minds and grow stronger in their existence. My friend is one of those who do make the effort to look things up and keep learning. I think that is exactly the target audience I wish to attract, for that is exactly the person I am.

To finish off this post, I want to leave you with a gem of a phrase I recently came across in a French obituary:

"Il a basculé pour l’imparfait,
ce vilain temps où l’on ne parle de lui qu’au passé... "

QED ;)

Beware: Rant On The Way

I came out off the geek closet at work today. I'd received a few comments on my supposed use of expensive words (apparently the word "contamination" is classified as expensive these days) and on the fact that I was reading an English book during our breaks. So, I finally decided to out myself. Told all about how I've been living a double life and how I hope they will accept me for the geek that I am *grin*.

The response was really surprising. I had anticipated little more than a few shrugs and a stone-cold banishment from the social room. But instead, people started coming to me with more and more questions the further the day progressed. At first, it was just one of the girls. She told me she'd never had a chance to study, but had always been interested in science and its relation to things like religion, spirituality etc... We had a very pleasant conversation about this topic and I noticed that the others around us were listening intently, despite not participating.

After a while, someone else moved a little closer and said: "Would you mind if I asked you something? I've always wanted to know... birds... the way they all fly together, like... do you know how they do that, or is that not something you've studied". It's funny that this question should've come up, as it's the token example of Emergence in Complexity Studies. So I got VERY enthusiastic and explained as far as my limited knowledge stretched.

After that, the questions just kept coming from all corners. It'd turned into a game. They were testing my knowledge, but also, asking questions to which they'd apparently never found the answers themselves. And I have to say, the questions were interesting and insightful.

One of the questions though, turned the game into a rather poignant realisation. The person had been to see the doctor last week and was diagnosed with a virus, but was told by her doctor that there was no reason she shouldn't be at work. She said she couldn't remember the name of the virus, and hadn't really understood the doctor's explanation. She was worried, but afraid to ask him for more info, because she felt stupid. So I asked her if she could describe her symptoms and I said that while I was no doctor, it DID sound like a standard bout of mononucleosis. She said that that wasn't the word he had used, so I ventured a guess and said: "Well, did he maybe call it the Epstein-Barr virus?" She instantly recognised it and said: "YES!!"

It made me realise how seriously wrong we are. Us scientists, doctors, people responsible for communicating facts to laymen... we have got it seriously wrong. If a doctor doesn't sense that he should use less jargon when dealing with people who have no medical background and sends them home without answers because they are afraid to ask... then seriously, he shouldn't be a doctor.

I'm the first to admit that while I have some very libertarian-socialist viewpoints, I believe that a liberal/capitalist system is far more workable for everyone in our current global climate. We will always need people who do menial jobs... jobs that keep our economy floating. And sure, not everyone is up to the task to do high-flying jobs, but I very strongly believe that it is important that we keep including everyone into our information dispersal systems. Regardless of "status" (if you can call it that), people should always be made to feel that they belong. That they matter as much as the next person does. Because if we don't, we are re-widening a gap between the different social groups, our grandparents fought so hard for to close. Perhaps the gap will be less about money, but more about the possession of information.

The people I work with have thousands of questions. Interesting questions. And they are eager to listen if only someone would explain it to them in an understandable way. They might not read books, or browse the Internet for answers, but they like getting answers to things that pop into their heads during the experiences of every day life.

And I was thinking... maybe the government or several scientific institutes should subsidize something like an Info-Crew. Like a group of scientists/medics/experts who visit factories to work alongside the people there for a day or two, to just chat with them during work and over lunch breaks. So they get conversations going in an informal manner and people can just fire away their questions. No teaching. No lecturing. Just an easy access point to get answers to THEIR specific questions. It would certainly help to re-align the opinions about science and medicine. We'd probably start re-gaining our credibility if people felt that they OWNED the science as much as the researchers do.

Anyway. Just my two cents.

To apologize for this rant, I shall leave you with a little gem of an mp3: Metric - The Twist. Just click the file name in the box below to start listening. (Cool text as well)


Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

Dialogue

This might be a bit of a controversial post. I apologize in advance if it offends anyone.

A friend of mine recently told me that since her relationship fell apart, she's struggling to suppress the urge to take painkillers to numb herself. She seemed embarrassed yet relieved to be able to admit to such a thing. But I don't think she's an exception. I think this happens more often than people are willing to admit.

Some people seem perfectly capable of placing their emotions on a manageable platform: if everything around them comes crashing down, they can keep functioning. I'm not sure how they do it. I suspect they simply take some distance. But how one achieves this distance is beyond me.

The other type of people, they crash when everything else does. There's no more levels to it than that: they simply are their emotions. I know for a fact that I am part of this latter group. Everything comes to a halt and you just have to let yourself fall into whatever safety net you can find. I'm lucky. I have a tremendously patient, understanding and constructively supportive family and group of friends. Whenever I've been faced with situations I couldn't cope with, I've had a place to fall. A place to simply stop "being", for a little while.

But even then, I completely understand my friend's urges. It is ridiculously tempting to just numb yourself at times, to drown out your emotions. If you're one of those people who needs to go to the depths of their emotions to be able to resurface full strength, then a bit of numbing every now and then is very welcome. There's so many tempting external ways to help you take a break when your emotions can't give you one.

Alcohol is probably the most socially accepted form of numbing. I know quite a few people who are clearly purposefully sedating themselves on a regular basis, but no one ever comments, because drinking is socially acceptable in a lot of circumstances. Painkillers are less visible, but easy to get. Drugs, more dangerous and less socially accepted, but highly effective.

I rarely drink. My number of units a month probably amounts to no more than 8. If that. I have taken class A-type drugs on no more than maybe a dozen occasions. But in retrospect, it is quite obvious that when I did drink lots or did take drugs, it was at times where I felt emotionally unstable. I'm fortunate in that I am aware of this. I know what and why I am doing such things, when I am doing them. And this keeps me from falling into a destructive pattern at those times. It enables me to make those moments a rarity.

I think it should be socially acceptable for people to give themselves a breather before facing their issues head on. And I really don't think my friend had any reason to be embarrassed about admitting such a thing. If anything, an open conversation will make her feel less alone. But I also think society should be more tuned into dependencies. If people continue to sedate themselves with latent societally accepted aids, then they simply uphold a status quo. Nothing ever improves. We don't question enough. And so there is no dialogue. The threshold to admit to problems still seems insurmountably high for some people. And others still feel shame at admitting a very human problem.

People often ask me why I am as direct as I am, in my communications with others. It's because I want dialogue. I don't want to worry about stuff I needn't worry about. Things are complicated enough as they are. I have an incredible need to be open about things. To get feedback off others so I can put myself and what goes on in and around me, in the proper perspective. I don't want to second guess other people's actions. I don't want to hide emotions. Directness might make people uncomfortable, but everyone will know exactly where I am at and where they are with me. I'm sure that's the reason my friend chose to tell me about her worries. Openness breeds openness. We're all drawing the same line here, after all. We're all just as fallible as the next person.

Wrong Way to Employment

Hmmm.... well, I guess there's no point applying for a job with GSK anymore. They *might* be on to my blogpost "Spinning Words".

- Excerpt of my webstatistics -

Disclaimer: I do appologize to all the sincere scientists that work there. No need to tar everyone with the same brush.

Spinning Words

I know this is a familiar story: "Drug company 'hid' suicide link".

"Panorama reveals that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) attempted to show that Seroxat worked for depressed children despite failed clinical trials. And that GSK-employed ghostwriters influenced 'independent' academics."

But while we've all seen programs or read articles that have focussed on the topic of drug trial manipulations and the aggressive marketing style of some Pharmaceutical companies, this documentary takes on a slightly different perspective. It explores how the manipulation is achieved: through clever strategic use of spin-doctors and ghostwriters with a knack for "re-phrasing" the specifics and how their skills are used to reel in supposedly independent academics. It focusses largely on the power of word and perception.

I am interested in this topic for quite obvious reasons, but also because most -if not all- of the freelance translation work I do on the side, involves documents related to phase I and phase II clinical trials. It is interesting to study the wording in certain documents and I can only hope that if any of my family members or friends ever were to face the decision to participate in a drug trial because of health reasons, they will be guided through the sometimes ambiguous wording by someone who's got their best interest at heart.

Moreover, how do we keep ourselves from conveying the wrong messages? Language is clearly a very subtle, powerful tool. Are we always that concious of our choice of words? If I trawl through the archives of this blog, I am sure to find misleading statements, while I might not purposefully have written them in as such. We inherently rely on our own common sense and that of those nearest to us, to be corrected in our use of language and to be pointed out the hidden messages behind the facade of linguistics.

I think all of this pinpoints a process that underlies many misgivings and failures in democracy: the manipulation of language in politics, science, medicine, trade, economics, sales and education. And by extention, their (ab)use of the most powerful forum of words: The Media.
A fact that was worded incredibly well in Manufacturing Consent:


“Media is to a democracy, what violence is to a dictatorship.”


To watch the abovementioned BBC documentary, Click Here. (35-minute feature)

Addendum: I would like to point out that while the documentary itself reports on manipulation, it in itself is not entirely devoid of somewhat ambiguous, sensationalist spins.

Pulling Hairs

I am much too tired to write a complete typical Pew rant about the following, but I rather suspect this topic will be picked up by more blogs over the next few days. I hope they manage to word the frustrations better than I can at this very moment.

Climateprediction.net quite cleverly teamed up with the BBC to carry out what has been labelled the largest and most important Climate Change Experiment. I am all in favor of the idea of involving the general public by making use of their computers to distribute experimental/theoretical computations that would otherwise take years to complete in a single lab. NASA started a similar project a few years back as part of the SETI-project. I think it's brilliant.

However. There's as always a downside to such "popularisations" of science.

I dare assume that most of us are aware of the chaotic principles underlying the Earth's weather system. Most of us also know that when it comes down to the current forecasting models, the probabilities of the forecast being accurate drops off sharply after day 5 into the forecast. That is why most MetOffices generally dont give out weather bulletins more than 5 days ahead of time.

Whilst I am aware that slightly different probabilities are involved with larger scale, whole system predictions, it is safe to assume that due to the non-linear nature of climate, any prediction in the long term needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The actual methods of calculation and the reasoning behind the conclusion-forming is explained on the BBC site, and I would suggest you all have a look at it. I am fairly confident most amongst you will raise a few eyebrows when they then check the actual result page as displayed on the BBC site.

To state that Britain SHOULD expect a 4 degree rise in temperature by 2080 is simply absurd. It is the type of uncautious generalisation seen all too often in the media and makes me feel embarassed to be a scientist. Because we let the media get away with it. I am all the more annoyed because I generally regard the BBC as one of the last remaining flagships of genuine journalism out there.

I believe a little nuancing is desperately needed in the whole climate change debate. There are most certainly problems that urgently need to be dealt with, but before we all jump on the "end-of-time-catastrophe" bandwagon, let's just point out a few other bits of science that seem to tell a somewhat more balanced story alltogether...

In terms of glacier melting, I have two very fine examples right here:

A New Alpine Melt Theory

Too Cold to Snow?

Helen Margerison, who wrote the latter, was a 2005 New Scientist Essay Competition finalist and as such, I actually saw her present her findings at an award event in London. It stunned me at the time, because this sort of information generally doesn't get spread out over the newspages. It is far too nuanced. Far too "unexciting". Just pay attention to her statement that "... the odd thing about glaciers in the Dry Valleys is that they don’t melt when the climate gets warmer, they actually begin to grow..."

It's a sad time when people only care about environmental issues if there's a doomsday scenario attached to it. I'd like to believe that even if we nuance the situations correctly, people will still realise that we are doing some serious damage and that action is always justified, whether we are causing these natural events or not.