Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 82

*The F-Word

In the interest of scientific endeavour, and using google's Ngram, A pointed out to me that the word fuck reached its apex of use in the printed word in 1700, and even now, despite the rise in popularity of fuck, has only reached halfway to that peak.This corresponds to the baroque period, as A informs me, and therefore perhaps fuck and fugue in some way co-relate.

I read recently about Google's Ngram application, which searches the google books' database for frequency of words or phrases. It can also graph 2 at a time and compare them within the parameters you set. The above was done between 1600 and 2008 using a smoothing factor of 10. The longer the time period, the more useful it is have have a higher smoothing factor, the shorter the period the smaller the smoothing factor.

Try it yourself–have fun!

Thank you A for the laughs and the enlightenment, as always!

Filed under: Literature Tagged: the literary use of fuck

*Aging and Creativity

Gail Godwin, age 73, has outlived Henry James, and in a wonderful essay in the NYT, she contemplates the changed way she now writes. She starts out by talking about when she was a young author, looking at every writer's birthdate, comparing their age to hers, and their number of published books. Ouch, yes, she got my number. She doesn't do that anymore, but what she does instead is encouraging:

You want to be taken seriously; that doesn't change. What has changed for me is the degree of compromise I am willing to inflict on my work in order to see it in print…

When I was a young writer, I would jump-start the next project as soon as I completed the last. "You have been too damn lazy," I scolded myself..

Now I do a lot of lying around. Finally I have accepted that my supine dithering is fertile and far from a waste of time…I have discovered I can compose whole paragraphs in my head and find them waiting, intact, next morning.

I am looking forward to that! Like Godwin when she was younger, I can only write paragraphs when I write. My head doesn't (yet) produce any worth remembering. She also has an instructive attitude toward the disappearing words phenomenon of aging.

Now you wait, and this waiting offers a variety of responses. You can rail at your "senior moment"…You can, of course, resort to your ragged thesaurus…You can do without the word and perhaps realize how little you needed it, especially if it happened to be an adjective or an adverb…You can also take a break from your work and read some poetry…

For me, a consolation prize of word delay has been an increased intolerance for the threadbare phrase. I don't want anyone on my pages to "burst into tears" or "just perceptibly" do anything, ever again. Better to take a break and ask: "What exactly do I want to say here? How does this really look?"…The old writer hopes to do credit to the material that has been hers or his alone.

Well, this is all so exciting, I've got to think–why wait until I'm 73? Like the woman in the poem, I should start to practise now.

from: Warning – When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

By Jenny Joseph

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

h/t Beth Kephart who brought this article to my attention. Thanks Beth! I am going to lie around now and think about a mother and daughter in my new book.

Filed under: Literature Tagged: Gail Godwin

*Optimism: 200 years 4 minutes

Filed under: Politics & Economy Tagged: joy of stats

*Monday Experiment: Values II

Last week I started my experiment to write weekly about my values, following the study that it is the antidote to stereotype threat. Students' achievements, depressed due to conscious or unconscious perceptions that they couldn't do as well as others due to race, gender, or other factors, rose after writing about what they valued and why.

My experiment began easily enough. I enjoyed writing about love and thinking more deeply about what it is. But then, to my surprise, I faltered. I started and stopped the exercise several times. Perhaps what I think I value and what I really value, why I think I do and why I really do, are not the same. It took a while to find the way in and to find the words. That in itself is instructive.

I intended to write about solidarity today, but instead I need to write about truth. It is the second of the principles by which I live, but one that I am shyer about than solidarity, because truth seems too big a word and also one that has been used too much and too often for purposes which I detest, for domination and control over others.

So I would have to say that truth is in the seeking as much as in the telling, and it has to go hand in hand with honesty and humility. When that is the case then truth does set us free. And I value freedom, though not the sort of freedom that is bandied about with flag waving and a squadron of bomb carrying airplanes off to blast "freedom" on some other people.

Having experienced being squashed and dominated, I passionately value the freedom to be who I truly am and all that I truly am. This value is what got me into therapy and kept me there, turning once more to examine the truth when the going was tough and denial was rather attractive. To be all that we are is to truly shine forth in this human form.

However I have to ask: doesn't that also include our flaws? Why do we strive for perfection if, as I wrote last week, we are here to experience love and diversity, not a singular, perfect, uniformity of being? If I value diversity and all that I am, then I ought also to value those qualities that I (or society) think of as negative because they are part of the package of being, just as farting is a necessary part of eating good food.

You eat, you fart and you shit. It doesn't smell good and it needs proper disposal but it isn't a bad thing. Anybody who can't fart or shit knows the pain of it, and if it goes on too long, then a trip to the emergency room results.

If I look at my own thoughts, they are not in accordance with my values, for I spend a lot of time in self-recrimination, and perhaps this is why I had so much trouble continuing this experiment. I have to face a contradiction: though I am passionate about freedom to be who I am, the truth is that I don't live by it in the way that I treat myself. Instead I have a habit of trying to mold myself into some form of perfection, always giving, always attentive, productive, fit, well-read.

Yikes–doesn't that sound obnoxious? Don't worry; I don't ever get there; in reality I am far too human.

And so I come back to last week, standing in a place of love, I see my greatest flaw, a desire for perfection. And I forgive that, too.

Filed under: A Monday Moment, My Life, Spirituality Tagged: imperfectibility

*Terry Pratchett on Alzheimer's

Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite writers. Even though I'm not a fan of fantasy (beyond his books) I have read every one of his except for a couple of the kids' books. This is because the fact that they're fantasy is relevant only insofar as it makes the books more about our times. It is fantasy/scifi at its best: social commentary, satire, exploration of the human condition (even when the characters aren't human). He is witty, wise, and literate. I can't believe that he turns out a new book every year (and more) of this calibre. I am more impressed by some over others, but I read and enjoy them all.

Having been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Sir (deservedly imo) Terry Pratchett donated a million dollars for research because "it's amazing how people listen if you stand up in public and give away $1million for research into the disease." He has PCA, a variant of Alzheimer's that allows sufferers to remain fluent and coherent while robbing them of memory and visual perception. Here he is writing about his diagnosis with the same honesty, acuity and verve he brings to his books:

When in Paradise Lost Milton's Satan stood in the pit of hell and raged at heaven, he was merely a trifle miffed compared to how I felt that day. I felt totally alone, with the world receding from me in every direction and you could have used my anger to weld steel. Only my family and the fact I had fans in the medical profession, who gave me useful advice, got me through that moment. I feel very sorry for, and angry on behalf of, the people who don't have the easy ride I had…

I felt that all I had was a voice, and I should make it heard. It never occurred to me not to use it. I went on the net and told, well, everyone. I wish I could say it was an act of bravery. It wasn't and I find that suggestion very nearly obscene. How brave is it to say you have a disease that does not hint of a dissolute youth, riotous living or even terrible eating habits? Anyone can contract dementia; and every day and with a growing momentum, anybody does…

It is a strange life when you "come out". People get embarrassed, lower their voices, get lost for words. Fifty per cent of Britons think there is a stigma surrounding dementia but only 25% think there is still a stigma associated with cancer. It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer's you are an old fart. That's how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

Full story here.

Filed under: Literature, Nature & Science Tagged: PCA, Terry Pratchett

*Good News for Education

Canada has ranked among the top 6 countries in the international PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) school achievement scores. Not only that but my province, Ontario, was singled out for special mention of successful education, especially given that it's the province with the highest population and highest number of immigrants.

Paul Wells in McLean's writes:

You can argue that other parties, or a given reform, would produce better results. But one specific feature of Canada's education systems is worth noting, preserving and working to reinforce: the low correlation between socio-economic background and education outcomes. In Canada more than in almost any country, relative poverty doesn't lock a student into poor school performance, which means it needn't lock a young person out of a rewarding career. It's a huge asset.

For more on this and a video to go with it, the link is here.

Filed under: Canada, Politics & Economy Tagged: education

*What Is Love?

In Monday's post I wrote about my values, and then re-wrote my post as I though more about it. This exercise I've begun has turned out to be more interesting and more exercising then I'd anticipated. After I posted I realized that I hadn't talked about what I mean by love though that is the word I used to identify the first principle that guides my life. So what is it? That's what I've been thinking about.

Many years ago, when I was young, I read a short story about a Jewish man imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition. There is a chilling scene where a monk, one of his torturers, suffocatingly embraces him and speaks of his love for the prisoner and how the torture and the man's death will lead to his salvation.

I don't remember the title or the author but that scene has always stayed with me as an example of how the word love can be misused by someone who believes that cruelty and domination equals love.

The word love is thrown around a lot. I love ice cream, I love French fries, I love a great read, I love my kids, my husband, my friends, my mother-in-law. Yet I mean something different by each of those statements. And even the love I feel for my kids while they are bickering is not the same emotion I feel when they are peacefully asleep and I am thinking over the day.

If I were to choose other words for those statements in order to add precision to them, I would say that eating ice cream is delightful and drives my cares away; a great read is inspiring and the best way to spend a rainy afternoon; my kids sometimes drive me crazy but underneath is always a bedrock of knowing that they are the greatest kids in the cosmos; that I thought my husband was cute when I first set eyes on him and since then I've discovered that he not only turns my crank, he is fun, smart and sweet and I want to grow old with him; that my friends are my sisters; that every time I hug my aging mother-in-law I wish she would visit more often.

It takes a lot more words to say all that. In doing so, I see that the word love encompasses predilection, appreciation, affection, loyalty, passion, compassion. Yet love is more than any of those because love stays steady while other less elevated feelings pass over it: irritation, fatigue, resentment, anxiety, annoyance.

It's easy to love ice cream because it demands little. When I relate to ice cream it is a simple and pure relationship of appreciation. Relating to kids is more complicated. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Travelled, said that love is not a feeling, it is an action. I would like to assert that love as I used it in Monday's post is not an action either but a position.

When I'm looking at everything I have to do, when I'm worried about my achievements or about money or my kids' grades, when I'm irritated by the sound of bickering, when I'm tired and just want to be left alone, I am turned away from the beloved. But when I turn back, what do I see?

The shared heart of my life. And it is that view that restores me. It's an easy place to find when the house is quiet and my kids asleep. It's harder in the hurly burly of daily life. But that's why I meditate, to at least start the day, after "eat breakfast", "get your teeth brushed," "it's cold today wear snow pants," with the reminder of who I am, who they are, and where we are together. That's the place of love.

How about the people I can't abide? Or the people who are nice enough at a distance? Or the people who are good people just not ones I'd like to spend much time with because we just aren't like minded?

To regard them from a place of love is to know that they, too, are human beings deserving of love. That isn't always easy, either. And now I have brought myself to another point of needing to stop and think. So I will go out into the cold sunshine and walk while I do so (and pick up furnace filters while I'm at it). See you later.

Filed under: My Life, Spirituality Tagged: defining love

*Monday Experiment: Values 1

After reading about the experiment in which female physics students improved their grades merely by writing about what they valued in life and why, I decided to do the same myself and see what would transpire. Litlove (whose blog about literature is thought provoking and preceptive) suggested that the exercise be posted and so I decided to do that every Monday until the end of the year.

Litlove's wonderful post about her own beliefs is here. I found it energizing and exciting to read–and it made me think that there might also be a positive contagion in blogging this way. It certainly pushed me to get right to my own post. My method is this: to hand write for 15 minutes on Saturday, type it up on Sunday, post it on Monday.

A bit of background first: a few years ago, I wrote a constitution for my life, which, periodically I review and update. It begins with four principles, so I began this exercise by taking the first principle and expanding on it. Here goes.

Since we are in this world as separate beings in order to experience love and diversity, I value love above all because to stand in love is to stand in light, which is our origin, our true being, and our purpose. This is the truth behind all the stand-ins that we seek as we negotiate the material world, accumulating status, possessions, or other simulacra for love.

I value creativity as a holy act. It is holy because it happens as we open to love and light and wonder and it opens us further. It brings us into closer knowledge of the material world, its properties and its possibilities and therefore its nature as an emanation of light. I know, too, the sadness of life, for all qualities exist as soon as there is division. If there were only light, if there were only oneness, there would be no world. Since there is a world of warm and cold, then there is health and sickness, kindness and cruelty, solid earth and quaking earth and everything in between.

It is only natural to be afraid. But one may always return to a place of love in which we can hold ourselves and others gently. There we remember who we really are and what really matters. There is love and there is wonder at the magnificent otherness of stars and atoms and all the flavours of ice cream.

I believe in love…., originally uploaded by Carl Loves Somerset.

Next week: solidarity.

Filed under: A Monday Moment, My Life, Spirituality Tagged: love

*PhD in the Mother Tongue

When I was a kid, I heard the term "mama loshen," mother language used for Yiddish with affection and longing for what was lost.

But as a young adult, I lived for a couple of years in an apartment across the hall from a First Nations guy. He was a big guy, tall and broad, a few years younger than I was, which seemed like a lot back then when every man I met was sized up for dating potential. Though we talked just a couple of times, I never forgot him.

He was studying law and hoping to be a lawyer for Native rights, but was struggling with depression. There had been so much loss in his life, his culture, his friends to drugs and suicide, even his language. I thought I could understand the last. YIddish is a lost language I said, spoken now only by the ultra-orthodox as their first language, their kitchen language. He looked at me and said there were only two people left who spoke his language. Two in the whole world.

So it was with glad tears in my eyes that I read the story forwarded to me by A.

York University is the first Canadian university to "officially sanction the use of a language other than English or French in graduate work." Alfred Metallic in the Faculty of Environmental Studies is "the first PhD candidate at York to defend his thesis in an Aboriginal language – it was written and spoken in the Mi'gmaw language."

"Our language, it's how we maintain our relations and how we understand where we come from. It gives you access to your place in the world," says Metallic. In the Mi'gmaw language, the action comes first, then the person. It's the opposite with the English language….

"There's a circle that needed to be expanded a bit by including others for a more holistic circle," says Metallic…

And so in October, some 1,300 kilometres from Toronto, Metallic orally defended his dissertation in a ceremony that included a sweetgrass smudging, singing, a feast, a give away and the inclusion of the Aboriginal community as well as the academic one.

Read the full story. It's worth the time.

Filed under: Canada, First Nations Tagged: PhD First

*Try This at Home

Stereotype threat is the psychological condition of believing (even unconsciously) that due to your gender, race, or other factors for which a stereotype exists, you are not as good as others at some skill. Studies have shown that this results in lower achievement for African-Americans academically and for girls and women in math and science. How to combat this threat? Very simply.

Previous studies have shown that African-American students achieved higher grades through a simple writing exercise in which they wrote about what they valued. Now this has been extended to women in science.

At the University of Colorado, Akira Miyake asked female students in a university physics class to write about what they valued and why for 15 minutes. It could be family, creativity, work, anything at all that the students personally held in high regard.

As Ed Yong explains:

Miyake recruited 283 men and 116 women who were taking part in the university's 15-week introductory course to physics. He randomly divided them into two groups. One group picked their most important values from a list and wrote about why these mattered to them. The other group – the controls – picked their least important values and wrote about why these might matter to other people.

This happened twice at the start of the course, and the whole thing was led by teaching assistants who didn't know what was going on (it was a "double-blind" experiment). They, and the students, were all told that the exercise was meant to improve writing skills.

In the control group, where students wrote about why other people valued things they didn't, men outperformed women both in their grades and on a standard test to evaluate knowledge of physics. But among the students who wrote about their own values, the gender gap almost disappeared entirely in their grades and completely disappeared in the results on the standard test.

This is astounding to me, both because of its simplicity and because of the solution's form: affirming one's own values.

So here is an experiment I am going to try and I'd love it if folks who read this blog would try it too. Once a week I am going to write about what I value and why for 15 minutes. I began it on Saturday while watching my kids at their swim lessons. I'm going to repeat this exercise every Saturday until the end of the year. Then what? Let's find out!

Filed under: Nature & Science Tagged: increasing confidence