(no subject)

[featherynscale]

Presumably, the best thing to do in the world is not worry about things. Next best is to not worry about them when worrying about them is detrimental to actually doing something about them, i.e. solving the problem, reacting calmly to stressful situations, etc. Statistically, everybody's going to be in a car wreck at least once in their lives -- is it possible that having mentally run through the procedure of having a car wreck previously will allow you to handle an actual car wreck with a greater degree of calm and control? Previous study shows that thoroughly visualizing shooting a basket successfully improves your probability of making a shot almost as much as actually practicing the shot. This thing about rehearsal, it's interesting to me.

In other news, it's a national Day of Silence in schools for awareness of LGBT issues -- somehow this never happened when I was in school. Our big action of protest was SADD week before prom, when some of the students came in painted in whiteface to represent the statistical probability of being killed by a drunk driver. The biggest gender/sexuality/etc. discrimination thing I can recall in high school was two girls in my senior class trying to buy prom tickets as a couple, which they weren't allowed to do. I don't think they were actually a couple, just trying to raise awareness. I remember wondering why people who weren't gay would even bother trying to mess with the system. Wow, the ol' worldview has changed.

Comments

Response Strategies

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I think rehearsal really helps, but not necessarily as a passive visualization exercise. For example, when I'm walking the two blocks from the restaurant to my hotel in downtown Indianapolis after dark (hypothetically speaking), I continually monitor the environment for hazards. Faster than I can type or speak, I go over in my head the possible scenarios of attack and my response to them. There's a certain degree of muscle memory involved, but just having a plan makes me feel less like prey...and it carries over into how much of a target I appear to be.

Defensive driving is another example. If you're alert to all the dangerous things your fellow drivers could do, and know what you'll do with your vehicle if Bad Things Happen, then your response time will be faster. Remember when ysabel was talking to zylch last winter about learning how to pull out of a skid?

I could go on, but you'd get bored. I think that worrying about too many random possibilities is a waste of my energy. But considering what is likely to happen, and deciding ahead of time how I want to respond, is a different thing. Granted, I'm a control freak...

From one control freak to another

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I freakin' love you. You just summarized the biggest point I make when talking to people about being in dangerous situations: don't fear the situation, plan for it, and act like you've planned for it, and you'll probably not have to use it...

And, the analogy between defensive driving and defensive walking is also explicitly made by "experts". So well done there, too.

I think you've both got a good point that there's a difference between planning and worrying. This helps build a bit on the post I made last week about fear...even though the original point is different.

Does the Day of Silence apply to IMs?

[chronarchy.livejournal.com]

Kids in my school in Kentucky once walked out of class. The way I heard it, at some dance I didn't go to they didn't let straight couples kiss, but they let some of those dirty lesbians kiss. So a bunch of kids up and walked out.

Me, I would have paid top dollar to watch girls kiss at that age.

Hell, I still would.

Never understood that protest.

Today, kids in Columbus get suspended if they wear shirts supporting gay marriage.

Re: From one control freak to another

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Bah. Logorrhea = imprecise use of words, sometimes. There is a difference, and I am not highlighting it very well.

As to IM's, I don't think so, I think it's spoken only. opaljax might know.

Logorrhea?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I didn't think we were disagreeing/misunderstanding, but maybe that's the problem. Didn't you also say you thought there was a difference between worry and planning?

The latter question was mostly facetious. I'm not entirely certain what one person not speaking during a day is supposed to accomplish.

Re: Logorrhea?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

My understanding of the phenomenon is that it's a sense of solidarity with the "invisible" people, and also an invitation to contemplate life without the person in question, in a "victims of violence" sort of way.

The logorrhea can be traced directly to the fact that I remembered to take my pills this morning, and got some vitamins on top of that -- I'm feeling pretty high-functioning.

Re: Logorrhea?

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I respect the cleverness of the protest in silence, but I have some fundamental objections to it which I don't think I can put into words properly. There's too much silence, and too much enforcement of silence and invisibility for GLBT folks (in my not-quite-GLBT opinion), for the protest method to sit well with me. SADD and MADD are trying to make a point about what the world would be like if those kids weren't there anymore. Here, I don't think the action of silence is the strongest expression of their intention...which isn't really clear anyway.

Lots of positive energy and enthusiasm, so points for that. Me, I'll probably speak very loudly at every opportunity about how cool it is that folks are taking a vow of silence for the day about the issue, how much I support them, and wonder *out loud* about how many teenagers are silent today and whether their parents will pay any freakin' attention at all. But that's just me. :)

Re: From one control freak to another

[opaljax.livejournal.com]

Silence=spoken (as far as I'm concerned)

Re: Logorrhea?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I think my objections are largely similar to what Saff mentioned; I was apparently blessed to grow up in an area/areas where there wasn't a big GLBT-persecution problem, as far as I could tell. Never having lived in a city smaller than 50k (and that one was one of the top 10 places for lesbians to live, apparently) probably had something to do with that.

Despite feeling pretty high-functioning myself today (got my oil change this morning in 10 minutes, had time to clean out my car before getting to the office 5 minutes early, etc), everyone else seems to be posting my thoughts before me, here.

Re: Logorrhea?

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Or maybe I'm just your puppet, darling.

[wildnsquirrelly.livejournal.com]

I remember being in whiteface back then...one of the times was even to raise awareness of something other than myself. As I recall it didn't really have much of an impact with the students, but the faculty seemed a bit wigged by it.

Re: puppets

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I'll come stick my hand inside you and we'll both find out...