I've been trying to understand the phenomena of hooking up.
I'm not judging the kind of extreme sexuality that so many young people seem to be into - but, after all, I am a psychoanalyst. I'm wondering what it means.
One thought: Are young people reflecting back to us everything we have taught them? Isn't hooking up an awful lot like the types of things we do - like use something and then throw it away - in a consumer driven economy? And isn't this wasteful materialism also a player in environmental degradation and global warming?
If people are raised with belief systems that prioritize the avaracious fulfillment of desire, disposability, and excess it should be no surprise that people communicate this by hooking up - a sexuality based on people making mutual and often relatively anonymous use of each other. Human contact becomes relegated to "getting off."
That's how we feel about the earth. We get off on it - making use of it to satisfy our pleasure, with very little thought given to the relationship we have to this planet that makes our life possible.
On Peoples' Minds:
"I don't mind sleeping with someone I don't know, but I'm not going to sit down at a dinner table and talk to someone I've never met."--A 23-year-old professional female
"I feel like I'm the wierdest guy around . . . I don't want to have sex unless it's meaningful and everyone else is hooking-up and I'm the idiot in the corner who just doesn't want to, who wants something more than instant get-me-off sexuality."--A 27-year-old lawyer.
"To put it another way, we have radically transformed the fundamental relationship between humankind and the earth . . . this is due to a combination of factors . . .(including) our bizarre focus on short-term thinking and instant gratification . . ."--Al Gore.
In the news:
Britney Spears. She exemplifies the ultimate partygoing hooking up celeb. Alot of people have made lots of money off of this very young woman. There's alot of talk now about her having a mental illness. Yea, I guess. But I think she may be enacting a piece of our culture. She has become the ultimate expression of what lots of young people are doing. It is easier to think of her now as a patient rather than recognizing in her our own collective relationship to disposability, wasted resources, and excess. I think that everybody who has ever made money from her owes her an apology.
Psychological and ecological sustainability tip of the day:
Create green relationships. Treat other people with respect. Value them as precious resources. Go on a date and talk to someone. Make love like you mean it. Think of skin as the fragile boundary that holds people together, and touch it with care. Then treat the earth's skin in a similar manner. Touch it with care.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Beef
It's late January and still no snow in New York City. It was chilly and there was plenty of time to read. We saw Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera, the chilling Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale framed in this production around the concept of food. Food and climate were the themes of our weekend.
On Peoples' Mind:
"They have been calling for snow everyday this week. I'll believe it when I see it. Do you really think it will ever snow again? Feels like it won't." - Woman walking dog in Riverside Park.
"Ban Foie Gras". Several protestors held signs outside of Fairway market in New York City and yelled out to passers-by "free the geese." One person showed a gruesome laptap video depicting the practice of gavage. One onlooker said, "We are a force-fed nation, after all. If we can do it to birds we can do it to ourselves."
In The News:
Eating so much meat isn't good for our health, or the earth. There was a time when eating rich energy consuming foods was a luxury. In some cultures the eating of meat is considered sacred, in others it is simply a rare treat. Whether you are a vegetarian or a meat eater isn't important. What matters is whether or not you have a tolerance for limits. Continuing to consume meat at the current rate - 284 million tons worldwide per year, 8 ounces per day for every American alone - is not sustainable. Our planet can't sustain the billions of cattle necessary to produce so much meat. It isn't good for our bodies either.
Further, Our minds and our psyches function best when we can't always fulfill our impulses and desires. Feeding an impulse stimulates greater degrees of desire. I'm not saying starve yourself, or advocating vegetarianism - although I am one. I'm saying this: eat less! When you stuff yourself you hurt yourself, and the planet. Plus you establish an unsatiabile personality pattern, becoming someone who is never satisfied and always hungers for more, and then more, and then more . . . and there is no limit to this kind of need driven greed.
Ecological and psychological sustainability tip of the day:
Moderate yourself. Eat food, and only what you need. If you are still feeling empty, do something that matters to you. Plant a garden. See art. Go to the opera. Take a walk with a friend.
On Peoples' Mind:
"They have been calling for snow everyday this week. I'll believe it when I see it. Do you really think it will ever snow again? Feels like it won't." - Woman walking dog in Riverside Park.
"Ban Foie Gras". Several protestors held signs outside of Fairway market in New York City and yelled out to passers-by "free the geese." One person showed a gruesome laptap video depicting the practice of gavage. One onlooker said, "We are a force-fed nation, after all. If we can do it to birds we can do it to ourselves."
In The News:
Eating so much meat isn't good for our health, or the earth. There was a time when eating rich energy consuming foods was a luxury. In some cultures the eating of meat is considered sacred, in others it is simply a rare treat. Whether you are a vegetarian or a meat eater isn't important. What matters is whether or not you have a tolerance for limits. Continuing to consume meat at the current rate - 284 million tons worldwide per year, 8 ounces per day for every American alone - is not sustainable. Our planet can't sustain the billions of cattle necessary to produce so much meat. It isn't good for our bodies either.
Further, Our minds and our psyches function best when we can't always fulfill our impulses and desires. Feeding an impulse stimulates greater degrees of desire. I'm not saying starve yourself, or advocating vegetarianism - although I am one. I'm saying this: eat less! When you stuff yourself you hurt yourself, and the planet. Plus you establish an unsatiabile personality pattern, becoming someone who is never satisfied and always hungers for more, and then more, and then more . . . and there is no limit to this kind of need driven greed.
Ecological and psychological sustainability tip of the day:
Moderate yourself. Eat food, and only what you need. If you are still feeling empty, do something that matters to you. Plant a garden. See art. Go to the opera. Take a walk with a friend.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Earth and Mind
Welcome to Psychology and Climate Change. Scientists are documenting how climate change is altering our environment. Policy makers are analyzing how it will affect the global economy. I am observing how changing environments--and changing personal relationships to the environment--are affecting ordinary people right now, for better and worse. That means you. Our altered relationship to earth and nature - accelerated by climate change - is having an effect on how we feel, what we think, and how we behave, for better and worse. Soon we will all have to choose whether to act or be acted upon. My clinical practice, my anthropology fieldwork and my own encounter with wilderness landscapes have instilled in me an understanding of how psychological sustainability will help us choose and create ecological sustainability.
On Peoples' Minds:
Its been another mild winter in New York City so far. Just today someone told me the following, "Every once in a while I remember what Winter used to be like when I was a child. This Winter feels alot like last winter, but dramatically different from the winters of my childhood. I try and focus my mind so I don't have to recognize that fact. So much focusing causes me to shut out important experiences."
In The News: Permission granted to shoot wolves
Why is this news - far, far away in Wyoming - bad for people everywhere? Whether you are a creationist or an evolutionist you know that we are all linked either as God's creatures or by some shared DNA. How we treat living creatures, especially vulnerable ones sets the tone for what kinds of people we will become, and how we will treat each other. Hey, come to think about it --- this action is all about solving problems by slaughtering them. Not a good thing. The earth has its limits. We have to compromise, learn to work together. We can't just kill off what doesn't fit into our consumptive needs. Look at it this way. There are more wolves than there used to be, and it might take some creative problem solving to secure the safety of wolves, livestock and other wilderness species. From a psychological point of view, the best way to deal with anything difficult is to make it a part of your life. The growth and development that result from integrative problem solving is good for you, your community and the earth.
Psychological and ecological sustainability tip of the day: Figure out how to solve problems without resorting to power moves to annhilate the threat. We can't get rid of garbage by digging bigger holes, can't get rid of probelms by making them not exist, can't protect animals by killing off the dangerous ones.
On Peoples' Minds:
Its been another mild winter in New York City so far. Just today someone told me the following, "Every once in a while I remember what Winter used to be like when I was a child. This Winter feels alot like last winter, but dramatically different from the winters of my childhood. I try and focus my mind so I don't have to recognize that fact. So much focusing causes me to shut out important experiences."
In The News: Permission granted to shoot wolves
Why is this news - far, far away in Wyoming - bad for people everywhere? Whether you are a creationist or an evolutionist you know that we are all linked either as God's creatures or by some shared DNA. How we treat living creatures, especially vulnerable ones sets the tone for what kinds of people we will become, and how we will treat each other. Hey, come to think about it --- this action is all about solving problems by slaughtering them. Not a good thing. The earth has its limits. We have to compromise, learn to work together. We can't just kill off what doesn't fit into our consumptive needs. Look at it this way. There are more wolves than there used to be, and it might take some creative problem solving to secure the safety of wolves, livestock and other wilderness species. From a psychological point of view, the best way to deal with anything difficult is to make it a part of your life. The growth and development that result from integrative problem solving is good for you, your community and the earth.
Psychological and ecological sustainability tip of the day: Figure out how to solve problems without resorting to power moves to annhilate the threat. We can't get rid of garbage by digging bigger holes, can't get rid of probelms by making them not exist, can't protect animals by killing off the dangerous ones.
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