It is necessary to run risks,
We only properly understand the miracle of life
when we allow the unexpected to happen.
(By the River Piedra I sat dowm and Wept)
Daily Archive for April 25th, 2008
Today, I came upon this interview in The New York Times with Dr. Gilbert, author of “Stumbling on Happiness”. This particular part of the interview caught my eye :
Professor Happiness: The interview
by Claudia Dreifus The New York Times
(…)
Q. DO MOST OF US HARBOR UNREASONABLE NOTIONS OF WHAT HAPPINESS IS?
A. Inaccurate, flawed ideas. Few of us can accurately gauge how we will feel tomorrow or next week. That’s why when you go to the supermarket on an empty stomach, you’ll buy too much, and if you shop after a big meal, you’ll buy too little.
Another factor that makes it difficult to forecast our future happiness is that most of us are rationalizers. We expect to feel devastated if our spouse leaves us or if we get passed over for a big promotion at work.
But when things like that do happen, it’s soon, “She never was right for me,” or “I actually need more free time for my family.” People have remarkable talent for finding ways to soften the impact of negative events. Thus they mistakenly expect such blows to be much more devastating than they turn out to be.
Q. SO, IF WE DIDN’T HAVE THESE MECHANISMS, WOULD WE BE TOO DEPRESSED TO GO ON?
A. There may be something to that. People who are clinically depressed often seem to lack the ability to reframe events. That suggests that if the rest of us didn’t have this, we might be depressed as well.
(…)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/23/healthscience/22conv.php
In your novels, events and backgrounds are “historical – mythical – cultural …” and related to far removed from Latin American reality. Did you try to escape the dominance of fantastic realism?
In my work, I try to see the world with the eyes of a Brazilian, but I do not create limits for my imagination. Therefore, as the human conflicts take place in human hearts – regardless the cultural background – I write about them, but free in time and space.
In the Lucifer Effect- a book by Philip Zimbardo - tells of an experiment conducted in the sixties in Standford University. Students were chosen to carry out an experiment in the basement of the university. A prison was recreated and by the flip of a coin 7 students were held hostage while the other 7 students were the prison guards. The guards had absolute power over the victims (except for physical violence) and the experiment was meant to last 2 weeks. Yet, at the end of the 6th day the experiment had to be ceased - victims having nervous breakdowns. The guards, that unleashed their evil, had to go under therapy for years to come. My question then is: is Man, when given absolute power, evil?
You can watch the video here
