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thanateThe determining factor, it appears, in whether a marriage is successful, is that a couple must have at least a 4 in 5 ratio of positive interactions to negative ones. (study, you guessed it, was discussed in that cognitive dissonance book I think you ought to read) So if you fight all the time, that can be ok, just as long as you spend four times as much time making up and/or getting along. And then obviously there will sometimes be issues where one half of the pairing sees everything as positive, and the other doesn't so much, and then if you don't fix it, you end up with the "18 years of dustballs" issue from the passage I quoted before.
So I've been thinking about this, and wondering how it applies to things like work, and looser friendships, and life in general. (I was also remembering this week, as I re-cataloged coins, and attempted the monumental task of locating clothing fasteners that weren't buckles or buttons, and restrained myself from giving general lectures on all the things corset busk slots are NOT, that I could probably like my job more if I put more effort into it. If I attacked artifact IDs as a course of study, and looked things up on my own time and stuff, I would appreciate working in archaeology more)
In these enlightened days, one doesn't hold a job/career to such high standards as a marriage, so I'm sure the ratio isn't as high. One in three good interactions makes for a good job? One half? (I might be back up above a one-to-one ratio of positive to miserable, despite still being burnt out... it's extremely hard to count. And also very dependent on which co-workers are present, discussing what... Steve, for instance, usually makes me far more cheerful. Long discussions about FEMAland people I don't know tend to make me somewhat cross.) It's extremely difficult to count this sort of thing, anyway.
And then there are friendships-- say I don't talk to my friend in months, and she's mad at me because she left me two or three messages and I never called her back (in my case I never call people, but leaving aside that) or I'm mad at her because she only calls me when she wants to whine about her boyfriend... it doesn't necessarily take too much effort to get back to being friends again, once someone says "why don't we go out for lunch?" and breaks the deadlock.
...I think I was going somewhere with this, but I don't seem to have gotten there. Just something I've been thinking about, anyway; there are a lot of those at present, so I thought I'd spill a bit out into "print" as it were.
But I was going to say earlier-- I took Kim and Oliver Twist with me on the train (in a long string of attempts to read "Great Books" I haven't gotten around to yet by taking them with me when no other books are to be had) and made the tactical error of reading Kim first. And it was fabulous-- on the long list of things I wish someone had known to tell me years ago is that Kim is a spy novel. And Kipling is so egalitarian... I mean, he's obviously not unprejudiced across the board (there's that line in "How the Leopard got his Spots", for instance...) but he's got this very clear view of different societal standards and expectations (between English and Muslim and Hindu or Buddhist), and how they can or can't appreciate each other. The Indian native casually swears a creative blue streak and gets up in people's faces, and that's just how they interact; the Englishman (I think it was:) "uses one word" in a sort of understated swearing, and doesn't understand the values of the native peoples much at all. And there are all the class interactions between types and sorts of people and it just rings very true. With Kim, sponge of a cheerful atheistic street child, in the middle, soaking up all the culture(s) available to him.
[[for those of you who haven't been listening to my father the past 5 or 6 years as he worked on the Iraqi language & culture trainer for the military, a couple factoids: body language is a huge part of human language, including personal space. Arab men in the US usually end up with american girlfriends because their personal space is smaller, and they'll keep trying to move in closer because that's the right distance to have a conversation. Most americans will back up, and most women will think they're being hit on... nine out of ten will think that's creepy, but one in ten will flirt back.
In standard conversation, one pauses occasionally for feedback (you can hear it if you listen for it-- people stop just long enough for you to say "uh-hu?" and then move on.) In English, the length of the pause is (I'm not remember my units right-- maybe 5 milliseconds?) whereas in Japanese, it's only 3. When they attempt to talk to each other, the native Japanese speaker gets the impression the English speaker isn't really paying attention, (why are you taking so long to respond?) while the English speaker feels like he's being rushed by the other's constant "go on, go on, get to the point" speed of response.
Fully multi-lingual people will often find they have different personalities depending on what language they're speaking, because of the character of the language.]]
It was beautiful. And to go from that to the sweet, oppressed, virtuous proto-Christian Oliver Twist, martyred by Dickens' moralistic objectives in writing the book, was a bit much. I like Dickens's tongue-in-cheek long-winded writing style (ok, except for Great Expectations, which I despised) but there's only so much of that one can take before giving up and going back to lighter reading.
---heh, and I thought I was going to make a doll dress this evening. Shows what I know...
So I've been thinking about this, and wondering how it applies to things like work, and looser friendships, and life in general. (I was also remembering this week, as I re-cataloged coins, and attempted the monumental task of locating clothing fasteners that weren't buckles or buttons, and restrained myself from giving general lectures on all the things corset busk slots are NOT, that I could probably like my job more if I put more effort into it. If I attacked artifact IDs as a course of study, and looked things up on my own time and stuff, I would appreciate working in archaeology more)
In these enlightened days, one doesn't hold a job/career to such high standards as a marriage, so I'm sure the ratio isn't as high. One in three good interactions makes for a good job? One half? (I might be back up above a one-to-one ratio of positive to miserable, despite still being burnt out... it's extremely hard to count. And also very dependent on which co-workers are present, discussing what... Steve, for instance, usually makes me far more cheerful. Long discussions about FEMAland people I don't know tend to make me somewhat cross.) It's extremely difficult to count this sort of thing, anyway.
And then there are friendships-- say I don't talk to my friend in months, and she's mad at me because she left me two or three messages and I never called her back (in my case I never call people, but leaving aside that) or I'm mad at her because she only calls me when she wants to whine about her boyfriend... it doesn't necessarily take too much effort to get back to being friends again, once someone says "why don't we go out for lunch?" and breaks the deadlock.
...I think I was going somewhere with this, but I don't seem to have gotten there. Just something I've been thinking about, anyway; there are a lot of those at present, so I thought I'd spill a bit out into "print" as it were.
But I was going to say earlier-- I took Kim and Oliver Twist with me on the train (in a long string of attempts to read "Great Books" I haven't gotten around to yet by taking them with me when no other books are to be had) and made the tactical error of reading Kim first. And it was fabulous-- on the long list of things I wish someone had known to tell me years ago is that Kim is a spy novel. And Kipling is so egalitarian... I mean, he's obviously not unprejudiced across the board (there's that line in "How the Leopard got his Spots", for instance...) but he's got this very clear view of different societal standards and expectations (between English and Muslim and Hindu or Buddhist), and how they can or can't appreciate each other. The Indian native casually swears a creative blue streak and gets up in people's faces, and that's just how they interact; the Englishman (I think it was:) "uses one word" in a sort of understated swearing, and doesn't understand the values of the native peoples much at all. And there are all the class interactions between types and sorts of people and it just rings very true. With Kim, sponge of a cheerful atheistic street child, in the middle, soaking up all the culture(s) available to him.
[[for those of you who haven't been listening to my father the past 5 or 6 years as he worked on the Iraqi language & culture trainer for the military, a couple factoids: body language is a huge part of human language, including personal space. Arab men in the US usually end up with american girlfriends because their personal space is smaller, and they'll keep trying to move in closer because that's the right distance to have a conversation. Most americans will back up, and most women will think they're being hit on... nine out of ten will think that's creepy, but one in ten will flirt back.
In standard conversation, one pauses occasionally for feedback (you can hear it if you listen for it-- people stop just long enough for you to say "uh-hu?" and then move on.) In English, the length of the pause is (I'm not remember my units right-- maybe 5 milliseconds?) whereas in Japanese, it's only 3. When they attempt to talk to each other, the native Japanese speaker gets the impression the English speaker isn't really paying attention, (why are you taking so long to respond?) while the English speaker feels like he's being rushed by the other's constant "go on, go on, get to the point" speed of response.
Fully multi-lingual people will often find they have different personalities depending on what language they're speaking, because of the character of the language.]]
It was beautiful. And to go from that to the sweet, oppressed, virtuous proto-Christian Oliver Twist, martyred by Dickens' moralistic objectives in writing the book, was a bit much. I like Dickens's tongue-in-cheek long-winded writing style (ok, except for Great Expectations, which I despised) but there's only so much of that one can take before giving up and going back to lighter reading.
---heh, and I thought I was going to make a doll dress this evening. Shows what I know...
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 04:11 am (UTC)And work on commissions. Hrm.
I've not read either of those books. And sadly my basement hasn't coughed them up for me. (though it did produce the Great Gadsby and the Catcher in teh Rye and Life of Pi and several other interesting titles... But I am happily reading about Arisilde and Nicholas, so that's something good, right?
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 01:14 pm (UTC)Heh, commissions... I keep thinking about trying to make/sell stuff, and then not having time enough do do all the things *I* want to do. If I spent less time exchanging useless information with the internet, that might help, too.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 08:24 pm (UTC)Sleep deprivation makes literary commentary more challenging. Yawn.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-04 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 04:43 am (UTC)As far as the ratio of quality in relationships thing goes: to me this is just common sense. It's kind of like the travel equation or anything else for that matter. If the positives don't out weigh the negatives by a factor significant enough to effectively "negate the negatives", then why do it? The problem is that with (for example) SCA travel, it is very easy to note what the positives and negatives are, and that is how you make a decision to go to an event or not. With relationships people are very rarely honest enough with themselves, much less anybody else, to identify and quantify (in terms of weighted ratios) those things per person. There are also many aspects which are completely intangible, particularly in terms of a romantic relationship, and so very difficult to factor into the mathematical formula of a good relationship. 85% of my interactions with
RE: 18 years of dust balls
I saw this particular issue not being one of positive/negative ratio, but rather of ineffective (or generally lacking) communication. Rewind 17 years 11 months and interject an open, honest, effective conversation about dealing with those dust balls. Does that change the overall outcome? Who knows. If nothing else it does make sure that everybody is aware of the factors which are building up to major issues. We are emotional beings for all that it is good and bad, if we fail to express that appropriately... well, the bucket gets full and then we realize that 18 years of dust balls can't be easily cleaned out. They break the bucket :-/
tired, this sounds like a good on the drive to VA conversation :)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 01:02 pm (UTC)And no, the 18 years of dustballs was more a "victim complex" issue, but the point of the victim mindset is that having once been Mortally Offended, and then dwelling on it, you start to cast all your interactions in that negative light. Which distorts your interaction ratio, and then your view of the relationship as a whole, because your spouse is just harping on that *thing* that he should just *know* drives you up a wall, how heartless he's being by ignoring that you're stoically suffering here, martyring yourself by not saying a word about how mean he's being...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 01:58 pm (UTC)Right, I was making a joke... Not that I don't think Dom is cute and all :-P I would be very interested to read that particular study as well. If for nothing else than to look at house they (A) did their data collection and (B) constructed the data and control sets. ANYWAY... Yes, I agree.
Dustballs
I 'think' that we are more or less approaching the same set of problems from different perspectives. Perhaps when I get a chance to read the much touted "Problems..." ( which is not available at any of my area book stores so I've had to stoop to ordering it from Amazon *-fume-* ) I will have a better understanding of the victim complex as you relate it. Given: the view I was presenting was much more focused on the symptom than what the actual problem may be ( which I think can be good in terms of analysis but is bad in terms of actually 'dealing' with an issue).
Meh, I should do that thing with the work. Have fun with the car stuff. Talk to you later.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 03:51 pm (UTC)Actually, what I want to say is Kim rocks. I read it last year and it was totally one of those "I could have been reading this book years ago!" moments.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 04:00 pm (UTC)Actually, it was partly because you made some gushing comment about it at the time that I picked up Kim again. It took me about 100 pages to get into it, because I kept wondering what were the important parts and where the heck it was going anyway, and so I never really got past the wonder house the first time I tried to read it.