I dream all the time, this isn't unusual for me but I know that this isn't normal. From what I have read when I have explored the study of dreams we experience dreams when we pass through a Rapid Eye Movement [REM] cycle which is a stage in the sleep-wake cycle. Although we dream all the time when we pass through this stage of sleep, most people do not remember these dreams unless they leave a lasting impression or their sleep is otherwise disturbed or disrupted. I have always remembered my dreams though, for as long as I can remember and for me personally I attribute this fact to my Nystagmus which is a condition where my eyes constantly move involuntarily to this I also attribute some of my turbulent relationship with sleep.
Recently my dreams have become more fantasy oriented than usual, I am not sure what has been driving this, I haven't binged anything of that nature in a while so I don't think it's a case of feeding my imagination with material it can use - this is something I have done in the past though with mixed results. Despite not knowing where this theme originates I've taken to documenting these dreams, this isn't something I have done for some time, not because I don't find my dreams interesting but for the simple reason that at face value they rarely make any sense. I have broken dreams down to try and understand the symbolism behind them with some success but it's hard to tell whether that meaning is something you're impressing upon them or whether that was the inspiration in the first place, because dreams are for the most part out of our control.
I have experienced lucid dreams, and lucid nightmares which I have discussed at length before but the shortened explanation is to say that in these dream states you become aware of the fact you are dreaming and you can influence the events in the dreams, you can't access the full extent of your conscious mind however and the more you attempt to do so the more likely you are to wake up from them, so it's not like being in a white space like the Construct loading program in the Matrix and being able to create whatever you want.
Documenting dreams is something I have only done in the past when they were recurring, or when my thoughts were focusing on them too much as it allowed me to process what I experienced and draw a line under it and move on. These dreams are rather different however, they represent a freedom of creativity that I haven't been able to access consciously for quite some time. It's been over a year since I wrote any fiction that had a substantial body, the latest work that I spent most of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 writing and editing was largely produced as a way to deal with some very dark thoughts and feelings that I was struggling to process in my personal life. Whilst that was a work of fiction it was mostly an allegory for my actual life with elements of fantasy incorporated into it so there wasn't much imagination involved or creativity for that matter it was more an act of documentation than anything else.
It's strange to see my own imagination now striving to create worlds that I find entertaining within my subconscious in some ways I find it touching that despite my conscious mind not being in the right frame of mind to be able to tap into that creativity it's still there deep inside and it's bubbling up. There are a few dreams that I have written down now that I would like to take and develop into short stories, maybe something more substantial. I don't know how far I will get with that but I've learned not to place expectations on myself because they are inevitably biased, creativity shouldn't be something that is accessed on-demand, it should be organic and come from a place of emotion, it's interesting to me that unconscious emotion can be so strong, this is something new to me, and I find it exciting, and a little bit intimidating because I have absolutely no idea what to expect but I'll run with it.
I do wonder if we will ever reach a point where we can use technology to record our dreams and watch them back. I am aware of brain to computer interfaces that allow you to control movement and create shapes on a screen through thought but from what I have seen this technology is still nascent and it will be a number of years yet before it reaches that stage, if it ever does. I realise that some people will have privacy concerns and may find the idea of a computer being able to read their mind deeply disturbing but for me personally I would love to be able to have a way to effectively utilise a part of ourselves that is incredibly powerful but up until this point has remained almost entirely a mystery to us, forbidden almost.
On that note, Happy Leap Day!
Recharging
Over the years I've taken quite a few personality tests and one that I always return to is the Myers-Briggs personality test which gives you a four letter classification of your personality. For what it's worth this typically results in INFP [Mediator] or INTP [Logician] - most recently it threw out INFP. I've detailed Myers-Briggs in past posts but for a quick summary you can check out 16Personalities which runs through each of the types and has a test you can take to determine yours.
Of the 4 elements that Myers-Briggs charts, the one I find most interesting is the first element which determines Introversion [I] or Extroversion [E] as the first letter in your classification. I find this element the most interesting because prior to a traumatic incident in my childhood, I was decidedly extroverted. After that incident my personality flipped and I became an introvert. Over the years as I have gone through self-development, and various therapeutic approaches, my personality has shifted back and forth. I have gone from being extremely introverted to approaching the border between introvert and extrovert to the point where I have been inconclusive in test results.
In a way, the results of these tests provide data points that I can use to gauge where my personal development has swung to on this scale. There is an underlying assumption here that the "goal" in effect would be to once again become extroverted but given the recent reflections that I have had to make when using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy I've had to question this assumption and why I believe this to be the case - this has ultimately led me to the conclusion that I can't actually know objectively where my personality would lie had my development never been interrupted in the first place. Knowing this, I've now taken a step back from this approach of gauging my personality and accepted that whatever it is, really is not my concern, that ultimately the personality that comes most naturally to me, regardless of motivation, is likely to be the personality that I should be able to embrace and become more comfortable portraying.
To this end after my latest test out of curiosity I have found I have once again swung to the extreme of the introverted scale. If you're curious as to the actual figures they came in at:
82% [I] Introvert to 18% [E] Extrovert
84% [N] Intuition to 16% [S] Observation (Sensing)
65% [F] Feeling to 35% [T] Thinking
58% [P] Prospecting (Perception) to 42% [J] Judging
You can see from the results above that the last two elements are quite close to their midpoints and why my personality on these charts is often inconclusive. The trouble with reducing something as complex as social behaviour and interaction into something as simple as a four letter classification system is the fact that some interactions you will be comfortable with and some you will be uncomfortable with but the reasons for that level of comfort may have nothing to do with your personality at all. For example social situations are something that I avoid because of Social Anxiety however when I feel safe or when those events are within parameters that I have confidence in then I don't have that much of a problem with them. Likewise the distinction between perception and judgement for me personally is largely driven by experience with known experiences being things that I rely on judgement for and unknown experiences being things that I rely on perceptions for.
Despite all of this, and the progress in self acceptance that has been made with the aid of CBT, the problems that introversion can lead to are still problems that I am for the most part averse to. I like to be alone but I don't like being lonely, this is an internal conflict that I struggle with because the latter drives me to seek out social interaction but the former causes me to need time and space to recharge. It is this urge to recede and become reclusive to recharge my social batteries as it were that I am currently struggling with. Left to my own devices I would quite literally never leave the house but that in itself is another issue which I have discussed before and isn't relevant here.
I'm yet to figure out how to maintain a balance between time to myself and time with other people that doesn't evoke a sense of loneliness in the former or a sense of social anxiety in the latter. I wish I had some great revelation I could add here but there is none, this is still something I am trying to figure out for myself, I just thought I would share what I am trying to process mentally at the moment, especially since the series of posts relating CBT gained a lot of interest.
Of the 4 elements that Myers-Briggs charts, the one I find most interesting is the first element which determines Introversion [I] or Extroversion [E] as the first letter in your classification. I find this element the most interesting because prior to a traumatic incident in my childhood, I was decidedly extroverted. After that incident my personality flipped and I became an introvert. Over the years as I have gone through self-development, and various therapeutic approaches, my personality has shifted back and forth. I have gone from being extremely introverted to approaching the border between introvert and extrovert to the point where I have been inconclusive in test results.
In a way, the results of these tests provide data points that I can use to gauge where my personal development has swung to on this scale. There is an underlying assumption here that the "goal" in effect would be to once again become extroverted but given the recent reflections that I have had to make when using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy I've had to question this assumption and why I believe this to be the case - this has ultimately led me to the conclusion that I can't actually know objectively where my personality would lie had my development never been interrupted in the first place. Knowing this, I've now taken a step back from this approach of gauging my personality and accepted that whatever it is, really is not my concern, that ultimately the personality that comes most naturally to me, regardless of motivation, is likely to be the personality that I should be able to embrace and become more comfortable portraying.
To this end after my latest test out of curiosity I have found I have once again swung to the extreme of the introverted scale. If you're curious as to the actual figures they came in at:
82% [I] Introvert to 18% [E] Extrovert
84% [N] Intuition to 16% [S] Observation (Sensing)
65% [F] Feeling to 35% [T] Thinking
58% [P] Prospecting (Perception) to 42% [J] Judging
You can see from the results above that the last two elements are quite close to their midpoints and why my personality on these charts is often inconclusive. The trouble with reducing something as complex as social behaviour and interaction into something as simple as a four letter classification system is the fact that some interactions you will be comfortable with and some you will be uncomfortable with but the reasons for that level of comfort may have nothing to do with your personality at all. For example social situations are something that I avoid because of Social Anxiety however when I feel safe or when those events are within parameters that I have confidence in then I don't have that much of a problem with them. Likewise the distinction between perception and judgement for me personally is largely driven by experience with known experiences being things that I rely on judgement for and unknown experiences being things that I rely on perceptions for.
Despite all of this, and the progress in self acceptance that has been made with the aid of CBT, the problems that introversion can lead to are still problems that I am for the most part averse to. I like to be alone but I don't like being lonely, this is an internal conflict that I struggle with because the latter drives me to seek out social interaction but the former causes me to need time and space to recharge. It is this urge to recede and become reclusive to recharge my social batteries as it were that I am currently struggling with. Left to my own devices I would quite literally never leave the house but that in itself is another issue which I have discussed before and isn't relevant here.
I'm yet to figure out how to maintain a balance between time to myself and time with other people that doesn't evoke a sense of loneliness in the former or a sense of social anxiety in the latter. I wish I had some great revelation I could add here but there is none, this is still something I am trying to figure out for myself, I just thought I would share what I am trying to process mentally at the moment, especially since the series of posts relating CBT gained a lot of interest.
CBT: Self Doubt
This post is part of a series of posts exploring Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] techniques, their application, and my experiences with them. All posts in this series begin with the tag 'CBT' so you can use the search feature of this blog to read the other posts.
When it comes to confidence levels, self doubt can be incredibly destructive, as it leads you to question yourself, it makes you unsure of your actions, and it can prevent you from taking action out of fear for the potential consequences of those actions. It's important to realise here however that self doubt in this instance is interrupting a thought process and causing an obstruction that effectively blocks that thought process. You can probably put 2 and 2 together and see where this is going. When you are experiencing anxiety it is often the case, although not always, that the anxiety stems from a thought process that is prevailing and causing you to feel that way as it influences your emotional state. Given that self doubt is effective in derailing a thought process it is therefore a natural conclusion that it has potential to be consciously invoked to disrupt negative thought processes.
When it comes to anxiety and depression it can be incredibly useful to employ self doubt, especially if it can destabilise the trigger of your anxiety or the origin of your depression. When using the Unconscious Thought Tracking CBT technique we keep a record of what we think and how it makes us feel. These unconscious thoughts are sometimes referred to as automatic thoughts, that is, they are thoughts that occur on their own, we didn't consciously choose to contemplate these ideas they simply occurred to us. Our ego likes to believe it is always right and when we allow it to believe this to be true then we start to believe everything it tells us, our automatic thoughts go beyond contemplation and become instruction when this happens. The Probability Pie Chart CBT technique offered us a way to identify when the ego is actually jumping to conclusions and allows us to put everything in context to weaken the argument it presents. The pie chart technique however only dealt with providing context, it didn't give us a way to prevent the thought process it lead to from taking hold even if we knew the outcome we were fixated on was not the most likely, and even when it is the most likely outcome there can still be reasons why we wouldn't want to fixate on it, for example everyone will die eventually but fixating on the fact you will die isn't healthy even if it is a mathematical certainty that you are going to die at some point.
It is important to doubt yourself to an extent and be able to balance your thought process, in a healthy mind the ego would do this for you but when you know that your ego is biased and your mind is leaning towards one side more than the other then it is important to challenge your ego with counter points in order to remain critical and be able to form well reasoned beliefs. In this regard self doubt needs to serve its purpose by challenging what our ego tells us with the ultimate goal being the identification of core beliefs, or the root of our thoughts. These are the foundations upon which all thoughts we have are built upon, they are the trunk from which everything branches, if these core beliefs are unbalanced then every thought we have has a statistical imbalance too and it's difficult to have thoughts occur organically that are balanced.
For example, when we tell ourselves we are not good enough we need to trace that branch back to the trunk and back to the root to identify what core thought causes us to feel that way. The easiest way to trace these thoughts is simply to ask why we think that way. By successively asking why, we can trace the origins of our thoughts. If we reach a blank and we can't identify why we feel a certain way then either the ego is hiding the root of that thought from us, or it isn't attached to our core beliefs at all, in which case it is a belief that has been planted there and become entangled in our own and needs to be cut out of the tree.
To give another example, if we don't think we are smart enough then we need to ask why we believe that, and continually pursue the questioning of each belief until you reach the core belief and the root of those thoughts, where it ultimately stems from, what makes you think this is or isn't true.
The negative connotations of self doubt in regard to confidence are partly to blame for our aversion to self doubt as a useful tool. When we chronicle our thoughts and determine how they make us feel we need to analyse those thoughts and ask ourselves objectively if those thoughts are based in truth and what the repercussions are. To that end, it is important to discard the ego in those moments and look at what we think and be honest about whether it is in fact true. In many cases we can recognise that the negative thoughts we have are often used as excuses or explanations for shortcomings when in reality those tend to be things we can't actually control, or they lead us to thoughts as a root that form a core belief that does not in reality have any evidence to back it up, or at the very least has evidence for which alternate explanations and alternative conclusions could also be drawn.
Self doubt can be created by using the tools that CBT techniques offer us but ultimately within a healthy mind this doubt should come from the ego itself and if the ego is not capable of self doubt then we need to teach it to incorporate self doubt into its decision making process. It is not possible to discard the ego entirely, it is important to recognise that and understand that when you place it to one side in order to employ these techniques it is still watching and observing and despite the portrayal of the ego as something evil and unwilling to listen, the reality is the exact opposite. The ego takes its cues from our experiences, it observes and it reacts the same way it reacted before because that is what it knows and that is what it does best. If you want to change the way it is acting you have to recognise that your thoughts and your actions are part of a constant reinforcement algorithm like an artificial intelligence your ego represents an agent and everything it does is informed by the policy it has created from the data that it has been fed. If you want to alter the actions of the ego you have to feed it data that will alter the policy.
I am not going to lie, I had somewhat of an existential crisis contemplating this technique, not least of all for the realisation that human intelligence does not actually differ that much from artificial intelligence after all. I have written about AI many times and discussed that the main difference is that humans are capable of processing both priori and a posteriori knowledge as defined by Philosopher Immanuel Kant that is to say humans can possess knowledge that is objectively true yet independent of experience, as well as knowledge that is derived from and built upon experience. AI is only capable of the latter at present and has not yet been developed to accurately model the former as the inability to connect knowledge to existing knowledge makes it difficult to use logic to provide a proof that validates that knowledge.
This distinction is best demonstrated with a halting problem, if I were to give you and an AI both a locked box and hand you both a key ring with an infinite number of keys on it, you would both set about trying each key until you found one that opened the box. The human being would stop eventually, they are capable of a level of reasoning in this situation that is not based on experience, there is a realisation that occurs in the process that the task is likely to be impossible and the box will never be opened. An AI on the other hand will find it incapable of determining when to stop as the fact that the key ring is infinite means that it is a mathematical certainty that a key will exist at some point on the keyring that will open the box. There is the possibility that the AI may never find that key, but there is no reliable way of instructing the AI when to stop. Giving it explicit instructions to stop after 100 attempts for example is not allowed in this scenario as that is an instruction you are giving it, not a realisation it is coming to on its own.
This was a belief of mine for a very long time but through using this CBT technique I had to question that belief at one point and the realisation that CBT is designed to help remove branches from your tree of beliefs that are not connected to your core beliefs made me realise human intelligence actually breaks down when it relies on a priori beliefs, and that CBT and fields of study like it attempt to remove this and revert our thought processes to being a posteriori belief based essentially throwing into question the reliability of any knowledge in the process that is also differentiated by this distinction. The only way I can reconcile the cognitive dissonance this caused was to assert that beliefs and knowledge whilst both shaping our thought process have to be considered separate even though they are almost impossible to separate. I'm not going to lie this made it very difficult to present any logical coherent argument that would stand as a proof that neither you nor I were in fact computer programs part of a simulation.
I over-think things, did I mention that? This technique should be taken with moderation. Doubt has its purpose but you can't pursue it to an extreme because you will doubt your very existence if you do. It's important to bring this back to a very serious point, CBT is designed to disrupt thought patterns and thought processes and it does that quite well, the only real conclusion I have from this entire exploration is that the only effective way to ensure CBT works is to remove the stimuli that caused the situation or mental state that necessitated its use in the first place. That and the main point that CBT always came back to was that every thought and feeling when it is overwhelming needs to be put into context to determine its true magnitude. The sun in the sky is blinding, its light in daytime covers the surface of the planet exposed to it, the light is so strong we can't see beyond the sky that it illuminates, but at night in darkness we can see the cosmos beyond our planet, when you ascend into that cosmos and you look back at our planet, the sun is a bright star but it does not obscure the rest of the cosmos, its true brightness can be seen with context. It's important to be able to recognise when you are being blinded by something in the moment that will pass in time, even if it is something that you will have to deal with time and again, it will pass.
I would encourage people to use self doubt as a tool when they are feeling anxious and even in your everyday life it does have a purpose but moderation is key and recognising that you can take conscious control of that doubt to use it to your advantage is something that can be very useful even beyond CBT.
When it comes to confidence levels, self doubt can be incredibly destructive, as it leads you to question yourself, it makes you unsure of your actions, and it can prevent you from taking action out of fear for the potential consequences of those actions. It's important to realise here however that self doubt in this instance is interrupting a thought process and causing an obstruction that effectively blocks that thought process. You can probably put 2 and 2 together and see where this is going. When you are experiencing anxiety it is often the case, although not always, that the anxiety stems from a thought process that is prevailing and causing you to feel that way as it influences your emotional state. Given that self doubt is effective in derailing a thought process it is therefore a natural conclusion that it has potential to be consciously invoked to disrupt negative thought processes.
When it comes to anxiety and depression it can be incredibly useful to employ self doubt, especially if it can destabilise the trigger of your anxiety or the origin of your depression. When using the Unconscious Thought Tracking CBT technique we keep a record of what we think and how it makes us feel. These unconscious thoughts are sometimes referred to as automatic thoughts, that is, they are thoughts that occur on their own, we didn't consciously choose to contemplate these ideas they simply occurred to us. Our ego likes to believe it is always right and when we allow it to believe this to be true then we start to believe everything it tells us, our automatic thoughts go beyond contemplation and become instruction when this happens. The Probability Pie Chart CBT technique offered us a way to identify when the ego is actually jumping to conclusions and allows us to put everything in context to weaken the argument it presents. The pie chart technique however only dealt with providing context, it didn't give us a way to prevent the thought process it lead to from taking hold even if we knew the outcome we were fixated on was not the most likely, and even when it is the most likely outcome there can still be reasons why we wouldn't want to fixate on it, for example everyone will die eventually but fixating on the fact you will die isn't healthy even if it is a mathematical certainty that you are going to die at some point.
It is important to doubt yourself to an extent and be able to balance your thought process, in a healthy mind the ego would do this for you but when you know that your ego is biased and your mind is leaning towards one side more than the other then it is important to challenge your ego with counter points in order to remain critical and be able to form well reasoned beliefs. In this regard self doubt needs to serve its purpose by challenging what our ego tells us with the ultimate goal being the identification of core beliefs, or the root of our thoughts. These are the foundations upon which all thoughts we have are built upon, they are the trunk from which everything branches, if these core beliefs are unbalanced then every thought we have has a statistical imbalance too and it's difficult to have thoughts occur organically that are balanced.
For example, when we tell ourselves we are not good enough we need to trace that branch back to the trunk and back to the root to identify what core thought causes us to feel that way. The easiest way to trace these thoughts is simply to ask why we think that way. By successively asking why, we can trace the origins of our thoughts. If we reach a blank and we can't identify why we feel a certain way then either the ego is hiding the root of that thought from us, or it isn't attached to our core beliefs at all, in which case it is a belief that has been planted there and become entangled in our own and needs to be cut out of the tree.
To give another example, if we don't think we are smart enough then we need to ask why we believe that, and continually pursue the questioning of each belief until you reach the core belief and the root of those thoughts, where it ultimately stems from, what makes you think this is or isn't true.
The negative connotations of self doubt in regard to confidence are partly to blame for our aversion to self doubt as a useful tool. When we chronicle our thoughts and determine how they make us feel we need to analyse those thoughts and ask ourselves objectively if those thoughts are based in truth and what the repercussions are. To that end, it is important to discard the ego in those moments and look at what we think and be honest about whether it is in fact true. In many cases we can recognise that the negative thoughts we have are often used as excuses or explanations for shortcomings when in reality those tend to be things we can't actually control, or they lead us to thoughts as a root that form a core belief that does not in reality have any evidence to back it up, or at the very least has evidence for which alternate explanations and alternative conclusions could also be drawn.
Self doubt can be created by using the tools that CBT techniques offer us but ultimately within a healthy mind this doubt should come from the ego itself and if the ego is not capable of self doubt then we need to teach it to incorporate self doubt into its decision making process. It is not possible to discard the ego entirely, it is important to recognise that and understand that when you place it to one side in order to employ these techniques it is still watching and observing and despite the portrayal of the ego as something evil and unwilling to listen, the reality is the exact opposite. The ego takes its cues from our experiences, it observes and it reacts the same way it reacted before because that is what it knows and that is what it does best. If you want to change the way it is acting you have to recognise that your thoughts and your actions are part of a constant reinforcement algorithm like an artificial intelligence your ego represents an agent and everything it does is informed by the policy it has created from the data that it has been fed. If you want to alter the actions of the ego you have to feed it data that will alter the policy.
I am not going to lie, I had somewhat of an existential crisis contemplating this technique, not least of all for the realisation that human intelligence does not actually differ that much from artificial intelligence after all. I have written about AI many times and discussed that the main difference is that humans are capable of processing both priori and a posteriori knowledge as defined by Philosopher Immanuel Kant that is to say humans can possess knowledge that is objectively true yet independent of experience, as well as knowledge that is derived from and built upon experience. AI is only capable of the latter at present and has not yet been developed to accurately model the former as the inability to connect knowledge to existing knowledge makes it difficult to use logic to provide a proof that validates that knowledge.
This distinction is best demonstrated with a halting problem, if I were to give you and an AI both a locked box and hand you both a key ring with an infinite number of keys on it, you would both set about trying each key until you found one that opened the box. The human being would stop eventually, they are capable of a level of reasoning in this situation that is not based on experience, there is a realisation that occurs in the process that the task is likely to be impossible and the box will never be opened. An AI on the other hand will find it incapable of determining when to stop as the fact that the key ring is infinite means that it is a mathematical certainty that a key will exist at some point on the keyring that will open the box. There is the possibility that the AI may never find that key, but there is no reliable way of instructing the AI when to stop. Giving it explicit instructions to stop after 100 attempts for example is not allowed in this scenario as that is an instruction you are giving it, not a realisation it is coming to on its own.
This was a belief of mine for a very long time but through using this CBT technique I had to question that belief at one point and the realisation that CBT is designed to help remove branches from your tree of beliefs that are not connected to your core beliefs made me realise human intelligence actually breaks down when it relies on a priori beliefs, and that CBT and fields of study like it attempt to remove this and revert our thought processes to being a posteriori belief based essentially throwing into question the reliability of any knowledge in the process that is also differentiated by this distinction. The only way I can reconcile the cognitive dissonance this caused was to assert that beliefs and knowledge whilst both shaping our thought process have to be considered separate even though they are almost impossible to separate. I'm not going to lie this made it very difficult to present any logical coherent argument that would stand as a proof that neither you nor I were in fact computer programs part of a simulation.
I over-think things, did I mention that? This technique should be taken with moderation. Doubt has its purpose but you can't pursue it to an extreme because you will doubt your very existence if you do. It's important to bring this back to a very serious point, CBT is designed to disrupt thought patterns and thought processes and it does that quite well, the only real conclusion I have from this entire exploration is that the only effective way to ensure CBT works is to remove the stimuli that caused the situation or mental state that necessitated its use in the first place. That and the main point that CBT always came back to was that every thought and feeling when it is overwhelming needs to be put into context to determine its true magnitude. The sun in the sky is blinding, its light in daytime covers the surface of the planet exposed to it, the light is so strong we can't see beyond the sky that it illuminates, but at night in darkness we can see the cosmos beyond our planet, when you ascend into that cosmos and you look back at our planet, the sun is a bright star but it does not obscure the rest of the cosmos, its true brightness can be seen with context. It's important to be able to recognise when you are being blinded by something in the moment that will pass in time, even if it is something that you will have to deal with time and again, it will pass.
I would encourage people to use self doubt as a tool when they are feeling anxious and even in your everyday life it does have a purpose but moderation is key and recognising that you can take conscious control of that doubt to use it to your advantage is something that can be very useful even beyond CBT.
Music Monday #8: The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson
I've realised that the original purpose of this series of posts was to cover a topic that was light-hearted and not as serious as some of the other posts on this blog, and yet so far we've already discussed Religion, Satanism, Terrorism, War, and this post isn't going to shift the tone much in the other direction in fact it might even reinforce the downward spiral but I guess that's reflective of the fact that most music means something to me, lyrics speak to me, music moves me, and I turn to it when I need to process what I am feeling so it's inevitable that it will be filled with emotion. This next album is no different, in that it too touches on some deep rooted emotions, or lack thereof.
Janet Jackson released 'The Velvet Rope' in 1997, an album that I and many others regard as the best album she ever produced. That's not to discount her other works, let me be clear I revere Janet, she is a visionary, an artist in every sense, a genius, and although Michael still holds the title as the better dancer in my opinion she was always the better singer, there was never even a contest in my mind. Janet is without a doubt an artist that isn't afraid of experimenting and that shows in the music she creates. The Velvet Rope holds a special place in my heart because I have gone through episodes of depression several times in my life, something I have grown more confident discussing. In those darkest moments though when I can't feel much if anything at all the title track of this album still manages to touch me, the haunting violin solo in itself never fails to ensnare my senses and take hold of my spirit and move it around at will. This track and 'To Love You More' by Celine Dion remain two works of art that take the violin and use it in a way that is truly entrancing to me.
As a young closeted gay man, 'Free Xone' spoke to me as an expression of love without limits, with the lyric "One rule, No rules, One love, Free Xone" particularly striking a chord with me, Janet Jackson was someone I saw as empowered, with a voice, with respect, and with the admiration and adoration of many, to hear her speak freely of love that was without limits you can't understand how much it means to know someone like that is on your side, this remains one of the reasons why I think advocacy and allies are important, to be accepting and to be visible in that acceptance lets people like me know it's ok, people who grew up in a sheltered environment with little exposure to the wider world; I was 9 years old at the time and had grown up with conservative viewpoints dominating the politics we saw on TV something that also changed in 1997 thankfully.
It's important to understand the environment that existed during this time. In 1988 the year I was born an act was introduced which had a clause in it called Section 28 which prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" this in effect meant that Teachers and anyone who was part of the Civil Service and its extended bodies weren't allowed to do or say anything that would be construed as normalising being gay, this in practice meant that gay people had zero support from all the conventional sources of authority beyond their parents that they would turn to, efforts were made to repeal the law in the year 2000 but they failed predominantly because of opposition in the House of Lords led by a peer named Baroness Young, indeed it wasn't until after she died in 2002 when efforts to repeal Section 28 were reintroduced and ultimately passed in 2003 succeeding in the repeal of the legislation when I was 15 years old.
This act was explicitly directed at England and Wales which for those who are unaware of the composition of the UK are two of the constituent countries that make up the UK. From 1972 to 1998 Northern Ireland was governed by 'Direct Rule' this meant a minister in Westminster was appointed to make decisions affecting Northern Ireland with no democratic representation at all.
Education was not devolved to the Northern Ireland until the Northern Ireland Assembly was reinstated through the Good Friday Agreement which was signed in 1998 when I was 10 years old. However, even beyond this date the legislation continued to have an impact. Whilst devolution in theory allows constituent countries to diverge on many matters, in practice is doesn't always work that way. Owing to the continued influence of the central Westminster departments, manipulation of funding, dictation of national curricula, and other subversive means namely the control and conditional access to national resources as a means to manipulate local resources, it is often the case that devolved matters are still effectively controlled by Westminster or to put it another way devolution in these matters effectively says "you are free to do whatever you want as long as we agree with it" which was the case with Section 28 and can be seen most recently as being alive and well and still practised through the Brexit process that completely disregarded the fact Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted to remain but England voted to leave so England got its way as it always does by virtue of the fact it has an absolute majority of the seats our national Parliament and cannot be overruled by any other constituent country, to give an analogy this would be as if Texas in the USA got to decide every major decision even if every single state voted against that decision and Texas voted for it then Texas would get its way.
This institutional Homophobia that was state sponsored drowned out any potential sources of hope and voices of reason for people like me. It was because of people like Janet Jackson being vocal about their support for the LGBT community that gave me hope that there were people out there that would accept me for who I was and wouldn't think I was a freak.
This in itself created an emotional affinity for Janet and her work but her music in itself still touches me, 'Together Again' and 'Every Time' in particular make me feel happy and hopeful respectively. The Velvet Rope remains the best Janet Jackson album in my mind but truth be told I would include every single one of her albums on this list, but instead I have opted for two, this one and another that will feature in its own post.
Janet Jackson released 'The Velvet Rope' in 1997, an album that I and many others regard as the best album she ever produced. That's not to discount her other works, let me be clear I revere Janet, she is a visionary, an artist in every sense, a genius, and although Michael still holds the title as the better dancer in my opinion she was always the better singer, there was never even a contest in my mind. Janet is without a doubt an artist that isn't afraid of experimenting and that shows in the music she creates. The Velvet Rope holds a special place in my heart because I have gone through episodes of depression several times in my life, something I have grown more confident discussing. In those darkest moments though when I can't feel much if anything at all the title track of this album still manages to touch me, the haunting violin solo in itself never fails to ensnare my senses and take hold of my spirit and move it around at will. This track and 'To Love You More' by Celine Dion remain two works of art that take the violin and use it in a way that is truly entrancing to me.
As a young closeted gay man, 'Free Xone' spoke to me as an expression of love without limits, with the lyric "One rule, No rules, One love, Free Xone" particularly striking a chord with me, Janet Jackson was someone I saw as empowered, with a voice, with respect, and with the admiration and adoration of many, to hear her speak freely of love that was without limits you can't understand how much it means to know someone like that is on your side, this remains one of the reasons why I think advocacy and allies are important, to be accepting and to be visible in that acceptance lets people like me know it's ok, people who grew up in a sheltered environment with little exposure to the wider world; I was 9 years old at the time and had grown up with conservative viewpoints dominating the politics we saw on TV something that also changed in 1997 thankfully.
It's important to understand the environment that existed during this time. In 1988 the year I was born an act was introduced which had a clause in it called Section 28 which prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" this in effect meant that Teachers and anyone who was part of the Civil Service and its extended bodies weren't allowed to do or say anything that would be construed as normalising being gay, this in practice meant that gay people had zero support from all the conventional sources of authority beyond their parents that they would turn to, efforts were made to repeal the law in the year 2000 but they failed predominantly because of opposition in the House of Lords led by a peer named Baroness Young, indeed it wasn't until after she died in 2002 when efforts to repeal Section 28 were reintroduced and ultimately passed in 2003 succeeding in the repeal of the legislation when I was 15 years old.
This act was explicitly directed at England and Wales which for those who are unaware of the composition of the UK are two of the constituent countries that make up the UK. From 1972 to 1998 Northern Ireland was governed by 'Direct Rule' this meant a minister in Westminster was appointed to make decisions affecting Northern Ireland with no democratic representation at all.
Education was not devolved to the Northern Ireland until the Northern Ireland Assembly was reinstated through the Good Friday Agreement which was signed in 1998 when I was 10 years old. However, even beyond this date the legislation continued to have an impact. Whilst devolution in theory allows constituent countries to diverge on many matters, in practice is doesn't always work that way. Owing to the continued influence of the central Westminster departments, manipulation of funding, dictation of national curricula, and other subversive means namely the control and conditional access to national resources as a means to manipulate local resources, it is often the case that devolved matters are still effectively controlled by Westminster or to put it another way devolution in these matters effectively says "you are free to do whatever you want as long as we agree with it" which was the case with Section 28 and can be seen most recently as being alive and well and still practised through the Brexit process that completely disregarded the fact Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted to remain but England voted to leave so England got its way as it always does by virtue of the fact it has an absolute majority of the seats our national Parliament and cannot be overruled by any other constituent country, to give an analogy this would be as if Texas in the USA got to decide every major decision even if every single state voted against that decision and Texas voted for it then Texas would get its way.
This institutional Homophobia that was state sponsored drowned out any potential sources of hope and voices of reason for people like me. It was because of people like Janet Jackson being vocal about their support for the LGBT community that gave me hope that there were people out there that would accept me for who I was and wouldn't think I was a freak.
This in itself created an emotional affinity for Janet and her work but her music in itself still touches me, 'Together Again' and 'Every Time' in particular make me feel happy and hopeful respectively. The Velvet Rope remains the best Janet Jackson album in my mind but truth be told I would include every single one of her albums on this list, but instead I have opted for two, this one and another that will feature in its own post.
CBT: Probability Pie Charts
This post is part of a series of posts exploring Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] techniques, their application, and my experiences with them. All posts in this series begin with the tag 'CBT' so you can use the search feature of this blog to read the other posts.
This CBT technique is another data driven technique that employs analysis of your thoughts which I like for many different reasons but perhaps most of all it appeals to the geeky/nerdy side of me that likes crunching numbers and working with data. The purpose of this technique is once again to provide context to our thoughts. Context is becoming a recurring theme and it props up quite a bit in CBT in fact I would say it forms the foundation of most CBT techniques that ultimately each is designed to put everything you are experiencing in context in an attempt to alter your behaviour or more precisely to alter your cognitive behaviour, which is just another way of saying thought process.
Whenever we have anxiety that is centred around possible outcomes to any given situation or potential situations that we expect to find ourselves in, it is often the case that this anxiety stems from our belief that a given outcome is the most likely, and that whenever those situations occur, if they do, that the outcome we are expecting will happen. The purpose of this technique is to provide context in order to challenge this belief and break the association that it has with our thought process and the influence it is having over our behaviour. To that end, we need once again to take the situation and the expected outcome and set them to one side for a moment. We then need to consider all possible outcomes that we can think of, and be as inventive as we can in the process. The purpose here much as it was with Devil's Advocate is to provide alternative perspectives that differ from the one that we have settled upon. The expected result that we think is most likely has been decided as the most likely by our ego, and ordinarily we do not question our ego as we see this as an attack on ourselves.
In a healthy mind that is balanced, two distinct personalities exist, one is known as the Id, and generally it represents darkness, that's not to say that it is inherently negative, but simply to say that it is generally unknown to us, we don't get to explore it much, it exists entirely in our unconscious mind and it is hidden from direct interaction. It is also fed by experience and fed by data that we accumulate over time, so it can become biased and skewed towards one outcome more than another. The other personality is the superego, this personality spans all three levels of the mind, conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. The superego generally represents lightness but again that is not to say it is inherently positive, but rather that it represents the best of all outcomes, or idealisation. These two personalities are balanced by a central ego that keeps the two in check. The ego is the only one of these three elements that we directly interact with, and it is the only one we formally recognise as a personality, the others we tend to think of as elements of a personality but not distinct personalities in themselves - but for the sake of this technique there is no real difference between being a personality element and being a fully formed personality, the only defining barrier to that classification traditionally would be control, in that the ego is the only one of the three that actually has control over you, the other two usually don't - usually.
When a mind is unhealthy or has become unbalanced, the ego favours one side more than the other, or to use an analogy if your mind was a corporation with 3 people on the board of directors the CEO has a favourite and listens to them more than the other director and gives their argument very little weight. The purpose of this CBT technique is to override the ego and to explicitly challenge their conclusion by looking at each situation and allowing each side to air their view.
To that end, with our expected result put to one side for a moment, we can take the situation that we are anxious about and start thinking of alternative results that could arise. In this process we list as many as we can, being as inventive as we can, whilst still remaining realistic in the process. The purpose here is to draw out expected results from both the superego and the Id and when done so effectively it should be quite easy to identify where those thoughts are stemming from. Once you have compiled your list you then add your original expected result to it and then take the list and assign a probability percentage to each outcome as to how likely that outcome would be in reality. Once you have assigned a probability you then need to draw a pie chart, this can be done approximately with pen and paper or you can use a spreadsheet or a word processor or an online chart tool to create a pie chart that represents the situation and the results.
The final product of this technique is a pie chart that provides a visual representation of the probability of each outcome showing your original expected outcome in context, once again context is key. With this in hand you can see how balanced or unbalanced your thought process has been in assigning weight and magnitude to the original expected outcome.
I like this technique as I said before for many different reasons, but beyond the sentimentality I hold for employing data and analysis, this technique for me has proven to be the easiest one to produce something conclusive. The fact that it centres around logic and reason but in a way that helps process that into something visual and easier to process is perhaps the reason I would encourage everyone to try this technique, even if you aren't suffering from anxiety and feel you have no need for CBT at all and are merely reading these posts out of curiosity and intrigue as to what you might find, if you want to try any technique, this one is perhaps the least "harmful" one to experiment with if you have no need. That's not to say that any of these techniques could provide lasting harm if used without need, I just wouldn't encourage you to use the others unless you actually feel like you need them as their effectiveness over time is generally diminished if overused, with a few exceptions.
This CBT technique is another data driven technique that employs analysis of your thoughts which I like for many different reasons but perhaps most of all it appeals to the geeky/nerdy side of me that likes crunching numbers and working with data. The purpose of this technique is once again to provide context to our thoughts. Context is becoming a recurring theme and it props up quite a bit in CBT in fact I would say it forms the foundation of most CBT techniques that ultimately each is designed to put everything you are experiencing in context in an attempt to alter your behaviour or more precisely to alter your cognitive behaviour, which is just another way of saying thought process.
Whenever we have anxiety that is centred around possible outcomes to any given situation or potential situations that we expect to find ourselves in, it is often the case that this anxiety stems from our belief that a given outcome is the most likely, and that whenever those situations occur, if they do, that the outcome we are expecting will happen. The purpose of this technique is to provide context in order to challenge this belief and break the association that it has with our thought process and the influence it is having over our behaviour. To that end, we need once again to take the situation and the expected outcome and set them to one side for a moment. We then need to consider all possible outcomes that we can think of, and be as inventive as we can in the process. The purpose here much as it was with Devil's Advocate is to provide alternative perspectives that differ from the one that we have settled upon. The expected result that we think is most likely has been decided as the most likely by our ego, and ordinarily we do not question our ego as we see this as an attack on ourselves.
In a healthy mind that is balanced, two distinct personalities exist, one is known as the Id, and generally it represents darkness, that's not to say that it is inherently negative, but simply to say that it is generally unknown to us, we don't get to explore it much, it exists entirely in our unconscious mind and it is hidden from direct interaction. It is also fed by experience and fed by data that we accumulate over time, so it can become biased and skewed towards one outcome more than another. The other personality is the superego, this personality spans all three levels of the mind, conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. The superego generally represents lightness but again that is not to say it is inherently positive, but rather that it represents the best of all outcomes, or idealisation. These two personalities are balanced by a central ego that keeps the two in check. The ego is the only one of these three elements that we directly interact with, and it is the only one we formally recognise as a personality, the others we tend to think of as elements of a personality but not distinct personalities in themselves - but for the sake of this technique there is no real difference between being a personality element and being a fully formed personality, the only defining barrier to that classification traditionally would be control, in that the ego is the only one of the three that actually has control over you, the other two usually don't - usually.
When a mind is unhealthy or has become unbalanced, the ego favours one side more than the other, or to use an analogy if your mind was a corporation with 3 people on the board of directors the CEO has a favourite and listens to them more than the other director and gives their argument very little weight. The purpose of this CBT technique is to override the ego and to explicitly challenge their conclusion by looking at each situation and allowing each side to air their view.
To that end, with our expected result put to one side for a moment, we can take the situation that we are anxious about and start thinking of alternative results that could arise. In this process we list as many as we can, being as inventive as we can, whilst still remaining realistic in the process. The purpose here is to draw out expected results from both the superego and the Id and when done so effectively it should be quite easy to identify where those thoughts are stemming from. Once you have compiled your list you then add your original expected result to it and then take the list and assign a probability percentage to each outcome as to how likely that outcome would be in reality. Once you have assigned a probability you then need to draw a pie chart, this can be done approximately with pen and paper or you can use a spreadsheet or a word processor or an online chart tool to create a pie chart that represents the situation and the results.
The final product of this technique is a pie chart that provides a visual representation of the probability of each outcome showing your original expected outcome in context, once again context is key. With this in hand you can see how balanced or unbalanced your thought process has been in assigning weight and magnitude to the original expected outcome.
I like this technique as I said before for many different reasons, but beyond the sentimentality I hold for employing data and analysis, this technique for me has proven to be the easiest one to produce something conclusive. The fact that it centres around logic and reason but in a way that helps process that into something visual and easier to process is perhaps the reason I would encourage everyone to try this technique, even if you aren't suffering from anxiety and feel you have no need for CBT at all and are merely reading these posts out of curiosity and intrigue as to what you might find, if you want to try any technique, this one is perhaps the least "harmful" one to experiment with if you have no need. That's not to say that any of these techniques could provide lasting harm if used without need, I just wouldn't encourage you to use the others unless you actually feel like you need them as their effectiveness over time is generally diminished if overused, with a few exceptions.
CBT: Unconscious Thought Tracking
This post is part of a series of posts exploring Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] techniques, their application, and my experiences with them. All posts in this series begin with the tag 'CBT' so you can use the search feature of this blog to read the other posts.
When dealing with anxiety, the way we think about the world, and our day to day lives affects our state of mind and continues to feed our thought process. Our thought process can influence our emotions, and whilst most emotions precede a thought, it is important to recognise that emotions can be triggered by thoughts and as we have discussed in previous posts emotions can send us into a spiral fed by a feedback loop that they induce. To that end, it is important to identify where feelings originate in order to understand how they are triggered in the first place. This isn't always possible to do, as I said, feelings generally occur before a thought rather than after a thought, however, chronicling your thoughts over time can help you gauge your shifting mental state and allow you to identify patterns and become aware of thoughts that are influencing your mental and emotional states.
In the process of chronicling your thoughts, the objective is to determine a temperature as it were. If you think of positivity as heat, and negativity as coldness, or reverse if you prefer, then your mental state and emotional state can be in part indicated on a metaphorical thermometer. As you chronicle thoughts when they occur you can attribute values to those thoughts based on how they affect the way you feel, with negative thoughts having negative values and positive thoughts having positive values, or reversed if you chose to reverse the scale - this can help you identify sources of hotness or coldness which represent sources of positivity or negativity however you chose to attribute these.
It is easy to assume that your thought process is inclined towards one side more than the other but it is often the case that we aren't able to accurately determine by what percentage this is the case, i.e. we cannot initially say that we have a 60/40 split with positive vs negative thoughts because our cognitive bias will lead us to pay more attention to one side than the other even if it isn't the prevailing direction that our thoughts are sending us in.
The purpose of chronicling thoughts in a journal is intended to help keep track of the thoughts we have and their influence and allow us to reflect on the data after it has been compiled to get a more accurate depiction. The biggest obstacle to the effective use of this technique is establishing the habit of chronicling your thoughts. Whilst recording each thought it is important to know what to record and what not to record. You can choose to record everything for sake of simplicity but that will likely be burdensome and discourage you from pursuing this technique to get any real value out of it. The most important thoughts to record are what are referred to as unconscious thoughts. Where a conscious thought is one that you consciously decided to contemplate, an unconscious thought is one that occurs to you unprovoked or one that occurs in response to situations or stimuli. For example deciding what to eat and thinking what food you would like is a conscious thought, whereas your reaction to dropping an egg on the floor when trying to prepare a meal is an unconscious thought because it details something that came to mind after an event occurred that was unprovoked.
Getting into the habit of chronicling your thoughts will be difficult at first until the habit of recording your thoughts is instilled and depending on how active our minds are and the volume of thought that we engage in, this may take some time to complete. The first few days worth of data is not likely to be of much use as the habit will still be forming at that point and data will likely be missing. Once you are confident that the habit has formed and the data is an accurate reflection then you can rely on it more conclusively. With each thought that is recorded, note the effect it has on your emotional state, positive, negative, and neutral.
A week or so worth of data would give a more accurate depiction at first at least for the sake of satisfying curiosity. In order to achieve this goal, simply use a memo pad app on your phone, or a notepad, or a something that you can record your thoughts in and note in the moment whether they make you feel better or worse. Reflecting on the data should give you an idea of the ratio of positive to negative thoughts that you have, and having the data to reflect on when heightened emotional states occur will give you the opportunity to look back and see if there was a thought pattern that had formed prior to that changing state.
For me personally this technique wasn't relevant to my situation as the stimuli that I was reacting to were not things that I had control over, this technique is primarily aimed at individuals who are struggling with anxiety that originates from their own thoughts and feelings as opposed to being situational. If you are having emotions that don't originate from your own thought process then this likely won't be of use to you either. It is worth noting that this technique can be adapted to be used to record your responses that occur when those stimuli occur and it can be useful in that regard to establish the same awareness of thought patterns however it doesn't offer much in the way of preventing stimuli that doesn't originate from your thoughts.
As you can imagine this technique didn't do much for me personally for the reasons I outlined above, I did manage to use it to identify thought patterns but those patterns were also self-evident prior to using this technique so whilst useful and effective, it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, so I am quite indifferent on this one. This does however highlight an important point to make, that not every technique will be relevant, and not every technique will actually work for you, they can be best seen as tools to arm yourself with as and when needed.
When dealing with anxiety, the way we think about the world, and our day to day lives affects our state of mind and continues to feed our thought process. Our thought process can influence our emotions, and whilst most emotions precede a thought, it is important to recognise that emotions can be triggered by thoughts and as we have discussed in previous posts emotions can send us into a spiral fed by a feedback loop that they induce. To that end, it is important to identify where feelings originate in order to understand how they are triggered in the first place. This isn't always possible to do, as I said, feelings generally occur before a thought rather than after a thought, however, chronicling your thoughts over time can help you gauge your shifting mental state and allow you to identify patterns and become aware of thoughts that are influencing your mental and emotional states.
In the process of chronicling your thoughts, the objective is to determine a temperature as it were. If you think of positivity as heat, and negativity as coldness, or reverse if you prefer, then your mental state and emotional state can be in part indicated on a metaphorical thermometer. As you chronicle thoughts when they occur you can attribute values to those thoughts based on how they affect the way you feel, with negative thoughts having negative values and positive thoughts having positive values, or reversed if you chose to reverse the scale - this can help you identify sources of hotness or coldness which represent sources of positivity or negativity however you chose to attribute these.
It is easy to assume that your thought process is inclined towards one side more than the other but it is often the case that we aren't able to accurately determine by what percentage this is the case, i.e. we cannot initially say that we have a 60/40 split with positive vs negative thoughts because our cognitive bias will lead us to pay more attention to one side than the other even if it isn't the prevailing direction that our thoughts are sending us in.
The purpose of chronicling thoughts in a journal is intended to help keep track of the thoughts we have and their influence and allow us to reflect on the data after it has been compiled to get a more accurate depiction. The biggest obstacle to the effective use of this technique is establishing the habit of chronicling your thoughts. Whilst recording each thought it is important to know what to record and what not to record. You can choose to record everything for sake of simplicity but that will likely be burdensome and discourage you from pursuing this technique to get any real value out of it. The most important thoughts to record are what are referred to as unconscious thoughts. Where a conscious thought is one that you consciously decided to contemplate, an unconscious thought is one that occurs to you unprovoked or one that occurs in response to situations or stimuli. For example deciding what to eat and thinking what food you would like is a conscious thought, whereas your reaction to dropping an egg on the floor when trying to prepare a meal is an unconscious thought because it details something that came to mind after an event occurred that was unprovoked.
Getting into the habit of chronicling your thoughts will be difficult at first until the habit of recording your thoughts is instilled and depending on how active our minds are and the volume of thought that we engage in, this may take some time to complete. The first few days worth of data is not likely to be of much use as the habit will still be forming at that point and data will likely be missing. Once you are confident that the habit has formed and the data is an accurate reflection then you can rely on it more conclusively. With each thought that is recorded, note the effect it has on your emotional state, positive, negative, and neutral.
A week or so worth of data would give a more accurate depiction at first at least for the sake of satisfying curiosity. In order to achieve this goal, simply use a memo pad app on your phone, or a notepad, or a something that you can record your thoughts in and note in the moment whether they make you feel better or worse. Reflecting on the data should give you an idea of the ratio of positive to negative thoughts that you have, and having the data to reflect on when heightened emotional states occur will give you the opportunity to look back and see if there was a thought pattern that had formed prior to that changing state.
For me personally this technique wasn't relevant to my situation as the stimuli that I was reacting to were not things that I had control over, this technique is primarily aimed at individuals who are struggling with anxiety that originates from their own thoughts and feelings as opposed to being situational. If you are having emotions that don't originate from your own thought process then this likely won't be of use to you either. It is worth noting that this technique can be adapted to be used to record your responses that occur when those stimuli occur and it can be useful in that regard to establish the same awareness of thought patterns however it doesn't offer much in the way of preventing stimuli that doesn't originate from your thoughts.
As you can imagine this technique didn't do much for me personally for the reasons I outlined above, I did manage to use it to identify thought patterns but those patterns were also self-evident prior to using this technique so whilst useful and effective, it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, so I am quite indifferent on this one. This does however highlight an important point to make, that not every technique will be relevant, and not every technique will actually work for you, they can be best seen as tools to arm yourself with as and when needed.
CBT: The Devil's Advocate
This post is part of a series of posts exploring Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] techniques, their application, and my experiences with them. All posts in this series begin with the tag 'CBT' so you can use the search feature of this blog to read the other posts.
Sticking with demonic metaphors, The Devil's Advocate is a trope in fiction where an author will create a character that gives the "Devil" a voice, this isn't usually a literal depiction of the Devil from Abrahamic Religions but rather the representation of a counter point, or the adversary in a given situation. This particular CBT technique borrows from that literary trope and employs it as a means of encouraging introspection that is critical rather than being lead by cognitive bias, although it's worth pointing out before going further that it's never truly possible to be objective and truly unbiased when you are judging yourself and analysing your own thoughts and feelings no matter how indifferent and objective you may think you're being, with that said we can continue.
When anxiety over situations occurs it is often the fear of the unknown that is the cause, there is an association between the situation and a potential result that is perceived as unwanted and this association is then determined to be the most likely outcome because the others are unknown and uncontemplated due to our aversion to contradicting the ego. In order to combat this you need to map out other potential results in order to sow doubt and dilute the concentration that is placed negative result we perceive as the most likely. This involves looking at our circumstance from differing points of view and considering those that factor in the possibility that we are wrong. In its most basic terms there is always a good guy and a bad guy in narrative fiction and characters always believe that they are the good guy, every hero is a villain to the other side. It's important to recognise that no matter how convinced we may be in any situation of any belief, there always remains the possibility that we are wrong, even if all evidence we have points towards the conclusions we have drawn.
For example, if you have a fear of social situations because you feel that people will not like you and that they will react negatively in those situations then it is important to recognise the situation, the expected result, and the evidence that we have considered that lead us to this conclusion and then go beyond these predications and consider alternate explanations firstly to contradict the evidence, which in turn will sow doubt at the conclusion, and hopefully alter the expectation. In this case the situation is a potential social gathering, and the expected result is a negative reaction that other people won't like you and then act in a given way. The evidence you might have in this situation is prior experience of efforts to engage socially that did not end well. The assumptions as to why those prior situations ended the way they did must first be challenged and alternate explanations should be offered. For instance, failure to form connections at prior social interactions might not have been because the people did not like you but because they weren't interested in the things you spoke to them about, or that you didn't have anything in common with them, or that they were nervous and unable to put aside their own anxieties in order to engage, or that they weren't in the right frame of mind to be sociable because of something they were going through. The important thing to achieve here is to consider alternative explanations for the evidence you have gathered even if those explanations might not seem likely or even plausible at first.
Once you manage to offer alternative explanations for the evidence you had built up then you can draw alternative conclusions in hypothetical scenarios where your explanations for those pieces of evidence were actually true, again at this point plausibility and likelihood aren't relevant, you just have to play out the scene with characters that have different motivations to those that you expect. With those alternative conclusions in hand you can then consider them in tandem with your initial conclusion to alleviate the feeling of predestined failure. With each conclusion in hand including your initial conclusion which may still seem the most likely, you then play out each hypothetical situation by successively asking what would happen next, pursuing each narrative to an end point. When you reach the end of each narrative you can if you wish, replay the narrative making alternative choices along the way developing different strategies. The ultimate goal of this technique is to minimise the uncertainty element by playing out as many scenarios as you can think of until you reach a point where your initial conclusion in context isn't as daunting as you first thought.
I over-think things. This is an understatement. If you know me you will laugh when I say this because you will know I'm not exaggerating when I make this simple assertion. This technique isn't one that I needed to learn about in this context because it is something that I have done for years, and considering the traumatic experiences I have been through and the fact this developed naturally as a coping mechanism I can entirely understand the logic behind it but I would not say it was healthy at all, although time and again now as I explore CBT the same conclusion I keep drawing is that CBT gives you temporary permission to engage in behaviours that would normally be discouraged as a means to overcome short term problems. It's not healthy in the long run to over-think things as that in itself can lead to anxiety and can make it difficult to cope with certain situations. I guess in that regard the fact that CBT is used as a bridge not as a destination implies that behaviours such as this are fine when used in moderation and when appropriate but relying on them long term is not ideal which I can completely accept from experience.
You won't be surprised to know this technique is the one I found easiest to use but not surprisingly it didn't help me all that much in coping with my situation, I believe that is primarily due to the fact this was a default behaviour for me and that employing it did not involve any disruption of the thought processes that lead me to this point in the first place - or to put it another way you can't solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.
Would I recommend this technique? That's a very difficult question to answer, on the one hand this is something I have done for many years and it has worked for me, it has got me through some very difficult situations and it has brought me a great degree of success, on the other hand it also helped contribute to the situation I found myself in because it lead to ingrained responses that were relied upon as optimal strategies as they were proven to have worked in the past. I would perhaps say that this technique can be incredibly useful if and only if you add the caveat that it shouldn't be relied upon to create universal solutions or generic solutions to similar problems, be mindful of the strategies it produces and know the limits of their effectiveness.
Sticking with demonic metaphors, The Devil's Advocate is a trope in fiction where an author will create a character that gives the "Devil" a voice, this isn't usually a literal depiction of the Devil from Abrahamic Religions but rather the representation of a counter point, or the adversary in a given situation. This particular CBT technique borrows from that literary trope and employs it as a means of encouraging introspection that is critical rather than being lead by cognitive bias, although it's worth pointing out before going further that it's never truly possible to be objective and truly unbiased when you are judging yourself and analysing your own thoughts and feelings no matter how indifferent and objective you may think you're being, with that said we can continue.
When anxiety over situations occurs it is often the fear of the unknown that is the cause, there is an association between the situation and a potential result that is perceived as unwanted and this association is then determined to be the most likely outcome because the others are unknown and uncontemplated due to our aversion to contradicting the ego. In order to combat this you need to map out other potential results in order to sow doubt and dilute the concentration that is placed negative result we perceive as the most likely. This involves looking at our circumstance from differing points of view and considering those that factor in the possibility that we are wrong. In its most basic terms there is always a good guy and a bad guy in narrative fiction and characters always believe that they are the good guy, every hero is a villain to the other side. It's important to recognise that no matter how convinced we may be in any situation of any belief, there always remains the possibility that we are wrong, even if all evidence we have points towards the conclusions we have drawn.
For example, if you have a fear of social situations because you feel that people will not like you and that they will react negatively in those situations then it is important to recognise the situation, the expected result, and the evidence that we have considered that lead us to this conclusion and then go beyond these predications and consider alternate explanations firstly to contradict the evidence, which in turn will sow doubt at the conclusion, and hopefully alter the expectation. In this case the situation is a potential social gathering, and the expected result is a negative reaction that other people won't like you and then act in a given way. The evidence you might have in this situation is prior experience of efforts to engage socially that did not end well. The assumptions as to why those prior situations ended the way they did must first be challenged and alternate explanations should be offered. For instance, failure to form connections at prior social interactions might not have been because the people did not like you but because they weren't interested in the things you spoke to them about, or that you didn't have anything in common with them, or that they were nervous and unable to put aside their own anxieties in order to engage, or that they weren't in the right frame of mind to be sociable because of something they were going through. The important thing to achieve here is to consider alternative explanations for the evidence you have gathered even if those explanations might not seem likely or even plausible at first.
Once you manage to offer alternative explanations for the evidence you had built up then you can draw alternative conclusions in hypothetical scenarios where your explanations for those pieces of evidence were actually true, again at this point plausibility and likelihood aren't relevant, you just have to play out the scene with characters that have different motivations to those that you expect. With those alternative conclusions in hand you can then consider them in tandem with your initial conclusion to alleviate the feeling of predestined failure. With each conclusion in hand including your initial conclusion which may still seem the most likely, you then play out each hypothetical situation by successively asking what would happen next, pursuing each narrative to an end point. When you reach the end of each narrative you can if you wish, replay the narrative making alternative choices along the way developing different strategies. The ultimate goal of this technique is to minimise the uncertainty element by playing out as many scenarios as you can think of until you reach a point where your initial conclusion in context isn't as daunting as you first thought.
I over-think things. This is an understatement. If you know me you will laugh when I say this because you will know I'm not exaggerating when I make this simple assertion. This technique isn't one that I needed to learn about in this context because it is something that I have done for years, and considering the traumatic experiences I have been through and the fact this developed naturally as a coping mechanism I can entirely understand the logic behind it but I would not say it was healthy at all, although time and again now as I explore CBT the same conclusion I keep drawing is that CBT gives you temporary permission to engage in behaviours that would normally be discouraged as a means to overcome short term problems. It's not healthy in the long run to over-think things as that in itself can lead to anxiety and can make it difficult to cope with certain situations. I guess in that regard the fact that CBT is used as a bridge not as a destination implies that behaviours such as this are fine when used in moderation and when appropriate but relying on them long term is not ideal which I can completely accept from experience.
You won't be surprised to know this technique is the one I found easiest to use but not surprisingly it didn't help me all that much in coping with my situation, I believe that is primarily due to the fact this was a default behaviour for me and that employing it did not involve any disruption of the thought processes that lead me to this point in the first place - or to put it another way you can't solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.
Would I recommend this technique? That's a very difficult question to answer, on the one hand this is something I have done for many years and it has worked for me, it has got me through some very difficult situations and it has brought me a great degree of success, on the other hand it also helped contribute to the situation I found myself in because it lead to ingrained responses that were relied upon as optimal strategies as they were proven to have worked in the past. I would perhaps say that this technique can be incredibly useful if and only if you add the caveat that it shouldn't be relied upon to create universal solutions or generic solutions to similar problems, be mindful of the strategies it produces and know the limits of their effectiveness.
Music Monday #7: A New Day Has Come by Celine Dion
After mentioning Celine Dion in the previous post in this series it seems only fitting to include my favourite Celine Dion album next. 'A New Day Has Come' was released in 2002 when I was at the tail end of being 13, the first real year of your teens. The 2001/02 school year holds a lot of memories for me. It was my third year of High School and it started against a backdrop of global events that shifted the mood substantially into the negative. I live in the UK, so when September 11th 2001 hit we weren't attacked directly but we felt the pain and we looked on in disbelief.
I grew up in Northern Ireland raised by parents who lived through the brunt of the Troubles and experiencing a childhood shaped by its tail end. The threat of terrorism was something that always hung over us, I've said before my schools had 2 alarms one for fires and one for bombs with the understanding being if the fire alarm went you exited in an orderly fashion and if the bomb alarm went you got out as quick as you could and got as far from the school as you could. That's not something that is easy to process as a child and looking back it's something that never really sinks in completely.
Still of all with the threat of terrorism that we endured, the attacks we did experience were nothing in comparison to the scale of what happened on that day, to the point that even we stood dumbfounded and could not even begin to contemplate the magnitude of what would follow. I remember the mood of the nation shifting however, in the year that followed. Throughout my third year of high school I and many others not out of choice became more aware of the political landscape in which we lived. The talk of war rose and the prospect of the UK being drawn into the conflict was something became ever more real. We were too young to be affected directly if it did happen but more than a few of our teachers started looking at us differently. Those old enough to recall the height of the troubles were aware of what conflict does to people and there was a growing concern that the future we were supposed to be preparing for might be swapped for something much more bleak and grim.
I did what I always did at that age when I had feelings I couldn't process, I turned to music. When it comes to contemplating a dark future and what that might entail you are probably expecting Celine Dion to be the last artist that would feature on the list, but surprisingly she was one of the first. Nor because her music is dark but because it is the exact opposite. I was increasingly finding myself dwelling on darkness and negative thoughts and I at least had some semblance of wisdom to seek out positivity and hope to balance out the darkness with light, and when it came to positivity and music that made me feel good, Celine Dion was and remains one of the artists I turn to if not the most prevalent.
My third year of high school also saw my routine upset, a lot of things changed in my life not just because of what was going on in the world but what was going on in the immediate surroundings. Life was strenuous and I and my family were under a lot of pressure and stress. Seeking a way out, and influenced by the aftermath of the attack with the shift in UK politics that occurred my parents were looking to new horizons, they viewed a several properties in the Republic of Ireland and their determination to move from Northern Ireland to the Republic grew, for a time this looked increasingly likely, although this never worked out in the end, spoiler alert but we stayed in Northern Ireland. Despite not happening in the end, the hope of change and new opportunities was something that provided a metaphorical crutch to make the journey easier.
A New Day Has Come, not just in the title track but in the others too reinforced this feeling of looking to a brighter future beyond the darkness. I know you might be thinking if you have been reading my posts on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] that this sounds a lot like Emotional Mapping, planning out a more positive mental state and then focusing on it rather than what you are living through in the present - and you'd be right. This is an example of a time in my life where I unconsciously and intuitively employed that technique, but with age we tend to discard the things we did in our youth giving them less credit. Your personal growth tends to lead to arrogance that views past versions of yourself as unknowing and naive when it might be more prudent to accept that in their naivety they could have tapped into something that we actively convince ourself is irrelevant when the reality is that if we just tried the things we oppose so vehemently we might actually find they do work.
A New Day Has Come also has another somewhat less poignant significance for me in that it includes the track 'Aun Existe Amor' which is a Spanish track that literally translates as 'Love Still Exists' - this was the first Spanish track I ever heard Celine sing and I loved it, and the more I listened to it the more the words sank in to the point where I could recite the lyrics - I hadn't got a clue what they meant, I didn't speak Spanish, I had never studied it, my High School taught Irish and French the former I studied for 5 years. I loved learning Irish although I never used it after High School and today I would struggle to have even a basic conversation with it, but hearing Spanish performed by Celine piqued my interest. Thus began a very long journey that I still pursue today although again I pursue learning Spanish, as well as French, and German, as a hobby, something done for pleasure as I have no real use for them and I don't get any opportunity to use them. I can still recite the lyrics to the song however, at least now I know what they mean.
I grew up in Northern Ireland raised by parents who lived through the brunt of the Troubles and experiencing a childhood shaped by its tail end. The threat of terrorism was something that always hung over us, I've said before my schools had 2 alarms one for fires and one for bombs with the understanding being if the fire alarm went you exited in an orderly fashion and if the bomb alarm went you got out as quick as you could and got as far from the school as you could. That's not something that is easy to process as a child and looking back it's something that never really sinks in completely.
Still of all with the threat of terrorism that we endured, the attacks we did experience were nothing in comparison to the scale of what happened on that day, to the point that even we stood dumbfounded and could not even begin to contemplate the magnitude of what would follow. I remember the mood of the nation shifting however, in the year that followed. Throughout my third year of high school I and many others not out of choice became more aware of the political landscape in which we lived. The talk of war rose and the prospect of the UK being drawn into the conflict was something became ever more real. We were too young to be affected directly if it did happen but more than a few of our teachers started looking at us differently. Those old enough to recall the height of the troubles were aware of what conflict does to people and there was a growing concern that the future we were supposed to be preparing for might be swapped for something much more bleak and grim.
I did what I always did at that age when I had feelings I couldn't process, I turned to music. When it comes to contemplating a dark future and what that might entail you are probably expecting Celine Dion to be the last artist that would feature on the list, but surprisingly she was one of the first. Nor because her music is dark but because it is the exact opposite. I was increasingly finding myself dwelling on darkness and negative thoughts and I at least had some semblance of wisdom to seek out positivity and hope to balance out the darkness with light, and when it came to positivity and music that made me feel good, Celine Dion was and remains one of the artists I turn to if not the most prevalent.
My third year of high school also saw my routine upset, a lot of things changed in my life not just because of what was going on in the world but what was going on in the immediate surroundings. Life was strenuous and I and my family were under a lot of pressure and stress. Seeking a way out, and influenced by the aftermath of the attack with the shift in UK politics that occurred my parents were looking to new horizons, they viewed a several properties in the Republic of Ireland and their determination to move from Northern Ireland to the Republic grew, for a time this looked increasingly likely, although this never worked out in the end, spoiler alert but we stayed in Northern Ireland. Despite not happening in the end, the hope of change and new opportunities was something that provided a metaphorical crutch to make the journey easier.
A New Day Has Come, not just in the title track but in the others too reinforced this feeling of looking to a brighter future beyond the darkness. I know you might be thinking if you have been reading my posts on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] that this sounds a lot like Emotional Mapping, planning out a more positive mental state and then focusing on it rather than what you are living through in the present - and you'd be right. This is an example of a time in my life where I unconsciously and intuitively employed that technique, but with age we tend to discard the things we did in our youth giving them less credit. Your personal growth tends to lead to arrogance that views past versions of yourself as unknowing and naive when it might be more prudent to accept that in their naivety they could have tapped into something that we actively convince ourself is irrelevant when the reality is that if we just tried the things we oppose so vehemently we might actually find they do work.
A New Day Has Come also has another somewhat less poignant significance for me in that it includes the track 'Aun Existe Amor' which is a Spanish track that literally translates as 'Love Still Exists' - this was the first Spanish track I ever heard Celine sing and I loved it, and the more I listened to it the more the words sank in to the point where I could recite the lyrics - I hadn't got a clue what they meant, I didn't speak Spanish, I had never studied it, my High School taught Irish and French the former I studied for 5 years. I loved learning Irish although I never used it after High School and today I would struggle to have even a basic conversation with it, but hearing Spanish performed by Celine piqued my interest. Thus began a very long journey that I still pursue today although again I pursue learning Spanish, as well as French, and German, as a hobby, something done for pleasure as I have no real use for them and I don't get any opportunity to use them. I can still recite the lyrics to the song however, at least now I know what they mean.
CBT: Emotional Contradiction
This post is a continuation of my exploration of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] and documenting my experience of it. Each post has 'CBT' in the title so you can use the search feature on this blog to easily find all posts relating to the topic.
I have already discussed Emotional Mapping, what it is, and how to use it. There is another technique that is related to this idea of manipulating your emotions rather than letting your emotions manipulate you and that is the concept of Emotional Contradiction. The name in itself gives you an idea of what it involves but nonetheless I will structure this post in a similar way to the last, first discussing the theory and how to apply it and then relating my experience of the technique and my conclusions.
When an emotion takes hold, it can be hard to shake it, I mentioned before how emotions can become amplified, the more we focus on them the stronger they grow until they reach a point where they overwhelm us. This amplification occurs because in most cases when an emotion is experienced it triggers physical responses and these in turn trigger neurological responses which are then fed back into our thought process and depending on our ability or inability to see those emotions in context a feedback loop can occur. If the feedback loop occurs then the emotion grows in intensity until it overwhelms us - this doesn't happen with every emotion because in most cases we are able to see the context in which those emotions are felt. When this feedback loop does occur however is a spiralling that takes your emotion to an extreme. Emotional contradiction aims to correct the emotional state by using physical behaviours that contradict that state in an effort to disrupt the feedback loop and give you the opportunity to use conscious effort to return to a more stable emotional state.
Let's take a breakup as an example as that is something most people will be able to relate to at some point. When you are in a relationship with someone or when you develop a deep rooted emotional connection to someone, they become associated with a range of positive emotions, happiness, joy, anticipation, hope, among others. When a breakup or a loss occurs it's natural to feel as though those emotions are also lost with them, and that they won't be felt again or that you are incapable of feeling those emotions without them. In this situation if you feel nervous or anxious, then it is a natural response to want to shut down and shift focus away from everything else and place it on this feeling of loss. In this situation the feedback loop kicks in, the emotion gets amplified, and it will usually proceed to the point of overwhelming you and causing you to feel a sense of loss that feels greater than anything you have ever felt before.
What is lacking in this moment is once again the idea of context. In this heightened emotional state you won't respond to logic and reason, it's highly unlikely that you will "talk yourself out of it" or that you will be able to convince yourself that these emotions aren't "correct" or the "right" response to the situation. This is because emotion and logic don't like each other, they rarely overlap, and even when they do they simply cross paths before diverging again. In these situations, the Physical responses then intensify as the threat or perceived threat increases. It might sound odd to think of this situation as a "threat" but ultimately that is what is perceived in this state, your potential positive emotional state is threatened, with the trigger event being the aggressor, the shut down is a defence mechanism, by devoting all focus to the trigger your emotional state is shifting in an effort to attack it in defence but the failure here is that we tackle these emotional threats with the same emotion in kind - in this case the sense of loss is being battled with an even greater sense of loss, just as physical aggression is met with greater physical aggression in response, anger is met with rage, and so on.
In order to tackle this you need to encourage physical behaviours that contradict your emotional state. To do this you need to recognise the emotion you feel, in this case there is a sense of loss, sadness, and a sense of hopelessness. The counter balance emotions to each of these would be belonging, happiness, and hope. The first, the sense of belonging can either be the sense of feeling like you belong, or feeling as if something belongs to you, the sense of happiness is pretty straight forward, and the sense of hope is also straight forward in concept. Once you have identified the counter balance emotions then you need to enact physical behaviours that you normally associate with these emotions. Think about each of those emotions and think of physical activities or physical states that you associate with them, what you would normally be doing when you feel those emotions, where you would normally be, any deviation from your current physical state. Once you have identified those physical behaviours and physical states then you need to enact them.
This can sound very strange, to think that feeling sad because of loss can be counter balanced by smiling. It can feel disingenuous, and it can feel like you are pursuing that "fake it until you make it" mantra, but the goal here is not to achieve happiness from smiling until you feel happy - that's inane, and actually quite psychotic if you were to attempt to do that. The goal is simply to disrupt the feedback loop, to stop yourself spiralling long enough to steady yourself. Your goal isn't to improve your mental state through these actions but to simply slow and hopefully stop the spiralling by cutting off the physical stimuli that are reinforcing the undesirable state of mind that has taken hold.
Psychopathy, or Sociopathy or to use the preferred term by medical professionals, Antisocial Personality Disorder are a pair of mental disorders that although similar have some distinctions nevertheless they are both marked by an emotional disconnect that limits or completely prevents feelings of empathy amongst other emotions. In individuals with disorders such as these the outward expressed emotions are insincere and disingenuous, exhibited out of expectation and observation rather than being a reflection of an emotional state. I'm wary of advocating this technique for this reason, I have never been a fan of "fake it until you make it" and I have never been a proponent of wearing masks and false faces, if I am upset I will look upset I'm not going to smile and pretend to be happy when I am not. Having said that I do recognise the theory in play here and on that level my only inclination is to say "Needs must as the Devil drives" whilst reiterating a point I made in a previous post that CBT is intended as a short term solution, a bridge to an alternate state of mind, not a long term solution, to that end I can't emphasise enough that I don't advocate using this strategy in a general sense even if it does prove effective I think it would lead to other problems in the long run.
You can probably guess that I had limited success with this technique, it does work to an extent but my prevailing mental state and my ingrained nature is too much for me to overcome to get any real traction out of this technique, I just can't grin and bear it, I can't pretend to be happy when I am not, even if I know it's only for a very short time. This proved to be the least helpful technique for me personally that I was introduced to throughout this process.
I have already discussed Emotional Mapping, what it is, and how to use it. There is another technique that is related to this idea of manipulating your emotions rather than letting your emotions manipulate you and that is the concept of Emotional Contradiction. The name in itself gives you an idea of what it involves but nonetheless I will structure this post in a similar way to the last, first discussing the theory and how to apply it and then relating my experience of the technique and my conclusions.
When an emotion takes hold, it can be hard to shake it, I mentioned before how emotions can become amplified, the more we focus on them the stronger they grow until they reach a point where they overwhelm us. This amplification occurs because in most cases when an emotion is experienced it triggers physical responses and these in turn trigger neurological responses which are then fed back into our thought process and depending on our ability or inability to see those emotions in context a feedback loop can occur. If the feedback loop occurs then the emotion grows in intensity until it overwhelms us - this doesn't happen with every emotion because in most cases we are able to see the context in which those emotions are felt. When this feedback loop does occur however is a spiralling that takes your emotion to an extreme. Emotional contradiction aims to correct the emotional state by using physical behaviours that contradict that state in an effort to disrupt the feedback loop and give you the opportunity to use conscious effort to return to a more stable emotional state.
Let's take a breakup as an example as that is something most people will be able to relate to at some point. When you are in a relationship with someone or when you develop a deep rooted emotional connection to someone, they become associated with a range of positive emotions, happiness, joy, anticipation, hope, among others. When a breakup or a loss occurs it's natural to feel as though those emotions are also lost with them, and that they won't be felt again or that you are incapable of feeling those emotions without them. In this situation if you feel nervous or anxious, then it is a natural response to want to shut down and shift focus away from everything else and place it on this feeling of loss. In this situation the feedback loop kicks in, the emotion gets amplified, and it will usually proceed to the point of overwhelming you and causing you to feel a sense of loss that feels greater than anything you have ever felt before.
What is lacking in this moment is once again the idea of context. In this heightened emotional state you won't respond to logic and reason, it's highly unlikely that you will "talk yourself out of it" or that you will be able to convince yourself that these emotions aren't "correct" or the "right" response to the situation. This is because emotion and logic don't like each other, they rarely overlap, and even when they do they simply cross paths before diverging again. In these situations, the Physical responses then intensify as the threat or perceived threat increases. It might sound odd to think of this situation as a "threat" but ultimately that is what is perceived in this state, your potential positive emotional state is threatened, with the trigger event being the aggressor, the shut down is a defence mechanism, by devoting all focus to the trigger your emotional state is shifting in an effort to attack it in defence but the failure here is that we tackle these emotional threats with the same emotion in kind - in this case the sense of loss is being battled with an even greater sense of loss, just as physical aggression is met with greater physical aggression in response, anger is met with rage, and so on.
In order to tackle this you need to encourage physical behaviours that contradict your emotional state. To do this you need to recognise the emotion you feel, in this case there is a sense of loss, sadness, and a sense of hopelessness. The counter balance emotions to each of these would be belonging, happiness, and hope. The first, the sense of belonging can either be the sense of feeling like you belong, or feeling as if something belongs to you, the sense of happiness is pretty straight forward, and the sense of hope is also straight forward in concept. Once you have identified the counter balance emotions then you need to enact physical behaviours that you normally associate with these emotions. Think about each of those emotions and think of physical activities or physical states that you associate with them, what you would normally be doing when you feel those emotions, where you would normally be, any deviation from your current physical state. Once you have identified those physical behaviours and physical states then you need to enact them.
This can sound very strange, to think that feeling sad because of loss can be counter balanced by smiling. It can feel disingenuous, and it can feel like you are pursuing that "fake it until you make it" mantra, but the goal here is not to achieve happiness from smiling until you feel happy - that's inane, and actually quite psychotic if you were to attempt to do that. The goal is simply to disrupt the feedback loop, to stop yourself spiralling long enough to steady yourself. Your goal isn't to improve your mental state through these actions but to simply slow and hopefully stop the spiralling by cutting off the physical stimuli that are reinforcing the undesirable state of mind that has taken hold.
Psychopathy, or Sociopathy or to use the preferred term by medical professionals, Antisocial Personality Disorder are a pair of mental disorders that although similar have some distinctions nevertheless they are both marked by an emotional disconnect that limits or completely prevents feelings of empathy amongst other emotions. In individuals with disorders such as these the outward expressed emotions are insincere and disingenuous, exhibited out of expectation and observation rather than being a reflection of an emotional state. I'm wary of advocating this technique for this reason, I have never been a fan of "fake it until you make it" and I have never been a proponent of wearing masks and false faces, if I am upset I will look upset I'm not going to smile and pretend to be happy when I am not. Having said that I do recognise the theory in play here and on that level my only inclination is to say "Needs must as the Devil drives" whilst reiterating a point I made in a previous post that CBT is intended as a short term solution, a bridge to an alternate state of mind, not a long term solution, to that end I can't emphasise enough that I don't advocate using this strategy in a general sense even if it does prove effective I think it would lead to other problems in the long run.
You can probably guess that I had limited success with this technique, it does work to an extent but my prevailing mental state and my ingrained nature is too much for me to overcome to get any real traction out of this technique, I just can't grin and bear it, I can't pretend to be happy when I am not, even if I know it's only for a very short time. This proved to be the least helpful technique for me personally that I was introduced to throughout this process.
CBT: Emotional Mapping
If you follow me on twitter you might be aware that 2019 didn't end well for me. I don't want to go into specifics about what happened for the simple reason that I don't think I am ready to talk about it publicly but suffice to say I went through a few difficult months and in many ways I am still dealing with the repercussions of that. I live in the UK and despite the failings of our healthcare service we still have the luxury of a healthcare service that is free to use at the point of service and it was for that reason that I was able to seek out help. There are a lot of things I have been through in my life, a lot of that has become baggage that I have carried for some time and things just reached a point where one more thing was all it took to make the whole thing fall apart.
Going through the process of getting help though I had to learn about some areas of psychology in much greater depth than I have before. In particular, the study of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] which I was aware of before given my passing interest in Psychology and prior exploration of Cognitive Psychology and Behavioural Psychology. I have written about Psychology on this blog in the past and some of those posts did quite well in terms of views and interest they garnered so I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some of the techniques that I learned about and what I found helpful and what I found to be not so much and in some cases damaging. I want to devote posts in future to these techniques and their application. It is however important to note that CBT is generally seen as a "bridge" not a destination, and that it isn't intended to be something you use long-term but rather something you use to process thoughts and feelings in the immediate with the aim of arriving at a better place mentally. If it proves ineffective then there are alternate approaches and other forms of therapy that would then be used.
One of the first techniques I was introduced to when exploring CBT was the concept of Emotional Mapping. This technique is centred around the concept of viewing your emotional state not as something that is fixed but rather as a path that you walk along with the various obstacles you encounter representing the obstacles that life throws at us. The ultimate goal is to provide perspective and clarity in the moment by shifting the focus from what is happening at that moment and placing it in context with the path itself and the destination.
To this end, instead of focusing only on the emotion in the moment, you are encouraged to take time to reflect on the projected path. You are encouraged to think about where the path leads and the emotions that will be felt going forward.
For example, if you have to deal with a life change, or you have to abandon a set routine and accept a new order that you're not comfortable with then you can use emotional mapping to navigate the emotions that will lead you to the desired destination. If you are a student for example and you are planning on moving away from your family home to live at or near University, or to another country, or even if you just plan on moving to a new town then it's natural in the moment to feel nervous or anxious about the impending change. Your routine and your environment are changing and you are losing the sense of familiarity, comfort, and security of that which you already knew. If you allow your emotions to dominate your thought patterns then your focus will remain on the present, the thoughts and feelings that you are experiencing will get amplified, and the feelings of nervousness or anxiousness will grow.
Emotional mapping in this instance can be employed by looking forward to the path you will walk down and where it leads. Mapping out this path with key events and projected experiences you should seek to identify the emotions that you expect to feel, with particular focus on the positive emotions. Think about finally arriving at your new home, having a place of your own, building a life that you control, the independence, the freedom, the sense of fulfilment, the sense of accomplishment, the potential, the opportunities, the new friends you hope to make, all the hopes and dreams that you hope your path will lead you closer to, take all of these and think about all of the positive emotions that you will associate with them, the excitement, the happiness, the peace, the time to rest, and the time to relax. Once you have that path mapped out, you need to hold onto this map in your mind and refer back to it when you feel overwhelmed by the present, shift your focus away from being blinded by everything that is happening now and place it in context with everything that could happen going forward.
That is the theory and how to apply it. I found this technique to be useful to a point. I'm quite a cynical person by nature, my mentality by default is one of pessimism, I tend to focus on the negatives more than the positives and I tend to take the view that if I expect the worst and it happens then I was expecting it, at that point anything better is a positive. That mentality is ultimately one that seeks to avoid risk, in this case the risk of disappointment, by focusing on the negative you remove the possibility of something happening that is negative in nature that wasn't expected. The problem with this mentality if it wasn't already clear is that our thought processes and our expectations in life inevitably influence the path we walk and the choices we make because we don't take the risks we should in life instead becoming content with the way things are even if they are shitty, or to put it bluntly we tend to use the "it gets better" mantra as an excuse for our complacency with being in a shitty situation right now, because we think better things will come so we can just accept things being shit. This doesn't work in practice because "it gets better" relies on you actually attempting to reach the place where things are better - in other words you have to walk the path you mapped out, if you don't then you stay where you are, and tomorrow never comes because tomorrow is always a day away - thank you Little Orphan Annie.
This technique is useful but as I have highlighted above, you need to alter your mentality in order to use it if like me you tend to focus on the negatives in life. You have to make a conscious effort to be positive when creating the map, you can do this in your head, you can do it on paper, you can type it up, you can even create vision boards or graphical representations of the map, whatever works for you as a means of documenting the journey and the destination that you need to make. As for the destination it doesn't have to be Earth-shattering life altering changes that you plan a path toward, it can be something as simple or as complex as making it through the day - from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night it can be as short a time frame as you want, all that matters is that you are in one place, and want to be in another, and can imagine a path that connects the two. You only need to alter your mentality when creating the map if it's too much effort or exhausting to fight what is your present nature, you just need to escape that mentality for a moment or however long it takes you to imagine a positive path forward.
This technique was the first I was introduced to, and as an introduction it was important because it got me used to a few concepts and made it possible for me to understand those concepts in context. The main takeaways that I gained from this technique is the understanding that context is important and whilst every emotion is valid and every emotion should be felt and shouldn't be bottled up, they need to be given context so that they are not amplified. Silence can be deafening, pain can be excruciating, and that feeling of hopelessness can drowned your thoughts and fill you with emotional water until you can't breathe, it's important to surface for air, to kick and to thrash and to strive to stay afloat rather than letting yourself sink because the latter can cause you to sink so low that when you do try and swim you are too far from the surface at that point. This was my failing, I always gave in and allowed my emotions to be felt to their maximum, I had been lucky up until that point that those emotions had never been enough to drowned me although there were two moments where I came incredibly close as I have mentioned when I discussed suicide in a post last year.
Emotional mapping can be useful to help you navigate your emotions but ultimately it requires a level of self control, a prescience, and the ability to displace your thought patterns if only temporarily in order to contemplate a positive outcome. It can help if you are able to invoke it when you are feeling overwhelmed but if you find it hard to control your emotions even without being pressure then it might not be for you. I hope this post can help someone make a difference to their life. I will write other posts about the other techniques I was introduced to going forward.
Going through the process of getting help though I had to learn about some areas of psychology in much greater depth than I have before. In particular, the study of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] which I was aware of before given my passing interest in Psychology and prior exploration of Cognitive Psychology and Behavioural Psychology. I have written about Psychology on this blog in the past and some of those posts did quite well in terms of views and interest they garnered so I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some of the techniques that I learned about and what I found helpful and what I found to be not so much and in some cases damaging. I want to devote posts in future to these techniques and their application. It is however important to note that CBT is generally seen as a "bridge" not a destination, and that it isn't intended to be something you use long-term but rather something you use to process thoughts and feelings in the immediate with the aim of arriving at a better place mentally. If it proves ineffective then there are alternate approaches and other forms of therapy that would then be used.
One of the first techniques I was introduced to when exploring CBT was the concept of Emotional Mapping. This technique is centred around the concept of viewing your emotional state not as something that is fixed but rather as a path that you walk along with the various obstacles you encounter representing the obstacles that life throws at us. The ultimate goal is to provide perspective and clarity in the moment by shifting the focus from what is happening at that moment and placing it in context with the path itself and the destination.
To this end, instead of focusing only on the emotion in the moment, you are encouraged to take time to reflect on the projected path. You are encouraged to think about where the path leads and the emotions that will be felt going forward.
For example, if you have to deal with a life change, or you have to abandon a set routine and accept a new order that you're not comfortable with then you can use emotional mapping to navigate the emotions that will lead you to the desired destination. If you are a student for example and you are planning on moving away from your family home to live at or near University, or to another country, or even if you just plan on moving to a new town then it's natural in the moment to feel nervous or anxious about the impending change. Your routine and your environment are changing and you are losing the sense of familiarity, comfort, and security of that which you already knew. If you allow your emotions to dominate your thought patterns then your focus will remain on the present, the thoughts and feelings that you are experiencing will get amplified, and the feelings of nervousness or anxiousness will grow.
Emotional mapping in this instance can be employed by looking forward to the path you will walk down and where it leads. Mapping out this path with key events and projected experiences you should seek to identify the emotions that you expect to feel, with particular focus on the positive emotions. Think about finally arriving at your new home, having a place of your own, building a life that you control, the independence, the freedom, the sense of fulfilment, the sense of accomplishment, the potential, the opportunities, the new friends you hope to make, all the hopes and dreams that you hope your path will lead you closer to, take all of these and think about all of the positive emotions that you will associate with them, the excitement, the happiness, the peace, the time to rest, and the time to relax. Once you have that path mapped out, you need to hold onto this map in your mind and refer back to it when you feel overwhelmed by the present, shift your focus away from being blinded by everything that is happening now and place it in context with everything that could happen going forward.
That is the theory and how to apply it. I found this technique to be useful to a point. I'm quite a cynical person by nature, my mentality by default is one of pessimism, I tend to focus on the negatives more than the positives and I tend to take the view that if I expect the worst and it happens then I was expecting it, at that point anything better is a positive. That mentality is ultimately one that seeks to avoid risk, in this case the risk of disappointment, by focusing on the negative you remove the possibility of something happening that is negative in nature that wasn't expected. The problem with this mentality if it wasn't already clear is that our thought processes and our expectations in life inevitably influence the path we walk and the choices we make because we don't take the risks we should in life instead becoming content with the way things are even if they are shitty, or to put it bluntly we tend to use the "it gets better" mantra as an excuse for our complacency with being in a shitty situation right now, because we think better things will come so we can just accept things being shit. This doesn't work in practice because "it gets better" relies on you actually attempting to reach the place where things are better - in other words you have to walk the path you mapped out, if you don't then you stay where you are, and tomorrow never comes because tomorrow is always a day away - thank you Little Orphan Annie.
This technique is useful but as I have highlighted above, you need to alter your mentality in order to use it if like me you tend to focus on the negatives in life. You have to make a conscious effort to be positive when creating the map, you can do this in your head, you can do it on paper, you can type it up, you can even create vision boards or graphical representations of the map, whatever works for you as a means of documenting the journey and the destination that you need to make. As for the destination it doesn't have to be Earth-shattering life altering changes that you plan a path toward, it can be something as simple or as complex as making it through the day - from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night it can be as short a time frame as you want, all that matters is that you are in one place, and want to be in another, and can imagine a path that connects the two. You only need to alter your mentality when creating the map if it's too much effort or exhausting to fight what is your present nature, you just need to escape that mentality for a moment or however long it takes you to imagine a positive path forward.
This technique was the first I was introduced to, and as an introduction it was important because it got me used to a few concepts and made it possible for me to understand those concepts in context. The main takeaways that I gained from this technique is the understanding that context is important and whilst every emotion is valid and every emotion should be felt and shouldn't be bottled up, they need to be given context so that they are not amplified. Silence can be deafening, pain can be excruciating, and that feeling of hopelessness can drowned your thoughts and fill you with emotional water until you can't breathe, it's important to surface for air, to kick and to thrash and to strive to stay afloat rather than letting yourself sink because the latter can cause you to sink so low that when you do try and swim you are too far from the surface at that point. This was my failing, I always gave in and allowed my emotions to be felt to their maximum, I had been lucky up until that point that those emotions had never been enough to drowned me although there were two moments where I came incredibly close as I have mentioned when I discussed suicide in a post last year.
Emotional mapping can be useful to help you navigate your emotions but ultimately it requires a level of self control, a prescience, and the ability to displace your thought patterns if only temporarily in order to contemplate a positive outcome. It can help if you are able to invoke it when you are feeling overwhelmed but if you find it hard to control your emotions even without being pressure then it might not be for you. I hope this post can help someone make a difference to their life. I will write other posts about the other techniques I was introduced to going forward.
The Year 3000
From the very first episode of Futurama that I watched 2 decades ago I was hooked. The premise was one that appealed to me even then when I was 11 or 12 years old, the whole premise being that the main character Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy, delivers a pizza on New Year's Eve 1999 only to fall into cryogenic suspension and awaken on New Year's Eve in the year 2999 just in time to witness the turn of the millennium, albeit not the one he was expecting.
At the time there was still some innocence in my mind, some hope and imagination that left me with visions of the future that would be something I would want to live to see. That hope has faded over the years, with the turn of the millennium almost everything with only a handful of exceptions for me personally has led to a world where not only do I not want to imagine the future, but it is something I don't think I want to live to see. If I had the opportunity to travel through time, I'd be more likely to choose to go back than to go forward, as for how far back I would go, that's hard to say. The not too distant past wasn't that great either, the 19th and 20th centuries whilst they did produce some good things were also filled with horrors and atrocities - let's face it, as human beings we're not very good at being human.
The only marginal appeal that can still be clung onto with some degree of hope when it comes to the future is the possibility that we might one day reach beyond this planet. If that could lead to worlds where different ideologies existed independently then that might lead to some harmony, but my greatest fear with humanity spreading out amongst the stars is that we will repeat the mistakes we have made here on Earth and simply produce Earth 2.0 and Earth 3.0 and so on, all sharing the same problems, they are all ultimately the result of human endeavour so it's not unreasonable to conclude that so long as humanity is present then the problems we associate with it will also be present. It's a sad admission that whilst we fight over imaginary lines between countries that we call borders and erect walls to mark them in territorial dispute that visions of a future where space travel is possible might simply end up with arguments over what planet belongs to who and that wars will still be fought over such claims.
When you look back at the world as it was a thousand years ago however, the difference is immense between the technological capabilities and the extent of human industry that now exist compared to then. We look back and consider that time to be so primitive and underdeveloped in contrast, how might our world as it is today look in comparison to that of the future? There was always the thought that we would continue to advance and that the world today would look just as primitive but that all hinges on the belief that we will prevail when you pit humanity against the problems that exist in the world today. The assumption that we will survive climate change either by succeeding in reversing it or mitigating its effects or by some as yet unknown alternative means. The assumption that we will survive the tensions that have been ramped up between nations and that the progression will not give way to regression. Those all rely on the "what if" scenarios that we can play out when we imagine the future.
There is now however a very real possibility that we might actually regress. There is certainly a nostalgia that has proven insidious and difficult to defeat that leads others to reminisce about a bygone era, what could we say of human endeavour if the world a thousand years from today looks more like the world from a thousand years ago than the one we live in? Some people would be very happy with that I am sure but most people alive today would not be happy but the trouble with that assertion is that you have to experience something in order to miss it, if you never experience it to begin with then you can't miss it. If the world did regress it would take nothing more than a few generations for living memory to be lost and the status quo to be normalised. We have already seen this by western government increasingly shifting to the right and to authoritarian governments which less than a century ago were the cause of two major wars that tore society apart.
It's not only possible to imagine a world that would regress, in many ways it is already happening and the complacency of those who believe that it could never happen will be our undoing. The moment you believe that nothing can be lost is the moment you begin to gamble it all.
At the time there was still some innocence in my mind, some hope and imagination that left me with visions of the future that would be something I would want to live to see. That hope has faded over the years, with the turn of the millennium almost everything with only a handful of exceptions for me personally has led to a world where not only do I not want to imagine the future, but it is something I don't think I want to live to see. If I had the opportunity to travel through time, I'd be more likely to choose to go back than to go forward, as for how far back I would go, that's hard to say. The not too distant past wasn't that great either, the 19th and 20th centuries whilst they did produce some good things were also filled with horrors and atrocities - let's face it, as human beings we're not very good at being human.
The only marginal appeal that can still be clung onto with some degree of hope when it comes to the future is the possibility that we might one day reach beyond this planet. If that could lead to worlds where different ideologies existed independently then that might lead to some harmony, but my greatest fear with humanity spreading out amongst the stars is that we will repeat the mistakes we have made here on Earth and simply produce Earth 2.0 and Earth 3.0 and so on, all sharing the same problems, they are all ultimately the result of human endeavour so it's not unreasonable to conclude that so long as humanity is present then the problems we associate with it will also be present. It's a sad admission that whilst we fight over imaginary lines between countries that we call borders and erect walls to mark them in territorial dispute that visions of a future where space travel is possible might simply end up with arguments over what planet belongs to who and that wars will still be fought over such claims.
When you look back at the world as it was a thousand years ago however, the difference is immense between the technological capabilities and the extent of human industry that now exist compared to then. We look back and consider that time to be so primitive and underdeveloped in contrast, how might our world as it is today look in comparison to that of the future? There was always the thought that we would continue to advance and that the world today would look just as primitive but that all hinges on the belief that we will prevail when you pit humanity against the problems that exist in the world today. The assumption that we will survive climate change either by succeeding in reversing it or mitigating its effects or by some as yet unknown alternative means. The assumption that we will survive the tensions that have been ramped up between nations and that the progression will not give way to regression. Those all rely on the "what if" scenarios that we can play out when we imagine the future.
There is now however a very real possibility that we might actually regress. There is certainly a nostalgia that has proven insidious and difficult to defeat that leads others to reminisce about a bygone era, what could we say of human endeavour if the world a thousand years from today looks more like the world from a thousand years ago than the one we live in? Some people would be very happy with that I am sure but most people alive today would not be happy but the trouble with that assertion is that you have to experience something in order to miss it, if you never experience it to begin with then you can't miss it. If the world did regress it would take nothing more than a few generations for living memory to be lost and the status quo to be normalised. We have already seen this by western government increasingly shifting to the right and to authoritarian governments which less than a century ago were the cause of two major wars that tore society apart.
It's not only possible to imagine a world that would regress, in many ways it is already happening and the complacency of those who believe that it could never happen will be our undoing. The moment you believe that nothing can be lost is the moment you begin to gamble it all.
Music Monday #6: Everytime We Touch by Cascada
Raising the tone from the sombre note where the last post in this series left off, in contrast 'Everytime We Touch' by Cascada released in 2007 marks a return to cheesy music, Eurodance at its peak and really the first proper taste of Electronic music in this list. Natalie Horler is the lead singer in Cascada and to me still reigns as the Queen of Eurodance, with Manuel Reuter [DJ Manian], and Yann Peifer [Yanou] by her side unchallenged. The closest contemporary in terms of Eurodance I'd say was Jonas Attberg better known as Basshunter but even he plays second fiddle to the Cascada's dominance.
Eurodance is often assumed to simply be EDM - Electronic Dance Music - but Eurodance is a specific genre of music which although hard to define is instantly recognisable to those who follow it. The title track of the album is 'Everytime We Touch' which for a time was ubiquitous in the gay bars and clubs that I frequented. 2007 was my second year of University, a time when I got pretty messed up in more ways than one. Almost every track on the album reminds me of that time but the title track in particular serves as quite a literal reminder of what I went through, when I fell for a guy who I had a whirlwind romance with that left me dazed and confused; the lyrics of the song read "Everytime we touch I get this feeling, And everytime we kiss I swear I could fly, can't you feel my heart beat fast I want this to last, need you by my side" - word for word this is what I felt in his presence and even now despite the fact it ended well over a decade I still smile when I think of him and I've reached a point where I can look at how badly I feel for him and laugh about it because what else can you do.
Eurodance has always been a very upbeat genre and Cascada in particular created music that was high energy and uplifting, despite the emotions the song taps into it still makes me happy and it's still a go-to when I need a pick-me-up. 'How Do You Do', 'Bad Boy', and 'Miracle' hold special places in my heart too but 'Wouldn't It Be Good' is the track I find myself singing the most, itself a cover of the original by Nik Kershaw. Wouldn't It Be Good is a track that I sing, I hum, and I find slipping into my mind every now and then, both the Cascada version and the original. Nik Kershaw himself serves as another artist I quite like although I struggled to pick an album filled with tracks I liked, his music is more of a pick and mix for me, with 'The Riddle' serving as my personal favourite.
Cascada also holds a special place in my heart because they are a group that have participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Cascada represented Germany with the song 'Glorious' which Natalie performed in Malmö, Sweden at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest; Emmelie de Forest however won the contest with 'Only Teardrops' representing Denmark. Eurovision is something of an obsession for me, I have watched it ever since I was a child and Eurodance often features in the contest but only a few winners have actually had Eurodance hits, most winners tend to be pop artists or the pursue some gimmick that wins votes, or if you're the UK you send someone no-one has ever heard of and then act confused as to why nobody votes for them - yes you're sensing bitterness, Eurovision is one of those things that divides opinion in the UK, you either love it or you hate it and the people who hate it constantly argue that we shouldn't take part in it despite the fact the same people seem perfectly happy to take part in the World Cup something the UK hasn't won since 1966, whereas Eurovision the UK has actually won 5 times - Ireland has won it 7 times and holds the record, just putting that out there as someone born in Northern Ireland and therefore a dual national of Ireland and the UK technically acts representing me have won 12 times so that's a nice feeling.
Cascada despite performing in Eurovision did not become famous because of it, as their fame preceded participation however they follow in the footsteps of some pretty big artists who have performed in the contest the most notable for me personally being Celine Dion, who won in 1988 representing Switzerland - who coincidentally beat the UK entry by a single point. Celine Dion remains one of my favourite artists of all time, and the fact she won in the year I was born also makes me smile.
Eurodance is often assumed to simply be EDM - Electronic Dance Music - but Eurodance is a specific genre of music which although hard to define is instantly recognisable to those who follow it. The title track of the album is 'Everytime We Touch' which for a time was ubiquitous in the gay bars and clubs that I frequented. 2007 was my second year of University, a time when I got pretty messed up in more ways than one. Almost every track on the album reminds me of that time but the title track in particular serves as quite a literal reminder of what I went through, when I fell for a guy who I had a whirlwind romance with that left me dazed and confused; the lyrics of the song read "Everytime we touch I get this feeling, And everytime we kiss I swear I could fly, can't you feel my heart beat fast I want this to last, need you by my side" - word for word this is what I felt in his presence and even now despite the fact it ended well over a decade I still smile when I think of him and I've reached a point where I can look at how badly I feel for him and laugh about it because what else can you do.
Eurodance has always been a very upbeat genre and Cascada in particular created music that was high energy and uplifting, despite the emotions the song taps into it still makes me happy and it's still a go-to when I need a pick-me-up. 'How Do You Do', 'Bad Boy', and 'Miracle' hold special places in my heart too but 'Wouldn't It Be Good' is the track I find myself singing the most, itself a cover of the original by Nik Kershaw. Wouldn't It Be Good is a track that I sing, I hum, and I find slipping into my mind every now and then, both the Cascada version and the original. Nik Kershaw himself serves as another artist I quite like although I struggled to pick an album filled with tracks I liked, his music is more of a pick and mix for me, with 'The Riddle' serving as my personal favourite.
Cascada also holds a special place in my heart because they are a group that have participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Cascada represented Germany with the song 'Glorious' which Natalie performed in Malmö, Sweden at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest; Emmelie de Forest however won the contest with 'Only Teardrops' representing Denmark. Eurovision is something of an obsession for me, I have watched it ever since I was a child and Eurodance often features in the contest but only a few winners have actually had Eurodance hits, most winners tend to be pop artists or the pursue some gimmick that wins votes, or if you're the UK you send someone no-one has ever heard of and then act confused as to why nobody votes for them - yes you're sensing bitterness, Eurovision is one of those things that divides opinion in the UK, you either love it or you hate it and the people who hate it constantly argue that we shouldn't take part in it despite the fact the same people seem perfectly happy to take part in the World Cup something the UK hasn't won since 1966, whereas Eurovision the UK has actually won 5 times - Ireland has won it 7 times and holds the record, just putting that out there as someone born in Northern Ireland and therefore a dual national of Ireland and the UK technically acts representing me have won 12 times so that's a nice feeling.
Cascada despite performing in Eurovision did not become famous because of it, as their fame preceded participation however they follow in the footsteps of some pretty big artists who have performed in the contest the most notable for me personally being Celine Dion, who won in 1988 representing Switzerland - who coincidentally beat the UK entry by a single point. Celine Dion remains one of my favourite artists of all time, and the fact she won in the year I was born also makes me smile.
Empathy
Katy Perry's song 'The One That Got Away' is one of those tracks that is loaded with meaning, not just with the intention behind the lyrics but the experiences that people associate with it when they hear it. This is one of those songs where the impression people have of it will vary with the emotion that it evokes, or the lack of emotion if people don't have a connection to it at all. As for the merit of the song itself, I quite like it but I know that when a work of art evokes emotion there is inevitably the question of how much the emotion effects your ability to criticise it objectively.
This concept isn't one that is limited only to music, it spans almost every art form and it even goes beyond art and invades our lives in other ways. The idea can perhaps be best described as "emotional blinding" where a concept is loaded with emotion to the point where logic and reason are overridden. When the head battles the heart, the latter invariably wins, even when you try and fight it, even if you manage to have self control, that strength crumbles because emotions persist longer than our logic and reason, probably because they so often seem to lack both of these things.
The idea of blinding people with emotion however has become perverse and incredibly pervasive. It has gone beyond the remit of the artist and to an extent it has been turned into a commodity, to be bought and sold and to be employed in the purchase and sale of other products to increase revenue. Advertising and Marketing increasingly seek to form emotional connections to products, from mascots for brands, through to manipulative advertising that attempts to exploit your emotions. Guarding yourself against this pervasion is difficult, for the same reasons as it is difficult for us to deny our emotions when we are confronted with conventional triggers. Ignoring the pain of heartache is difficult regardless of the source of that heartache.
When we live in a world where we are bombarded with emotions all the time and bombarded with things telling us how we should feel, how do you stay true to yourself? For some it seems the answer is to disconnect from humanity, not by refusing to engage in social discourse or by unplugging the Internet, but rather by avoiding any emotional attachment at all. How they manage to do this, I do not know, but some people seem to be perfectly capable of completely detaching themselves from reality. 20 years ago if you had told me people would be doing this I would have been genuinely concerned, and like many others of the time I would have worried that this sounded like psychosis and yet this seems to be the default for so many.
I will be labelled as a bleeding heart liberal by some, and to be honest I'd rather hold that label than hold the label of psychopath incapable of empathy. The former label is dismissed by those who use it as insignificant and simply criticism, but the same people take offence to the latter label and refuse to accept the criticism directed back at them - or as some would put it, they can dish it out but they can't take it. That seems to be the reasoning behind this motivation and prevailing desire to which it portends, namely the avoidance of any accountability and fear of scrutiny. Most young people I know do not fear either of these because that is their life, they are constantly critiqued, constantly judged, and constantly scrutinised, whereas those who are older and more conservative tend to be people who have never had to stand up to scrutiny, who hate the idea of being held accountable probably because on some level they know if they were put to rites for their actions they would be found guilty.
The question inevitably comes back to one that is simple - how did we end up in this position in the first place. It is easy for older generations to blame younger generations but the reality is that does not hold up to question because we live in a world they designed, they built, and for the most part they still control. Politics, Government, Commerce, these are all dominated by people who are part of much older generations. You have had the power since before we were born, you can't blame us for the state of the world, you're the ones who built it, we're just inheriting it, or what's left of it.
When it comes to the lack of empathy at least I can take solace in the fact that this seems to be something that is much more prevalent in that older generation and much less common in those who are younger. If you are older, and this doesn't apply to you but you still take offence, you might want to take a look at the people around you, those part of your generation and consider the possibility that it might not be that my words are offensive but that this is something you realise is true and applies to others of your generation and that you don't want to be applied to you, which it might not, as there are exceptions to the trend there always will be. I have seen people from my own generation and the ones that come after me who completely lack empathy but I can also see that they are a minority and I am grateful that is the case, and I hope that age in and of itself does not take that from us as we grow, because when it comes to aspiration and the example that people set, I can categorically say I do not want to follow in the footsteps of those who came before me, that is not a path I want to walk and I hope it is a path that others won't have to either.
This concept isn't one that is limited only to music, it spans almost every art form and it even goes beyond art and invades our lives in other ways. The idea can perhaps be best described as "emotional blinding" where a concept is loaded with emotion to the point where logic and reason are overridden. When the head battles the heart, the latter invariably wins, even when you try and fight it, even if you manage to have self control, that strength crumbles because emotions persist longer than our logic and reason, probably because they so often seem to lack both of these things.
The idea of blinding people with emotion however has become perverse and incredibly pervasive. It has gone beyond the remit of the artist and to an extent it has been turned into a commodity, to be bought and sold and to be employed in the purchase and sale of other products to increase revenue. Advertising and Marketing increasingly seek to form emotional connections to products, from mascots for brands, through to manipulative advertising that attempts to exploit your emotions. Guarding yourself against this pervasion is difficult, for the same reasons as it is difficult for us to deny our emotions when we are confronted with conventional triggers. Ignoring the pain of heartache is difficult regardless of the source of that heartache.
When we live in a world where we are bombarded with emotions all the time and bombarded with things telling us how we should feel, how do you stay true to yourself? For some it seems the answer is to disconnect from humanity, not by refusing to engage in social discourse or by unplugging the Internet, but rather by avoiding any emotional attachment at all. How they manage to do this, I do not know, but some people seem to be perfectly capable of completely detaching themselves from reality. 20 years ago if you had told me people would be doing this I would have been genuinely concerned, and like many others of the time I would have worried that this sounded like psychosis and yet this seems to be the default for so many.
I will be labelled as a bleeding heart liberal by some, and to be honest I'd rather hold that label than hold the label of psychopath incapable of empathy. The former label is dismissed by those who use it as insignificant and simply criticism, but the same people take offence to the latter label and refuse to accept the criticism directed back at them - or as some would put it, they can dish it out but they can't take it. That seems to be the reasoning behind this motivation and prevailing desire to which it portends, namely the avoidance of any accountability and fear of scrutiny. Most young people I know do not fear either of these because that is their life, they are constantly critiqued, constantly judged, and constantly scrutinised, whereas those who are older and more conservative tend to be people who have never had to stand up to scrutiny, who hate the idea of being held accountable probably because on some level they know if they were put to rites for their actions they would be found guilty.
The question inevitably comes back to one that is simple - how did we end up in this position in the first place. It is easy for older generations to blame younger generations but the reality is that does not hold up to question because we live in a world they designed, they built, and for the most part they still control. Politics, Government, Commerce, these are all dominated by people who are part of much older generations. You have had the power since before we were born, you can't blame us for the state of the world, you're the ones who built it, we're just inheriting it, or what's left of it.
When it comes to the lack of empathy at least I can take solace in the fact that this seems to be something that is much more prevalent in that older generation and much less common in those who are younger. If you are older, and this doesn't apply to you but you still take offence, you might want to take a look at the people around you, those part of your generation and consider the possibility that it might not be that my words are offensive but that this is something you realise is true and applies to others of your generation and that you don't want to be applied to you, which it might not, as there are exceptions to the trend there always will be. I have seen people from my own generation and the ones that come after me who completely lack empathy but I can also see that they are a minority and I am grateful that is the case, and I hope that age in and of itself does not take that from us as we grow, because when it comes to aspiration and the example that people set, I can categorically say I do not want to follow in the footsteps of those who came before me, that is not a path I want to walk and I hope it is a path that others won't have to either.
Art 2.0
Spoiler Alert for anyone who has not seen Angels In America, either the mini series or the play as I will discuss plot points in some minor detail here.
There are several dream sequences in Angels In America that involve the character of Prior Walter. During these sequences there are depictions of events and it is left somewhat ambiguous for the viewer as to whether these sequences are meant to be real or if they are meant to be hallucinations. In the series at least they are implied to be real as the sequences in some cases have real world effects on other characters, for example Prior and Harper have a conversation that they are both aware of afterwards - again Harper is another character who has a number of these sequences where the same ambiguity exists.
Whilst these dreams can be seen as an example of the Shared Dream narrative trope, when Prior and Harper speak the dialogue reveals a greater intent, in that conversation their connection is instead referred to as the threshold of revelation. Notwithstanding the name of the whole narrative, religious symbolism and terminology is to be expected. This idea however is something I find interesting, not in the conventional sense of sharing dreams, that bit doesn't interest me, instead the bit that does is the idea of revelations in a dreamlike state. There are a number of psychological explanations for why these states of mind can occur and why these moments of epiphany can be made whilst dreaming, but what I find interesting is the idea that you could use this to your advantage if you could control it.
In a previous post I mentioned the nature of memory and how ultimately we can't really control it, I also mentioned the concept of considering the three distinct states of mind as separate entities. This idea of the threshold of revelation I believe in reality is the literary equivalent of being able to use your conscious mind to talk to your unconscious mind and be able to question it, to engage with it in the same way that you would if it were actually another person. In the case of Harper and Prior you could argue that coincidentally both had similar dreams and that they both had concerns and that somewhere in their past they had seen one another and lost all recollection - that isn't the intent of the writer, I'm just rationalising a possible explanation if it were to actually happen in real life as opposed to a work of fiction.
If you could talk to your unconscious mind however, I don't think you would get the results you would expect, for one the nature of the unconscious mind is such that it deals with permutation and constant modelling of what could happen given every scenario it is presented with the information it is fed. If you were to be able to communicate with it directly then the idea of it giving cryptic responses and showing visions of all manner of creations wouldn't be far off the reality, it wouldn't possess the ability to speak for instance but it would be able to comprehend the information you feed it and the scenario you are seeking to model - not in terms of language but in terms of the implicit understanding the mind has when processing information.
If you could harness the power of your unconscious mind to be able to feed it information and see what it comes up with, you would in many ways access a fountain of creativity that is potentially endless. You could see visions of heaven or hell insofar as your imagination and your creativity is capable of depicting those concepts, take problems that you seek solutions to and be shown every angle. This of course would in theory be capable with a computer, if it were to be able to comprehend your thoughts, fed with enough information and the ability to process it. That last point is something that I find interesting and once again it comes back to the idea of artificial intelligence, in this case to be more precise, artificial creativity. With algorithms that can write music, create works of art, and even write news articles, there is an anticipation that dwells in the back of my mind and that is the anticipation of a world where art transcends humanity, where humanity can be presented with something to contemplate that not only evokes contemplation of what the artist intended, but also removes the human connection to the artist so that intention is truly unknown. If a photographer can take a picture that is worth a thousand words, what kind of picture could a machine take and how deep would our contemplation of it run?
There are several dream sequences in Angels In America that involve the character of Prior Walter. During these sequences there are depictions of events and it is left somewhat ambiguous for the viewer as to whether these sequences are meant to be real or if they are meant to be hallucinations. In the series at least they are implied to be real as the sequences in some cases have real world effects on other characters, for example Prior and Harper have a conversation that they are both aware of afterwards - again Harper is another character who has a number of these sequences where the same ambiguity exists.
Whilst these dreams can be seen as an example of the Shared Dream narrative trope, when Prior and Harper speak the dialogue reveals a greater intent, in that conversation their connection is instead referred to as the threshold of revelation. Notwithstanding the name of the whole narrative, religious symbolism and terminology is to be expected. This idea however is something I find interesting, not in the conventional sense of sharing dreams, that bit doesn't interest me, instead the bit that does is the idea of revelations in a dreamlike state. There are a number of psychological explanations for why these states of mind can occur and why these moments of epiphany can be made whilst dreaming, but what I find interesting is the idea that you could use this to your advantage if you could control it.
In a previous post I mentioned the nature of memory and how ultimately we can't really control it, I also mentioned the concept of considering the three distinct states of mind as separate entities. This idea of the threshold of revelation I believe in reality is the literary equivalent of being able to use your conscious mind to talk to your unconscious mind and be able to question it, to engage with it in the same way that you would if it were actually another person. In the case of Harper and Prior you could argue that coincidentally both had similar dreams and that they both had concerns and that somewhere in their past they had seen one another and lost all recollection - that isn't the intent of the writer, I'm just rationalising a possible explanation if it were to actually happen in real life as opposed to a work of fiction.
If you could talk to your unconscious mind however, I don't think you would get the results you would expect, for one the nature of the unconscious mind is such that it deals with permutation and constant modelling of what could happen given every scenario it is presented with the information it is fed. If you were to be able to communicate with it directly then the idea of it giving cryptic responses and showing visions of all manner of creations wouldn't be far off the reality, it wouldn't possess the ability to speak for instance but it would be able to comprehend the information you feed it and the scenario you are seeking to model - not in terms of language but in terms of the implicit understanding the mind has when processing information.
If you could harness the power of your unconscious mind to be able to feed it information and see what it comes up with, you would in many ways access a fountain of creativity that is potentially endless. You could see visions of heaven or hell insofar as your imagination and your creativity is capable of depicting those concepts, take problems that you seek solutions to and be shown every angle. This of course would in theory be capable with a computer, if it were to be able to comprehend your thoughts, fed with enough information and the ability to process it. That last point is something that I find interesting and once again it comes back to the idea of artificial intelligence, in this case to be more precise, artificial creativity. With algorithms that can write music, create works of art, and even write news articles, there is an anticipation that dwells in the back of my mind and that is the anticipation of a world where art transcends humanity, where humanity can be presented with something to contemplate that not only evokes contemplation of what the artist intended, but also removes the human connection to the artist so that intention is truly unknown. If a photographer can take a picture that is worth a thousand words, what kind of picture could a machine take and how deep would our contemplation of it run?
Memory
The best analogy that I can use to explain how memories work is to say that the human brain is rather like a large net hanging from the ceiling and every memory you form is like a ball being that gets thrown into that net. The bigger the impact the memory has the more likely it will stay in the net, but the smaller the impact the more likely it will be to slip through and fall to the floor. The net is only so big and only so much can fit into it so inevitably things get pushed out and fall to the floor when you need to make room. As time passes and as we grow in life, new experiences lead to new memories being formed and without conscious choice our brains decide what is important to keep in that net and what is not.
That analogy holds up but only to a point. There are methods of chaining memories together where you can connect memories by association, this in effect lets you keep just one of the balls in the net and let the others hang down from it without needing to be in the net itself. Various techniques like Mnemonic Peg Systems allow you to gain a certain degree of control over this process, but even these are not infallible. Still we can't completely prevent those memories from falling out of the net and onto the floor.
I said the analogy holds up to a point, and that point is the moment you try to define the limit of the human brain in this analogy. You might think the brain is simply the net but it is not. In truth in this analogy the brain is the entire room. The net serves as your working memory, a combination of short and long term memory that can be easily accessed and used when needed. However, all those memories that fell onto the floor in most cases still exist somewhere inside the brain. Despite the fact you can't recall any of it right now, all it takes is for one reminder, one thread that you can grasp onto, and with it you can pick up those memories off the floor and recall them.
I find this idea fascinating because it makes it difficult to define what is truly forgotten, where the definition of forgetting is defined not as the inability to recall consciously but the total and lasting inability to recall even with triggers and threads handed to you. To be handed a picture from your youth and not be able to name a single person in it, that is what I would define as truly forgetting, as opposed to being unable to name people from your youth but then being able to name them once you see the picture.
If you were able to control your memory more effectively, how would you use that ability to your advantage? Would that even be an advantage, or like a hard drive on a computer would eventually end up filling it with clutter and believing that certain things should have priority when in reality they serve us little or no practical benefit. If the state of your hard drive were to be an accurate reflection of the state of your mind in that hypothetical scenario, how would you fair?
If there appears to be no rhyme nor reason as to the way your brain prioritises information, perhaps that isn't a reflection of its inefficiency or apparent ineptitude but rather a statement of the division and disparity that exists between your conscious and unconscious minds as to what is important to you in life. This disparity is something I find interesting because it makes you consider your mind and the divisions that exist within it as being distinct entities almost as if you are inhabited by more than one intelligence - using the three mind model of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious minds you could argue that three intelligences exist and that sentience in the case of humanity is in reality the cooperation of three distinct intelligent systems with humanity itself being that which emerges at their intersection.
Many reasons are often posited as to why Human Intelligence and Machine Intelligence differ so greatly and why the latter has never been able to mimic the former with precision, perhaps the answer is that precision cannot be achieved without concision, that the task of mimicking a single intelligence has failed because it is not actually a single intelligence at all, but rather it is three and that sentient AI could only emerge when it abandons the attempt to create one unified algorithm and instead distributes the task creating three distinct algorithms with different priorities and approaches, and making them interact. A conscious mind that processes logic and reason, a sub-conscious that moderates resources to try and achieve efficiency, and an unconscious mind that does everything by brute force until the sub-conscious interrupts the process or limits resources.
That analogy holds up but only to a point. There are methods of chaining memories together where you can connect memories by association, this in effect lets you keep just one of the balls in the net and let the others hang down from it without needing to be in the net itself. Various techniques like Mnemonic Peg Systems allow you to gain a certain degree of control over this process, but even these are not infallible. Still we can't completely prevent those memories from falling out of the net and onto the floor.
I said the analogy holds up to a point, and that point is the moment you try to define the limit of the human brain in this analogy. You might think the brain is simply the net but it is not. In truth in this analogy the brain is the entire room. The net serves as your working memory, a combination of short and long term memory that can be easily accessed and used when needed. However, all those memories that fell onto the floor in most cases still exist somewhere inside the brain. Despite the fact you can't recall any of it right now, all it takes is for one reminder, one thread that you can grasp onto, and with it you can pick up those memories off the floor and recall them.
I find this idea fascinating because it makes it difficult to define what is truly forgotten, where the definition of forgetting is defined not as the inability to recall consciously but the total and lasting inability to recall even with triggers and threads handed to you. To be handed a picture from your youth and not be able to name a single person in it, that is what I would define as truly forgetting, as opposed to being unable to name people from your youth but then being able to name them once you see the picture.
If you were able to control your memory more effectively, how would you use that ability to your advantage? Would that even be an advantage, or like a hard drive on a computer would eventually end up filling it with clutter and believing that certain things should have priority when in reality they serve us little or no practical benefit. If the state of your hard drive were to be an accurate reflection of the state of your mind in that hypothetical scenario, how would you fair?
If there appears to be no rhyme nor reason as to the way your brain prioritises information, perhaps that isn't a reflection of its inefficiency or apparent ineptitude but rather a statement of the division and disparity that exists between your conscious and unconscious minds as to what is important to you in life. This disparity is something I find interesting because it makes you consider your mind and the divisions that exist within it as being distinct entities almost as if you are inhabited by more than one intelligence - using the three mind model of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious minds you could argue that three intelligences exist and that sentience in the case of humanity is in reality the cooperation of three distinct intelligent systems with humanity itself being that which emerges at their intersection.
Many reasons are often posited as to why Human Intelligence and Machine Intelligence differ so greatly and why the latter has never been able to mimic the former with precision, perhaps the answer is that precision cannot be achieved without concision, that the task of mimicking a single intelligence has failed because it is not actually a single intelligence at all, but rather it is three and that sentient AI could only emerge when it abandons the attempt to create one unified algorithm and instead distributes the task creating three distinct algorithms with different priorities and approaches, and making them interact. A conscious mind that processes logic and reason, a sub-conscious that moderates resources to try and achieve efficiency, and an unconscious mind that does everything by brute force until the sub-conscious interrupts the process or limits resources.
Music Monday #5: Piano Man: The Very Best of Billy Joel
"In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep, from the mountains of faith, to the river so deep, I must be looking for something, something sacred I lost, but the river is wide, and it's too hard to cross"
- 'The River Of Dreams' - Billy Joel
'Piano Man: The Very Best of Billy Joel' was released in 2004 and serves as another greatest hits album to add to this list. Despite its release in 2004 it wasn't until 2019 that I bought the album, I have been aware of Billy Joel for as long as I can remember, I honestly can't remember how old I was when I first heard him sing but he holds a place in my heart for many different reasons. I post on this blog quite a bit about spirituality and about religion, and the politics that centre around both. Billy Joel for me represents someone who is able to tap into something with their music that channels something deep inside. The River Of Dreams is my favourite song by Billy, it was written in 1993 and I can't recall how old I was when I first heard it but it stayed with me, and I would find myself singing it from time to time absently. The lyrics reflect a search for meaning and through the moments of spiritual crisis that I have had in my life that lyric "something sacred I lost" reflects that struggle with wanting to believe but not being able to because of so many things that can just be summed up by saying "life" and leaving it at that.
I'm not religious, I know some people find it surprising when I make that statement but I stand by it because of the literal meaning, to be religious is to follow a religion and I do not follow any religion. That doesn't mean that I don't have my own beliefs because I do, they just don't conform to the structure of anything that already exists. I've explored both sides, light and dark, I mentioned the Church of Satan when discussing Marilyn Manson, I have explored this and quite a few others that have presented alternative beliefs and the problem I have with them all is that they inevitably include something somewhere along the way that I don't agree with. LaVey's Satanism does come pretty close but there are still many things I can't agree with, though I understand the rationale behind those beliefs.
Again this post and the juxtaposition of Marilyn Manson and Billy Joel represents one of the reasons why curators are needed when it comes to exploring music because at face value they have nothing in common but when you dig deeper they have more in common than you think and it turns out to be quite surprising how compatible they are. They both make music that seeks to provide answers beyond what you're told to think and feel by society albeit in very different ways. 'We Didn't Start The Fire' serves as one of Billy Joel's more infamous tracks, if not for the fact that very few people can sing it because the lyrics are an inundation of pop culture references that sum up the state of the world. Nevertheless the song serves as a summary of everything that enrages people, it has inspired parodies including 'We Didn't Start The Flame War' by College Humour that draws parallels between the state of the world depicted by Billy and the state of the Internet as the College Humour writers perceived at the time - both are still as relevant as they were when they were first written. The original came in 1989 and remains prescient in hindsight with how many issues named in the song that are still problems with the world today.
I like Billy Joel's work not just because it hits a nerve but because Billy himself is a prolific songwriter who has produced 43 albums, 61 singles, and whose work has been covered extensively. So many songs of his I have seen covered by other artists which only adds to the longevity of the works he has created but he has a tendency to be forgotten and overlooked because of these covers, something which even I have to admit I am guilty of, more than once I have read into songs I love only to find out they were covers of songs he originally wrote and performed. Nevertheless his work is capable of standing on its own two feet, the genius of his creations speak for themselves.
An honourable mention here goes to 'Storm Front' a Billy Joel album that includes 'And So It Goes' released in 1989 that never made the cut for the very best of compilation but that is understandable given the tone of the latter since the former is slow and sombre, this little gem reflects the genius of Billy Joel and his exquisite ability to strip away gimmicks and cut through.
- 'The River Of Dreams' - Billy Joel
'Piano Man: The Very Best of Billy Joel' was released in 2004 and serves as another greatest hits album to add to this list. Despite its release in 2004 it wasn't until 2019 that I bought the album, I have been aware of Billy Joel for as long as I can remember, I honestly can't remember how old I was when I first heard him sing but he holds a place in my heart for many different reasons. I post on this blog quite a bit about spirituality and about religion, and the politics that centre around both. Billy Joel for me represents someone who is able to tap into something with their music that channels something deep inside. The River Of Dreams is my favourite song by Billy, it was written in 1993 and I can't recall how old I was when I first heard it but it stayed with me, and I would find myself singing it from time to time absently. The lyrics reflect a search for meaning and through the moments of spiritual crisis that I have had in my life that lyric "something sacred I lost" reflects that struggle with wanting to believe but not being able to because of so many things that can just be summed up by saying "life" and leaving it at that.
I'm not religious, I know some people find it surprising when I make that statement but I stand by it because of the literal meaning, to be religious is to follow a religion and I do not follow any religion. That doesn't mean that I don't have my own beliefs because I do, they just don't conform to the structure of anything that already exists. I've explored both sides, light and dark, I mentioned the Church of Satan when discussing Marilyn Manson, I have explored this and quite a few others that have presented alternative beliefs and the problem I have with them all is that they inevitably include something somewhere along the way that I don't agree with. LaVey's Satanism does come pretty close but there are still many things I can't agree with, though I understand the rationale behind those beliefs.
Again this post and the juxtaposition of Marilyn Manson and Billy Joel represents one of the reasons why curators are needed when it comes to exploring music because at face value they have nothing in common but when you dig deeper they have more in common than you think and it turns out to be quite surprising how compatible they are. They both make music that seeks to provide answers beyond what you're told to think and feel by society albeit in very different ways. 'We Didn't Start The Fire' serves as one of Billy Joel's more infamous tracks, if not for the fact that very few people can sing it because the lyrics are an inundation of pop culture references that sum up the state of the world. Nevertheless the song serves as a summary of everything that enrages people, it has inspired parodies including 'We Didn't Start The Flame War' by College Humour that draws parallels between the state of the world depicted by Billy and the state of the Internet as the College Humour writers perceived at the time - both are still as relevant as they were when they were first written. The original came in 1989 and remains prescient in hindsight with how many issues named in the song that are still problems with the world today.
I like Billy Joel's work not just because it hits a nerve but because Billy himself is a prolific songwriter who has produced 43 albums, 61 singles, and whose work has been covered extensively. So many songs of his I have seen covered by other artists which only adds to the longevity of the works he has created but he has a tendency to be forgotten and overlooked because of these covers, something which even I have to admit I am guilty of, more than once I have read into songs I love only to find out they were covers of songs he originally wrote and performed. Nevertheless his work is capable of standing on its own two feet, the genius of his creations speak for themselves.
An honourable mention here goes to 'Storm Front' a Billy Joel album that includes 'And So It Goes' released in 1989 that never made the cut for the very best of compilation but that is understandable given the tone of the latter since the former is slow and sombre, this little gem reflects the genius of Billy Joel and his exquisite ability to strip away gimmicks and cut through.
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