The Ramblings of my Disorganised Mind

What Annoys Me lately

I woke up with the mother of all headaches yesterday morning. Sigh. For some reason, that just made me want to clean something. So I was up until all hours of the morning and now have very clean kitchen wall, floors and no headache. Go figure.

Today is Rugby League Grand Final day. Oh, if I could only bring myself to care. I just don't want Canterbury to win. I'll explain why one day. Of course, they probably will. :-)

But on to business: There are two things that annoy me at the moment.

The first is regarding blogging. The fact is, a blog is usually written for ourselves, telling about stuff that no-one's really that interested in. At least in my case. I'm always interested in other people's blogs. But, let's face it, a blog is like a journal, except it's a helluva lot more public than your average journal (except my private journal which became more public than I wanted it to be--just for me--but that's another story). Thing is, they're so under-read with very few comments (unless it's a LOTR fan blog or similar) we tend to forget that they're public. But I digress.

Annoys me. Ah... yeah. Because of the nature of the blog as a self-expression tool, the writer, who may actually spend most of their day never thinking about themselves at all, can come across as self-obsessed. But then, my annoyance at sounding self-obsessed when I'm actually not probably says more about me than anything else. Why should I care what people think of me?

Thing is, I do, sometimes. And I'm no different than anyone else in that respect, really. The number one driving force of the human condition is to want to be loved. Seen. Have someone really know who you are: your rotten side (and we all have one!) and your good side (yes, we all have one of those, too!), and still think you're ok.

So, I guess what really annoys me is that there's some sort of unwritten rule that it's not ok to admit that we need someone. So, we pick up the phone and say things like "I just wanted to hear a friendly voice" instead of what we really want to say: "I've had a crappy week. I feel hopeless and lonely and I need you." Why is that? We don't want to burden them with our problems... we don't want to be misinterpreted (my goodness! They might think I have a crush on them or something!)... we don't want to risk the possibility that they'll say, "not interested, go away." So we go on, insecure in our independence.

Wow. This is turning into a rant.

I read once about a study that was done in Russia during the Soviet era. I'm not 100% sure if it is apocryphal but I'm reasonably sure it isn't because in some dim corner of the halls of my memory I remember reading a reference note. Be buggered if I can remember exactly where, though. If I do ever find it, I'll post it.

But the study.

Debate: what was the first human language? Answer: We dunno. Language is environmental: we learn it from our parents, family, people around us. So some bright spark hypothesised that, denied human language, the "blank sheet" infants, if they grow up together without such outside influences, may come up with it on their own. Spontaneously. Ignoring the obvious stupidity involved there (deaf mute children don't spontaneously develop intelligible language denied the stimulation required to learn it sans hearing), it was decided to get a number of new born infants together and see what they came up with. I have forgotten how many infants but I think it was 400. Don't quote me on that: it may have only been 100. I know it was in the hundreds though.

So. Nannies were employed to look after the needs of these babies (who were all orphaned or abandoned in some way), looking after their sanitation, their feeding and their basic care, warmth etc. From what I read, they were looked after properly in all of those respects. However, the nannies were told to NEVER speak to them, and the number of children involved meant that affection wasn't very forthcoming either.

Within four months, every single one of those poor wee tackers had died.

Bothered by the failure of their "experiment", the scientists or psychologists or what-have-you repeated it. This time, overseers kept an eye on the nannies to make sure that no physical neglect was involved.

Same result.

The experiment did nothing to forward the study of human language genesis but said a lot about the nature of humans. We NEED love and communication to survive. Denied this, even adults will eventually fade and die younger than they should, even without suicidal tendencies being involved.

So, admit you need help today, she says in her best Roger Ramjet advertiser voiceover voice. It may just extend your life. Or, alternatively, the life of the person you're asking for help. See, when you admit you need them, they get to feel appreciated too. :-)

Now. If I can just apply that to myself. Heheh.

posted by Heather @ 8:12 am