Tag: happy

What then is an emotion?

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It turns out that emotions are not straight forward things. Perhaps instinctively we imagine them to be such things as anger, sadness, happiness, fear, joy et al. And it turns out likely that would be an acceptable initial if somewhat abstract understanding. Acceptable that is until you discover there is always a beyond the obvious.

For the eighteenth and early nineteenth century empiricists like Hume and Locke, the mind was a single field of thought and feeling, fully conscious and transparent to itself. This mind was made up of visual, auditory, and tactile impressions, and distinct ideas which were the product of these impressions. Or as Hume put it, “like players in a theatre who successively make their appearance, pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations”. These early ideas were later dismissed. The suggestion emotions were just these pure and simple things floating around waiting to come together before dissipating again was deemed flawed. It missed the point that emotions are not stand alone boxable feelings but unique and unrepeatable; the mind, the body, the moment are never twice the same. A unique amalgamation of everything if you wish.

From the late nineteenth century a philosophising psychologist called William James decided, and incidentally this is apparently still a respected idea in the psychology world, a statement that needs checking and confirming beyond one verbal source, that emotions were the result of bodily physiological sensations. What this means is that were we to see a bear in a forest, our body would react, for example our legs might go weak and our hearts beat wildly, and this would trigger the emotion of fear within us. While undoubtedly reactions on a physical level play a role in emotions, to claim those bodily feelings create the emotions doesn’t hold up when challenged with the fact our legs feel weak and our heart beat increases when we go for a run. In that circumstance the feeling of fear is generally not the emotion people feel. The fact physically you feel the same feelings when you experience love, fear and exercise explains why this stance in itself is not widely held in contemporary thought.

From here we move into more accepted ideas of emotions, the main two being judgements and perceptions. They state that we see the bear, make an evaluative judgement of the situation, feel the emotion and have a suitable physical response, or that after seeing the bear we have an emotional and physical response based upon how we perceive the situation to be. This being philosophy neither are fool proof. If we were to be standing behind guard rails looking over the edge of a cliff we may still feel fear despite the fact we have made the rational judgement that we are not in danger of falling over. We have a contradictory emotional response to how we have assessed the situation. This argument could be used for fear of household British spiders too. It is important to mention though that evaluative judgements are ever forming and not just made in the moment. Proponents in the perceptual model would suggest we feel fear as we look over the precipice because we can perceive the inherent danger, an argument which frankly holds up a lot better. Unlike the judgemental model which deals with the rational and irrational, the perceptual approach is arational. When they have to explain non-human animal and infant human emotions both struggle to justify their positions as neither beasts nor babies have the required language to make evaluative judgements nor, and this is very debatable, the cognitive abilities to have an instinctive perceptual reaction. This point definitely needs further investigation though.

Two thoughts that came up after todays seminar were whether we can have an unconscious emotion, for example feelings of pain in the neck or ache in the head are symptoms of the emotion of stress, yet we may be completely unaware we’re stressed or anxious about anything. Are we unconscious in that moment of the emotion or just unaware of it from a cognitive perspective. Is this emotion a physical feeling only. If we’re unaware of this emotion then it stands to say we’re not consciously aware of it and so unconscious of it, yet unconscious seems like too strong a word.

The second thought was whether perception is just an evaluation or judgement made at an earlier time. Do we perceive danger in the bear because long ago we made the judgement that bears are dangerous. We may make the judgement in the moment that the bear on the other side of the valley could do us harm but likely won’t and so we’re in little to no danger, yet we still feel the emotion of fear. We arguably perceive the possibility of danger, the danger we judged bears can inflict when we learnt bears as dangerous. My dog would likely also feel this danger but it’s doubtable a baby would, and arguably neither would a puppy.

This is as far as week one has really got. There was also mention of something called the Common Sense Theory which is that you see the bear, something cognitive happens, you feel the suitable emotion and have a bodily physiological reaction. Unfortunately in philosophy common sense seems to infer not suitably complicated and therefore deeply flawed so this theory only ever seems to be granted a couple of sentences at most. There has been a bit regarding recalcitrant emotions, which are emotions that conflict with judgements and likely perceptions but these will be the focus of the material in weeks two and three. Their existence was touched upon but just to bring an awareness to something that appears to sow difficulties in all the theories. This will become clear. As will hopefully a further and clearer understanding of what is very much a base and slightly confused understanding of the few concepts so far. Seemingly the philosophy of emotions is yet to find a generally held coherent argument. Arguably there’s something in all the perspectives and undoubtedly emotions consist of a combination of sensations, experiences, perceptions and judgements. Perhaps the truth simply lies in some as yet undiscovered or unmeasurable perspective and understanding. As yet of course.

BR#Eleven – Breath

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Let me tell you a little about breath. Not just any breath either, the perfect breath. It turns out my shallow two second inhale followed by two second exhale may just be doing both my mind and body the type of harm you wouldn’t immediately imagine something that brings life would. In truth two seconds may even be a little generous. It is a long way from the recommended five point five second inhale and five point five second exhale, which conveniently equates to the perfect amount of breaths per minute. Five point five for those who don’t fancy the maths. This is according to James Nestor whose new book Breath delves into the art of something which we all seem to be doing wrong.

Nestor explains the science and art of breathing. He uses anecdotes and scientific research to back up and prove his theories. He discusses thousands of years worth of knowledge like ancient Indian pranayamic breathing techniques and the Buddhist Tummo. Tummo has in the last ten years been sexed up, repackaged and proven to the western world by Wim Hof. He goes into his own experiments with Stanford University of only nasal breathing and only mouth breathing, all of which are backed up by the research results which show a dramatic and scary contrasting end result. Our mouths have shrunk and our teeth don’t have enough space to grow straight anymore, three hundred years of industrial processed food haven’t helped. Heart disease, anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, asthma – the list of diseases related to incorrect breathing seems endless. He doesn’t suggest breathing is going to cure a rampant disease of course but it can help with the preventative part, the bit western medicines ‘cut it out and cure it’ approach seems repeatedly limited in. It does turn out we’ve been breathing wrong all these years and he explains how and why.

What he shares is immediately relatable. This dissection of the consequences of a breathing I know I do and which I instinctively know and have known for a while to be wrong and dangerous. Nestor has managed to explain something which is hard to disagree with within our narrow prism of proved truth. We need things to be proven in certain ways that Eastern texts don’t do, Nestor manages to do this with language and information it is hard to disagree with. As I said I can relate to what he is saying though and I suspect that is probably what has led to this book being the success it has been. Good authors manage to give new information in a way that makes the author feel they’ve always known it and finally it has been confirmed. Genuinely, I want everyone, and especially everyone I care about to read this. Now then, it’s time to go practise my breathing.

The Wrong Herd

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There are times we must question whether we are right. Nobody is ever one hundred percent right of course but let’s say more right than wrong. Someone who goes through life always believing themselves to be right in everything may not end up with many friends but could likely have successes in other respects. If someone goes through life always believing themselves wrong, would it be the opposite outcome? Probably unlikely. It must be important to be aware that we may just be wrong though. Is that humility? Maybe self-awareness?

I was thinking of discussing something in the news. One of those fallback pieces in which I decide to deride some politicians for their ineptitude, or an evolution in something on a geopolitical level that arouses some dissatisfaction within me. Usually a complaint of some sort. We’re less likely to be drawn to stories that have a positive and happy narrative remember. Maybe there’s something in that we could learn from. We’re drawn to stories of misery while living lives of misery. Like creates like as they say. Perhaps I should do a new ten day challenge and only write about happy positive things. I’ll probably pass on that one.

Usually the political stories I’m drawn to involve ones bashing the current government in the UK or the US, and commonly the opposition to both governments too. As you can imagine I’m not full of much belief in the political legitimacies of these two countries. Other people though must be. I say must be because not only did enough people vote in the two buffoons holding power but it also appears enough people want to vote in the establishment representatives who will most likely replace them at the next opportunity. When we see a large group of other people doing things we’re inclined to believe they may just be right and we may just be wrong. Herd mentally amongst many other names. It is easy to dismiss these people voting for these two sides as adherents of such a mental state but it’s likely I’m just swayed by another herd that I want to be part of. It’s likely a much smaller herd and one that feeds certain things in my fearful sense of survival but it’s a herd none the less.

With all this then we must all admit we’re being played one way or another. This huge game of power is rattling away as different groups battle it out for moral superiority and likely financial gain one way or another. Money corrupts, power corrupts, everything seems to corrupt, especially morality. Perhaps we’re just a corrupt species and we need to accept it. Or maybe we just need to stop worrying about whatever wrongs are happening in the world and focus on life as it unfolds before us. One extreme to the other yet again. It’s just exhausting that these arseholes continually manage to win power. More so when they’re clearly morally bankrupt and doing a bad job. It’s even possible to imagine things like this could finally defeat me and I stop giving a shit about the world. Maybe just give a shit in a different way. A detached way perhaps, or one that doesn’t get caught up in the hyperbolic nature of power. Or even my own perceived role within all this power. There’s got to be an answer somewhere. I’m sure we’ll see it too when we can finally figure out what it is that has been in front of our eyes all this time.

Day Ten

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’m not sure if this is day ten or day eleven of my ten days without the news. For those with no idea what I’m talking about I decided to go ten days without looking at news channels or websites, I generally avoided Facebook except for emails and was left pretty confused and lost whenever anyone mentioned something going on in the world. I semi-accidentally saw a few news headlines over that period but generally avoided most things. The intention had been to avoid the sensationalised twenty-four hours a day news coverage and all the draining exhausting bullshit that goes along with that. I actually lost track of the days, I wasn’t even sure if it had been a week yet until I saw someones Facebook post about Donald Trump commuting his friend Roger Stone’s sentence and realised I really wanted to know what that was about. I haven’t actually found out because I don’t need to read an article to tell me everything that is already obvious.

It did make me want to check the amount of days without news I’ve gone though. So arguably and technically this is day ten if I wrote the piece making the challenge statement on the first of July. That also means I can’t check the news properly until tomorrow. All those little hints that something is going on with masks and shops, that Boris dug himself a hole with care homes yet again and that Jair Bolsonaro has caught coronavirus. This knowledge is all without checking the news once, it’s impossible to avoid everything. I also discovered that VAT on takeaway food is going to be reduced to five percent from twenty, which for someone who makes pizzas as one of his jobs is perhaps the best news I’ve heard all day.

I have enjoyed not knowing what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t create obvious amounts of anxiety in me but I’ve definitely noticed that I feel slightly freer without knowing whatever the latest ill facing the world is. Clearly I have to be realistic, without checking the news I’ve still been drawn to those updates above, amongst other things, which means I’ll never be able to avoid whats going on completely. I don’t see many happy people constantly glued to the world’s events. I doubt it brings out the best in us. We must find balance. The Royal We that is. This isn’t the time for grand statements about future intentions but hopefully I’ll remember this experience if I ever get myself caught up in the stupid bullshit once more. Here’s to liberty, forever more!!

Daily Recommendations Of Happy & Healthy

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

To be a happy and healthy human being in this world we seem to need to combine a rather large variety of things. This combination too varies from person to person and while there are probably a few fundamentals like food, shelter and company, to be both happy and healthy may require a little more than the basic versions of these things. Perhaps being able to attach a noun modifier like good would help and add a little further clarity. We could attempt to include the idea of various possessions like a mobile phone, car or warm jacket, but it’s not worth going down that avenue as it’s validity would be questionable at best. So we stick to the three fundamentals above. There are more I imagine but right now these are the first that come to mind. Perhaps you could throw liberty in there too but unless it’s severely restricted it would probably be something we could adapt to without much fuss.

Shelter seems like an obvious one but there is a difference between a fifteenth floor inner city apartment and a countryside estate. There will be the same extreme ends of the spectrum for company too from friends and lovers to flatmates we have to endure. It is the issue of food that I want to focus on though. I definitely see happiness in food, I associate it with love and one of my favourite things is sitting around a table eating and drinking with friends and family. The happy then is covered but the healthy is were I’m a little confused. There are the obvious things like making sure you eat vegetables and wholegrains, as much organic as possible and to stay away from processed anything when you can. I have a varied level of success on all three of those but I still don’t always feel healthy. I suspect part of that is down to how healthy my gut microbiome is and I’m working on that to the point where I think I can sense and feel improvement specifically because of it. The other is whether I get my recommended daily allowance (RDA) of the required vitamins and minerals. I was looking into how to get enough magnesium yesterday and discovered that perhaps it’s not as easy to achieve this mythical RDA as previously thought. Unlike child poverty figures, it’s not possible to simply change the definition to achieve the desired outcome. Our bodies need what they need and this RDA seems to already be the minimum.

One avocado then provides 15%, a cup of lentils 30%, a two hundred gram fillet of salmon contains 15%, two bananas 20% and half a cup of cooked spinach the final 20%. That’s not impossible to imagine eating in a day but these are also some of the more magnesium heavy foods so the rest of the weeks diet would need to be of a similarly high standard. It is for this reason we must attach good to food. If you would struggle to fund such a diet, which in itself is reasonably common, then there’s a good chance you’re going to struggle to stay healthy and considering that a lack of magnesium can affect our energy and mental health, probably happy too. It seems life is complex. A good life at least. But that’s nothing a new pair of trainers can’t fix.

What Could Have Been

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

The one important thing to remember when we’re worrying or being down on ourselves is that we’re not alone. While our lives are unique there are similarities with others; we’ve all loved or hated someone, worried about something that has been fine or has been a complete failure, regretted doing or not doing things, enjoyed our own company and been painfully bored, and so on and so on. Emotional similarities are easier to point to because we can all say we’ve experienced a moment of happiness. This happiness is comparative to less happy moments in our lives and we’ve all experienced happier and comparatively less happier moments. I imagine me running down the beach is not unique but also not everyone has done this. We can always shape a feeling to fit.

Today then I experienced the emotion of regret. I regretted an inaction in my past and the course my life has taken as a result. I was listening to a podcast with a chef and a restaurant owner discussing cooking, food, techniques, food as art etc and I remembered a desire I had when I was about sixteen to become a chef and open a restaurant in Dublin. That was my plan. I’ve persuaded myself that the only reason I didn’t do it was because I was persuaded against it, that life as a chef is volatile and hard work. In reality there are an infinite number of reasons life didn’t take that course, one of them being that I just did something else. But I felt regret, that I should have done that instead of whatever I did do. I can admit this because like I said, we’ve all experienced the same emotion and probably a few out there over that exact scenario.

The truth is though that the mind plays many tricks on us and in this case I craved an idea. It is nothing more than an idea, and worse than that it’s a fantasy of an idea. We imagine this situation, what could have been and it’s always perfect. Life isn’t necessarily bad, I have it good in many ways but like everyone we have days which vary in degrees of satisfaction. In times like today we fantasise, but that’s all it is, it’s a fantasy and it’s not real. I then later dreamt of being a writer and after that an actor.

I don’t say any of this in a bad way, as I write this I don’t feel sad. Of course what ifs are not always fun and don’t always signify positivity but they’re just examples of one version out of an infinite versions of possible realities. We also don’t know whether we would have survived in that version, perhaps I would have had a heart attack by now from all the rich restaurant food I was eating. I would probably be much fatter than I am, but as a chef I would also be on a steady diet of amphetamines so that would have probably cut my appetite considerably. It’s fun to explore these moments but also not worth taking them too seriously. There’s a reason we never made it happen then and despite the fantasising now, there’s a reason we’re not rushing off to do it anytime soon. And it’s not likely because we can’t.

The Woes Of Newly Morning People

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

My alarm went off at 6.30am today. I did this out of choice. I had the wonderful idea about thirty hours ago that I would become a morning person. This isn’t a new thing, it has been attempted before and judging by this being a new shot the previous ones evidently didn’t go to plan. Quite often the issue lies with my inability to go to bed early enough and is coupled with my need for a good eight hours, ideally nine. If I’m to wake at six, at the height of the summer I would be going to sleep while it was still light outside. Lets be honest that’s unlikely to happen.

One reason I have struggled to sleep earlier is my inability to switch off the technology before sleep. There are various stories out in the ether about how we should switch off phones at least an hour before sleep, or we should dim the lights so we have evening sensitive light but for me the issue lies with the fact it’s too easy to just stare at the phone in a trance when tired. Were you to be reading a book you may need to think a bit more, would get tired and sleep, but the internet is made up of short simple articles and pictures, include it’s ability to hypnotise you and the spell isn’t broken without force of some kind.

Last night though I slept at about midnight, about an hour later than planned but earlier than it could have been and has been. I crawled out of bed half an hour later than the alarm but managed to do some yoga and drink a cup of tea before starting work at 8am, a whole hour early. Today has been completely non stop and while I didn’t get all the things I wanted to do done it wasn’t down to idleness and wasting time which makes it in a funny way acceptable. However I’m still awake and it’s already gone 11pm.

I have probably averaged six to seven hours of sleep per night these last two weeks and I am tired. I’ve only had one morning of being a morning person yet I’m struggling to see myself getting up as early tomorrow and the original plan was 6am the second day. It’s the late nights, and it’s not even that late but it is for an early morning person. It can be so hard to change habits at the best of times but when that change of habit gives you bags under your eyes then you are really making it hard on yourself.

I know I’m not alone in this world though. There are plenty of fellow reprobates out there who have attempted all sorts of things but have been too open to temptation and given up after a few days. Even those disgustingly well groomed, healthy and happy people surely must give in to temptation from time to time and not just the temptation to be perfect. As I say this it makes me feel so pleased to be fallible and to accept my fallibility. If I don’t manage this then so be it, I’ll try again or I’ll try something else. But I’ll try. I’ve had the determined focus of someone capable of achieving things these last two days. I wonder if he’ll be around tomorrow too. He might just need to set the alarm a little later though. A semi-morning person perhaps.

Creativity Takes Root

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’m really enjoying all the creativity people are coming up with while in isolation. I just watched the most remarkable video of a man in a leotard dancing in his garden. Without the virus that moment would never have happened. I was tagged in a live music show this evening, which I only discovered afterwards unfortunately but enjoyed listening to it after the event. Another friend shared her sisters morning fitness class as she is a personal trainer which will give people some much needed exercise and hopefully some new habits. People have already started to put works of art up.

It is early days and people may still be in the excitable fun stage of isolating but for now they seem to be doing all the right things. In time lets see how it goes as they start to suffer from seclusion but the videos coming out of Italy show that even after weeks and an horrendous situation they are still on their balconies singing. There was a video of someone playing Bella Ciao with a saxophone from their balcony which raised a smile. People are worried, scared, bored and in some cases alone but they have found the drive to produce, to share, to inspire.

There is something about being human that shows how well we can adapt to circumstances when we need to. We may be a bunch of soft snowflakes and tough right wingers who both seem to take offence in equal measure but when it comes down to it we seem capable of getting on and surviving when we have to. It is early days potentially and we’re expecting another couple of months of this, fatalistically just waiting…maybe I’ll write about that tomorrow though…but even with that hanging over our heads we find the spirit just to carry on. People shouldn’t be out and about of course but it’s amazing that those who are seem to be smiling and laughing with each other. The initial shock has passed and we’re just getting on with it.

If it’s possible to remain objective within all of this then it would be incredible just to sit and observe how people’s mood as a collective has changed and evolved until now and will do over these next few months. But I’m not objective let’s be honest, I am viewing this through my very own eyes mixed with and confused by a certain combination of fear, bravery, bravado and ignorance that keeps me getting out of bed in the morning and through the day; being happy when I’m happy and sad when I’m sad. Crisis brings people together but it also reminds us while we may have our differences, our base instinct, feelings and emotions are all pretty similar. Carry on people, stay indoors if you can and keep on performing. Keep us all sane and keep us smiling.