Daily Silver: A recap of stuff I haven't told you yet. And "the weather isn't evil, it just wants a hug."

Can I write Friday's Daily Silver even though it's technically Saturday?  Of course I can!  I'm running the show. (bwahahahahahahahaha!!!)

What can I tell you about Friday.  Other than "TGIF" or rather, TGIWF (Thank Gods It Was Friday).  Oh, well it snowed a bit up here in the wild wild North (better known as Western NY).  Lessee... oh, we have an accumulation of about 8 or 9 inches, and it was all melted two days ago.  So not overnight, but pretty good.  Actually, snow on the ground is okay.  It's when it's blowing in your face that's not so cool.  Hot.  Whatever.  Today I got up and (mistake #1) did not look out the window.  I had no idea what it was like outside, but I assumed that it would be much like yesterday: sunny and clear with snow on the ground but none in the sky.  As I was preparing to leave for class, still not looking out the window, I (almost mistake #2) debated putting on my winter hat or my baseball cap.  I luckily chose the winter hat and opened the door (surprise!).  The snow was coming down at about a 45deg slant, and they were fat, slushy flakes, the kind that can sting in a sudden [sadistic] gust of wind but then will accumulate on your hat and coat and any exposed skin and make you shed water when you walk inside like molting snakeskin.  Except cold and wet.

Now make it 50-80degF colder and dump some ice water on him.

In other news, I'm taking a practice GRE tomorrow.  I'm excited about the future (Ooooh, the future...) but I'm not excited about getting up on a Saturday.  Ah, the sleep I sacrifice...

Speaking of sleep: I think I'll pretend to go to sleep now.  I say pretend because I'll end up laying in bed staring at the ceiling.  Or the wall.  I've become sort of attached to staring at the wall lately.  Buonanotte!

Daily Silver: Oh darn, zombies ate my roommates.

No, not really (well maybe in the few hours I've been working alone in my room...) but I went out to dinner tonight and when I came back no one was in the living room, but I saw their shoes and coats.  Logical conclusion: zombies ate my roommates.

You can imagine how relieved I was when I crept downstairs (ready to kick some zombie butt if it came to that) and found them quietly studying in their rooms.  No, I was not relieved that they were quietly studying in their rooms; in fact that was somewhat distressing in itself.  Ours is a house of proud procrastination! (*dons viking helmet and shakes hammer at sky*)

Yeah, kinda like that.  And yes, my hammer glows, too.  Duh.

So today's Silver is just more a trick to get me to write, and in the true spirit of writing, I am... going to bed.

Wait, that didn't make sense.

Well, if I'm to the point of not making sense anymore it really is time for me to go to bed.

And in the spirit of perpetual curiosity (meo--) I will share with you a new blog I've discovered and a good article.  It's interesting; it's a science blog, but the issue discussed here is sort of philosophical.  I like it!

Daily Silver: Friday!!!

Today's silver is brief: it's Friday!  And it's nice out!  I am excited at the prospect of sleeping in tomorrow, but I am not excited about writing my humanities essay (due Monday morning).  My assignment is to write about how I think two authors (out of five or so choices) would react to people flying planes into IRS buildings.  Specifically Andrew Joseph Stack.  It won't necessarily be a hard write, it's just tedious and not what I want to be doing/writing about.

But about the weather: it's gorgeous!  If you're not from upstate NY or similar climes you may not understand my amazement at 50degF, but it's 50 freaking degrees in February.  This is a big thing, like jump-and-shout-and walk-around-in-shorts-and-a-tshirt-because-you-don't-have-to-worry-about-frostbite big.  The fields outside my window are green.  It's crazy.

So I leave you now to walk in the balmy spring breezes and cavort in the sun, because it's been a long winter (actually it's been a winter of average length, but you get the idea).

No, you can't blow up pineapples with your mind, but thinking happy thoughts doesn't hurt, either.

I know I just bashed positive thinking, so what I want to talk about today might seem a little hypocritical.  I could spend a paragraph (and I just might) telling you about how it's not (hypocritical, that is) but that would be a waste of words.  You're going to decide for yourself, whatever I say, and that's the beauty of being an individual.  But what are words for if not wasting, so yeah, there's a bit about why this is different than my rant on positive thinking.  Just roll with it.  Anyway, here I go...

Last night I had what you might call a revelation.

The night began with business as usual; I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to find a position that was comfortable for more than two minutes, and generally feeling horrible.  While most people (I presume) are able to drift into a vaguely comforting and blissfully thoughtless pre-sleep state in a timely manner (read: not two hours) after they get into bed, "sleepy-time" does not translate for my brain.  My thoughts do not slow down and I am not able to turn them to counting sheep or visualizing numbers 1-100 or floating in a void.  Most of what I do is worry.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I am a worrier, like my mother and my grandmother.  I try not to worry about what I can't control, of course; for the most part it works pretty well.  I would even suggest that I sometimes adopt a rather devil-may-care attitude.  However, all bets are off when I go to bed.  It's not that I worry about things I can do nothing about, but the opposite; I worry about things I would normally have a hand in but don't because I'm trying to go to sleep. Key word: trying. When you're in bed it doesn't do you any good to think of what clothes you're going to wear tomorrow or that the due date for your next tuition payment is coming up or that you have to read 100 pages for class in two days, because you're in bed.  It's like these things pounce on me when they see me mentally vulnerable, because there is one thing I worry about that I don't really have control over: getting enough sleep.  It's my very own encyclopedia illustration of "The Vicious Cycle."

So I was lying there listening to my classical music when I thought, "what if jI just eliminate "should" from my thoughts?"  So I changed every "I have to..." and "I should..." and "I need to..." to "I want."  And it worked.

Instead of "I should get up early and go to the gym tomorrow," I thought "I want to get up early and go to the gym tomorrow," and with that small substitution I felt better.

My worry about getting enough sleep was mostly coming from that, so instead of listening to classical because "I should listen to something quiet so I'll go to sleep soon" I changed my ipod to pop rock because "I want to go to sleep but I don't have to so I want to listen to the music I feel like listening to."  My mom always says, what's the worst thing that could happen if you don't go to sleep?  You're tired the next day.  Eventually, you're going to be tired enough (probably the next night) to go to sleep.

I do want to go a little bit into the difference between this and the positive thinking I was talking about earlier.  I feel like this whole "power of positive thinking" thing is way out of hand.  I see people expecting job prospects and other people's ideas and even actual physical realities to change just because they wish really, really hard on that star or believe everyone is born with an angelic conscience.  This is delusional.  Jobs will open up to you if you do the legwork, and a lot of the time even after that they don't pan out.  You have a chance of changing someone's mind if you argue your case convincingly, but even then it's like that person is an arbitrary judge with the final "yea" or "nay."  And influencing physical things with your mind?  Even now psychologists and physicians are undecided as to whether your thoughts influence your biochemistry or it's the other way around.  Influencing things outside your own body: forget it.  Delusional.

But your thoughts are all words; try to think of the last time you didn't have a spastic inner monologue (or dialogue, or poly-logue) continuously running through your mind?  Bet you can't.  The human experience is defined by language.  And before you protest, when you were a baby (without language) your thoughts and experiences were still framed with communication (probably, because it's not something we can really know).

So if words make up your mind and, by extension, your perception (which is really what we're talking about, because perception is reality and experience and emotion and thought), couldn't you affect your own mind through control of words?  Words and language have an intimate power, and since emotions are thoughts (perhaps unconsciously) and thoughts are words, then you can control (or at least shape) your emotions with words.

Okay, so in theory it works.  Try it with me. (I honestly have no idea if it'll have an effect on you.)  Pick something that stresses you out: impending exams; looming bills; that report you have to get to your boss by next week.  Phrase it with an "I have to" or an "I should," eg "I should study for my test next week."  Ugh, even knowing I don't have a test next week, that makes me feel all slimy inside.  Okay, now change it to "I want to."  eg "I want to study for my test next week."  Maybe add a "because," like "I want to study for my test next week because I want a good grade."  Look, another "I want."  We're on a roll.  Now, does that make you feel better?  I feel better.  Now, even though my test was hypothetical, I feel better about it and better about hypothetically studying for it.

I just wanted to share this with y'all, because I think it's so awesome.  I didn't necessarily go to sleep faster after that, but I am an insomniac...

Anyway, to finish up I just want to emphasize that this is not what I would call "magical" positive thinking.  As my parents have always told me, you can't change anyone's mind but your own.  In the same vein, you can't get a new car through wishing, Dad's Alzheimer's isn't going to go away even if you pray, and $30,000 isn't going to appear in your bank account just because it would be really, really awesome.

It would be awesome.  Oh well.

NB The title reference is from "Accepted."  Good movie.  I recommend it.