Monthly Archives: June 2010

A Few Reflections

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Two things made me think today, an impressive feat as I slept < 5 hours last night.

First thought-inducer: Grown Man’s post of yesterday where he discusses an attached man dining with a single/possibly attached (her relationship status is negligibly important) and in what situation this is appropriate. Ok, so I dine “one-on-one” with men all the time. Clients (for the freelance gig), bosses (for the medical gig), friends, and so on. Do I consider it treacherous territory? No. Do I consider ittreacherous territory if the guy pays? No, he’s my client dammit, he better pay. Do I consider it treacherous territory if its a “nice restaurant”? Not usually, but it becomes dangerous at one point.

Example: a few months ago, Brendan (the straight besty guy friend) and I went to dinner at what could be considered a fine dining restaurant here in Chicago. He wore a nice shirt that wasn’t inside out (trust me, this is a big deal) and didn’t wear flip-flops (also a big deal) and I wore a real shirt, not a white T-shirt from the kids department of Target. We had an appetizer, main course, and shared a dessert but never ONCE could someone have walked in and thought we were on a date. The demeanor was just NOT there. Also, he paid, but that’s because he was making up for being a bad friend.

So what is inappropriate? My line is slightly more left than most women’s but I will say that there are some situations I don’t approve of and they fall under the single category of “anything that feels like a date”. If it feels like a date, you shouldn’t be there. And, if its something that happens all-too frequently — thats probably not cool either. I can’t find the source but I read a study a couple of years ago that showed a correlation between the proximity between two people and the likelihood they would cheat on their spouse with them. It can be summarized as: someone you may not necessarily find desirable in most circumstances will seem so because of time spent together and shared experiences (like working together). What that means, in theory, is if I were ever to cheat on the future Mr. Malka, it’d be with a doctor at the hospital I work with. Shared experience, shared time = adultery. Fuck science, here’s how to prevent that: share your experience with your significant other. Plus, most surgeons are class douches.

Second thought inducer: Wife Swap. Yes, the bad TV show. The premise of the show: two families get a new wife/mom for the week and have to abide by new mom’s rules and schedule. In today’s episode, one of the women was a self-titled “fitness mom” and worked out three hours a day. At first, I was like “ok, that’s cool, woman’s got guns” but then she talked about how it was her ex-air force fighter pilot husband who got her into her CRAZY working out routine and showed them working out side by side and she was doing a lot of man-moves. Dislike. First, give the girl a break, boobs are part of femininity and b) I hate when couples merge every single one of their interests and pastimes and essentially become an amorphous blob of cheesy pet names and sappy YouTube video moments.

Ok so I love working out and if one day, Boyfriend was like “MelMal, I really want to go to the gym with you today and see your rippling six-pack abs in action” (THIS IS MY BLOG, I CAN WRITE WHATEVER I WANT), I’d be like “Sure boyfriend”. Would I want Boyfriend to see my grunting like a rhino during bicycle sit-ups on a regular basis? False. Also, working out is my drug and alone time.

Basically, you can share in your sig-other’s activities without becoming their little clone. You’ll be better off because of it…trust me!

Amygdala hijack — pay attention.

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Do I eat it or does it eat me?

Do any of you remember during the 2006 World Cup final when Zinadine Zidane headbutts another player (I forgot who)? It was a bit much, don’t you think? I know Seth Macfarlane of Family Guy fame thought so. Point is, Zidane overreacted…and we humans seem to do that a lot, so what is the physiology behind it?

Daniel Goleman, in his 1996 book on Emotional Intelligence, coined the term “amygdala hijack” to refer to disproportionate emotional responses to a perceived [emotional] threat.

Let’s first discuss the facts:

  • Biologically speaking, our emotions are there to make us “pay attention”.
  • Our brains process sensory information in a very linear fashion: thalamus -> neocortex (where the thoughts happen) -> amygdala (where the emotions happen).
  • When a potential threat is perceived, the brain bypasses the cortex (no thinking) and goes straight to the amygdala (where the emotional response is formed).
  • This emotional response can overpower the brain in mere milliseconds.

And how to control it? Or, rather, why should you even try? Well, at best, a 5-second emotional outburst of anger makes you look like an idiot in front of your peers. At worst, it’ll cost you your job or your relationship. So much like you try to flex a muscle, work on improving your EI (emotional intelligence).

  • Identify your triggers. Dr. Nadler, CEO of True North Leadership (a firm specialising in applying Emotional Intelligence in business) discusses the “5-second rule” in one of his articles. Wait 5 seconds. Ask yourself what set you off, ask yourself what emotion it made you feel, ask yourself what you want now, and figure out what you need to do to get it. There’s a slight difference between what set you off and what emotion it makes you feel. You may find that several different triggers will lead you to the exact same emotion, which then leads you to overreact.
  • Identify their emotional state, then proceed with caution. The unknown is scary; so make it known. Studies showed that when participants viewed pictures of people expressing various emotions, they processed the information in entirely different parts of their brains once they identified the picture’s emotional state. Labeling = more cognitive control.

And finally, remember that more IQ = less EI and vice versa. When the amygdala (the heart of your brain) is filled with increased blood flow and oxygen, the prefrontal cortex (the brains of your brain) is less activated. What does this mean? You lose some IQ points when your amygdala is supercharged. This leads to a deficit in problem solving ability and rational thought. You can’t change that, and you wouldn’t want to because the amygdala is crucial for our fight-or-flight response, but you don’t want to be “that guy” wondering “what did I just do?” (Yes, Kanye West, I’m talking about you and your stupid move during the Music Video Awards…what the hell was wrong with you, man?)

What’s Your Zenith?

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Last night, I was watching TV and the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man In The World Commercial” came on. It was a new one and one of the statements made about the MIMITW was “Sharks have a week dedicated to him” — awesome.

If you know anything about me than you know two things: sharks are my favourite creatures and Shark Week is marked on my calendar as one of my favourite holidays. So, the Shark Week comment resonated for a wee while.

Where was I going with this? Oh yes, to have a “Mel-week” that sharks watch — perhaps that would be my pinnacle of “success” — I’m being slightly facetious here but the message is simply that there are different ways that our success can be celebrated.

Which way matters most to you and how will you get it?

Would you want someone to write a book about your life? Do you want a movie made about you? Do you want to be in the Guinness Book of World Records? Do you want to receive a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, or an Emmy?

A little self-disclosure: I want a Black Belt.

I’ve wanted a Black Belt in “a” martial art since I was a kid. I was aware enough to realise that Tae-Kwon-Do wasn’t for me and smart enough to quit, even midway to black belt. I knew I didn’t enjoy it anymore, and that I had never really enjoyed it. For me, a black belt symbolizes hard work, discipline — in the olden days, belts were never actually black but the term black belt came from how dirty the white belts of the most diligent students would get — and its something I want to achieve.

So that can be the apex of my martial arts career. Maybe for academia it will be the MD or Ph.D, for life it will be —- ???

Well, I guess that’s a work in progress.

Trust Me, Even If You Don’t Trust Yourself

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I really injured my neck last Thursday during aikido class. Friday was spent in a mostly horizontal position on my wooden floor. Saturday was a bit better and by Sunday, I was kicking it back in jiu-jitsu class though I couldn’t do any sit-ups or rolls.

But then something peculiar happened when I tried to roll during my next aikido class.  I couldn’t push myself to do it. I would get into the right position, lean backwards and…stop myself.  Now, rolling is an integral part of aikido so I had to deal with this.  I talked to the sensei about it and he said “ok, don’t worry, next class I will roll you. I will make sure you don’t hurt yourself. You’ll build your confidence back up and then you’ll be fine.”

Hmm. Ok. So we did it once, twice, a third time with him pushing me over. After time number three, he said it was my turn but I still couldn’t do it. Ok, on to time number 4, 5, 6, from him I went over without a problem. By the last few times, I was doing it on my own and he was just making sure I was keeping my neck out of the way (the fear with backwards rolling is you’re trying to look to see where you’re landing, putting your neck in a very bad position).

Evasive Defense Against Bokken (Sword)

I thanked him after and he explained that it was no problem, that it was important to make sure that I was able to trust him (and my other partners) even when I wasn’t 100% comfortable trusting myself.  This became even more apparent during the Weapons training class, where my partner, Chris, was pretty much trying to slice through my head with a bokken. Sure, I moved and we certainly weren’t going at it full strength, but there’s a certain degree of trust needed in that kind of situation.

Sort of like the childhood game where you fall into someone’s outstretched arms.  Sometimes, our friends, our family, are what we need to get that confidence back.

How To Tell If Someone Is Lying To You

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A partially complete concept map –



(If the image is squashed, click and it will open full-size.)

Remember:

Knowing that someone is lying doesn’t tell you why they’re lying.  Motive trumps action (think of murder as self-defense).

This leads you down a rabbit hole, sometimes to self-exclusion because when you know someone is lying to you, its hard to let it go.

Don’t believe me?  Take it from Paul Ekman; he developed FACS, or the Facial Action Coding System.

“In general we have a choice about which stance we take in life,” says Paul Ekman. “If we take a suspicious stance life is not going to be too pleasant, but we won’t get misled very often. If we take a trusting stance, life is going to be a lot more pleasant but sometimes we are going to be taken in. As a parent or a friend, you’re much better off being trusting rather than looking for lies all the time.”

Facebook Official

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aka, a new way to be single without being single.

What’s the usual, number one deterrent to a man?  The wedding ring.  Now, correct me if I’m wrong but I do believe that if a guy sees that a woman is married, he’ll back off, women…not so much, but some women can be man-stealing bitches…

I personally believe that today, even the wedding ring is not foolproof anymore.  A couple of years ago, I was in FL and I watched as a guy took off his wedding ring, put it in his pocket, then came up to my friend and I and offered to buy us a drink.  My response?  Dude, I can see your tan line…and I just watched you pull douchebag move number one.

So what about for those of us who are not married or even engaged?  Facebook is now its own virtual wedding ring.  We put our relationship status on there and its for the whole world to know.

Last night, a friend of mine told me that “everyone uses Facebook to check out if someone is single” and that “if its not FBO, then its not real.”  This really got me thinking because I have my own thoughts on posting relationship business on Facebook.  I was “In a Relationship” for several years and it never said that.  I was “Single” and it never said that either.

My reasons for officializing business on Facebook:

  1. Being proud of the person you’re with.
  2. Wanting to let people subtly/not-so-subtly know that you’re no longer available because you’re happy to not be available anymore.

My reasons have nothing to do with “well, I’m claiming my territory” or whatever but then my friend went on to say that this is another thing about Facebook — you are staking your claim.

So Facebook as the modern indicator of commitment?  Not to mention that there’s added pressure to behave a certain way when you’ve made it for the world to know that you’re somebody’s somebody.  Take, for example, exhibit A, the married man from above.  Let’s say he had not taken off his wedding band and offered to buy me a drink.  Reprehensible but at the least, its me who makes the decision to involve myself with a married man.  I mean its so obvious to catch the married man cheating on his wife scenario: married man with wedding band and woman with no ring on, clearly not his wife.  All eyes on them can tell “this guy is kind of a shit” right?

Now let’s say its an unmarried guy so there’s no ring.  That makes it harder to tell.  But now there’s “FBO” (haha) and you can easily see if the cute guy that hit on you last night is kind of a shit (or the cute girl too).  Does anyone have thoughts on this?

The Remedy To Prolonged Suffering

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If I’m not tortured, how are you ever going to relate?

To heal the soul, Epicurus said:

Don’t fear god,
Don’t worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure

Did you know that according to research, babies are born with only two innate fears: falling and certain types of noise.  Over the course of their life, they develop more fears.

There’s no fear of death — not innately anyways.  Over time, the fear of death becomes the all-consuming one, the one that trumps everything else.  But, it’s nurtured.  If you think about Eastern cultures, they fear dishonour more than death, hence the very painful self-sacrifice of seppuku in Japanese culture.  Death before dishonour.  Here in the U.S. its dishonour before death (Madhoff lives!)

Skipping to Step 4 of the tetrapharmakos (what Epicurus wrote above) leads to the curious interpretation of what it means that “what is terrible is easy to endure” — what does that actually mean?  Are we referring to physical pain?  Emotional pain?  Those are two things not so easy to endure…and they can be pretty terrible.  But Epicurus says that no, it’s not what is terrible that is difficult, its the anxiety that comes with it.  Remove the anxiety and the duration of the pain doesn’t matter because after the pain there will always be pleasure.

I have a hard time understanding this —a very hard time.  Having endured several painful physical and emotional experiences, I can only wonder what this means, that pleasure always follows pain.

Here is how I come to understand it for myself on a very simplistic level:

When you work out, your muscles hurt the next day.  You wake up the following morning making old-man noises “ahh, eeeh, groan” and you “feel” your muscles.  For some, this pain can cause anxiety and the whole “when will it be over” mentality.  But over the next few days, something wonderful happens and you notice the absence of pain and that absence causes pleasure, that absence is pleasure.  However, without the pain in the first place, that pleasure wouldn’t really be perceptible.

Bad example?  Possibly.  Simplistic one?  Definitely.  An appreciate for “terrible things” now?  Absolutely.

Strength Is In Flexibility

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I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on various disciplines of martial arts, in order to pick one to complement the Krav Maga training I’ve been doing.

As an intermediate level belt in Tae-Kwon-Do, I’d already decided that this one was “probably not for me” as I preferred a discipline relying more on technique rather than force.

Judo was the one that most caught my eye.  Even its translation, “the gentle way”, embodies what I’m looking for — a soft martial art.  Rather than focusing on strength and force, judo incorporates joint locks and manipulations, grappling techniques — where, rather than using your own strength, you use your opponent’s strength against them.  Judo techniques became the foundation for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Last night my Krav Maga instructor and I were discussing the incorporation of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu techniques in Krav, and he  told me that although I viewed my size as a disadvantage, I had an advantage:  a lower, more stable center of gravity.  I like his glass-half full approach to my shortcomings.

So, in my research of Judo, I came across a quote by Kyozu Mifune, someone regarded as “the greatest judo technician” (after the founder).

He said:

“Judo rests on flexible action of mind and body. The word flexible however never means weakness but something more like adaptability and openmindedness. Gentleness always overcomes strength.”


I like this.  I mean think about it, flexible is not weak.  On the contrary, it is those who stand rigid and tall that will first be blown down in a storm.  We make alloys in order to counteract the brittleness of certain independent metals. When you learn to fall in martial arts, you learn to not only “break your fall” but incorporate the actual movement of falling into continuous motion.  (Rolls, throws, etc.)  You don’t just fall flat and lay there, you need to be flexible.  Flexibility of mind, that is another story; in fact its probably even harder to achieve than flexibility of body.  Adapting to situations, admitting you are wrong, accepting that there is always someone who knows more and can teach you something.

But like every muscle in your body, the mind can adapt and grow too — use it or lose it.

Other blogs of interest:  Mental Plasticity