Wanted: Academic Exorcist

What is a Cult?
“A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, etc.) designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.” (West & Langone, 1986)

After nearly one complete semester, I have recently realized that graduate school is like a cult.

I found this on the internet. Surprising how many of the things on that list I can check off!

Some Characteristics of a Cult

Authoritarian in their power structure
Totalitarian in their control of the behavior of their members
Pyramidal structure
Uses thought reform techniques
Isolation of members (physical and/or psychological isolation) from society
Uses deception in recruiting and/or fund raising
Promotes dependence of the members on the group
Totalitarian in their world view
Uses mind altering techniques (chanting, meditation, hypnosis and various forms of repetitive actions) to stop normal critical thinking
Appear exclusive and innovative
Charismatic or messianic leader who is self-appointed and has a special mission in life
Controls the flow of information
Instills a fear of leaving the group.

Scary Social Science Fact of the Day

SCARY FACT:

Researchers found that for each one point increase in body-mass index in adolescent females, the probability of having a romantic relationship decreased by 6%.

Source: Halpern, 2005.
cue Miss America fantasy sequence………

Mario Lopez (host): “Alright, let’s draw a question for the contestant from Pennsylvania, Miss Biscotti. Your question is: If you could change one thing in the whole wide world that affects young women, what would it be?”

Beauty Contestant Me: “Well, Mario, that is, like, totally such a great question! If I had the power to change one thing in the lives of young women, I would, like, make sure that there was a compulsory cute boyfriend for every girl in high school, regardless of her BMI. I, like, totally believe that girls should be valued for who they are and not be socially overlooked for drinking a milkshake now and then. By the way, only girls with a BMI over 18 should be allowed in beauty pageants. Thank you.”

(I lose the pageant)

The elderly or the coolest people ever?

In my personal statement for undergrad, I wrote that “I am the coolest person I know.” During orientation, the Dean read some excerpts from the incoming class and my outrageous hubris made the cut.

But to this day, I am still the coolest person I know. I have never wanted to be anyone else, even people who I think are cool, for fear of realizing that they are actually boring. Yes, I am pretty content in my awesomeness.

However, as I have been going on my afternoon jogs (my ticket to inner peace) I have made acquaintance with an older couple who go for walks, hand in hand, every Sunday at 3:00. And I kind of want to be them – in 50 years. He wears a plaid shirt with a sweater vest and always greets me with a “How d’ya do?” And she has sparkly silver hair and a bright smile. And even with my anemic jogging pace, I still manage to pass them several times and each time, I can’t help but smile. They are just so cute!

I actually have lots of “friends” on my jogging path. People in Bloomington are so nice. They smile and say hello to me as I pass. It is all very pleasant.

Another of my favorites is this extremely old guy who walks his golden retriever. The dog is old too. They both have kind faces and limp walks. I am much more of a cat person and tend not to stop to pet dogs. But every time I see them, I stop and give lil’ Fido a scratch on the ears.

And you know what the best thing is about old men? Their sweaters. If I had a boyfriend right now, I would buy him sweaters like those.

And I am not even kidding.

I Look like I’ve Seen a Ghost – All the Time

It is getting to be that time of year when I have lost all of my summer glow and become deathly pale. If I were any paler, I would be translucent.

I am so pale that I am having a hard time distinguishing between my teeth and my skin. And my teeth are pretty white. They used to be whiter, though. A friend in high school told me that she couldn’t look directly at them for fear of blinding.

But yes, I must do something about this. I have a few days for the Thanksgiving holiday. Perhaps I will experiment with some self tanner or look into finding tanning beds. I know that they are bad for you, but I would rather die of skin cancer than live while looking like death warmed over.

A Fine Line Between Love and Hate

I have always thought that I needed to find a guy who was tough enough, someone who could be an equal sparring partner for me. Someone who was mentally agile, emotionally sophisticated, and reveled in complexity. Someone who could just keep up with me instead of being so easily down for the count or leaving the ring after the first jab.

Perhaps it is telling that I use a fighting analogy to describe relationships. Instead of looking for someone who operates exactly the way that I do, perhaps I need to find the opposite. Someone who is resilient and stable, stubbornly present and beautifully forgiving. Someone who will take me out of the ring with them when they go.

Wanderlust

“Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.”
- The Dhammapada

The way I judge a person’s compatibility with me is whether they would make a good travel companion. The best people to travel with are those who are patient, flexible, intelligent, open-minded, interesting, and adaptable. When you travel, you need someone to depend on when facing the unknown and unfamiliar as well as the mundane and unfulfilling. And really, isn’t that what life is all about? Sometimes you’re sitting in the airport for 14 hours because your flight was cancelled. Who do you want to pass the time with when you are frustrated and tired and stuck (in life or in travels)?

And sometimes, the most exciting, unexpected things happen. Through serendipitous adventuring, you could end up totally off course to see the most exotic and exciting wonders in the jungle or the city or the mountains. You never know where you might end up. So who do you want to share those awestruck, mind expanding experiences with?

Who could make an empty room fun? Who could make the most memorable life experiences even more special?

Especially in dating, you find some people who are enjoyable to pass the time and you find some people who bring excitement. But it is rare to find someone who possesses the humor, enthusiasm, insight and wit to do both.

The British Are Coming

For some strange, ungodly reason, I now occasionally speak with a British accent. I have no idea why. In the past, it would emerge only when I drank. But somewhere on the roadtrip up to Madison, Wisconsin, I morphed into an Anglophile. Maybe it is some hiccup in my resistance to taking on a Midwestern accent.

Thanks for the Experience

“This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time: I would like to erase the consequences of certain events and restore an initial condition. But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts, and each of these new facts brings with it consequences, so the more I seek to the zero moment from which I set out, the further I move away from it…Therefore, I must calculate carefully every move so as to achieve the maximum of erasure with the minimum of recomplication.”
- Italo Calvino, If On A Winters Night A Traveler

Change is difficult because even if it brings opportunity and great promise, a part of your life has been shut off that you can no longer access other than through memories.

Ghosts.

Life is too much to understand even as you are living in the present, let alone trying to catch a ghost.

Like que sera sera in reverse, what it was, it was. There is no balance sheet to find out if we ended up in the red or the black. It could have been better, it could have been worse, we suppose, but we can never really define what “it” was.

So, really, what else can anyone ever say about anything other than a heartfelt, deeply resounding, “Thanks for the experience.”

A Moveable Feast

Restlessness, my old friend, the itch to wander has returned.

As a teenager, I always hoped that as a young adult I would be a seeker, a vagabond, a world traveler, a free spirit. But instead, I signed my 20’s away to stable poverty.

I have been here in Bloomington for three months. Three months out of seven years. And it truly has been great. But I need to get out. I need to travel. I need to experience life beyond books and classes. Beyond sociology.

I have been daydreaming about Europe. It’s time for me to go back to Europe. I need to go back to Italy. I did not see Rome when I was there last. And Paris. Yes, I need Paris.

It goes like this: I leave in the middle of the night with a backpack and my credit card. I find the first flight from Indy to Paris (with about 20 connections, probably). I arrive in Paris and I don’t do anything except absorb Paris. I wander, I gaze, I drink wine for breakfast.

And I find a café on Champs-Élysées. I feverishly write maudlin dramas about broken hearts without redemption. Then I find a few handsome French men who do not wear tight pants and do not speak a word of my home language to accompany me to the Sienne where I read them my tragic romance stories as though they were comedies.

We slap our knees as we laugh. We throw our heads back and laugh. We clutch our stomachs and laugh. And then I rip the pages, one by one, and toss them into the river. They sink. They float away. They die.

After this biblio-sacrifice, we celebrate. I wear my black floaty dress and dance in twirls and curtseys in front of the Eiffel tower.

Really, just one weekend in Paris. Three days of city and museums and culture and beauty and art and romance. That’s all I need.

A Public Affair

At Friday’s cohort party, some of us got into a heated debate about infidelity. Who is responsible when infidelity occurs?

This is an issue that I have been thinking about a lot lately, and since I was a little drunkity-drunk on Friday, I would like to state my full position here.

If someone has committed to a monogamous relationship and breaks that promise by having sexual intimacy with a third party, it is entirely and solely that person’s responsibility. The third party did not make any type of vows or promises to the wronged person. There are two separate relationships and only one person is in both – that person is the one at fault.

One might invoke the golden rule and say that if you were in a relationship, you would not want someone to sleep with your partner, so you should not do it to anyone else. But this line of thinking puts the partner in the passive role as though he/she did not make the decision to cheat. The partner was violating the commitment and should be the one held culpable.

And I don’t buy the whole “it takes two to tango” bit. Yes, it takes two people to have sex, but only one of them is cheating.

The golden rule that I would adhere to is that if you don’t want to be cheated on, don’t cheat. This places the active role where it belongs – on the people who have made a commitment to one another.

If a man cheated on me, I certainly would not like the “other woman” but I would not blame her. I entered into an agreement with one other person. There is no way to enter into an agreement with every other woman in the world to say, “Hands off.” The best you can do is trust that the man you are with will have enough respect for the trust and intimacy of your relationship to refuse other offers and to not pursue other women.

I also don’t make arbitrary distinctions between marriage and other relationships. I would say that any commitment is valid and deserves the same consideration. To say that cheating is somehow worse when it is with a married person is wrong. So long as there are two people who have explicitly committed to monogamy and are emotionally tied, cheating is the same transgression.

Whether it be cheating “just for sex” or an emotional affair, the third party is not to blame. If it was just for sex, the cheater had made the decision somewhere along the way to allow themselves to have sex with someone else. I would argue that the someone else in question could have been anyone else. If someone is going to have a one night stand or a purely sexual fling, they are looking for a willing sexual object, not a true connection with another human being. In this way, the other woman is entirely interchangeable. Whether it be a random person at the bar or a more familiar contact like a workplace flirtation, that person could still be replaced by another so long as the option to cheat had been introduced. Thus, if it could have been any number of women, the woman that the cheater actually has sex with doesn’t really matter. The issue is that he wanted outside sex, not whom it was with.

If it is an emotional affair, then the responsibility lies not with the other woman, but flaws within the committed couple’s relationship. If the man wouldn’t cheat with just anyone, but felt compelled to this one woman in particular in a not merely sexual way, then you are talking about people falling in love. And you cannot fault the other woman for being loved. You can fault the man for looking outside of his relationship for fulfillment and you can fault the relationship for not being enough.

I think that there is a seven year itch. Maybe not seven years exactly, but a point in a long term, monogamous relationship where the passion is gone. And they say that is normal and the infatuation-based honeymoon phase gives way to a deeper companionate love based on shared memories and goals, common interests, comfort, stability, respect and trust.

And all of that is wonderful and for some people that is enough. But the 70% of people who do cheat on their spouses shows that most people want something more. The first stages of love are a rush, a thrill, an addiction. And we are supposed to experience that only once for a couple months or years and then spend 60 years being comfortable? There is something appealing about excitement, passion, and exploration.

I plan to get married someday. And if I vow to be faithful, I will do so with meaning and the full intention of following through. I hope that my partner will do the same, but I can only control my own behavior. Affairs are tragic blows to the emotional health of a relationship and I, personally, never want to experience that. But then again, no one wants to experience the commonly occurring bad things that we deny that we susceptible to. You can tell yourself that you won’t get into a car accident because you are a safe driver. But you can only control your own car and when you get pounded by the drunk driver, you realize that it’s really not up to you, after all.

But still being in denial, how do you avoid this? The single most important decision one can make is who they will marry. It comes down to character. Some people are riskier bets. But even beyond character, people make mistakes. I, too, am fallible. You never know what will happen and maybe good marriages are based just as much on luck as on anything else.