"The Unthinkable" continues to be one of my favorite books of grad school. Amanda Ripley finds such compelling characters and her writing really just flows so naturally. I can tell she is in love with her topic.
The chapter on resilience is fantastic. I like how she breaks down resilience into different parts and acknowledges that there is no one recipe or measurement for success. Just like a genetic predisposition to a disease, the size of the hippocampus or the level of neuropeptide Y or the circle of friends a person has can predict relative risk but not with any complete certainty.
I underlined the three underlying advantages of people who are resilient: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. She's onto something with these elements.
People who have an internal, rather than external locus of control, believe they can change outcomes. I used to live in a culture that would constantly explain good fortune or hardship by saying, dine Hudah bilya (only God knows). The outcomes of their lives were dependent upon the dictates of God. God controlled their lives, past, present and future. I noticed that people with this fatalistic outlook often felt apathetic about the position in life. If God is in control, nothing can be done to change it because it's God's will. Turkmen society, as a result, doesn't protest human rights offenses, it doesn't ask for changes; it accepts what happens even if it means suffering for everyday people.
I raged against this worldview because I have a strong internal locus of control. I believe that things can be changed. Maybe not everything, but certainly some things. I don't think I ever lost that sense of injustice at not being able to affect change, but other Americans did. They adopted the Turkmen thinking as a defense mechanism, which I definitely understand. It's less exhausting.
Near the end of my service I went with another Peace Corps Volunteer to buy tickets to India. The man at the ticket counter said that we had to buy our tickets in U.S dollars because we are American. We were paid our salaries in local currency, manats, so this required us to change money, which was a big hassle and cost us for the conversion. It was also a made up rule. The guy just wanted dollars.
I refused and started to make a scene. I told him it wasn't fair. I thought I should stand up for us as well as the Americans who would follow. Kera was shocked at my reactions. Some things aren't fair she said. Get over it. She told me I needed to stop overreacting. It was fascinating. She didn't think we could change that corruption, but I did. It came down to a belief that we could alter the outcomes. I adopted some of her thinking to see how it effected me and noticed that I while I became more accepting and more calm, I lost some of my optimism.
Second on the list is a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil. Again, it's all about perspective and it's highly likely that this can be altered throughout life. Challenges can become lessons rather than something to suffer through. I think I experienced this one in a big way as a young adult. I had reconstructive jaw surgery to fix a malformed jaw when I was about 17. Years before that, I suffered with arthritis and chronic pain. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I saw that experience in my teens as a character-building exercise. I used to view it as a detraction from my life, but as the years passed, I saw it as something that helped me become stronger. It definitely took some things from me: I couldn't play the clarinet, I had to quit soccer, I would never be able to feel my lower face again. I mourned those things and reframed it. It made me stronger and not weaker. This one can years of struggle to finally realize. I think it did for me. But the larger lesson is to start with small stuff and work up.
The final aspect is a conviction that a person can learn from both positive and negative experiences. Again, I agree. Learning from all experiences is healthy. It creates a more resilient outlook, but it's hard. Sometimes negative experiences are easier forgotten. But I think the thing to realize is that nothing is ever truly forgotten. Bad experiences and negative emotions lurk in the dreamspace and subconscious thinking. So, it's healthier to face them head on and acknowledge that something can be learned. School is a little microcosm of this lesson. I notice that I easily remember mistakes I make while reporting, writing and editing. I store them away and save them for a future experience. With non-school or work-related stuff, this can be a little harder. Finding the lesson in my Papa's death is hard. Mostly I just miss him. But the conviction that something can be gained is what makes that loss easier to comprehend and process.
Other comments about the readings. I liked the lecture from George Bonnano. I'm really glad I took quantitative research methods because it helped me understand what he was talking about with the study types. Key takeaway is that the majority of people continue along the same path and have the same mental outlook even after life-changing events. The study on spinal cord injuries was especially fascinating to me because I've always just assumed that I'd become permanently depressed after an accident like that.
Chapter 5 in "Covering Violence" is fantastic. Thinking about the interview itself is great advice. I've never consciously thought about the considerations the writers discuss: where to stand, how to make first contact, what to think about for a follow-up interview, how gender plays a role, getting consent, setting ground rules, bringing up the name of the media outlet multiple times and how to listen. I also underlined appropriate sentiments: I'm sorry this happened to you, I'm glad you weren't killed, It's not your fault. The second one would not probably cross my mind as something that would be appropriate to say, but it seems like it would ring true for people who have just witnessed trauma.
The chapter on resilience is fantastic. I like how she breaks down resilience into different parts and acknowledges that there is no one recipe or measurement for success. Just like a genetic predisposition to a disease, the size of the hippocampus or the level of neuropeptide Y or the circle of friends a person has can predict relative risk but not with any complete certainty.
I underlined the three underlying advantages of people who are resilient: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. She's onto something with these elements.
People who have an internal, rather than external locus of control, believe they can change outcomes. I used to live in a culture that would constantly explain good fortune or hardship by saying, dine Hudah bilya (only God knows). The outcomes of their lives were dependent upon the dictates of God. God controlled their lives, past, present and future. I noticed that people with this fatalistic outlook often felt apathetic about the position in life. If God is in control, nothing can be done to change it because it's God's will. Turkmen society, as a result, doesn't protest human rights offenses, it doesn't ask for changes; it accepts what happens even if it means suffering for everyday people.
I raged against this worldview because I have a strong internal locus of control. I believe that things can be changed. Maybe not everything, but certainly some things. I don't think I ever lost that sense of injustice at not being able to affect change, but other Americans did. They adopted the Turkmen thinking as a defense mechanism, which I definitely understand. It's less exhausting.
Near the end of my service I went with another Peace Corps Volunteer to buy tickets to India. The man at the ticket counter said that we had to buy our tickets in U.S dollars because we are American. We were paid our salaries in local currency, manats, so this required us to change money, which was a big hassle and cost us for the conversion. It was also a made up rule. The guy just wanted dollars.
I refused and started to make a scene. I told him it wasn't fair. I thought I should stand up for us as well as the Americans who would follow. Kera was shocked at my reactions. Some things aren't fair she said. Get over it. She told me I needed to stop overreacting. It was fascinating. She didn't think we could change that corruption, but I did. It came down to a belief that we could alter the outcomes. I adopted some of her thinking to see how it effected me and noticed that I while I became more accepting and more calm, I lost some of my optimism.
Second on the list is a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil. Again, it's all about perspective and it's highly likely that this can be altered throughout life. Challenges can become lessons rather than something to suffer through. I think I experienced this one in a big way as a young adult. I had reconstructive jaw surgery to fix a malformed jaw when I was about 17. Years before that, I suffered with arthritis and chronic pain. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I saw that experience in my teens as a character-building exercise. I used to view it as a detraction from my life, but as the years passed, I saw it as something that helped me become stronger. It definitely took some things from me: I couldn't play the clarinet, I had to quit soccer, I would never be able to feel my lower face again. I mourned those things and reframed it. It made me stronger and not weaker. This one can years of struggle to finally realize. I think it did for me. But the larger lesson is to start with small stuff and work up.
The final aspect is a conviction that a person can learn from both positive and negative experiences. Again, I agree. Learning from all experiences is healthy. It creates a more resilient outlook, but it's hard. Sometimes negative experiences are easier forgotten. But I think the thing to realize is that nothing is ever truly forgotten. Bad experiences and negative emotions lurk in the dreamspace and subconscious thinking. So, it's healthier to face them head on and acknowledge that something can be learned. School is a little microcosm of this lesson. I notice that I easily remember mistakes I make while reporting, writing and editing. I store them away and save them for a future experience. With non-school or work-related stuff, this can be a little harder. Finding the lesson in my Papa's death is hard. Mostly I just miss him. But the conviction that something can be gained is what makes that loss easier to comprehend and process.
Other comments about the readings. I liked the lecture from George Bonnano. I'm really glad I took quantitative research methods because it helped me understand what he was talking about with the study types. Key takeaway is that the majority of people continue along the same path and have the same mental outlook even after life-changing events. The study on spinal cord injuries was especially fascinating to me because I've always just assumed that I'd become permanently depressed after an accident like that.
Chapter 5 in "Covering Violence" is fantastic. Thinking about the interview itself is great advice. I've never consciously thought about the considerations the writers discuss: where to stand, how to make first contact, what to think about for a follow-up interview, how gender plays a role, getting consent, setting ground rules, bringing up the name of the media outlet multiple times and how to listen. I also underlined appropriate sentiments: I'm sorry this happened to you, I'm glad you weren't killed, It's not your fault. The second one would not probably cross my mind as something that would be appropriate to say, but it seems like it would ring true for people who have just witnessed trauma.
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