Filed under: Australia, Environment, History, Humanity, Schadenfreude, beauty, blogging, crime, death, death row, dreams, family, friends, health, life, murder, nature, psychology, school, teenagers, writing.
I saw a comet tonight. It just flew across the night sky into the clouds, as I happened to look up into the sky as I was out there, as I often am at night, thinking and looking at the stars. I said it before, that back in Collie I didn’t get to see the stars much, and once I could again, it was truly beautiful a sight. Immediately I ran inside and told Luke about it and then went back outside my heart pounding. You’d never think such a thing could have such an effect on someone, but nature, it is truly beautiful and it reveals it’s beauty when you don’t really expect it.
My mind ended up drifting to something that got me thinking, on Andrew Denton about a nun who had been with several men on death row and been with them, and watched them die. About how these people are human and how whenever someone dies, in this society there are always two sides. The victims and their family, and the perpetrators of a crime like murder. Like how some people can forgive, and some people only seek vengeance. The public would also like to seek the perpetrators of the crime punished and even killed. SheudenFreude. It is a word, which I have made myself aware of in the past few months. In generality it means that someone had taken pleasure from another’s pain. We would like to see killers killed and suffer.
Also, by killing a person, it isn’t the person who is going to suffer, this person is dead, once they die they are gone, they don’t feel anything. I know many people believe many things, but in any case, after death, there is no more pain, not for the one who has died. However, for those who are left alive, who hold memories of them once they were alive, they feel pain. For everyone who ever lived, there was someone they interacted with, someone they may have touched in some way. That is what a funeral is for, that is what the living need, to help them deal with the pain. To say goodbye. For everyone, there was a family, a friend, someone they occasionally looked at. Any kind of connection, everything you do, everyone who you meet is touched in some way by you.
This brings me to another point, my high school years. Another thing I have been thinking about a lot, on how I went through rapid psychological growth and became aware of myself fully and those around me. In year nine, I had decided I might like to become a writer and read in the job guide that I would need to have good observational skills. That is when I started actively trying to look at people, soon it became natural and I just fit in better, life became better as well, once I could see how people were, and started to try and understand them.
My family split up when I was finishing primary School, it seems I was the least…distraught about the entire situation. I don’t want to go through those details because I am talking now about my highschool and a certain second or third cousin of mine who I attended High school with. I was excited to be in highschool with my cousin or whatever when I was young and naiive. At about year nine, when I was still an introvert… I had come to the realisation that he as I was, underwent some pretty severe bullying. I wasn’t bold enough to do so but I in my mind this is, wanted to be able to stick up for him. I honestly was to scared, I remember thinking that i should go over and say dont pick on him, but I was being pessimistic and egocentric afraid of what would happen to me.
He and I, we were ont he different sides of our faimly split, or more so mine. He was on my fathers who i for unspecified reasons no longer see, speak to or interact with outside of hearing from him from my younger brother and sister. I was on my mothers side, who I admire a lot for leaving him. We would often argue briefly about family issues and the truth of what happened. My mother, and my father…though I am ashamed to admit it, he is in fact it split and I have little contact at all with his family. The cousin, (if your reading you know who you are) was pretty much my link to that family, and I kind of wish we had become better friends. Even at home, you were being jestered at, I even found myself defending him. he isn’t a bad guy at all, I mean he can be pretty cool.
Now to summarise and round up, I appreciate everyone I meet, and have any bonds with at any time. I don’t want to feel happiness from another, even a bad persons suffering or death. everyone I have been taught by, Friends with, Classmates, Spoken to and some who i even never have made contact with, will touch me in some way. I don’t want to become someone who isn’t affected and is apathetic about life. It is short and beautiful, and you should appreciate all the stars even if they fade and you can barley see. Not just the coments who make your heart beat.
-Smiley.
Well, while reading up on my studies I took note of a certain study undertaken. Well I am reading up on conditional responses, in my book on counselling (and yes Smiley is becoming a counsellor.) I found something in here under the title. ‘Learning to fear!’ And here is one of the key sentences in it.
“A person can learn to fear just about anything if it is paired with something that elicits pain, surprise or embarrasment”
Well if you are wondering about what this has to do with Little Albert, then I will tell you. Little Albert was a child born and raised in ahospital for nine months since his birth. He was selected for being a quiet and placid child who didn’t scare easily. Keep in mind, this experiment took place in 1920 by John Watson and Rosalie Rayner so no such experiment would be done these days. Well none the government will let anyone know about anyway.
So little Albert was given a white rat, and it was soon established that Little Albert liked the rat and enjoyed playing with it. Having established that Albert liked the Rat, Watson and Rayner started the conditioning. They offered the rat again, and Albert reached for the rat having enjoyed playing with it, Then the researchers struck a steel pole making a loud scary noise for an infant. The researchers repeated this several times and Albert started to whimper tremble. The researchers after this then showed Albert the rat without the noise and Albert basically cried and crawled the way out of there as fast as he possibly could. They had generated a fear of rats in the child.
The child was returned to the laboratory five days later to conduct further tests, these tests were proven to show that Little Alberts fear had extended pastmerely white rats onto a generalised grouuuup of many other things. Of which included, white rabbits, cotton wool, Santa Clause masks and Ever Watsons own Hair.
Watson and Rayner, however were unable to reverse the Conditioning, because well. The mother of the child hadn’t really exactly quite been told and it was removed from his care. However years later a child afraid was afraid of Rabbits and they Managed to reverse his fear.
To be honest, if they reverse the fear, I see no problem with the ethics of creating fear in children. Heck they could make a hit reality TV show about it. I mean who doesn’t like to see people scared shitless.
