Museum of the Mind

There is actually a place in Rome called the Museum of the Mind, and although it’s what used to be a mental institution; today gives a tour of the mental illnesses that used to be treated at this hospital. One is supposed to learn and empathise with what is referred to as not a normal society of individuals. The ideology behind this museum is that if once you have crossed the doors and gone inside, you will not turn back. It’s referred to as stepping “InSide Out”. I have not visited this exhibition centre but only reading about it makes me think twice about whether I will be able to tolerate what I will see. A mental pathology can indeed be very overwhelming and often if you are exposed to it for long periods can make you question your own sanity.  Today one shouldn’t assume it solely a relationship between the patient and the caretaker / professional, but actually a third window needs to be opened. I am referring to the awareness in society about such ailments and the ability to empathise and include such patients in our society.

All these feelings made me wonder about the definition of “normal”. If you suffer any form of diagnosed mental pathology, you are placed in the not normal bracket. These patients have unfortunately been diagnosed with such disorders and have suffered them due to genetic disorders, mental injuries or malformations that have harmed their cognitive reasoning. They must live with it forever and the Museum tells us success as well as failure stories of such patients.

However, it is my belief that over time and due to many reasons, madness is out there and closer to us than ever before. The reasons can include the fizzy drink and junk food culture, pressures of a more narcissistic environment that we all belong to (the attention seeking selfie society) and also a better detection of research being done in this field by the many mental health clinicians. We are all in one way or another a little bit “crazy”. It is not necessarily a “crazy” that precisely needs medical treatment, because mostly our own levels of resilience are what help us to combat such episodes.

Old age used to be the explanation to natural degenerative process of the human brain and it has been accepted for years that old people suffer from such conditions. Sadly this is not the truth anymore. A study done on children in 1957 for the detection of anxiety disorders, compared to the children today showed considerably higher levels of anxiety than previous generations. Another study comparing university students in America from 1982 and 2006 also depicted students being more narcissistic in the latter cohorts. The positive side of these studies proves that what was considered as psychologically normal before has now got a mental illness label of some sort to it, which broadens the number of people who are affected by one disorder or another, albeit in a very subtle form. This helps to identify the root at an earlier stage and therefore prevent it getting worse and controlling it better.

However, doesn’t this also mean we have turned into a culture more open to detecting a mental illness within ourselves and less tolerant to seeing it in others? Our environment has made us more self involved and far more insecure than previous generations, this is giving rise to the bigger problem or I even choose to call it the disease of the 21^st century. The American Psychiatric Association even labelled selfie as a mental disorder, because really what it means is people refusing to grow up and seeking approval or a compliment everyday. If you quickly detect the main symptoms of any mental disorder such as anxiety or any type of depression, there are two adjectives that loudly speak out. 1) The need for attention.  2) Insecurity, which is satiated by approval from others. When one takes 20 selfies a day and posts them on any network, that person is 1) seeking attention and 2) fishing or a compliment to make themselves feel better. It is not harmful to take a selfie because I also agree an image speaks louder than words and a picture of me smiling is far more effective than me saying, “I’m happy” on my status. Let me give you some shocking data from 2013. 21 million pictures uploaded to Instagram received the hash tag label  #selfie and 51 million received #me. I’m just saying!

If you cannot classify this as a mental illness (an on-going love affair with yourself) then what can be scarier? We advocate that love for ourselves is important to have a happy and satisfied life, but in this obsession for self -love we are losing sight of others and the more real mental illnesses that truly are a concern for our society.

I want to finish off by briefly addressing a symptom that again we are suffering from more and more in this quest to seek perfection within ourselves. When was the last time you didn’t judge someone for the money they spend, their eating habits, for their appearance, for their material choices, for the music they listen to and the list is never ending. The truth is our obsession with judging others is simply a reflection of an unsatisfied life that we lead ourselves. I read a very interesting article on this subject and there was a list of harmful situations that can be a consequence of judgmental behavior. I would like to share this list and see if you can observe how some of these unpleasantries are signs of this ongoing personal love affair that I have mentioned earlier.

Taken from: http://zenhabits.net/judgy/

I am very ignorant of what the person is going through.

I don’t understand the situation.

I have unrealistic expectations of people.

I think I’m superior to other people.

I’m not grateful.

I’m being self-centered.

I’m not being curious, but instead I close off all learning.

I can’t really help the situation from a place of judgment.

Therefore, before looking into the museum of other people’s minds, perhaps it’s more important to seek into your own museum and begin to question your own normality up close!

Colourful Globe

I Write

I write to release the angry oceans within me
I write to feed you words that you sometimes cannot see
I write because my voice at times has lost the will to fight
Words can be so heavy and so light
I fly freely like a beautiful kite

I write to bleed myself dry
Words fill wounds
A literary cry

I write because I am not an artist
My pen is my brush
My words my sketch

I write to add fuel to my fire
Accentuate my desire
It's my trampoline to get me higher

I write to tell you what you are thinking
What you missed when you were blinking
You tell me my words ignite your senses
Steal your torrid reflections
Arouse your palpitations

I write
I give words their due
Some I conjoin
Others disjoin

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Eres de Barcelona si...

Hoy hablamos de Barcelona, y además con bastante orgullo. Si el resto del mundo se empeña en visitar la ciudad condal, pues yo que llevo aquí mas de doce años, os voy a contar como sabes si eres REALMENTE de Barcelona. No soy la primera ni la última que crea su lista particular de anécdotas. 

1.     Tu despido universal, ya sea en Barcelona o Bombay, siempre será adeu

2.     Todos los caminos nos llevan a Besos o a Llobregat, la verdad es que da igual; no hay perdida

3.     La Barceloneta no es una opción para ir a la playa salvo que quieras comprar un bolso de imitación un domingo

4.     Jamás pero jamás se te ocurra decir que vivimos en España, da igual si estás pisando la Plaza España.

5.     Nos encanta la cocina catalana, y estamos hablando de  los japoneses verdad?

6.     El corte de pelo de Puyol es los más fashion que ha existido

7.     No te vas a ir a Monsterrat si tienes a Messi en el Camp Nou

8.     El gin tonic lo inventaron en Gracia

9.     ¿Carrera, que es eso? Nosotros hacemos cursas

10. La tienda de Nespresso de Paseo de Gracia regala el café, por lo menos eso se creen los turistas

11. El único sitio del mundo donde tienes que pagar cuando entras y sales – Sant Cugat, nuestro Beverly Hills.

12. Una frase dicha en Castellano en Barcelona, siempre acaba con  si us plau

13. ¿Vamos a hacer un café o vamos a hacer un vermut? En Barcelona nunca se toma nada.

14. El carnet de Bicing lo compraste y lo sigues pagando, además hablas con mucho orgullo de sus ventajas. ¿Pero la última vez que lo usaste fue?

15. Al Starbucks vamos para chupar Wifi

16. Raval no es Barcelona, aquí tomaron inquisición los samosas y Bollywood.

17. Aquí lo llamamos el Hotel vela (W Hotel)

18. El pan amb tomaquet es la religión de todos los niños que meriendan bocata cada día.

19.  En una cafetería si pides un batido de chocolate, el camarero te dirá ¿vols un Cacaolat maca?

20.  Las calles de Barcelona no se denominan con números si no entre una y otra y si estás perdido del todo.. ¿miras hacia mar o montaña?

21. Nuestros hijos siempre tendrán como normativa un amigo que se llame Pau, Jordi, Josep/Pep

22. Estés donde estés en la ciudad, no podrás escaparte de la Torre Agbar - el fenómeno que Gaudi nunca imaginó 

23. Si juega el Barça en casa y gana, se oyen los fuegos artificiales hasta en Badalona

24. Como farmacias en cada esquina, aquí tenemos un frankfurt

25. El bikini se come

26. El bus turístico sirve para ver a los turistas que van sentados al aire libre en febrero, cuando tu llevas cincuenta capas de ropa por encima 

27. Lo más llamativo de la Pedrera no es su impresionante arquitectura, si no los miles de japoneses que intentan tomar la foto perfecta incluso ocupando calzado en pleno tráfico.

Digital reading versus traditional reading

Once again I am targeting social media in this article. I do realise I share a love and hate relationship with this platform, hence I find it very important to emphasize the pros and cons of it’s correct use. In this case, I am addressing a fundamental aspect of human growth and mental acquirement. I am referring to the way in which our reading education has changed or further developed since the advent of the Internet and social media. How have these digital platforms affected our reading skills?

When I was growing up, I did all my research for school projects and coursework in the library. I spent hours looking up books and journal references which had been previously shortlisted by our professors. The advantage of this method was the author credibility and blind faith in the material we utilized. Today a student has to be rather astute and make several verifications before validating data that has been picked up on the Internet.

Returning to my traditional methods, I recall photocopying pages and then using a highlighter pen to filter the key points from the manually examined data. Please note, “Manually examined data”. This forms an integral part of your learning and reading process. It not only enables you to understand the whole text, but also obliges you to filter the important points from all the depth. The way in which we process text on paper is rather different to the way we process information on e-Readers and on social media.

I will return to this point later on, but let’s look at another fundamental attribute of reading. How are we determining our content? What discriminates your choice of articles? I personally read the traditional newspaper and I also have specific filters or portals that I follow on Social Media. I am alerted on new articles or content that I might be interested in. Basically we have today at our disposal the luxury of a tailor made reading list, thanks to the technological filters that address our needs. This saves us time as we can avoid reading content that does not take our fancy.

On the other hand, there is the contraposition. There are times when you read one article fro a specific portal and you make the grave mistake of subscribing to their alerts on impulse or even based on a popularity poll. The next step is coming across more articles which perhaps only interest you 20-25%, but because a few people you know on Facebook have “liked” it, pushes you to either read it or power browse it. Worse case scenario would be you doing a “like” on blind trust. Either way, you have failed to read entirely and got sucked into media pressure for receiving validation for a popular opinion. If you have then gone and shared the article it adds you to the list of marketing victim and creating false demand. A perfectly unread  article is being shared amongst your followers! I know I have gone off tangent here, but please take a moment to reflect on the repercussions of you sharing or liking an article, especially if you have a handsome number of friends or followers.

I will now return to the beginning of the article and the differences in how we process information on screen and in print.  An article written by Nicholas Carr of the Atlantic states that online reading may have rewired our brains altogether, to decrease our abilities to read and comprehend text. The usual thing would be to focus on the overall meaning of the article, but instead we are examining the key words or salacious headlines or highlighted words and deducing our own conclusions on the article. This is a tempting practice and I do not blame screen readers as I often do the same.

Unfortunately this results in weak comprehension skills, especially for many students. Claire Handscombe, a 35-year-old graduate in creative writing from American University says humans are developing digital brains, whereby they are forming new circuits for skimming through the vast amounts of information online. This can be considered in a way a positive alternative to compliment traditional deep reading, developed over several millennia. One has to be smart about using the right technique at the opportune moment and thus not worry about the superficial browsing methods used on social media.

The traditional bookworms and members of the scientific world are battling to fight for a return of the slow reading movement, a cue taken from the slow food movement. It is argued that the Internet does not provide the same comprehension as printed paper does and the brain is merely a pedestrian standing in this new world, where we are moulding it to perform tasks which are far from realistic.

Organising your eye movements to generate a torrent of information at super sonic speed can be neither beneficial nor result in an efficient understanding of the material. Traditionally the brain reads in linear fashion, by turning pages and every so often a picture might accompany the text. However, online reading includes added guests such as; pop up ads, featured recommended reading links (I’m already being told what to read next), flashing images, hideous page layout, videos alongside words, hyperlinked text and the scrolling up and down format. I am tired only explaining these distractions. You cannot be expected to diligently digest anything you read online.

Have you noticed how online sentences tend to be shorter that those in traditional novels? Twitter is a great example of this. The restrictions on characters for each tweet oblige us to condense the message and as efficient as this may seem on your summarising skills, the flip side deteriorates your ability to keep up with winding clauses full of background information in a juicy novel.

Hash tags are another problem the youth is facing. Students are actually creating paragraphs comprised exclusively of hash tags, emulating a social media status update. I personally find over hash tagging gives me a #hashtagheadache! The fact is that words are not spaced out and our brain has to adjust to this novel way of reading text.

Convoluted syntax is discouraged online as it takes up characters, this is forcing the human brain to get used to reading a brisk 140 character declarative sentences.

Will we lose our ability to read detailed fiction? Will we develop Twitter brains?

Conclusions

The good news is there are advantages to both screen and print reading, as I have explained in this article. The question lies in what is going to be more beneficial in the long run? Well, it’s obvious the screens are not leaving us anytime soon. Therefore, it’s best we adjust quickly to the new methods.

Our children are growing up exposed far more to screen reading than we will ever be. An example is the research they carry out for their projects, which is predominantly performed online. Perhaps what they will develop is what’s referred to as a bi-literate brain. Both forms of reading, allowing them to smoothly flow between both methods, will largely influence their comprehension skills.

I do believe however that there is a paramount need to carry out further research in this field and brain scan data needs to be monitored both on print as well as online reading. It’s true that a traditional novel will never go out of fashion, with modern adaptions towards the E-book reader. I support the latter, especially to save space and remedy the numerous dust allergies faced by so many individuals.

What remains unchanged is the benefit these novels provide towards slowing down our pace and encouraging the slow reading movement. Aren’t our lives fast enough? If reading can slow us down a little bit and also help us process information more efficiently, then I advocate the slow reading.

My own experience has taught me that no matter how many articles I read everyday on my phone and tablet, I will still crave my novel and it certainly slows me down and actually helps me to process my thoughts better, thus allowing me to use the many wonderful words or sentence structures I learn from the complicated fiction Dickens and Austen have gifted us with.

The Passing

We all have a tomb on our mouths which is filled with words that died on our lips

Fallen off our chair of hopes so many times

Can you see the broken wooden chips?

Bruises of failure concealed by tear-free makeup

We have fought and cursed in our mind

Been taught to be kind

Let it go, leave it behind

We have held in the breath that helps us breathe

The flower that wants to bloom

Poisoned it far too soon

Get off your self-pity wagon of gloom

We have made so many wrong choices

Given birth to the wrong voices

From so much wrong

You will always surface strong

Everyone has a bunch of secrets

Their own motives

They can be in our life

Often with a back stabbing knife

Remember everyone has their own strife

We all get hurt

It cleanses us and removes the dirt

We are being tested from above

Only to be showered by fresh beads of love