Done yesterday

[mdlbear]

0327 Fr
  * up 6:25; W=187.6; drugs, nose; coffee, emergen-c
  * visit Colleen (briefly) with YD's lemon pound cake.
    ! calm; loved
  * go grocery shopping (YD's list) coming home from Colleen in am
  * bring in a new Trackman for work.  (from laptop, since no new ones)
  * 9:40ish Returned call from Callie
    ! happy; friendly.
  * brief visit to Colleen (in PT)
  = accessibility:  use inward-opening folding doors (on the inside of the
    doorway) for the bathrooms to allow wider doorways.
  = access/reading lists for federated blogs and websites.
  & calls from/to Colleen - progress
    Stood up for a couple seconds on the first try; too tired and weak to be
      able to repeat it.
    ! moderately optimistic.  
  & visit to Colleen on the way home
    She's sore and a little discouraged.  ! calm; trying to be encouraging.
  * The YD's BF is here for the weekend.
    ! very mixed.  They're a very cute couple.  They're also gamers.
  * drugs, nose.  Extra asprin.
  & measure bathroom doorways etc.  
    = Mostly 23"; 24"-26" with doors off.
      Should lop the corner off the kitchen counter but it's 26" as is.
  & 10:54 Remembered the name of my HS history teacher: Mrs. Ryan
    US History.  That's what killed my fascination with the Civil War, I
    think.  All dates and events and getting the punctuation right in the
    footnotes and bibliography.  
    ! I feel something but don't know what it is.  Satisfaction?  Sadness?
  & Finished _In Quest of the Mythical Mate_; 
    now reading _I Never Promised You a Rose Garden_
  & Kat's floor is now green rather than stuff-colored.
    ! amused 
  & IM with N: words for emotions
    Can one think about/discuss the problem without the right words?
    ! fascinated.  
  * take flexeril before bed
  * bed ~2am
  * 3am phone with $friend
    ! concerned, caring;  glad I could be there.  trusted.

It was a rather strange day. Mostly good, but strange.

I think the strangest bit by far was remembering, more-or-less out of the blue, the name of my high school history teacher. (Although I was thinking about history, and how my interest in biographies differs from pocketnaomi's. She seems to be most interested in how people affect events, and how those events affect their lives. I'm more interested in how people think, and events are interesting mainly in how they affect what goes on in their heads.

I really don't know how I feel about remembering Mrs. Ryan.

It was also very strange to see my Younger Daughter's boyfriend; they make a cute couple and seem to care about one another. On the other hand, they're both gamers. Strange indeed (though both amusing and delightful) to go upstairs and find that both daughters have visible carpet on their floors. As the Wolfling said, "it's green, not stuff-colored."

And my evening conversation with pocketnaomi about I Never Promised You a Rose Garden got into some strange territory as well. I am still getting used to the fact that there may not be words for some of what's going on in my head, and that even when the words -- like "love" or "embarrassment" or "self-image" -- exist, people rarely have the same definition for them. How can one discuss things without a common language? How can I think about things without using words?

The 3am phone call wasn't strange at all. A friend needed someone to talk with. That's what Middle-Sized Bears do.

Comments

[catalana.livejournal.com]

It was also very strange to see my Younger Daughter's boyfriend; they make a cute couple and seem to care about one another. On the other hand, they're both gamers.

This seemed like a really weird juxtaposition of sentences - I'm not sure what their both being gamers had to do with anything?

[mdlbear]

I.e., nice to look at, but I don't want to be within earshot when they're gaming.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Heh. Okay, I can understand what you mean by that!

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

You can always coin new words.

Variance in definitions is frustrating, but happens in all areas of human thought. You get past/through it in emotional issues in the same way you do with anything else.

[mdlbear]

I do, occasionally. Or rather repurpose old ones. But I have no way of knowing whether I need to coin a word, or there's already a good one that I just don't know.

I'm used to math, science, computers, cooking, perception -- all fields where there's very little ambiguity. If I use a word like "semigroup", "ethanol", "algorithm", "tarragon", or "red", I have a good idea that the person I'm talking to will know what I'm referring to.

On the other hand, if I use a word like "love" or "embarrassment", it turns out that it's very unlikely that anyone else will have any idea what I'm referring to, but they'll think they do because they can't imagine those words referring to anything that isn't pretty close to what they refer to when they use them.

Make sense?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Well, "embarrassment" isn't any less (or more) precisely definable than "red" - they're both fundamentally subjective. But most people's concepts of what they mean are at least broadly similar. It's only if you take it down to a level of fine detail that people start disagreeing over the nuances. You're right, though; there are some emotional states that there are no English words for - Schadenfreude, mudita, or a form of envy that consists of "you have something that makes you happy, and I wish I had the same thing, but I'm glad to see you happy" (as opposed to "you have something that makes you happy, and I wish I had the same thing, and I resent you because you have it and I don't").

[mdlbear]

I disagree. The perception of red is related to an objective reality, frequencies of light that map into the eye's response curve. You can give someone a test and determine whether they can perceive the difference between red and green, and show them borderline colors to find out exactly how their word usage maps onto the spectrum.

You can't do that with "embarrassment", and the definitions I've seen of it seem to be so far off what I've been using the word to refer to that I'm probably going to have trouble communicating. I found the same thing with "love".

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

The perception of red is related to an objective reality, frequencies of light that map into the eye's response curve.

Not really, at least not in common usage. My husband has a number of items of clothing that are shades of dark red - call it anywhere from "cranberry" to "maroon". He insists that they are purple, and washes them with my purple clothes. Conversely, my late father occasionally gave me something that was blue, believing that it was purple. I don't know how either of them would have responded if shown various wavelengths of light and asked to name the color.

There doesn't seem to be any good way to define emotions except in terms of other emotions. "Embarrassment", for example, could be defined as "the feeling of shame, guilt, and humiliation a person feels when ridiculed, or when they believe they have done something that would incite ridicule." But then you have to define "shame", "guilt", and "humiliation". A possible way to clarify the definitions would be to describe a situation, and ask various people what emotion they would feel under those conditions. (If you asked a random selection of people "What emotion would you feel if you were among a group of people when suddenly your pants fell down, revealing stained, ragged underpants?", they would most likely answer that they would feel embarrassed. Unless, of course, they were wearing their pants that way on purpose...)

[mdlbear]

The eye's red-sensitive cone cells have a small peak in the very deep blue. You can map the response curve for an individual, and also determine how various spectral and non-spectral colors map into the words they use.

As you say, there isn't a good way to do that with emotions.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Well, when you get right down to it, all language is nothing more than consensus...