Re: WARNING: This discussion could be deadly!

["Anne M. Marble" <amarble@sff.net>]

I'm responding from a web-based e-mail program, so please
forgive me if I forget to add line breaks. (Also, there's
no spel chek on this thing.) This is going to ramble. Sorry!

I'm not too trusting of medical articles in Salon magazine.
Especially considering some of their journalistic stunts
last year. :-/ Just because the interviewer's blood pressure went up, that doesn't meant the same thing will happen to everyone. Maybe he was nervous. It doesn't sound as if he knows his science -- surely he should know more
than to trust anecdotal evidence like that. (I'd rather
trust articles at HealthCentral.com and similar sites.)

The problem with theories like this is that they assume that
the theory applies in all cases. Does anyone remember those
tests that measured stress by counting both good and bad
events in your life? It's true that good things can give
you stress, but not necessarily. Eventually, the theory was
modified and psychiatrists admitted that there was good
stress (eu-stress) and bad stress.

Besides, everyone reacts to bad events in a different way.
When I lost my honor scholarship at college, I was actually
relieved. I no longer had to worry about keeping my
scholarship! Without that !@#$ scholarship, my grades went
up -- and I still got the money from other programs.

Glenn Gould certainly didn't react to life the same way we
do. I'm not saying he was never stressed. I'm sure many of
us have heard stories about how calm he was most of the time
(except when he read that article in People!)-- and surely
holding back those emotions was bad for his health.

But then again, with his disposition, going to crowded
social events would have been even worse for his health.
Surely he lived his life the way he wanted because to do
otherwise would have been too painful.

The article talks about how computers alienating people.
In the Victorian era, people wrote passionate letters to
each other without ever meeting. During the days of
chivalry, knights wrote love poetry to women they would
never dare touch. How come you never hear theories that
those relationships led to heart trouble or alienation?
Maybe because it's easier to blame electronic gadgets?

I don't think interacting with people with computers
raises my blood pressure -- unless there's a flamewar. :->
Nor does it alienate me. I communicate well by writing.
If I meet people this way, what's wrong with that? If
Glenn Gould met people on the phone, what was wrong with
that? That was obviously what made him the most comfortable.

Some people interact better by talking one-on-one. Others
interact better by writing letters, or by writing e-mail,
or by using the phone. Sure, if you take someone who is shy
and force them to communicate in a way they're not
accustomed to doing, but a way society says is the "One
True Way," they will feel stressed.

Just as if you mock a child, that child will feel stressed.
Well, duh. Some children react violently, others react by
withdrawing. Yet others react by becoming class clowns.
(Has anyone on this list heard comedian Robert Klein's
song "Mind Over Matter"?) Is the problem with the children
or with the society not accepting that some people aree
different? Some people are quiet; some are non-athletic;
others play the piano and talk about philosophy.

Yes, there's a huge difference between the loner who kills people and the loner who _creates_ things. What is that
difference? Heck, if I knew that, I'd write my own medical
text.

I'd better go. My mother has to phone her sister in Canada.
Gee, I hope this doesn't cause their respective blood
pressures to go up.