Friday Links

The benefits of meditation, even for the most troubled youths; and Valentine's Day Bashing. 

Facebook Feeding Frenzy

When I first joined Facebook at a shadchan's suggestion—the woman never set me up, by the way—it was a new, sparkling world. I eagerly friended any poor soul that had ever crossed my path. I posted pictures of family occasions that no one cared about. I tried to come up with witty, steady updates. (Now I occupy my time with trying to come with witty, steady blog posts.) 

But after a few years, the gleam began to fade. Perhaps it felt like too much work, but I think what eventually got to me was the inauthenticity: I don't really know any of these people. And the people that I do know never login anyway.

Why I am I spending so much time with all these strangers? 

I am not the only one to have FB Fatigue; Richard Morgan wrote about his experience in "Kicking the Facebook Habit." He was a master ninja at facebooking, then he deactivated his account. He realized how much of his recorded life was strictly for social media, and began to live it instead. 

I caught myself watching folks in parks and subways looking at Facebook, so many blue-lit zombie stares. I guess that works for them, I told myself with my jealous-ex snark. It reminded me of my sister, who once eschewed meat and began calling it “carcass.” I wanted to scream, “Soylent Green”-style, “Facebook is made of people! Peeeeeople!”

I do look back on my younger self with some embarrassment, for her oversharing and confusing friending with friendship. I have scraped away a good chunk of the extraneous material from my profile, such as "friends," all photos (except the shidduch friendly one, I did activate the damn thing for that reason, right?), removed TV shows "likes" since I won't do their advertising for them, and only post if I desperately need some information that the remaining few could possibly help me with. 

But then, ah, but then, there are all those luscious FB groups and pages where 1 out of 10 memes are mildly entertaining . . . well, maybe I'm not done with it completely, yet. Ideally, I would "like" to be.       

Choose to be Happy

It would seem, based on the research, that frummie prevalence of dating strictly for marriage scores us points. 

As Tara Parker-Pope reports in "The Decisive Marriage," relationships that came into being through decision-making, as opposed to "just happened" couples, are better off. 

Nearly every sitcom I watch now has some sort of the awkward "Is this a date?" premise. Those situations mimic reality, as the article mentions that specific unsureness. Thank goodness, we shidduch-system gals always know that it's a date. (Our opinion on the guy that shows up at the door is another matter.) 

Additionally, those who had cluttered romantic pasts did not score as high in marital quality. It had always been believed that the more experience one has (in everything), the better off one is; not so when it comes to romantic relationships. The experience gained leads to comparisons. Conclusion: Ignorance is bliss.

Another thing in frummie favor: Big weddings tend to equal happy marriages. The reason for that is still unknown; one theory is that big weddings involve a lot of planning, and the couple that plans together, stays together. 

Since our wedding sizes usually make gentiles gasp (most halls around here have insane minimums), the bigger, the better?  

Favorite Authoress: Colleen McCullough

Colleen McCullough died on January 29th. For those who actually need to be told, she was the author of The Thorn Birds.

Ma remembers when she took out The Thorn Birds; Luke was a baby on her hip. "What a book I'm reading, Ma," she swooned to Babi, all those years ago. "What a book."

I do not remember how old I was, or where I was, but I certainly remember the book. I have read it more than once. 

McCullough wrote other books as well, none as fascinating as "The Thorn Birds," but certainly notable works. I had stumbled across her Master of Rome series following an uninspiring college course on Roman history; she made the whole topic fascinating to me, which the professor had failed to do. Seven fantastic books.

Morgan's Run was about an Englishman wrongfully convicted and shipped off to Australia in the 1700s. She took such care in detailing the everyday lives before indoor plumbing that I was absorbed.  

 

The Touch, about a marriageable-aged girl shipped off to Australia to marry her emigrant cousin who made it big, was quite arresting—I still think about its characters—but I found the ending implausibly perfect.

The Song of Troy took out the supernatural happenings of The Iliad and replaced it with more probable occurrences, insinuating the epic retellings were exaggerated. Love Greek myth, loved it too.   

However, whatever you do, do not read The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet. It is an absolute train wreck. I had expected another witty comedy of manners as it was a sequel to Pride & Prejudice, but it quickly devolved into a bizarre criminal thriller. I was not thrilled.

According to her obituary, McCullough was, um, vitriolic to her literary critics.

Negative reviews did not appear to faze Ms. McCullough, whom The Philadelphia Inquirer, in a 1996 profile, described as “a woman supremely unafflicted by self-doubt.”

“I think in their heart of hearts all these people know that I’m more secure than they are, more confident than they are and smarter than they are,” she said of her critics in a 2007 interview on Australian television. In her nearly four decades in the limelight, it was one of her few printable replies on the subject.

Mind you, her father verbally abused her, so she had every reason to think badly of herself. Writing wasn't even her original calling; she was a neurophysiologist first.

Talk about a day job.        

Best. Captain. EVA.

Ah, nothing like the claustrophobia of a subway car resembling a sardine can. 

The woman squashed next to me was working on a crossword puzzle on her phone. I idly read the clues over her shoulder, then my head snapped up when I saw: "Captain Jean-_____ Picard, Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise." She had flicked past to the next clue, apparently ignorant of the answer.

"It's 'Luc'!" I exclaimed. 

"L-U-C?" she casually replied. 

"Yes! Yes!" 

She languidly typed it in. 

Good deed for the day? Done.  

You Shall Not PASS!

In crime shows, it's fun to see the computer mastermind exposed. Usually the perpetrator is a lonely youngster, ignored by the popular girls, and he can pretend to be whatever he wants as he slouches over the keyboard. 

Trolls. I am happy to report that my comment feed has been violated only rarely by such sad, sad people. For that is how I see them: Sad, sad people. 

It is simply cowardice. While trolling, there is no accountability. If admired peers were present, trolls wouldn't type like that. It's a cheap attempt to boost oneself by bringing others down. 

But even as they mindlessly fling out insults to alleviate their own feelings of misery and powerlessness, those off-the-cuff remarks can do damage.

Stephanie Rosenbloom's "Dealing With Digital Cruelty" cites professional advice for how to navigate internet nastiness.

One way to become proactive is to ask yourself if those barbs you can’t seem to shrug off have an element of truth. (Glaringly malicious posts can be dismissed.) If the answer is yes, Professor Suler has some advice:

Let your critics be your gurus.

“You can treat them as an opportunity,” he said. Ask yourself why you’re ruminating on a comment. “Why does it bother you?” Professor Suler said. “What insecurities are being activated in you?”

I was not particularly taken with this counsel, since I would be spending way more time agonizing than the few seconds it took for a complete stranger to post an insult. Then I would dwell more on my perceived failings than actually progressing. 

Yet even when a person is alone, humor can be effective. Try reading nasty comments aloud in a goofy voice, Professor Pawelski advised, so that when your mind automatically plays back the comment it sounds absurd, or at the very least loses a bit of its bite.

Ah, Daffy Duck voice. Or Yoda voice! "Suck, you do."

In the quest to quell the cruel, we often fail to savor the good. And there is, despite the meanies, much good whirring around cyberspace. Some 70 percent of Internet users said they “had been treated kindly or generously by others online,” according to a Pew report early this year.

Rather than scrolling past a dozen positive comments and lingering on the sole exception, what if you did the opposite? And what if you shared a couple of the good ones with friends instead of sharing the one that hurt you? Research shows that it takes more time for positive experiences to become lodged in our long-term memory, so it’s not just pleasurable to dwell on a compliment — it’s shrewd.

In general, we focus more on the bad than the good. Being grateful doesn't just happen; one has to be aware. 

That reminded me of a story I heard from Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky; he was being evaluated, and received scores of positive feedback, except for one in the negative. That single bad review amongst all that glowing compliments really got to him.  

Don't let the gremlins get you.       

Only So Much

"You twisted, evil, useless, misbegotten scrap of metal!" I roared at my scale. "You lie!" 

I refused to believe that I could still be paying for one overindulgent Shabbos two weeks ago. I had been doing everything right, no cheating, the essence of calorie awareness. But the scale was unmoved, as it heartlessly flashed the same string of hopeless numbers, day after day. 

The next evening, I quite proudly sailed out the car, smirking at my watch. I left at the right time, I was even early. I confidently hit the road, only to be entangled in an impossible traffic snarl; I sheepishly slunk into my destination, feebly claiming innocence as I was greeted with admonitions for my tardiness.

 

Sometimes, we can be doing everything "right," and it just doesn't work. 

The old world, would you believe it, didn't invoke hishtadlus much. Perhaps because they truly knew that there really is a limit to choice and action, because tomorrow a pogrom or pestilence can lay waste to that which was meticulously built over years. 

We daven, we plead, we demand, but do we ever accept the answer? Sure, we claim we know that whatever Hashem decrees is for the best, but do we really believe it? 

I have been grappling with the purpose of davening for quite some time now, having brought my quandary to a number of rabbanim and women speakers, who haven't always been able to grant me the insight I seek. But this segment helped quite a bit, albeit regarding parenting:

. . . We have to beg the Ribono Shel Olam, as we say every day in Maariv, "Vesakeinu be'eitza tovah milfnecha. Set us right with good counsel from before you." We have to beg the Ribono Shel Olam to give us the wisdom to deal with these problems and to direct us to effective sources of counsel and guidance. Parents have to cry out to the Ribono Shel Olam, "This is my future, and this is what we're here for. Nothing else matters. Help us!"

Rav Yechezkel Abramsky zatzal, the great gaon and tzaddik, once walked into the apartment of the Brisker Rav in Yerushalayim and saw him and his children sitting around the table. The Rav was saying a dvar Torah, and his children were listening intently, their faces shining.

Later, Rav Abramsky asked the Brisker Rav, "What is the secret of your chinuch? How were you zocheh that every single child walks faithfully in your footsteps?"

"My secret in chinuch?" said the Rav. "Tehillim mit treren." Tehillim with tears.

That is the way to bring up children. Tehillim with tears. This potent combination gives us an awareness of how to protect our children our children from harmful influences. From this, we gain the sensitivity to understand how to speak to them, when to rebuke and when not to rebuke. From this, we gain the siyata dishmaya to inspire them to want to walk in the footsteps of their parents. And from this, the Ribono Shel Olam directly inspires them with yiras shamayim. —With Hearts Full of Love, HoRav Marrisyahu Salomon

Davening is avodah, an act of service to the Beshefer, not merely an opportunity to pour forth our demands. We come to Hashem and say, "I know I am human. I know I have choice, however: I am asking from You assistance in that I make the correct choices, for me and my family, and may those choices, in turn, create a desirable result."

But that's not a guarantee. I am quite sure there were plenty of parents out there who did everything "right," and are sadly bewildered by the path their children took. 

As I date, I am constantly harassed at how I am not doing my part. I didn't go to that shadchan, I have "commitment issues," why didn't you say "yes" to that guy? The one that incites you into a murderous rage? 

I try to blandly deflect these statements, because although I still have yet to achieve true peace of mind, I have arrived to, at least, an awareness of acceptance. I really cannot do much more when it comes to dating. I can only say, "Look, the One and Only Matchmaker: I've done everything 'right.' But I know You are the One who brings it all about. So I'm going to leave it to You."

Isn't that the message of the story of Iyov? Hashem makes a bet with the satan, that even if all of Iyov's bounty is taken away, he will accept it. 

The next week, the scale proudly displays reasonable digits. I make it early, not late, to my appointment. 

But my date was not promising. 

Next time, maybe.      

"Excellent Sheep"

A seminary rabbi told over this story: There was a girl who was seminary perfect in every way. Attendance, grades, attire—the Mary Poppins of seminary girls. 

When she returned home, she confessed, "I am living a lie." 

David Brooks, in "Becoming a Real Person," references William Deresiewicz's book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.

Deresiewicz offers a vision of what it takes to move from adolescence to adulthood. Everyone is born with a mind, he writes, but it is only through introspection, observation, connecting the head and the heart, making meaning of experience and finding an organizing purpose that you build a unique individual self.

Deresiewicz argues that once, that was the point of college. When one is away from home, becoming exposed to great thinkers, one's mind can expand into something individual and unique.

But colleges today no longer provide that experience. 

Universities, he says, have been absorbed into the commercial ethos. Instead of being intervals of freedom, they are breeding grounds for advancement. Students are too busy jumping through the next hurdle in the résumé race to figure out what they really want. They are too frantic tasting everything on the smorgasbord to have life-altering encounters. They have a terror of closing off options. They have been inculcated with a lust for prestige and a fear of doing things that may put their status at risk.

The system pressures them to be excellent, but excellent sheep.

Doesn't that sound an awful lot like the current dating scene? 

I'm going to make a leap here, but I am going to assume that the seminary girl had had shidduchim on the mind. 

I wonder how many people—male, as well as female—are not doing what they would most like to do in life because it's "bad for shidduchim." Yet, I have not yet witnessed an example of anyone who was so "out there" in their choices that they couldn't get married. But it is still considered a valid explanation. 

Steven Pinker, the great psychology professor at Harvard, wrote the most comprehensive response to Deresiewicz. “ . . . I have no idea how to get my students to build a self or become a soul. . .”

I'm going to be blunt again: Some people are followers. They just want to fit in. They don't want a special calling. They want to do what "everyone else" is doing, and they don't want to stand out at all. That's fine; that's who they are. But I get annoyed when they fall back on "bad for shidduchim," a nice, safe, socially-acceptable excuse for why they lead clone-like existences.

Everybody — administrators, admissions officers, faculty and students — knows that the pressures of the résumé race are out of control. . . But . . . An admissions officer might bias her criteria slightly away from the Résumé God and toward the quirky kid. A student may privately wrestle with taking a summer camp job instead of an emotionally vacuous but résumé-padding internship. But these struggles are informal, isolated and semi-articulate.

Daters, certainly, feel as though we are being rated nowadays. That's thanks to the internet, according to Delia Ephron in "Ouch. My Personality, Reviewed." She thought that she was done with report cards. Ha. 

All those larger-than-life Biblical heroes and heroines who struck out on different paths—none of them were single because they broke molds. But we project our own insecurities on the community at large, blaming it like some sort of Big Brother entity if we desire to "check all the boxes." Sure, there will always be that obnoxious person who will gleefully tell one what one's "mistake" was, but that doesn't make them everyone, nor right.      

It's Not About You

"People invite me over for Friday night and Shabbos lunch, which is very nice of them," she said, "but I don't really enjoy that. I don't like being out at night. I really like being home, reading, being with my own thoughts." 

She paused then, her eyes growing wide with the horror of that which she admitted. 

"Please don't tell anyone what I said," she hurriedly amended.

"But I understand perfectly," I swiftly commiserated. 

I can guess where her worried disclaimer came from. 

"You don't like going out on Friday night? Whoever heard of such a thing? All alone in your house? No, no, you must come over. It's not right that you should be by yourself on Friday night, no seudah, how depressing! Sarah, help me convince Rivkah here that she must come to me on Friday night. I insist." 

Let's break this down: 

Item 1: A widow. 

A woman recently buried her husband. Which should lead, on our part, to: 

Item 2: Compassion.

What is compassion? It certainly isn't brow-beating the recently bereaved what they are "required" to do. 

This woman always liked her own company. As an introvert, I can perfectly understand. While I do go out, if invited, I always have to struggled over internal grumblings. "Ugh, it's dark out. It's unnatural for me to be dressed up in itchy wool at this hour. I should be in flannel jammies. Now I'll come home late, stuffed to the gills with bad food, sleep terribly, and be zonked tomorrow." Sometimes the dinner was worth it; other times, I wished I stayed home. 

When another is in difficulty, we can make the mistake of projecting our own needs and wants onto others. But here is where the listening skills differ. We should ask, "How can I help?" and actually hear the answer.

My father sat shiva a few years ago for his mother. He couldn't go to sleep; people kept showing up late into the night (after an exhausting day of "entertaining"), insisting they were here to be menacheim aveil. The aveil is trying to rest. They came when it was convenient for them, then complained in aggrieved tones how they were being prevented from comforting the bereaved.

If we want to do things for others, it means nothing if we make it about ourselves. It sure does feel good when we do chessed. But that satisfaction has to come after a job well done, first.   

Touchable Hands

She grasped my hand while making a point. 

"Your hands are so soft!" she gasped, momentarily distracted. 

Yup, also part of the regimen. 

Every night, I rub lotion thoroughly on my hands, then place on gloves that are meant to keep the moisture in. 

My hands don't chap in winter anymore, even after washing dishes on Friday night, when I can't re-moisturize. 

However, due to a circulation issue, while my hands may be soft, the skin itself looks freakish in cold weather. They take on a blotchy, reddened/empurpled hue. The only time they look good is first thing in the morning, nice and warm from under the covers.

Anywho, in the winter, my moisturizer of choice is Nourish Organic Raw Shea Butter. It's 100% shea butter. It's firm, so I scrape it off with a nail, but it melts deliciously into skin.