Overload.
Sometimes just being a person who reads and likes learning stuff can make my head hurt. So. At work we hit a slow period and I have been wondering about the high rate of suicide in Alaska. Why? Because I can understand that people get bored, and the are long periods of darkness/weather that keep people both cooped up together and isolated from stimulus. But what did people do there for all those thousands of years that kept suicide rates down that they are not doing now? Or has this always been an issue and now that we track stuff we are just noticeing? So I found this expository article about suicide rates being high in Vegas and an academic looked into underlying reasons for kind of the same reason
http://freakonomics.com/2011/05/02/freakonomics-radio-gambling-with-your-life-or-why-las-vegas-is-the-suicide-capital-of-the-u-s/
Which led me to this by the same author
https://books.google.com/books?id=lZPcAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=white+trash+power&source=bl&ots=RgCjRIfBca&sig=gviG5UKoYkMIzBeHBwEkUGrbnco&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CC4Q6AEwBmoVChMI7OakzoilxwIVyDGICh0_vQEA#v=onepage&q=white%20trash%20power&f=false
And that is going to absorb my attention, especially given current conversations in the media. And then I ran across this on FB posted by a friend that refernces other articles I have read and is a trove of references regarding this issue, which dovetails in an odd way with the discusion on White Trash. Maybe only I can see that though.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
And of course it speaks rather directly to the issue I have been struggling with and reading about in various forums regarding the Hugo awards. My heart still hurts a bit and my bile still rises regarding the academia effects on that special jewel in my life.
And while mulling all this over, the ebb and flow of a healthy society juxtapose with unhealthy offshoots, another friend posts this.
http://nofilmschool.com/2015/06/how-professional-cinematographer-breaks-down-script
And somehow there is this snap. I have more to learn about cinematography but framing the story! We all frame and shoot the story of our lives, in our heads, and learning to do it in a more thoughtful way, as a process that weaves artistry with mechanics is suddenly appealing. I am way interdisciplinary here, but it makes sense in my tangental head. Cognitive behavioral therapy guided by cinematography dicipline to create and witness simultaneously can sneak up on the unquestioned socioeconomic aspects that cause us to continually create Us vs Them scenarios. Does this hold also an answer for the desperate fringe that choose to - exit - stage right? Actually, maybe. Certainly not for all, but for some who actually want the bluebird and just can't find it, reframing their lives to give it meaning helps them find meaning, which is what we are all looking for. It is a Chigliak moment. Which gets me back to Alaska.
A BLT on flatbread should help.