First Impressions

"We judge books by their covers, and we can't help but do it," says Nicholas Rule of the University of Toronto. "With effort, we can overcome this to some extent, but we are continually tasked with needing to correct ourselves." The less time we have to make our judgments, the more likely we are to go with our gut, even over fact, he says

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140214111207.htm

I'm a massive fan of psychology, I've always wanted to become a psychologist, but is it possible there are just 'powers' that aren't quantifiable, other senses in play? I mean, what is 'fact' anyway? Science keeps changing the facts and all it's various data spin off genres like psych do the same.

I met 3 people last night... and I don't believe I need the 'facts' to get an idea of who they are as people... I could see in their eyes they were very kind, empathetic, aware, intelligent, strong sense of identity... maybe first impressions are so important is because all our senses are active in that moment and our 'gut' is one of them. I personally believe based on my life and interactions I have what the psych world calls 'people intelligence' (look below for explanation)... so I argue the paragraph at the top of the page... Is the 'fact' getting in the way of our gut judgement?
I get the general vibe of what they are trying to portray... 'don't judge and come to a conclusion and that's all they are and who they'll ever be' but the way both society and the science world's angle on this really have my gut feeling funny...

Some would argue... 'how do you know?, 'how do you know if they are kind and empathetic, aware, intelligent...' etc... well I don't, and I don't think often the individual residing in themselves knows for sure either, or other variables changes based on time, place, event and feeling can turn the most caring person into someone fighting for their life.
There's a wrong perception that most people 'know' they like that boy, they don't like that girl, I feel happy, I know what's wrong with my life... so many people don't know... they change their mind, they are insecure, they have fears and worries and chemical/hormonal changes and secrets and pasts.

What I will agree with completely is that we are all complex creatures, we are all capable of anything at any time, good or bad, we can and will change from moment to moment and year to year, nothing is certain... who we are in the now and who we choose to be is closest thing to 'fact' we may ever get.

People Intelligence.
People high in personal intelligence are able to understand personalities—their own and those of other people. They recognize clues about other people, form models of people that are relatively accurate, make choices taking into account their own and other people's personalities, and set reasonable goals. The key distinguishing feature of these individuals is their ability to solve problems related to understanding personality. These adept thinkers possess “abilities by definition”—and that is the key to identifying them.  

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/201404/how-high-is-your-personal-intelligence

Loss

This thought came about when I lost a very detailed post yesterday, the android app likes to delete all the text you've typed when you stay out of the app window for too long... but I digress.

Loss is a part of life, but I think it happens way more than we acknowledge and we (in the english/western world) seem to not know how to handle it... what is loss anyway?

The emotional aspects associated with investing and the negative sentiment associated with recognising a loss.

That's one definition I looked up....
My definition... loss is the absence or withdrawal of something you perceive to be of value.
the key word for me is perceive... you can ague 'reality' all you want, but you can't argue someone's perception, because it's theirs.

How do you handle loss? I'm trying to learn to do the pop psychology method of ...

>acknowledge>feel>time>acceptance.

but how much time do we need? and what is time anyway... what makes it time? lots of other losses or other events... why does it take so long for the brain to let go? I think when it's a part of our identity... when that's lost, it is very difficult to just grieve and let go as you need to build or fill that loss with something new, and that does take time for a lot of (to me) obvious reasons.

I had a very close friend ... distance themselves from me, for reasons that to me don't seem plausible, but regardless, this person was a big part in shaping my adult hood and how I think today... and now they are not there... a lot of time has passed and the worst thing about the whole process is, i'm not sure what I've lost... I have friends come and go, but this has really effected me. Another thought is that, although I am a massive advocator of 'hope'... there are rare circumstances where it is counter productive and maybe that's in play here... I can't do the process of grief because I have hope that it will be all back to how it was. so hope is the deferrer of the grieving process... Then I guess it just comes down to choice... what do I want to do? what can I control? and if I do move on... what's stopping me from letting them back in as time passes again?

So for me maybe there's a couple of types of losses...
Those losses that are absolute, ie, someone I cared about died.
Those losses that are intangible losses ie the early period of a job prospect that you don't ever hear back from.

So the first style of loss... for me, is easy to deal with, I use the modern Psych method, but what about the second style? I guess apathy solves a lot of problems, but some things you just invest to heavily and all your doing is pretending not to care. I guess this is why in the dating world it's 'safer' for your mental health to be dating multiple people to avoid caring too much about one person.

It doesn't sound like much of a solution, but maybe by trying to figure it out how to move on is one of the best ways to move on..... maybe.

Loneliness

Epidemic of loneliness... And for many it's not as easy as just connecting with friends and/or family... Identity loneliness is very real...  It's where your identity is not validated by the people around you... So you could be surrounded by people and yet feel like there's no one around,  no one to connect to,  no one that gets you... 

There was a time in my life where I didn't fit in anywhere and that may explain why I started to go down a path I probably shouldn't have...

http://psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201409/is-marijuana-the-cure-loneliness

Beginners

The world I live in,  the people around me put a lot of pressure on themselves to just 'be good' but for most for most things,  it takes time and persistence to be good.

I want to take the thoughts out of my head and be good at summarising them and communicating them successfully to as many different types of people I can.

Was that a good start?

I'm just some guy who thinks a lot.

Being Proud of Someone Else

Are you allowed to be proud of someone else and their achievements? Of course you are but how does the other person feel?  Does it matter? Is pride of someone else designed to make us feel better or feel like some how we are apart of their accomplishments? So if a parent says to a child that they're proud of them, this sounds fine,  but if I shake someone's hand who's just won an award at the office for being best employee or something,  that seems a little strange to me...  But it's not wrong...  So I conclude with the question, what makes you 'proud' of someone elss. Is it right to be proud outside of a very close /authoritive figure relationship?