Healing Emotions

Reading Healing Emotions: Conservations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health (ed. Daniel Goleman 1997). In reading today, Goleman summarizes a large body of evidence that positive emotions promote health and that negative emotions harm health. Commentators Brown (Daniel) and Varela caution that many of the measurements are rough (such as measurements of T-cells), and much more research is needed to refine an understanding of any possible benefits or detriments. As this book is now about 12 years old, one assumes that Goleman should have a great deal to report now if asked to do so. I suspect that further research will largely verify these findings.

A Farewell to Alms and Emotional Awareness

I began A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Gregory Clark (2007) today. Clark argues against Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame, as well as those like Pomerantz, who argue that colonies and coal provide the explanation of the Great Divergence (i.e., why Britain and then Western Europe zoomed to a dominant position via the Industrial Revolution). Our visit to Cameroon spurred this interest, as the gap between the Cameroonian standard of living and ours is so great. Why? In reading Clark’s introduction, he sets forth his basic tenants. First, until the 1800’s and the Industrial Revolution, most parts of the world remained nearly equally poor. In fact, humankind may have been worse off on the eve of the Industrial Revolution than it was as hunter-gathers over 8,000 years ago. Until the Industrial Revolution, humans lived in a Malthusian world. However, in Britain, because of culture, the Industrial Revolution took off. Clark argues that coal and colonies did not distinguish Europe from China and Japan. Indeed, Clark suggests that certain attributes, such as delayed gratification and hard work spread into British society before (or more effectively than others), perhaps even through genetic changes. Finally, in his introduction, Clark reminds us of the weird but often-cited fact that we are no happier, and perhaps less happy, than our much poorer ancestors. Indeed, in our recent trip to Cameroon, we found the villagers where we stayed quite warm and welcoming,  and on the whole happy. Clark suggests that envy is the problem; perhaps, he says, the envious will inherit the earth.

I’ve been listening to the Dalai Lama (voice-over by Richard Gere) and Paul Ekman in the audiobook of Emotional Awareness (2008). The conversation is fascinating. Ekman the Western scientist has obviously been very impressed with his introduction to Buddhist thinking in the areas of consciousness, awareness, and emotional control. Today he and the DL discussed compassion and how we can cultivate it. Do we need to have suffered? How can we foster universal compassion? Ekman and the DL seem to agree on a lot, and it shows for me the deed empirical wisdom of this aspect of the Buddhist tradition, the Buddhist psychology (and Buddha was perhaps the greatest psychologist-therapist).

How Fiction Works & Story

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I finished James Woods’s How Fiction Works (2008, 248p) today. Woods talks about the conventions and practices of fiction in the tradition of E.M. Forster. The elements of fiction are enthralling, as they convey life. After having recently finished Robert McKee’s Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (1997, 419p), the two books come up for easy comparison. Woods discusses the conventions of various authors, most well kn0wn, and how details, realism, character, language, metaphor, and other literary devices mix in the history of fiction from as far back as the Bible. I enjoyed the work as a reminder of the aesthetic enjoyment of reading fiction arising from supreme craftsmanship. Very good indeed, although not as enjoyable as Story, which is an amalgam of high culture (lots of Aristotle referenced) with plentiful dishes of “how to” added. For trial lawyers (or those who have followed the example of the likes of Grisham or Stephen H. Greenleaf and moved to full-time writing), the books have a practical import on how to convey our clients’ stories, which is the stuff of trials.