Perils of procrastination

Well, I must be procrastinating if I'm writing a blog entry at this time of day. Actually, I'm waiting for a DNA gel to run so I have a spare ten minutes, in which I spotted this article on how procrastination can 'ruin your life' .
As a student, both during my undergraduate and my PhD I've felt like I could write a book on procrastination myself, but I've always procrastinated over writing it! So I know the feeling....

One thing though - if you manage to come across the article randomly, then you must be procrastinating. Otherwise you would be too busy to browse the internet. But then, that means the article must have reached its target audience. Mission accomplished.

Better get back to work now!

Store Wars

Much as I disagree with some of the arguments made by organic food advocates I have to say this is a brilliant and very funny advert. Actually, they're right about a lot of the issues with mass production of our 'fresh' produce, but that's not to say organic veg are THE good guys. (And how, may I ask, do you get an INorganic potato?) But that is another discussion altogether.

Welcome to Store Wars!

what physicists do in their spare time

The making of silly videos and bad rap songs (see EpMotion blog entry, 20th June 2008) isn't restricted to life scientists and engineers only. The physicists are in on it too! What better way to explain how a particle accelerator works to lay people than via the medium of Lego?

(Check out the Nature blog- particle physics in Lego and rap, July 29, 2008)

more thoughts on unhappiness

By the way, there are some interesting articles from the Hudson Institute on the treatment of unhappiness and some thoughts on the use of chemical medicines to do so. One article debates the difference between unhappiness and clinical depression.

My own extra thought - contrary to what the words suggest, happiness is not the direct opposite of UNhappiness. You can be not unhappy without actively feeling happy. Or at least, it depends on your definition of 'happy'. (By the by, out of curiosity I googled 'definition of happiness', and a wide range of sites came back. Some are worth browsing through.) You can also not feel either.

To be able to comprehend happiness, you probably have to have endured or observed UNhappiness.

unawareness of unhappiness

Sometimes we can be happy without being aware that we are. But we can also be UNhappy without actual consciousness of the fact. Many of us don't notice when other people are unhappy, or will ourselves to ignore the signs, perhaps for fear that it is a contagious state. In a similar way, sometimes we ignore our own unhappiness in case acknowledgement of the emotion makes it more tangible and somehow more real. Where there is no apparent or only a seemingly trivial reason for unhappiness it seems almost wrong to admit to it, even to ourselves. It is as if we consider the inability to reach happiness to be a failure. So entrained are we to strive for happiness, as if it were a material object that can be bought or caged, rather than an ephermal state to appreciate and treasure.

Unawareness of UNhappiness can be a mixed blessing, as can indeed, unawareness of happiness. Dwelling on unhappy thoughts may lead us very close to overindulgence in self-pity. No-one likes a martyr. But sometimes you can be unhappy without knowing why, and this could be due to something in your lifestyle that doesn't chime quite right. Happy feelings are communicated to our brain via neurotransmitters - unhappiness is thought to be likewise. So it is all chemical? At the very least, an imbalance in our diet, or not enough rest or too little exercise can cause us to feel discontented and on edge. It might be difficult to pinpoint the cause of our unhappiness, but taking stock of how you spend your days, taking more time for yourself and understanding your body better may help.

Too often we rush around and fail to take stock. If we're too busy, we ignore the lack of contentedness, or perhaps, pay a psychiatrist to worry about it for us. We could go over our childhood to death or stuff ourselves with antidepressants, but maybe what is needed is a change of diet or daily regime. Maybe we could learn to trust our instincts more and rely less on other people to work out what we should do?