![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Sigismund on February 15, 2010, at 1:11:55
I mentioned the time I said to my psych
'Sometimes I feel so embarrassed to be part of this species that I want to kill myself'
and he said
'Oh no, I think it's fascinating'.Anyway today I said
'I've got a thought experiment. I have the button that makes the human race vanish. What do I do? I can't press it (murdering my kids) and (hahaha) depriving the human race of the opportunity of learning from its experiences (took us a while to recover from that), and I can't not press it, so I'll shoot myself out the back for cowardice. What would you do? Would you?'
and he said
'Oh yes'.
I wonder if people might feel less pain if they could accept the world as it is.I won't be posting for a bit. I'm off to do a little volunteer English teaching in Vietnam, where in my youth 600,000 Vietnamese and 60,000 Americans died for something or other. He says all politicians are sociopaths. I've never met someone who surprises me so much and also helps me handle my own negativity. He also said 'The human race is pretty f*ck*d up'.
I'm off. Bye.
Posted by obsidian on February 15, 2010, at 9:33:51
In reply to Dealing with negativity, posted by Sigismund on February 15, 2010, at 1:11:55
be well then sig,
I'll miss you. I hope it goes well. :-)
-sid
Posted by Dinah on February 17, 2010, at 9:12:31
In reply to Dealing with negativity, posted by Sigismund on February 15, 2010, at 1:11:55
That's a wonderful thing to do, Sigi.
Haven't you mentioned visiting Vietnam before? Is this something you're involved in on an ongoing basis?
We'll miss you here. How long will you be gone?
Posted by Sigismund on February 20, 2010, at 6:45:16
In reply to Re: Dealing with negativity » Sigismund, posted by Dinah on February 17, 2010, at 9:12:31
We went first to Hanoi and now we are in Dalat, in the southern highlands, not so far north of Saigon.
Of course the whole idea of having to construct an English lesson fills me with fear, and yet I think I can be good at having the right ear to tell me how to help someone learn English.
I can't recall a more physically beautiful people than the Vietnamese. Their language is pretty difficult being tonal.
I keep feeling ashamed about being of European extraction, but having said that I can also say this....
I had a conversation with a university student in Hanoi and we naturally talked about the war.
She said (at various times) that it was very painful for a parent to lose 8 out of 10 children and that people of that generation sometimes do not like westerners (no trouble with that) and I wondered whether they were happy about the way 'socialism with Vietnamese characteristics' was panning out with all of the new investment.
She showed me a Chinese bank note with Mao on it. 'He was Ho's best friend'.
I mentioned the greater help from the USSR.
And said (carrying on an earlier theme about Confucian values) that he was not a good ruler and mentioned The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural revolution and the 50M dead (or whatever it is).
She said with a smile
'I don't think so.'
And I got this really awful feeling about the density of history, about all the peoples and the different way they see things, and I went to bed for the afternoon.
Posted by Dinah on February 22, 2010, at 9:50:42
In reply to Re: Dealing with negativity » Dinah, posted by Sigismund on February 20, 2010, at 6:45:16
There's a thriving Vietnamese community in New Orleans. A neighborhood in New Orleans East was an example to the rest of us as they rebuilt without waiting for government aid. It was truly inspirational. The new representative to Congress came from that community. Perhaps those who relocated here were more than commonly resilient. But it was a much needed reminder of the importance of community, family, and, in this case, church.
Perhaps in practice, political views are not what really end up making a difference?
Posted by sigismund on February 22, 2010, at 22:27:47
In reply to Re: Dealing with negativity » Sigismund, posted by Dinah on February 22, 2010, at 9:50:42
I think for the Vietnamese family is what comes first.
A lot of child rearing in my youth had to do with fitting people for certain ideas of respectability in middle class society.
Ridiculous things like not wearing cardigans (too like shop assistants), not saying 'Pleased to meet you' instead of 'How do you do?' (too working class, not that such quasi-Marxist terms were acceptable) and saying 'May I have the butter please?' rather than 'Can I have the butter?'.
(I have heard that some Europeans simply say 'Pass the butter'.)I can't imagine any Vietnamese person thinking such things were worth a fight in the family, though what would I know?
Posted by Dinah on February 22, 2010, at 22:35:53
In reply to Re: Dealing with negativity » Dinah, posted by sigismund on February 22, 2010, at 22:27:47
:)
I think that might have been Sigi's family specific. My family wouldn't dream of thinking of any of those things. Not my family or my husband's family or our family together.
If my mother got me to say "please" and "thank you" more or less at appropriate times, she was happy.
Posted by sigismund on February 23, 2010, at 19:42:28
In reply to Re: Dealing with negativity, posted by Dinah on February 22, 2010, at 22:35:53
I certainly didn't pass it on to my kids.
All that shepherding to middle class values was completely useless (like so much else).
The meals were all mutiny and sabotage and bedlam, (with the peas ending up under the flowers in the middle of the table).I was looking at a photo of my son and daughter from 15 years ago. The little girl had very short hair and appeared completely androgenous and I could not help but compare the later photos of her unfavourably (perhaps age is never kind to anyone) when ideas of fashion had taken hold.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Psychology | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.