The Interestings

‘The Interestings’: An Epic, Post-Summer Camp Coming-Of-Age
April 7, 2013
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/07/176170086/the-interestings-an-epic-post-summer-camp-coming-of-age

Are you talented if there’s no product to go with it? If you don’t become really big? Are you still the same artist that you would’ve been if nobody recognized you?

She thought it was all even and it was all fair, and of course nothing’s even and nothing’s fair.”
[related: https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/they-did-care-more-than-you-ever-ever-realized]

… the kind of quiet envy that you might feel for people you really love.

“If [Ash and Ethan] weren’t there, she would be, probably, much more content with her life. She would think it was great. But the fact that they’re there — they’re like little gremlins saying, ‘You haven’t achieved what you should have.’
[related: https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/feeling-down-watching-this-will-help]

Each generation has to figure out what that event means

What’s The Best Way To Remember And Heal?
Tell Me More. September 11, 2012
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/11/160943349/whats-the-best-way-to-remember-and-heal

when trauma occurs, it can either be used as something that sort of disrupts life in the form of a traumatic reminder, or it can be used in a healthy way, sort of like when they throw lemons, some people figure out how to make lemonade. How do you turn consciously traumatic helplessness into learned helpfulness is something that I think everybody can learn, because trauma is pretty common.

And these huge disasters are occurring more frequently, but regardless, you’ve got to figure out how to do the traumatic helplessness and shift it to learn helpfulness. So I think it’s a double-edged sword.

… And when we look at the Civil War and Civil War memory, each generation has to figure out, what that event means at any given time.

… BELL: Well, you know, pain is often the shell that encloses understanding, and you’ve got to somehow have enough guts, wisdom to understand that. Because a lot of times, there’s understanding underneath the pain, and Mr. Levin just talked about finding meaning, which is extraordinarily important in dealing trauma.

With trauma, you’ve got to tell the story to somebody who can listen. You’ve got to find meaning, and then you’ve got to find that understanding that’s inside the pain.

BELL: You know, one of the biggest challenges for this nation is how to manage its diversity. And it takes a lot of leadership skills, a lot of soft skills, a lot of emotional intelligence to do that on a very big scale. But there is a phenomenon from trauma called post-traumatic growth, and in post-traumatic growth, people actually learn from these kinds of experiences.

cf:
https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/newtown-tragedy-would-a-good-god-allow-such-evil-audio

The exact same experience: good or bad, depending …

Tom Sawyer Whitewashing the Fence
http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html

Mark Twain showed how the exact same experience can be regarded as good or bad, depending on how it is presented, or framed.

Because our pre-existing preferences are often undefined, value can be constructed through arbitrary influences.

in:
1.5 The Long-lasting Effects of Decisions
A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior
Duke University
https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon

related:

https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/job-crafting

https://franzcalvo.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/feeling-down-watching-this-will-help