Café Philos: an internet café

"Research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and -- to top it all off -- a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic."

- Bob Altemeyer


Authoritarian thinkers are not limited to any one ideology. Lately, in America, the most prominent authoritarian thinkers have tended to be right wingers, but that is only an accident of history. Not too long ago, the most prominent authoritarian thinkers in the States were left wingers. So, it is a mistake to associate authoritarian thinking with just one ideology.

I propose we regard authoritarian thinking as a pathology. It is in so many ways highly dysfunctional, as the quote from Altemeyer points out. Perhaps someday it can be treated, as one would treat any other debilitating disease.

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that some political blogs provide commentary that is far more astute than most anything you can find outside of the blogosphere these days?

I mean, the mainstream media is all but a joke these days. But so is the alternative media: The cable news channels, the radio talk shows, and the alternative press. The real analysis seems to be taking place on a few blogs.

Am I right about that? Am I overlooking anything? Please let me know!

Why are women expected to graciously put up with overt come ons for sex from heterosexual men who are strangers to them, but heterosexual men are by no means expected to graciously put up with overt come ons for sex from homosexual men who are strangers to them?

Why do the police assign officers to patrol public places to catch homosexual men who solicit sex from other men, but do not assign any officers to patrol public places to catch heterosexual men who solicit sex from women with catcalls, winks, lears, and rude "hey babe, wanna do its"?

What makes it acceptable for women to be harassed in public, but not men?

" Science is under pressure globally, and from every religion. As science becomes an increasingly dominant part of human culture, its achievements inspire both awe and fear. Creationism and intelligent design, curbs on genetic research, pseudoscience, parapsychology, belief in UFOs, and so on are some of its manifestations in the West. Religious conservatives in the US have rallied against the teaching of Darwinian evolution. Extreme Hindu groups such as the Vishnu Hindu Parishad, which has called for ethnic cleansing of Christians and Muslims, have promoted various "temple miracles," including one in which an elephant-like God miraculously came alive and started drinking milk. Some extremist Jewish groups also derive additional political strength from antiscience movements. For example, certain American cattle tycoons have for years been working with Israeli counterparts to try to breed a pure red heifer in Israel, which, by their interpretation of chapter 19 of the Book of Numbers, will signal the coming of the building of the Third Temple,7 an event that would ignite the Middle East."

"In the Islamic world, opposition to science in the public arena takes additional forms. Antiscience materials have an immense presence on the internet, with thousands of elaborately designed Islamic websites, some with view counters running into the hundreds of thousands. A typical and frequently visited one has the following banner: "Recently discovered astounding scientific facts, accurately described in the Muslim Holy Book and by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 14 centuries ago." Here one will find that everything from quantum mechanics to black holes and genes was anticipated 1400 years ago."

- Pervez Amirali Hooddbhoy

Earlier this week, during a half-hour lunch break, I added an entry to a forum of people who attended my high-school.
It was one of those private, all-girls, Catholic high-schools. Quite pretentious. I dropped out in grade eleven and finished on my own, anyway. But I was invited to join the St. Thomas Aquinas C.P.S.S. forum and write a short summary of what I had been doing since last attending our school.

I tried my best to tame it down, I really did. I left out a lot of stuff.
I didn't even make reference to any large rental mistakes, or shady jobs in bad cities.

The site subscribes to an advertising element, which is designed to pull key subjects out of content, and display relevant ads.

Beside my virtual reunion speech, once posted, was an ad for the Liver Disease Clinic of Manitoba.

I have never lived or spent time in Manitoba, for the record.

Is it paranoid of me to feel odd about the advertising servers blunt statement about my life since grade eleven?

Ono Ranzan (1729 - 1810) was an eminent Japanese naturalist whose botanical reference works are still cited today.

Tani Buncho (1763 - 1840) was a painter and poet who founded an eclectic school of painting that combined Japanese, Chinese, and Western influences into a single style.

I think the overall effect of this work is to lend an extraordinary substantialness to an old man who is, after all, withered and stooped with age. Mr. Ono is rock solid and massive despite his hunched back and delicate, almost fragile hands.

While I am absolutely certain that I have never met this person, he is equally certain he has met my penis.

I know he believes he has met my penis because he is not satisfied with it. It it is too short for him. Sometimes it is even too thin for him. But it is never just right. So, at any hour of the day or night, I am very likely to get an email from him insisting that I add "up to three inches" to my penis. Insisting that I do so. Demanding it, in fact. It is as if the only thing keeping him alive is his demented goal of vastly improving my penis.

I have thought of writing back to the deranged idiot telling him that if I wanted to vastly improve my penis I would tattoo a bold racing stripe down the side of it -- or better yet, a lightening bolt -- but that I am quite satisfied with its size, and perhaps he should get a life. But I have learned in my 50 years to never argue with idiots. It only brings out the worse in them, and I most assuredly do not want to see this particular idiot at his very worse.

I know I am not the only one he is concerned about. I have heard others complain that they too are the target of this demented fool's obsession with their penises. So, my real question is, "Who is encouraging him?" "Who is responding to him often enough that he is ever hopeful someone else will also buy his penis growth product?" And I can only imagine one group of people who are characteristically so naive, so stupid, and so gullible that they would respond to this guy's emails: Bimbo Talk Show Hosts.

Yes, it must be those Bimbo Talk Show Hosts. Who else is stupid enough to buy his product? Only the Administration comes close and even the Administration is smarter than the world's Bimbo Talk Show Hosts. The Administration would never compensate for their very small neocon penises by buying his scam growth product. Instead, they would compensate by invading a country or two. But Bimbo Talk Show Hosts -- that's another matter. They are so gullible I bet even the female Bimbo Talk Show Hosts have bought his product. Surely, Ann Coulter has. Worse, she is probably disappointed she hasn't seen any results yet.

"Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are partial, incomplete. They are eaten alive by their egos. They think they see, but they are mistaken; all they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world. There is no clarity, no wisdom in that!"

- Taisen Deshimaru



This might be the first time I've seen a Zen Buddhist so lament "people today". I confess I largely agree with him! I think he might describe most of us to one extent or another. Yet, I don't recall ever having read in any accurate history of an age when his lament would not be true of most people. Those who are not "a little bit crazy or unbalanced" have always been as rare as monks -- maybe even as rare as Buddhas. The notion there was a Golden Age in which people in general were fundamentally much better and wiser than they are today is a myth, rather than an historical reality.

Yet, does that mean we should forgo trying to be as wise and sane as possible? Of course not! The fact there are some very wise and sane people in this world means it is possible to be very wise and sane. Maybe the vast majority of humanity will always be -- as humanity has always been -- "eaten alive by their egos." Yet, that does not mean all of us need be.

Had the Buddha been a god, like Christ, people would say, "Enlightenment is only possible for gods", and "Only the Buddha was fully authentic". They say those things about Christ, you know. "Only Christ was perfect." And, "Only Christ could love everyone". To make your mentor a god is a form of escapism. It's a way of denying your potential.

"[A]ll they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world." Your enlightenment will not solve all the world's problems. But perhaps it will mean that you become aware -- deeply aware -- of when you are projecting your madness, your world, upon the world. Then you can at least choose wisely whether to do it or not. As near as I know, that's one of the things enlightenment most does for you -- makes you wise and sane.

It does not make the world's problems go away. If you have no skills and are unemployable before you are enlightened, you will have no skills and be unemployable after you are enlightened, etc. But perhaps you will have a realism, a wisdom, and a sanity about your situation that you never had before. And that, of course, can help you meet your challenges quite a bit better than you have ever met them before.

Krishnamurti observed that no one seeks enlightenment until they get into trouble. It's only when we suffer, and wish to escape our suffering, that the possibility of enlightenment becomes a burning, passionate goal. Yet, as Krishnamurti once again said, when we seek enlightenment as an escape from suffering, enlightenment will not come. We will find some escape, but it will not be enlightenment.

Most of us will always want to live as the people Taisen Deshimaru laments. We will never experience a crisis so profoundly unsolvable that we are forced by it into enlightenment. For some say enlightenment comes only when every form of escape has been exhausted. Perhaps that is why so few people are enlightened and why every age has a right to repeat Taisen Deshimaru's lament.

It bugs me that many people just don't get science. In my weaker moments, when I want the world to be radically other than it is, I want everyone to understand science. Not just to know scientific fact, but to understand scientific reasoning. But what bugs me more -- much more -- than the simple fact not everyone understands science is the horrible fact some people will consider you stupid if you don't understand science.

Thirty or so years ago when I was in college, I tutored logic for the Philosophy Department. It was while tutoring students in logic that I began to suspect there was more to "intelligence" than I had been taught.

At that time, thirty years ago, Howard Gardner had not yet invented the theory of multiple intelligences, and no one else was seriously entertaining the notion that intelligence might have more than one axis. The IQ test ruled the day: intelligence, everyone thought, could be summed up as a single thing.

Yet, when tutoring logic, I discovered people who were amazingly bright in some ways, but who just could not for the life of them grasp logic. It perplexed me no end. Until I actually sat down to work with such people, I had always assumed anyone who was bright was bright in everything. And anyone who was dull was dull in everything. But now I was confronted with people who needed exceptional help just to pass an introductory course in logic, but who excelled in other ways -- I could not deny they were in those ways bright people.

The question never went away. Over the following years, I was always alert to noticing how people could be bright in some ways and not so bright in others. Eventually, I came to think, "There are many different kinds of human intelligence", and I tried to categorize the different kinds based on my own experience of people. Then one day, after several years thinking I was alone in my heresy, it occurred to me others too might be thinking along the same lines as I was. So, I Googled several search terms until I hit the key one, "multiple intelligences". Up popped Howard Gardner's work, and I became as excited as a boy who has just discovered his first real friend.

Today, there is a movement among people to label themselves "Brights". The people who like to do that largely seem frustrated with the fact not everyone gets science as well as they do. I find the movement unsettling. "Bright" is not a term that should be reserved only for people who get science. There are at least eight distinct kinds of intelligence, according to Gardner, and so there are at least eight distinct ways to be bright. Moreover, even if one is not especially bright in any of those eight ways, perhaps one has a mix of intelligences that allows one to see certain things more surefooted than other people see those things.

Of course, the temptation to see our own kinds of intelligence as superior to any other kind is not limited to people who like to call themselves "Brights". It's done all the time -- even by people who are not "Brights". For instance: Many people who have a great deal of interpersonal intelligence tend to see others who lack such "people smarts" as inferior to them. And many people who are exceptional athletes.... I could go on, but every example is at heart the same: Many people think their own brand of intelligence makes them decisively superior to everyone else. That, my friends, is not too smart.

It is also arrogant. I do not mean to mean to imply any moral condemnation of arrogance here. I mean only to be descriptive -- not prescriptive. The essence of arrogance is a lack of realism or proper perspective about how our own talents, abilities and skills compare to the talents, abilities and skills of others. To be arrogant, you must be to some extent deluded.

Life presents us with many challenges and not one of us is equally adept at meeting each and everyone of those challenges. Humans have the great advantage, though, of being able to communicate exceptionally well with each other (when compared to other species). In practice, that means we can seek advice on how to handle challenges that play to our weaknesses, rather than our strengths. Suppose I don't understand politics as well as you do. If that's the case, then it would be wise of me to ask for your advice about politics when I have need to -- so long as you yourself are honest in giving advice. In that way, I combine your strengths with mine.

On the other hand, if I am arrogant, I believe that your knowledge of politics is inferior to my own because -- at least in part because -- I have no real grasp of my own limits. Most likely, I see myself as intelligent in every way that really matters. Why then should I seek out anyone else? Why should I look for opinions that are fundamentally different from my own? In my delusion of across the board superiority, I merely consider any fundamental difference in opinion to be the proof you are wrong and I am right. Worse, I probably don't even understand your point of view.

When we are too arrogant to consider any views but our own, we cease to take advantage of one of our species greatest strengths -- the ability to draw on the strengths of others to meet the many challenges of life that play to our own weaknesses. That strength is nowhere more highly developed than in humans. It's almost inhuman not to use it.

Last night and this morning, I have been engaged in arguing about premarital sex with a friend on an internet forum. My friend is: (1) idealistic, (2) idealistic, and (3) idealistic. Apart from those three things, she's idealistic. But it's not entirely her doing, for she has been raised to be idealistic.

She's a bright, articulate, and humanely decent young person who has had the misfortune of having been sheltered from many of the realities of life by her parents.

Her parents even went so far as to home school her -- both in order to give her a superior education in some things and an indoctrination in other things. For instance: They did not think it was advantageous to her to know too much about the theory of evolution, other than why they considered it wrong. So now she's well educated about certain things and poorly educated about others.

I suspect her parents did a very good job indoctrinating her on the subject of sex and relationships. Added to that, she has never had a boyfriend. That is, she has had insufficient experience to contradict her ideals. She believes in Prince Charming. She really does! He is as real to her as the theory of evolution is wrong and she is holding out for him in more ways than one. Most obviously, she is holding out for him sexually. She wants to be a virgin on her wedding day. But more subtly, she is holding out for him emotionally. She does not want to date anyone who she thinks is not the Prince.

It has never really occurred to her that everything has a learning curve, and even love is no exception to that. In a vital way, we must learn how to love. And we can only learn so much about love from words, just as we can only learn so much about playing tennis from listening to words. At some point, if we are going to love well, then we must practice loving, just as we must practice tennis to play tennis well.

Ideally, in tennis, you hit the ball over the net, return each volley, and all goes well. But unless you have actually practiced doing that -- and practiced it and practiced it and practiced it -- you will be unable to do it well.

Of course, she would say she only wants to practice love with one special person, her Prince Charming. I think that's fine, if that's the way she wants to do it. I am not actually opposed to anyone holding out for their prince or princess. But I do object that she doesn't truly realize there will be a learning curve when she finally meets the Prince.

How do you keep your ideals when life smashes them down? In some cases, you simply don't. During the Korean War, the Americans attempted at first to conquer North Korea. Then the Chinese entered the war and the Americans had to change their goal or ideal from the conquest of North Korea to the defense of South Korea. They managed to accomplish this second goal or ideal, but had they not in time changed from the attack of the North to the defense of the South, they would have lost both goals, rather than just one. To accomplish anything in life you must sometimes be flexible about your ideals. And, somehow, I don't think my friend is flexible about her sexual and relationship ideals. She may very well end up loosing everything.

I wrestle with what to think about idealism. That's to say, I don't feel I understand it. And I don't feel I understand it because, for the most part, all I see are its follies and excesses. If you really understand something, then you tend to have a balanced view of it. But I do not have a balanced view of idealism: I see it's weaknesses, but not its strengths. So there is a large part of me that hopes she will find exactly what she wants in life. Even though I doubt that will be the likely outcome of her stubborn idealism.

This is the 100th post for the month of August. What could possibly commemorate such a grand achievement?

Well, I looked around the house and discovered just the thing! So, anyone who drops by Colorado Springs to party hardy with me in celebration of this month's 100th post will not go away empty handed. No, sir! Not at all!

I fully intend to present any and all partiers with -- at no cost to them -- a FREE Lipton tea bag!

This valuable commemorative tea bag is destined to be cherished by you. Each tea bag comes with it's own fine cotton string, making it ideal for steeping in hot water. The string can then be recycled as dental floss! An added value -- but not an added cost!

Do we know how to party, or what?

In July, Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana admitted to a profound taste for female prostitutes.

Since David Vitter is a staunch proponent of "family values", his use of call girls caused some public displays of consternation in conservative circles, but no powerful Republicans called for his resignation.

Now, it has been discovered that Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, another staunch defender of "family values", has a profound taste for sex with men. But unlike in the case of Vitter, some powerful Republicans, including the White House, are either distancing themselves from Senator Craig, or outright calling for his resignation. According to the BBC:

Republican leaders announced on Wednesday that Mr Craig had agreed temporarily to stand down from three Senate committees.

"This is not a decision we take lightly, but we believe this is in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the ethics committee," a statement issued by Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and others said.

Speaking on the NBC network's Tonight Show, Arizona Senator John McCain said: "It harms our reputation with the American people, which is already pretty tarnished."

Republican Senator Norman Coleman, of Minnesota, called for him to stand down, saying: "Senator Craig pled guilty to a crime involving conduct unbecoming to a senator."

Michigan Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra also urged his resignation, saying Mr Craig "represents the Republican Party".

[White House] Spokesman Scott Stanzel said in a statement that the White House was "disappointed in the matter".

"We hope that it will be resolved quickly, as that would be in the best interests of the Senate and the people of Idaho," he said.

Mr Craig has already resigned from the 2008 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, former Republican governor of Massachusetts.

At first blush it seems frequenting call girls is still within the Republican's definition of "conduct becoming to a senator", but having sex with men is somehow still taboo for a senator. Otherwise, why are the Republicans distancing themselves from Craig when they didn't do the same to Vitter? Is there a double standard going on? Is homophobia to blame?

Some folks in the blogosphere are saying that's the case. They are speculating that the Republicans want Craig out because he's a homosexual, while Vitter has been allowed to stay because he's a heterosexual.

However, homophobia might not be the full story here. If Vitter resigned, the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, would appoint his successor. Ms. Blanco is a Democrat, and would presumably appoint a Democrat to replace the Republican senator. But if Craig resigns, the Governor of Idaho, C. L. "Butch" Otter, would presumably appoint his successor -- and Butch is a Republican. So, it's safe for Republicans to call for Craig's resignation on moral grounds, but not safe for them to call for Vitter's resignation on moral grounds.

I should note, though, that I've had the devil's own time confirming that the Governor's of both Louisiana and Idaho would be responsible for appointing a senator's successor. Yet, even if one, the other, or both governor's are not, the equation doesn't change that much. That's because if the governor doesn't appoint a successor, the alternative would be for an election to be held. And in Louisiana, that's most likely to lead to a Democrat as senator, while in Idaho that's most likely to lead to a Republican as senator. So, if Vitter steps down, the Senate most likely picks up a Democrat, but if Craig steps down, the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate stays the same.

When I think of dating, I think of courtship. Every few years, one or another of the big magazines is sure to run a cover story asking, "Is Courtship Dead?". The magazine will claim that's a serious question and to prove it's a serious question, they will point to some recent poll in which 67% of the respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 adamantly declare courtship means nothing to them. It's something their grandparents might have done in their day, but today's hip 18 - 24 year old has no use for it, etc. etc. etc.

You might recall from your studies of social history that "radical thinkers" in every generation within the last 150 years have declared courtship dead. Courtship is always being declared dead by people. Yet, every generation courts. Why is that?

"Why is that?" would have been a hard question to answer accurately back in the good old days. In this case, the good old days are the 1970's when everyone in academia seemed to believe that humans were born with a "blank slate". That is, the predominant paradigm in nearly every field back then was that humans were born with no innate behaviors -- nor even any predispositions to behaviors -- and that all significant human behavior could be explained as learned behavior.

On the other hand, today, it's very well known that humans are genetically predisposed to some behaviors. Contra the old 1970's paradigm, not everything humans do is entirely learned (although learning does play a role in most everything). Most likely, courtship has never died out -- despite all its obituaries -- primarily because we humans are genetically predisposed to court.

More specifically, it seems courtships follow a certain general pattern, and that pattern is what we're genetically predisposed to follow. For instance, a graduate student in anthropology discovered that women are more likely than men to initiate successful courtships -- at least in bars. One of his methods was to attend campus town bars where he could record the exchanges between mostly undergraduate men and women. He found that women initiate courtships nonverbally, with their eyes. In other words, they offer "come on looks" to men who interest them. The grad student noticed that courtships initiated by women were more successful than those initiated by men. Success in this case was measured by whether the people engaged in the courtship left the bar in each other's company. What the graduate student discovered was part of the general pattern of human courtship.

A while back, I read of two psychologists who had concluded that dysfunctional courtships -- courtships that do not follow, or that slight, the general pattern of human courting -- almost invariably result in dysfunctional relationships and marriages. If that's true, the importance of courtship in humans is clear.

I have a strong hunch, but based only on anecdotal evidence, that when dysfunctional courtships result in sex, one, the other, or both partners is very apt to feel exploited, abused and even humiliated by the sex. From what I've seen, it seems courtships prepare us emotionally and psychologically for sexual intimacy. Without a good courtship, we are not prepared for that level of intimacy, and our feelings afterwards often show it.

So far as I know, there is nothing in our genes that prescribe we must be married to have a healthy sex life. But if the anthropologists, biologists and psychologists are right, then our genes might indeed prescribe we must have a healthy courtship to have a healthy sex life.

Last, I think courses taught in the public schools on human sexuality should include a section on courtship. If dysfunctional courtships lead to dysfunctional relationships and marriages, it might be wise to teach kids what the value of courting is and something about how to go about it.

Ed Diener is America's foremost psychologist researching human happiness. In a 2003 study, he and Shigehiro Oishi discovered that European and Asian Americans behaved differently when choosing tasks to perform.

The European Americans typically picked tasks they were good at, while the Asian Americans were significantly more likely to ignore whether they were good at something when choosing whether to do it. Diener and Oishi further discovered that over time the European Americans expressed greater happiness with their tasks than the Asian Americans. That is, both groups were given a choice what tasks to perform, but only the European Americans picked tasks that made them happy.

Given a choice, why would anyone not choose to do what makes them happy?

Unfortunately, not everyone in this strange world has the option of fully playing to their strengths. It seems in many cases the reasons for that are economic. I would guess the need to earn a living, combined with a lack of opportunities for doing so, has probably forced more people into jobs and lives that play to their weaknesses than perhaps any other single factor. Just imagine how many immensely talented people in the long course of human history have been street beggars because the society and economy they lived in provided them with little or no opportunity to do anything else! Yet, even in wealthy nations today many people find themselves going into jobs where they cannot make full use of their talents and skills, but must to one great extent or another play to their weaknesses.

Besides economics, many social and cultural factors can pressure people into opting for a job or life that does not play to their strengths and leaves them less happy than they would otherwise be. The classic example of that is the social and cultural oppression of women. Until recently, most societies allowed women very few choices in life. And minorities within a society often face similar restrictions.

A third set of factors are probably psychological. A few years ago, the Surgeon General of the United States released a startling report that concluded one in five Americans was mentally or emotionally ill. A symptom of many disorders is anhedonism -- that is, an aversion to pleasure. People who suffer anhedonism are more likely to seek things that make them unhappy than things that make them happy. Although I don't know what percentage of the population suffers from anhedonism, it seems likely enough that it could be a few million of us.

While playing to our strengths is a significant source of happiness, not all of us do so for many and various reasons -- some of which I've touched on.

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment."

- George Santayana

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

- John Locke

Brian was an unhappy worker. He hated his job and was one of my least productive salespeople. By the time he got 12 sales, the group average was 36. He kept showing up at the office because he needed the money, but his heart just wasn't in it.

I first tried to retrain him. That didn't work because the problem was not his lack of understanding how to sell, but his absolute distaste for it. I was afraid I would have to fire him. I didn't much like Brian, but as his manager I considered it my duty to do my best by him. So I wracked my brain for some work -- for any work -- that I could reassign him to rather than fire him.

About that time, the monthly accounts receivable report crossed my desk and I noticed that the receivables were getting out of hand. The percentage of people who were agreeing to buy our product, but who were then ignoring the bills we sent them, had taken an upswing -- most likely because the economy was in recession. Something had to be done about it.

I don't know how long it took me to put 2 and 2 together to get 4, but I eventually did. That is, I decided to create a new position -- bill collector -- and assign Brian to it.

At first, Brian was just as pessimistic about his new job as he had been about his old one. But that suddenly changed sometime in his very first week. When I dropped by on Tuesday to ask how things were going, Brian grinned so broadly that I thought he was going to bite me. And by Friday, Brian was collecting as much money from the past due receivables as some of our salespeople were bringing in from new sales.

Brian began to change. He no longer bitched about everything from the office carpet to his fellow workers. He started coming in early, and was no longer the first to leave. I was convinced he had more energy than I'd ever seen in him before. And, perhaps most astonishing to me, he told me he loved his job.

By hit or miss, I had somehow managed to take Brian out of sales position that played to his weaknesses, and instead place him in a collections position that played to his strengths. In doing so, I had not only avoided firing him, but I had actually helped to make him a happy and productive worker. I will never forget how dramatically Brian changed when he was finally asked to do something he could do well.

According to the scientists who study what makes people happy, there are many factors involved in human happiness, but one significant factor is for people to play to their strengths, rather than to their weaknesses.

Playing to your strengths means that you position yourself to make the best use of your talents and skills. When you do that, the task you set yourself to perform becomes comparatively easy -- like bicycling downhill. But if you are unfortunate enough to play to your weaknesses, then just the opposite is true -- you might as well set yourself the task of always bicycling uphill through life.

So, there you have it. Whatever the obstacles, anyone who is at all concerned with their happiness would do well to pay close attention to themselves in order to figure out both their strengths and their weaknesses -- and then as much as possible always play to their strengths. That is often easier said than done. In a future post, I plan to offer some suggestions about how to play to our strengths and avoid playing to our weaknesses.

A new poll of young people (ages 13 to 24) jointly conducted by MTV and the Associated Press finds that "being sexually active leads to less happiness among 13 - 17 year olds" but more happiness in the moment for 18 - 24 year olds.

Of course, by "leads to", the folks at MTV and the Associated Press meant "it correlates with". So, the press release should have read, "being sexually active correlates with less happiness among 13 - 17 year olds, but correlates with more happiness in the moment among 18 - 24 year olds." The difference is important.

"Leads to" implies that sexual activity causes less happiness among 13 - 17 year olds.

However, there could be all sorts of other reasons why sexually active 13 - 17 year olds are less happy than their non-sexually active peers. For instance, it could be that unhappy kids start having sex earlier than happy kids (Perhaps unhappy kids are using sex to escape their unhappiness). If knowing why sexually active 13 - 17 year olds are less happy is important, then it is important to be straight about the difference between "leads to" and "correlates with".

Having said all that, I might add that if any kid were to ask me when they should start having sex, I would most likely tell them, "sometime between 18 and 24". That is, unless I knew the kid well enough to sense that he or she would be happier starting sex earlier or later than that age range. Yet, for most people, it seems a pretty good bet that sometime between 18 and 24 they will be emotionally and mentally mature enough for sex.

I do not know at what age someone will be emotionally and mentally mature enough for sex, but I do know that it's very difficult to be happy having sex if you are not emotionally and mentally mature enough for it.

"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know."

- Michel de Montaigne

Yesterday, I noticed Café Philos had gotten a series of hits from around the world for the search term, "be true to oneself". So, I checked out Google and discovered that your favorite internet café comes up number six out of 2,240,00 hits for that search.

Naturally, I was pleasantly impressed, but not so impressed that I decided to write to you about it. After all, being number six is not quite the same thing as being number one. But today... today, I discovered Café Philos actually does rank number one for a vital and important search term!

The search term is, "recent nude deal between India and the US".

Out of 390,000 references to the "recent nude deal between India and the US", Café Philos beats 'em all.

Yay!

The only problem with this astonishing accomplishment is that I have absolutely no idea what the recent nude deal between India and the US is about.

Of course, I most strongly hope it means the fearless leaders of both India and the US have worked out a landmark cultural deal to exchange nude bloggers between our two great nations. Such a deal could only benefit the rapidly growing International Nude Blogging Movement.

Yet, I somehow doubt that's what's up with the "recent nude deal between India and the US". Instead, I fear the search term is a reference to the recent nuclear deal between India and the US. The 123 Agreement. About which I posted a short note here. The comments on that post are well worth reading, by the way.

Well, at least this community is number one for nude deals between India and the US. And if and when any such deal takes place, we will be perfectly positioned to reap the publicity from it.

Just think of the fame!