2007-05-09 - 5:14 p.m.
Not Twitchy, Raising Eyebrows and the Uninvited Guest, I Still Think That Malthus Was A Jerk
************
According to Doc Roberts, eye twitches are caused by neural misfires which may be the result of calcium and/or magnesium deficiency. So, I drank a big glass of milk and, miraculously, haven't twitched since. I'm not ruling out the possibility that this may have been a coincidence, but nor am I saying that it wasn't one. (Especially since I can't remember the last time that I drank a glass of milk.) Either way, thanks Michael!
************
So, now that I'm all better, it's time to take care of Shuhei who went and got mildly depressed. I think that this may have started sometime in February, but it's difficult to say because it took me a long time to figure out what was actually going on. I thought that he was just testing to see if he could get away with being a selfish bore. (Oh diaryland, don't look at me that way. I don't care what sort of tolerant attitudes my liberal education was supposed to instill in me, depressed people are selfish bores.) It took snooping through his cell phone to realize that he'd essentially stopped returning people's phone calls and text messages and deduce that (aha!) he was isolating and (aha!) was probably depressed. (And, again, diaryland, don't look at me that way. I'm a concerned wife, not a nosey girlfriend. There's a difference between the two.)
We've all been there. It's nothing that can't be fixed and I'm confident that he'll bounce back. I think that he's starting to get bouncier already now that we've taken a decidedly proactive approach to his mood. In the meantime, I've gotten proactive on my own mental health too. Make no mistake, depression can be wickedly contagious if you let it, and especially when it happens to the people you love.
This led to me going out a few times without Shuhei, and to a discovery that I hadn't anticipated. That is, my gaijin "friends" (friends goes quotation marks because I've only found three in Hachinohe so far who I would want to hang around with were we anywhere but here) thought that it was strange for me to be out and about accompanied by a jam jar of wine and my bicycle, rather than my husband, whereas my Japanese friends said that I was awesome(er) for being out without him, which is the exact opposite reaction that I'd prepared myself for.
(And lest eyebrows be raising back home right too, I should probably point out that I have never yet been to a show in Japan that started any later than 8:30. So, if I say no thanks to the afterparty - and I do - I'm home, or on the way there, before midnight.)
So there, take that broad cultural assumptions, and male-dominated society and blah, blah, blah. Based on my observations we (non-Japanese folk) are more uptight about this sort of thing that the Japanese folk are.
************
Basically all that I remember from a class I took years ago studying the Industrial Revolution is really liking William Morris and really disliking Thomas Malthus, and also the prof.
And I still really dislike Malthus (Wikipedia him if you need to, he's chockful of reasons to hate) but I've become preoccupied with the idea of motherhood lately, and Malthusian ideas keep popping up along that train of thought.
Fun Fact No. 1 - I don't want to have kids.
It's not that I don't like kids, kids are like any other people. That is, some of them I really like, and the rest I merely tolerate. My reason is that I really don't think that I would like being a mom. Nay, I know that I wouldn't like being a mom and simply the fact that I could is not, in my mind, a good reason to.
Fun Fact No. 2 - Not everyone in this world can live as well as I do.
I'm warm in the winter and cool in the summer and eat both things that are and are not good for me every single day. I planted a little garden, but only because I was bored, and even if it fails completely, I won't miss even one meal. I choose between my bicycle and the car based on the weather and my mood and so on, and so on.
I doubt very much that it is possible for a billion more people to be living like this. And if, somehow, it were possible I doubt very much that I would still be able to afford to.
Fun Fact No. 3 - Women in First World countries are making less babies than their mothers did, which is less babies than their mother's mothers made.
According to the bilingual news, an average Japanese women now makes 1.36 babies in her lifetime which appearently means that Japan's population can be expected to shrink by one-third within mine.
Japan is freaking out and has initiated - or is considering - all manner of social programs to help would-be baby-makers to feel as if they can afford to make all the babies that they please. Heavily subsized day-care programs, perks for families with more than one child, such as discounts at grocery stores and free admission to things like swimming pools and zoos and blah, blah, blah...
(Of course, relaxing Japan's immigration laws never even enters the conversation, but that's an entirely different subject altogether.)
Fun Fact No. 4 - The reproductive systems of human ladies have evolved with all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. (Or up their fallopian tubes, as the case may be. Oops, was that gross?) For example, women who are undernourished often stop ovulating which, in theory, would help to prevent a population explosion from exasterbating the situation when food sources are scarce. Women who hang around each other a whole lot can start getting their periods at the same time. I can't think of what evolutionary advantage this provides, and use it as an example because it proves that the baby-making process can be influenced in ways that we don't really understand, and that it's possible for more influences to exist which haven't yet been discovered.
And all this is why I wonder if the doctors and scientists who study this sort of thing have even considered the possibility that declining birth rates in First World countries may be caused by the First World itself.
I mean, the fact that modern ladies actually have the choice is definitely a big part of it, and I'm sure that there are other reasons too, but I'm getting the impression that the People Who Matter think birth rates are declining because would-be baby-makers would rather own extras pair of shoes (or whatever) instead and, as a proclaimed non-baby-maker, I can't help but take that personally and, frankly, I find it a little insulting.
For most of us, our environments have strayed pretty far from those which could be described as "natural". It's unlikely that I've ever lived a day of my life without coming into direct contact with some man-made poison. And we are now all fully aware that the advantages and disadvantages of living as we do are not indefinitely sustainable. To me, and also to my impressionable and highly evolved reproductive bits, these seem like potentially relevant reasons for why the baby-making urges of many modern women have been quashed.
(P.S. I still don't like Malthus.)
(P.P.S. I do still like shoes.)
