lornamatic

The magic chemical: NAA, or N-acetyl-aspartate. High levels of NAA can increase creativity in people of high intelligence, but diminish creativity in those with less intelligence.

Highly anxious rats were found to have low levels of a brain chemical that increases with exposure to challenges and mental stimulation. It also seems to play a factor in whether or not new neural cell growth is successful.

Here’s the Reuters story. Exposure to new things increased the amount of the beneficial chemical, which reduced anxiety. And we all know reducing anxiety is a good thing to do.

A potential example of people being drawn to creative fields as survival technique?

There’s a much longer thing waiting to be written on this, just not tonight.

Exhibit A
Most popular lyrics in Great Britain in 2008

Exhibit B
An oldie but goodie, psych paper from Austin:
(full .pdf, launches Acrobat)

“… depressed participants…. used the word, “I” more than did never-depressed participants…”

next week, the outcome of this election will seem obvious, like it couldn’t have gone any other way, so i want to write this down and remember that it wasn’t.

election night 2000, well, after the weeks of fraud and confusion, after gore’s concession, i looked out the window at the empire state building and thought, nothing is going to be the same. i had no idea how right i was.

election night 2004, i spent the first half of the night in shock, and the second half drinking whiskey. i thought, things are going to be the same for a while longer.

election night 2008, i looked out the window at the dark los angeles sky and felt the crisp, clear wind, and thought about the quiet smiles of the people at the voting polls, and once more i thought, nothing will be the same EVER again!!!

it wasn’t obvious. it was never obvious. but it was inspiring – artists and musicians composed new works. movie stars made short films. the best and the brightest of my friends hit the pavement and knocked on doors and dialed phones and never for one second did any single one of them take this moment for granted.

it was never obvious.

good girl.