On the `Upside of Stress`

 Now I've read almost half of the 'Upside of Stress', written by Kelly McGonial. Her book became the worldwide best seller, and I saw Japanese translation of this book in the bookstore nearby, and bought the original one on e-Bay.

Still not figuring out the entire book but would like to write my reaction at this point.

It is interesting yet cannot fully grasp this way of recognizing stress is really correct or not. In my understandings the `stress`, itself is not the only factor which appears in front of the perception of individuals but it is a concocted entity with... such as `humiliation`, `physical threat`, et cetra.

For many trivial `stressful` scenes, as she described, the stress can work better and improve your compassion(oxytocin) and might be able to grow people up... but my concern was more taproot ones, such as the mental abuse, humiliation, etc. In many cases, for example the situation such as people being subject to the harassment which can contain the verbal abuse, humiliation could demolish the self-esteem of the individual. Often, the conservative society criminalize the guy who say what he/she thinks directly. Such splendid opinion could be a threat to the already existing community such that he/she is blatantly humiliated and under attack to the degree that the guy is completely discouraged to say something he thinks right.

The high mortality rate, in the long history, such as the exploitation of the kids in 17th centuries or slavery, any sort of exploitation on individuals DID strengthen or, it also could be thought as the procedure of the selection, which means the devastating stress which actually harmed people, killed and harmed so many individuals but only the people who endured it survived.

Let me remind you of the Trump family. Fred was definitely a sociopath and abused his children with indifference and verbal attacks to humiliate them, especially when they ask for mercy and love. The older son Freddy, who was treated as (even by his younger brother Donald) as worthless BLACKSHEEP, who was addicted to liquor and went mad, for instance laughing and pointing gun at his former wife. It was insane but Freddy was the most generous boy in the family. The abuse of his father just crushed his personality.

On the other hand Donald was a good example who strengthen himself (or optimized himself) to this continuous stress and abuse. He learned how to lie, how to deceive others and how to show himself strong, how to abuse others (be a killer). So the reaction to the stress was to get rid of his compassion.

So this is my point of view but, of course we biologically are subject to the placebo effect such that if we believe in that `okay if this external stress was not really harmful but it is benefitial to us` can work better, however, at the same time human is not that strong. If he is publicly humiliated, his self esteem is at stake and it means it is going to bring any psycological damage to him.

Therefore, there might have to be another factor to think of, to convert the stress to the benefits. This is, I think first to learn to fight back or to learn to cope with the society, even though you never forget the fact that you have once been humiliated. This cannot be productive but this is also fine.

Also, you can redirect the humiliation, as a form of violence to something else. Maybe you can do boxing or watch gang film, eat a lot (self destructive though), or put those frustration into music, picture, poem, writings, or any other form. I think people can cope with stress to fight back to it in any way, or, keep distance is also the important behavior to protect your health.

Probably, also you can find someone whom you can look down on on TV or in your real life... so my point is how to cope with the stress or external threat, humiliation, etc, cannot be always CLEAN, and I think this is sort of the human nature. This is part of the biggest factor of comedy, such as some people watching the bum fight or laugh out on the comedians acting stupid and humiliating himself.

This could be existential problem human being is facing with. Some people are positive, some people are not. Non positive people also can be productive in society in some sort, if he/she can use that stigma into art or something.

Or, maybe the history tells you that religion functions well for this, probably more than the psychology, for example, Christianity tells you to forgive others, `Lord, forgive our sin as well as we forgave others` implies the fact that forgiving (get out of bitch) reduces the stress and stigma caused by the grudge (this, as Psalm describes can contain humiliation as well). The fact that people. for thousands of years suffered from the threat or humiliation means that you are not alone, which might bit helps people black sheeped to be incarcerated in their low(ered) self esteem. Definitely, you are not alone... and mostly outliers are under attack but it does not mean that outliers deserves to be humiliated because not being outliers mean you are nothing but the boring standard deviation.

Buddhism's approach is uniquely different since it teaches you to turn off your ego and subsequently your perception, emotion(al upset), et cetra. The christianity teaches you to rely on the sovereign God (or thing-in-itself) and to some extent change the world relying on the divine will, but on the other hand the eastern religion tells you to be NONE (VOID). If you succeeded to be NONE then you are free from feeling anything, which also includes the suffering. (Octal Agony).

Humans are weak as existence and therefore they, in the long history found out that (to speak in secular) religious belief benefits and saves a lot of suffering individuals from the purgatory.

Also religion can have function to serve you the community in which, completely different from the capitalist context, are not required to be productive in general, so that you are going to be accepted just for you being there (at least in theory).

Of course since those religious community is also run by the people (who supposed to believe in the religious protocol), it is not that rare that people joined there are disappointed by the reality, corruption, nasty things in these community.

Actually I was disappointed my dad's, but saved by the one whom I thought I can respect.

Yeah... just a random thought.