Defining the Blog

This blog should be more appropriately named "Psychology in Moscow," or even "Psychology out of Moscow," because, while I am not a psychologist, I want to focus on observations of and about human behavior and emotion and on research within psychology, neuroscience and connected fields.

In the spirit of Nora Ephron's latest movie, Julie and Julia (screenplay by), I will commit to writing twice every week.

Everything from why people on a dating site can't find each other even though men's and women's profiles are almost identical - laid-back girl / guy, love the outdoors, someone to share my life with - to a description of fundamental attribution error (psychology) and mitigated speech (linguistics.) May even discuss more scientific topics as my confidence builds.

I love good literature, because I think it is filled with all the pith that science puts in our nature but cannot display in ways outside of the arts.

Contrary to what one may think given above, I am not a great reader and when I do read today, I tend to be attracted to nonfiction books like Brian Boyd's On The Origin of Stories or Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Outliers is where I heard about mitigated speech. Apparently, not saying what we mean, while useful sometimes, is not so helpful to co-pilots trying to warn pilots of danger.

Brian Boyd's book I've only just begun, but it promises to take me just where I want to go: deep inside stories and into the reasons they work so well to bundle life and present it to readers in true consumerist style. One of the favorite passages I have come across recently is from Eudora Welty's story "Why I Live at the P.O. ," where the narrator, a woman, has been accused by her sister of secretly disliking her grandfather's beard. The narrator is talking to her grandfather, in the room with them, and has also just served everyone chicken for dinner. "Papa-Daddy," she says, "You know I wouldn't any more want you to cut off your beard than the man in the moon. It was the farthest thing from my mind! Stella-Rondo sat there and made that up while she was eating breast of chicken."

It's best to read the story from the start to really understand this passage, but the character of the narrator is critically being defined here. She is innocent and obtuse and charming. Harnessed under the protection of her similarly positioned family. But we can see that she is the star. Spunky and transparent, she will let us see all her folly while pointing out others'. She is the perfect narrator.

Perhaps it is stories that I should talk about.

I imagine a mix of science, psychology and fiction is what will congeal in the end.

So long for now. Don't plagiarize.