This is a collection of links to free online learning resources - including Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) providers - that I maintain for a Facebook group I started for older lifelong learners.

How small is the universe?

What follows is my summary of the BBC Horizon show "How small is the universe?" as shown on SBS television in Australia on Monday January 13, 2014.

Don’t box me in!

The older I get, the less I like the idea of “labels” - they make me feel “boxed” in, as if everyone knows what someone labelled, for example, an introvert, is like. Being put in a box makes it hard to recognise that we are all individuals and although we may have some high-level commonality with a certain group of people, our individual expression of that trait will be unique to us. It may also change over time, so the walls of the box can act to constrain change and growth. For example, I’ve never been someone who has always voted for a particular party in an election – I want to have the freedom to assess party policies or individual candidates according to my currently held beliefs. Even though over the last several elections I have voted Green, I don’t want to be labelled a Green voter as over time both their position and my opinions may change.

Having said that, if you want a “snapshot” of who I am at this moment in time, viewing me through the lenses of “introvert” and “Green voter” will give you useful information to help understand some aspects of my behaviour. Those lenses also help me understand myself and provide me with a shorthand way of introducing myself to other people – it seems likely that if you want to spend your life partying and think we should dig up and burn all the coal regardless, then you and I may not become best buddies. But please don’t constrain me to the boxes with those labels – for example, even though I am an introvert who prefers time with only a few people, I will happily endure large, noisy crowds for the chance to listen to live music or interesting speakers.

This week, I have found myself investigating the concept of a Highly Sensitive Person, a term first coined by Elaine Aron in her 1996 book. I’ve come across the idea before and shied away from yet another label, but have realised as I read more about HSPs that there are some concepts which are useful for understanding some of my behaviour. Although described as a personality trait, it seems like HSPs actually have a more sensitive nervous system, so there is an underlying physiological difference which explains behavioural differences. It has also been suggested that HSPs may be more susceptible to developing chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which makes sense particularly in light of the hypothesis that the underlying cause of CFS/FM is a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system. 

Out of curiosity, I joined an online group for HSPs and was quickly struck by a couple of things. First, there were way more long posts and comments than are generally found on the Internet which immediately felt familiar as I simply cannot fit in to this world of shorter and shorter communications with SMS’s, tweets and brief FB status updates – give me length and depth over speed and shallowness any day (from necessity, I have learnt the art of “small talk” over the years and recognise that it does have its place but I’d much rather talk about climate change than the weather!). Then, I kept reading people emphasising that not every HSP is the same - the majority may be introverts, but some are extroverts, some prefer cats, some dogs, others like both – so maybe they (or at least some of them) dislike the boxes as much as I do!

Excerpt from a Zen Habits blog post on dealing with external stressors

"Imagine you’re rowing a boat on a foggy lake, and out of the fog comes another boat that crashes into you! At first you’re angry at the fool who crashed into you — what was he thinking! You just painted the boat. But then you notice the boat is empty, and the anger leaves … you’ll have to repaint the boat, that’s all, and you just row around the empty boat. But if there were a person steering the boat, we’d be angry!

Here’s the thing: the boat is always empty. Whenever we interact with other people who might “do something to us” (be rude, ignore us, be too demanding, break our favorite coffee cup, etc.), we’re bumping into an empty boat. We just think there’s some fool in that boat who should have known better, but really it’s just a boat bumping into us, no harm intended by the boat.

That’s a hard lesson to learn, because we tend to imbue the actions of others with a story of their intentions, and how they should have acted instead. We think they’re out to get us, or they should base their lives around being considerate to us and not offending us. But really they’re just doing their thing, without bad intent, and the boat just happens to bump into us.

When we see things with this lens, they suddenly become emptied of anger and stress. Our boss was rude? Empty boat, just respond appropriately, don’t imbue with a story. Kid throws a tantrum? Empty boat, just breathe and find the appropriate, non-angry response.

This is detachment. It’s seeing the actions and words of others as just phenomena happening outside of us, like a leaf falling or the wind blowing. We don’t get angry at the wind for blowing, and yet the blowing does affect us. Let the actions of your kid be the wind blowing — you just need to find an appropriate response, rather than being stressed that this phenomenon is happening."

Full post is worth a read.

Couple more interesting posts from the same blog:

Achieving without goals -  where he defines a goal as having a fixed outcome and explains how restrictive that is.

Why you should write daily - especially because "(w)riting helps you reflect on your life"

My "Christian" journey

Despite having been baptised as a baby and semi-regularly attending Sunday school as a child, my first real encounter with Christianity came as a young adult at the hands of fire-and-brimstone preachers who, almost literally, scared the hell out of me. I was so frightened of the vengeful God they introduced me to that I surrendered without much thought and, as required to save my immortal soul, "asked Jesus into my heart". I was married at the time, another decision made without much rational thought, and together we religiously attended church on Sundays, Bible studies on Wednesday nights and I even joined the women's group to be taught how to be a proper, subservient Christian wife.

At around the same time, I had plucked up the courage to inquire about playing women's cricket, having spent many hours with my father when I was in high school learning the basics of batting and bowling. I can still remember my shock and intrigue when one of the ladies I encountered told me that she was part of the "camp" scene and somehow expected that to make me reject her. I did have to go home and look up "camp" in the dictionary to be sure that I understood her - turns out she had "come out" to me and was trying to tell me she was gay, a lesbian. One thing led to another and I found myself, as a married Christian woman, having what could best be described as a lesbian affair. It was a time of great conflict for me as I felt like I had discovered why I had always felt different from all the other girls, but also felt terribly "convicted" that what I was doing was wrong. I remember searching in Christian bookshops to try and find out what the Bible said about homosexuality - unfortunately, at that time the only Christian "voice" that was available said it was a sin. So, with a heavy, but somewhat self-righteous, heart I ended the affair telling myself it was because I cared so much for her that I didn't want to stand between her and her eternal salvation (pious so-and-so I was then).

The affair was over, but my marriage was irretrievably broken. The only way I could cope was to shut myself off emotionally which I did successfully till one day when my sister-in-law refused to leave me alone till she broke through my walls. Then, I shamed my husband by leaving and ultimately divorcing him, with the support of a Christian counsellor. I was still attending church and continued to do so through several more relationships with guys and two interstate moves. I talked to a few people about being gay and I had crushes on women, but I never acted on them.

My last interstate move was to Queensland, in part to be closer to my parents, but also to be in a warmer climate and to try and break free of working in large government organisations - that part didn't work out so well as I found myself working for Brisbane City Council, quite possibly the largest council in the world. But I found myself a nice house to rent complete with a pool, a good church to attend and was enjoying being able to visit my parents a bit more often. I even started attending a Bible College one night a week, learning New Testament Greek which had always fascinated me.

Then, around the end-of-financial-year rollover, which is always a hectic time for IT people supporting a financial system, I got a cold, then another one, then I found walking from the station to work was getting hard and I wasn't coping well with the pressures of being on-call. The final straw came when I was the only member of my team at work one Friday and I just became totally overwhelmed with what was required of me and found myself falling apart at work. Many doctor's visits ensued leading to a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and I have not worked since.

For someone who had always thrown themselves into work, sport and study, being stuck at home alone for hour after hour, day after day was difficult and I ultimately sought out some (again Christian) counselling which inevitably led to discussing my sexuality. I can still remember the day when I tentatively typed the words "gay" and "Christian" into Google and my amazement to discover there were actually people who were both, who had reconciled their gay identity with being an active member of a Christian church. After much reading and thought, I concluded that they were right, that the so-called "clobber" passages in the Bible could not really be read as outright condemnation of homosexuality. I also realised that the condemnation I had felt during my lesbian affair was because I was committing adultery, not merely because it was an affair with a woman - blatantly obvious in hindsight, of course. With that weight lifted off my mind, I started tentatively exploring the online and real-life gay world. I had a couple of relationships with women, went to church with them, broke up with them and eventually met the woman I thought would be my life partner, taking her to church for our first "date".

I was still a committed Christian, although less fundamentalist than I had been. Books I'd read at Bible College taught me that reading the Bible literally wasn't doing it justice, that context and culture was important, that the earth was not 10,000 years old but that the scientific, evolutionary worldview could be reconciled with a less literal reading of biblical creation myths. I had a lot of respect for the pastor at my church who continually questioned what difference my beliefs made to my everyday life, what I actually meant when I spouted "Christianese" and modelled an openness to questioning and a willingness to admit that we don't have all the answers and that that is OK. Everyone in the church belonged to one of four "clusters" which took turns in being responsible for Sunday services. I played an active role in my cluster, even planning the entire service after the tsunami as I felt so strongly about the impact that should have on Australian Christians.

I moved up to the Sunshine Coast, but still drove down to Brisbane most Sundays to attend church, and when my partner and I decided to hold a commitment ceremony, we asked the church if we could use their premises. After much soul-searching from the hierarchy at church, that request was denied, and we held the ceremony at our home. The pastor and his wife attended but he couldn't officiate because although the church was an autonomous entity, it belonged to a denomination and it could have cost him his job. I had a hard time dealing with the reality that my partner and I were welcome at the church, could participate as actively as we wanted, yet because of some rules, our relationship couldn't be acknowledged openly by the church. We always had the pastor's support and the support of those members of the congregation who knew the true nature of our relationship, but the church as an organisation couldn't be seen to support us.

After that, the long drive down to Brisbane to attend church on Sundays seemed less and less worthwhile and when the pastor resigned his position to become a full-time high school teacher, I no longer felt like a member of that church. Together, and separately, we investigated other options closer to home and even online. We attended a couple of services at a "gay" church in Brisbane, went to a couple of Quakers meetings further up the coast and my partner tried out several churches in the local area as she felt a greater "need" to be part of a church or some sort of spiritual community. Over time, my frustration with the church as an organisation grew - so many rules and so much certainty over issues which I now saw as controversial or even irrelevant. I liked the Quakers idea of "questioning all your answers" but even they had rules and regulations and no real place for gay and lesbian couples.

So I gradually drifted away from being comfortable calling myself a Christian and became more and more comfortable with the idea that I didn't know all the answers, I couldn't know all the answers and that that was OK. I still believe there is a spiritual aspect to life and that there are things that happen that cannot be explained by science, at least currently. I believe the man Jesus of Nazareth lived and walked on this earth and that the Christian New Testament is an account of how his life was understood by his contemporaries. I also believe Buddha and Muhammad lived and that the multitude of religions that exist are all part of mankind's attempt to explain the things we experience and that there are worthwhile things to be learnt from all of them. I respect those people who find what they need within the confines of a particular religion and I sometimes envy them the community that provides them with. I still have within me a desire to serve, and yes, even worship, something greater than myself, but I no longer know what that something is called and I'm not sure I need to know. I will continue the journey called life and no doubt continue to wrestle with the problems of life and search for answers that work for me, but if I am forced to label myself, I am most comfortable with "agnostic" - I do not know!

Personality and Autism/Aspergers

According to my psychology textbook, personality means “the enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances”, so it covers not only how other people view us according to our behaviour, but also the inner processes that lead to that behaviour. Although psychologists take different approaches to personality, the general layperson's view of it consists of sets of traits that can be measured on personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This scores people on where they are on four continuums, namely:

Introversion (energised by being alone) vs Extroversion (energised by action) (I/E)

Sensing (prefer concrete information) vs Intuition (more likely to trust hunches) (S/N)

Thinking (make rational decisions based on data) vs Feeling (consider emotions more when making decisions) (T/F)

Judging (like to settle matters) vs Perception (prefer to keep decisions open) (J/P)

I first came across this test in a work setting (and scored as ISTJ) and have periodically revisited it over the years and have been pleased to note that my scores have gotten more towards the middle ground over time, which I hope reflects a maturation process ;)  I do, however, still score as quite strongly introverted which explains my need for time alone to process the world and its events and my preference for one-on-one or small group conversations. There is a free online version of the test here if you’re interested in trying it.

More recently, I have also wondered about whether I am on the autism/Asperger spectrum (initially, I think, after watching a program on TV whose details I can’t remember clearly now). I’ve done a couple of online tests which appear to be from reputable sites (eg this one) and I usually score out of the “normal” range and may well get a “diagnosis” of Asperger syndrome if I was professionally evaluated. I certainly relate to having difficulties with social interaction although I was fortunate enough to work with someone for a number of years who seemed to recognise my lack of social skills and took the time to teach me some skills that I suspect most people pick up naturally as a part of growing up. Until recent years, I have always found that I kept “my guard up” when with people, always monitoring my behaviour and thinking carefully before I said anything – no wonder I found it tiring!  Nowadays, I am more relaxed, particularly with people I know and I pretty much pass as being “normal”, although I think I still process some things far more consciously than most people.

The other day, this book, The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon came to my attention and I read the first few pages that are available on Amazon (for a short period of time, the first 50 pages are actually available here). I found the constant stream of chatter in the main character’s head quite familiar as well as the soothing impact of music and ability to recognise patterns. I’m not really sure whether these are autistic or introvert traits, nor do I really subscribe to the need to label myself into any more minority groups (as a lesbian geek with chronic health issues I am already in enough minorities ;) – and that’s just the few I can think of at this moment in time). However, it is interesting to recognise aspects of myself in other people (even fictional characters) and can, I think, only lead to greater self-understanding. The book’s author also has an interesting essay on autism, which I have only skimmed at this stage, but she does make the point that “the autistic experience is just as varied as the non-autistic experience”,  and that no particular personality type is common to autistic people. Interestingly, I also remember feeling some commonality with the main character in The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, by Mark Haddon, when I read it some years ago, although the details are blurry now, and it is speculated that he would also be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

I think, to some extent, our personalities are fluid and hopefully as we go through life, we are continually learning about ourselves and picking up more skills to deal with the many different situations we all encounter. As I look back on the child I once was, I feel like I have grown and changed quite substantially, and I hope to look back again in ten, twenty, thirty, etc, years and be able to say the same thing again!

Buddhism as an antidote to the "if-onlys"

During my life, I have often suffered from the “if-onlys” – you know, if only I had more money, if only that person liked me, if only I was healthier, if only .... then I’d be happy/content/fulfilled. But, I have also noticed that attaining one of those “if-onlys” doesn’t make me happier, it just brings more unfulfilled “if-onlys” to the surface, and life becomes about striving towards a future when the circumstances of my life will finally conspire to make me happy. In some ways, the Christian faith that I subscribed to for a significant portion of my adult life contributed to this “dis-ease” – if only I didn’t “sin”, I’d be happier, where “sinning” could be defined as anything from blatant criminal acts to “wrong” thoughts – or to put it Biblically, “falling short of the glory of God” (a definition which all but guarantees one will always be a miserable sinner!).

I’ve started reading a bit about Buddhism lately and I find myself drawn to some of its concepts. There is an acceptance that in life there will always be some form of suffering or dissatisfaction – this is the first noble truth: Dukkha – and it provides both an explanation for dukkha and hope and a path to relieving it. My understanding so far is that much of the unhappiness we feel is to do with our attitudes and thoughts about life’s events. It kind of “fits” with a few things that have always resonated with me from both the Christian Bible and other more secular sources.

I have always loved Psalm 46:10 – “be still and know that I am God” or as some translations put it “cease striving and know that I am God”. To me that gives a sense of surrender to life as it is, but I believe that surrender should not be unconditional but rather combined with action where possible as in the serenity prayer:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

This is similar to the concept of “controlling the controllables” which I first remember as being habit one from Stephen Covey’s “The 7 habits of highly effective people”. Some situations we can and should change, others we have no control over and can only control our own thoughts, reactions and attitudes.

I’m drawn to the practice of meditation, partly as a way to gain some control over my inner "chatter", and have been for years, but so far have not made the effort to try and establish it as a habit in my life. So, it continues to bombard me from many directions – Buddhism, scientific research espousing the benefits, part of the prescription for CFS patients in CFS Unravelled and even from the, to me, unlikely source of my mother. I greatly admire those few people you sometimes come across who just have a peace and serenity about them that says they can take anything life throws at them and stay unruffled – and I aspire to incorporate just a glimpse of that into my life.