Links du jour

[chanaleh]

Heeb Magazine announces the 2009 Heeb 100 -- their top picks of Jewish Americans who are "young, smart and innovative." (Edited To Add: Sure, not as insightful as The Jewish Week's 36 under 36, or the Forward 50, each of which had the good sense to cite hatam_soferet! but I still find this kind of index interesting. >:-)

Ethan Zuckerman reviews a talk by Daniel Gilbert called "The Four Answers", on why it’s so hard to know what makes us happy. ETA: The link to this came via a post (on my birthday, entitled "Joy") from vlvn_rabbi, whom I don't know but have started reading because I like reading about the things she writes about, even if I am not (currently) often in a place of sufficient mindfulness to fully take them in.

And, in not unrelated news, and also in honor of National Coming Out Day yesterday, here are some links on polyamory I've collected over the past few months.

As several people pointed out to me when it came out, polyamory made Newsweek back in July: "Only You. And You. And You."

So there had been this really negative column in Psychology Today a few months earlier, which link I provide only for contrast. I went poking around trying to find it for someone later, and found a whole series of thoughtful articles on relationships from Aaron Ben-Zeev, whose name I knew because (as it took me a while to remember) he was an MIT Press author. Some of his writings in this new blog were kind of oddball, or otherwise less helpful, but I liked a bunch of what I read, including the following (all emphases mine):

• "The pattern of proclaimed monogamy with clandestine adultery leaves the social form of marriage intact while finding individualistic psychological outlets that reduce the emotional problem of the sameness of marriage. This solution is increasingly becoming unsatisfactory since adultery has become so prevalent that many marriages cannot remain intact."
  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200811/proclaimed-monogamy-clandestine-adultery-1


• "Exclusiveness is characterized in negative terms that establish rigid boundaries, whereas uniqueness is characterized in positive terms that celebrate an ideal. Exclusive entails "not permitting," "restricting," "not dividing or sharing with others," "excluding some or most, as from membership or participation." Unique is characterized in positive terms that establish distinctiveness: "being one of a kind," "different from others in a way that makes somebody or something special and worthy of note.""
  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200807/can-uniqueness-replace-exclusivity-in-romantic-love


• "...if intense love is to continue over a considerable length of time, it should involve profound intrinsically valuable activities that are available for each person and some that are common to both. Such activities require normative boundaries expressing the valued way a particular person wants to live in order to flourish over a long time. The satisfaction here is not transient, as it involves the optimal development and function of the individual. When activities are perceived as intrinsically valuable, they entail seeking the good of the beloved for her own sake, while at the same time being profoundly satisfying for the lover. Profound love does not stem from subordinating one's activities to those of the beloved, but from considering the activities for and with the beloved as compatible with one's own intrinsically valuable activities."
  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200807/loving-its-own-sake-heaven-cant-be-far-where-we-lie


• "Paying attention to our own personal needs does not mean loving ourselves above all else; our love for others is in no way diminished, and is probably increased, by our interest in our own activities and our desire to adequately fulfill all our commitments. [...] In modern society most of the penalties for dissolving a marriage have been removed and many of the incentives can be obtained in other social frameworks. The choice of staying within a marriage depends, therefore, more on the issue of whether it facilitates personal development and satisfaction, including that of love."
  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200807/the-nurturing-approach-romantic-love-promoting-rather-controlling

Lastly, our own (awe-inspiring) Kamela Dolinova is writing a new regular column on Open Relationships for the Boston Examiner. Check it out!

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

I shall join you on the non-hip bench. Moreover, I am evidently insufficiently hip to believe that it's cool (or even okay) to select an epithet as the name of your publication. Yeah, I'm aware of the argument about taking back words and all that, but I don't accept it.