Ariel Gore

Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

This short but meaningful book is a smart combination of self-help, memoir, and academic study. Gore does not surmise a remedy for the blues, she does not use her life as an anecdote to overcome defeat or as a guiding light toward beatitude, nor does she use statistics and theory to expose her education. Instead, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness is a collection of wise womanhood, the crannies of optimism that are too often ignored.

With eloquent emotional pacing, Gore forms a convincing argument that happiness, particularly among women, has been historically understudied and oversimplified in her academic field. She asks, “How is it that psychology— once envisioned as a great healing art—has gotten to this place where our neuroses are considered so much more valid than our resiliences?” Gore bravely takes on the secret of joy by combining her personal memoirs with history, science, and first person accounts of real women experiencing real happiness. Her words have the contagious effect of positivism without the obnoxious, evangelistic ethos found so often in the self-help aisle. As Gore says herself, “I don't like to think I'm uncomfortable around cheerful people, but there's something of a missionary vibe here that seems odd…”

Perhaps there are so many of these self-help books because their authors know it's not just the ideas, but the time spent thinking about and interpreting those ideas that can actually improve lives. Just like thinking about food can make you hungrier, thinking about happiness can make you happier. If an author can induce self-reflection, they have done their part. Certainly Gore has, as she encourages us individually to use our hearts and minds to actualize a new psychology of happiness.

Using what she calls a "liberation psychology forum," hundreds of women give verbal and written feedback on issues raised by Gore. Combined, these issues allude to the macro question left open throughout the pages: whether we, at this moment, are living our lives. If our answer is no, this book proposes joy as the powerful tool that can give us “the courage to make the universe we dream.”

What Gore does is play hostess at a dinner party with a dozen fascinating women. She introduces us, and in brief encounters we are told stories of happiness, unhappiness, success and defeat. Before you know it the party is over. You drive yourself home without turning on the radio, just thinking, and you lie awake at night because you feel joy—you feel alive.

Written by: Katy Pine, January 19th 2010

Ariel Gore on Women, Happiness, and Self-Determination

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:59:00 +0000

Interview with Ariel Gore

Ariel Gore’s new book Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness asks the question, “Can women be smart, empowered, and happy?” Here, Ariel Gore offers her ideas on happiness and advice for women seeking change in their lives.

In order to write this book, you kept a journal where you tracked the things in your life that made you happy, and you asked a lot of other women to do the same. How did these women respond to the request?

At first people were excited about it. Then a lot of them found some resistance to it. Women have a lot of resistance to focusing on their own happiness. We’ve been taught to make other people happy, after all. Most of the women started dealing with feelings of happiness being selfish, and wondering if the journal was hokey. But they had made a commitment to the project and soldiered on. Without fail, they broke through some of those resistances and found that the simple act of meditating on their own happiness allowed it to bloom a little bit. Allowing ourselves to say, “Hey, am I happy?” is powerful and emancipating, even if the process is a bit hokey.

What changes came from keeping the journal?

Some of the women who took part in the original project changed careers. Some increased the amount of time they were spending on whatever activities made them lose track of time: developing pictures in the dark room or surfing or having more sex. One woman made a huge change in her family structure. Other women didn’t make any outward life-changes, but those thirty days exploring happiness and seeing whether we can trace patterns from the scraps of our moods is a practice that’s designed to change us, even if those changes are subtle.

The pursuit of happiness is put forth as the ultimate purpose in life; however, there is also a belief that happy people are, well, sort of dumb. Why does this contradiction exists?

In American culture there has been a massive campaign to sell us all on cheerfulness. It has been an important part of capitalism and has been part of the oppression of women. Women have been endlessly told by others what we need in order to be happy. Maybe they say we need a husband or children or a fantastic career or a spotless kitchen or multiple orgasms. In any case, we are being told what is good for us. Of course we rebel against false cheerfulness and being told what to do when it's wrapped in the nonsense of it being “for our own good.” False happiness and denial-based cheeriness does feel dumb. We have the right to be grumpy! But that’s only fun for a while.

You mention some problems with the concept “you create your own reality,” but ultimately, suggest that is exactly what women must do to achieve happiness. How do you reconcile the contradiction?

Well, we don’t create reality. Women and poor people don’t create reality right now, but we have the freedom in every circumstance to decide how we’re going to react to our reality. As our personal power grows, we learn to influence reality so that we—and everyone—can be free, and happy.

Psychologist Martin Seligman is considered the father of contemporary positive psychology. He made a name for himself back in the late 1960s with a series of experiments on dogs that resulted in the theory of learned helplessness. These dogs were stuck in “shock boxes” and Seligman and his colleagues figured out that if the dogs were shocked at random, and given no control over their torture, they usually didn’t make a run for freedom when given the opportunity. Later, Seligman got to thinking about those rare dogs who, despite abuse and lack of control, kept resisting. There was a rare dog who was so resilient, so totally determined, that she couldn’t be broken. Positive psychology set out to find out, essentially, what that dog had.

If happiness is, in part, a choice based on freedom, what would you tell women who are enmeshed in situations they are powerless to change that cause them great unhappiness?

I think our choices are always limited to some extent. Canadian positive psychologist Dr. Paul T.P. Wong defines happiness as the ability to rejoice in the midst of suffering. Alice Walker has pointed out that resistance is the secret of joy. We make choices first to survive, to protect children and elders, and then to resist false power gained from fear and obedience. No matter what or how long it takes, we get them to open the shock box—or we get it open ourselves—and then we jump.

It is widely**** believed that something that makes you happy or fulfilled will make others happy as well. Why do we fall into this trap?

Because it has been relentlessly marketed to us! If you look at the history of advertising, you find this shift in the early part of the twentieth century—from warning ads that say you will have bad breath if you don’t use this mouthwash to the “product satisfaction ad” where advertisers try to convince us that their product will make us happy by making us more beautiful, more relaxed, richer, or whatever. Tolstoy famously said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But when I looked at women and happiness, I found the opposite to be true. While depression was fairly standardized, the things that made women happy in their lives were actually quite varied and unique.

As you studied happiness, you realized you wanted another baby and you wanted to make more money, so you made it happen. Did it make you happier?

Stepping out of the role of the martyr-mom by saying, "I want to do all of this, but I need reasonable funding," and then upping my rates for much of the work I do made me happy. Money by itself doesn’t affect my mood one way or the other, but the constant anxiety of not being able to pay the rent was really doing a number on me. I was raised by a Catholic priest who had taken a vow of poverty and in a counterculture community that taught me money was somehow bad, so it took a lot for me to be able to say, "All right, maybe this is the next level of empowerment. Maybe I need to be able to keep a roof over my head and have health insurance for my kids, and the thing is, I can do that without hurting my community."

What one thing do you suggest women do in order to find contentment?

Recording moments of happiness every day can be really powerful, even if—maybe especially if—really hard things are happening in your life. Keeping a happiness journal is about moving through the resistances, savoring moments of happiness even in the most difficult times, and prioritizing your own happiness. It’s not like our refusal to be happy makes us more loving and compassionate; it just makes us mean. Existential depression might seem cool and smart—like we’ve figured out what’s really going on—but in the long term, I don’t think it serves us.

Now that you aren’t experimenting with ways to bring yourself happiness, has your life returned to the status quo?

I have learned how to recognize when something is causing me anxiety, and I can switch gears pretty fast. I recently lost my maternal grandmother and my mother was diagnosed with stage-four cancer. In the span of one season, I went from feeling secure as a granddaughter and a daughter to facing the possibility of being the eldest generation in my family. I’ve had to take a deep breath and come to terms with not being a kid anymore. I cannot afford to waste the finite amount of time I have on this earth listening to anybody’s bullshit, and I can't afford to lock myself in the basement in existential depression.

Written by: Jessica Powers, January 19th 2010

Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City

admin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:51:00 +0000

Edited by Ariel Gore

Lit Star Press

Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City is a mixed collection of memoir and fiction short stories that center on the city of Portland, OR. All of the stories are written in first person narrative and beautifully display the diversity of the human experiences which only a city like Portland can provide the backdrop. These stories provide readers with a view of the city that may not have been available before this collection was published. Each tome represents a different view of life in the city as it is lived by the LGBTQI population that calls Portland home. Portland has long been a mecca for the LGBTQI masses and this collection of stories celebrates the many reasons why this is the case.

Editor Ariel Gore wanted readers to know that, “Portland is a queer magnet...and Portland is alienating and phobic...Within these contradictions, there’s also a common experience. In a world that tries to divide us further and further from each other, I want to see our threads woven together.” Gore brings together a collection of stories and raw human experiences, reminding her readers that we are all fragile beings who seek out connections with each other and find comfort in place. For these authors that place is Portland.

The book is broken up into four sections—“Love and Other Sad, Sparkly Things,” “Migrations,” “For Service and Devotion,” “Then Sometimes this Feeling of Home”—and each contains several stories. The first deals with several versions of love and how love can catch us off guard. The second section is composed of stories about leaving and returning to the Rose City, while the third and fourth sections contain stories of living and working in the city.

There are several prominent writers featured in this collection, as well as several first-time writers, which helps to present the variety of styles and viewpoints. Those who have a short attention span, as I do will enjoy the variety contained in these short stories. They're enough to keep anyone in need of good literature who is short on time happy.

Written by: Jenny Greenfield, October 5th 2009