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<DIV>In a message dated 3/6/2005 1:17:56 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Howl Bloom
writes:</DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 3/3/2005 8:08:49 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
joe@quirk.net writes:</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>"Once you win, you've got a reputation to live up to, even if
you weren't so inclined, you get surrounded by an entourage that's also
heavily invested in your reputation," said Redelmeier. "So you end up
sleeping properly every night, eating well, exercising regularly every
day."<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Your points are good ones, Joe. It's like the problem of
resilient kids. Roughly one out of ten kids who grow up with single,
abusive, drug or drink-addled mothers end up as very successful adults.
What do these kids have in common? The find mentors, substitute parents
to whom they bond.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This leaves us with a puzzle. Do these kids become more successful
because they have an attachment to a significat other, an emotionally
meaningful, nurturing other, something most tormented kids like this
lack? Or do these resilient kids have an attachment to a mentor because
the are born with better social instincts, the instincts of self-confidence
and extroversion that make them bold enough to find others they can attach
themselves to?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Which came first, the confidence or the social connection? Is the
success these kids have later in life due to their outgoing nature or due to
the mentors that outgoing nature brings? Or are the two--confidence and
social connection--inseparable?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Is there a gene-tweak or a womb-experience that makes for more confident
kids and others who are born with shyness and overwhelming
insecurities? In twin studies by an Italian researcher, regular
sonographic scans of the two kids in the womb showed that there was a battle
taking place in utero. One twin managed to take over the living room of
the womb--the central chamber, The other kid was shoved aside and had to
gestate in a corner, in a sort-of closet of the womb.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When the two finally made it from the uterus into the outside word, the
winner of the womb war was outgoing and self-confident. When a stranger
showed up, the winner ran over clearly expecting to win the stranger
over. It saw this new social contact as an opportunity.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The loser in the womb wars saw the same stranger and hugged its mother's
legs in panic, then ran off to something eerily like its old uterine
closet--it hid in a side room. ThIs kid saw a stranger as a danger, not
as a new opening.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Did the winner of the womb wars win by chance and then gain the benefits
of his land grab for intra-uterine space? Or was there some
gene-tweak that predestined him to win?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Does womb-real estate change the nature of the kid--does it change
the way that genes express themselves? Or does some small
gene-fluke exist even in what we think of as genetically identical
kids? Howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century<BR>Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty
Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of
Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big
Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society,
Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:
Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.<BR>For
information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate
Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of Evolution
Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big Bang Tango
Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human
Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New
Paradigm book series.<BR>For information on The International Paleopsychology
Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of
Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>