WEBVTT - Objects of Love 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.160 Works dot Com. Hey guys, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.920 your Mind. This is Julie Douglas talking at you today. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:20.119 Today's episode Objects of Love is an Encore presentation that 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.560 we're rolling out and dusting off, mainly because we just 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:26.040 laid out about five or so Valentine themed episodes, an 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.720 attempt to take love and lust down to the studs 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:34.280 for examination. So as a sort of palate cleanser, we 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.080 thought we'd offer up this episode on the stuff we 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.839 love and the reasons why we cling to it. So, 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:42.680 but don't worry, we are not going to take away 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.280 your woobi a K. You're blankie, So enough preamble. We 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:52.159 hope that you enjoy today's episode. Julie, do you have 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.280 any magical objects with you today? Any good luck charms, 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:01.080 any personal items of importance? I was thinking about this. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.400 I'm not really into the sort of magical thinking lucky items. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.039 I have to say. Yeah, yeah, called up your hands. 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.399 Do you have any rings on? Oh? You don't have 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.800 any rings on? Nothing? Nothing? Huh okay, Yeah, I mean 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.720 maybe I have my lucky underwear on. Maybe I don't 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.360 you I mean not underwear. No, well, I mean nothing. 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:25.760 Let's see what do I have? I mean right now, 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.360 I just I have my wedding ring, and I do 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.200 there's so there's a certain amount of magical thinking involved 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.120 in that. Do I have any No, I don't have 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.920 any aiments on me right now, but I in the past, 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.200 I've I've certainly fallen in the habit of using them. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.520 I think I've talked about this before. I previously had 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.920 a Ganitia remover of obstacles, remover of obstacles, the Hindu 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.320 god that the is that has a the you know, 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.640 the elephant appearance, and I have featured on The Simpsons 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.520 in a hilarious episode. Yes, yes, also also made fun 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.440 of there. But I carried around because you know, remover 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.400 of obstacles and you know this various ties into ties 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.840 into creativity and all. And so I would carry that 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:08.680 in my pocket. And then eventually I lost it, like 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:10.960 it crawled out in the washing machine or something and 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.639 left me. And and so I've always felt I felt 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:16.880 kind of bad. I'm like, where did Ganesha go? Did 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.639 Ganesha abandon me? And then and then I found Ganesha 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.000 put him back in and then and then he disappeared 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.240 again and hasn't come back, and and also in the 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.600 past all occasionally like pick up a rock, Like if 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.119 I'm at the beach and I'm having a particularly good day, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.640 I'll pick up that rock and take it with me, 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:35.680 and That'll end up in my pocket for maybe a 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.520 year or so, um, you know, because that kind of 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.880 comes to symbolize like a nice memory, and so I 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:43.600 can take it out and I can sort of I 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.960 think back to that time. So what I'm hearing is 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:53.200 that you have various kinds of boobies. Yeah, security blankets. 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.720 Oh yes, yeah, I guess they are to a certain 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.480 extent security blanket. I mean they're not you know, apples 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:00.640 to apples, but there is the sort of warm and 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.359 fuzzy thing that you're trying to evoke with with an object, 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.400 right Yah. Yeah, I mean it's uh, I mean it's 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.400 weird for me because like when I'm if I'm holding 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.360 a ganitia, I don't actually think that I'm using this 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.280 as a totem to get in touch with some sort 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.600 of a god, you know, like it's not like a 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.600 literal interpretation of the amulet. But there is a certain 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.880 amount of positive thinking that that comes with having it. 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.200 And I've also wondered a lot of times when I'm 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.520 passing by my own desk or coworkers desks, or seeing 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.520 somebody's desk on on TV where they have action figures, 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.160 typically like a dude's desk, you know, have various action figures, 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.560 and I wondered, what extent are modern action figures? Kind 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.040 of akin to the amulets of old, you know, like 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.480 today we don't have a papion of God's to really 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.400 call upon for the most part, but instead we have 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.240 all these various pop culture icons and cartoon characters that 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.280 represent various things, at least on a subconscious level, and 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.560 we keep them around to draw strength from them. You 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.680 haven't found the Pantheon room, that just w Pantheon room. No, 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.320 do we have one? Oh my goodness, but to the 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.480 room with the black toilet and the black sink. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.840 the superhero bathroom. Okay, well, see I've been missing that. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:14.600 But if you if you passed by my desk, you 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.800 passed by like Jonathan's Strickland's desk, you passed by is 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.479 the office, you'll see little little figures, you know. So 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.080 I wondered what I mean. Obviously, they're on our death, 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.520 they're in our workspace, there in our work environment, informing 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.919 you know, our our relationship with our with our work, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:31.640 with with what we're trying to do with and and 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:33.800 representing a little bit of who we are. So to 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.559 what extent are those becoming deities? I don't know? Well, okay, 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:40.200 so that's what we're going to try to get to 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.560 the bottom of today. We're gonna look at objects, our 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.599 relationship to objects, and we're going to try to figure 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:47.640 out how much of this has to do with our 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:52.600 own uh ability to acquire things, and whether or not 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:57.160 this acquisitiveness is natural to us. And then we're gonna 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.920 look a little bit at a compulsupporting too. When you 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.800 comes some materialism, it is really a distinctive human trait 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:05.600 for the most part, especially when you look at its 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.000 more outrageous examples. The one that I was really partial 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:10.719 to was the one I brought up by Steve Taylor 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:16.240 and his article The Madness of Materialism, which just a great, short, 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:21.160 little article, but he he mentions gold, especially the like 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:25.200 European colonists love of gold and UH and their clashes 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.560 with with the native people's in the America's UH There's 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.720 one example that he brings up where an Indian chief 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.600 in Cuba learned that the Spanish sailors were about to 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.680 tack his land, so he actually praised to the spirit 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.279 of the gold to for for a like they've become. 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.120 They're trying to figure out why of these one of 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.480 these these people so into gold, this this shiny rock 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.159 from the ground. They must have some sort of They 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:48.919 must believe it's a god. They must believe that it 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.120 is that has supernatural powers, because otherwise, why would you 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.720 go to such ridiculous ends, Why would you wage all 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.560 this bloodshed just to get it right? Because otherwise it's like, well, 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.600 you guys are just talking like ferret. It's going after 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.040 something shiny. So surely this piece of gold has something 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.520 to it, and he prayed to it right and it 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.160 didn't work. Didn't work because, as as he points out 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.599 in this article, Steve Tailor points up, a certain amount 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.200 of hoarding of resources makes evolutionary sense. You know, we've 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:19.599 talked before and in the while, there are certain things 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.560 that are scarce. I mean, food itself is going to 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.520 be scarce to varying degrees, and so to whatever degree 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.800 we can plan ahead that we can stockpile it, the 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.080 better off will be if that means bearing nuts in 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.000 the yard, if that means uh, you know, finding something 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.720 that is that is more rare in nature, like sugar 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.680 and being able to store that away like like all 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.640 that makes sense firewood. I mean, there are things that 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.640 are they're part of our survival that that that makes 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.039 sense when we're hoarding it. Well, it makes sense I 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.839 think to a culture that is settled. But if you 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.160 look at back at early man um in particularly the 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:59.000 fact that early Man was a nomadic species um then 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.160 you know that a hoarding or stockpiling just really wasn't convenient, 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:05.000 That's right. I mean, yeah, if you're always on the 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.760 mood move if you even if you have kind of 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.800 like cyclical uh patterns to your your movement and you know, 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.600 going from north to south depending on what the weather 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.520 is doing, Yeah, you're not gonna be able to carry 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.520 all of this with you. You can maybe stockpile some 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.920 of it, but you're not going to carry it all 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:22.760 on your back. Yeah. So there's this big question mark 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.360 like is this really genetic? Is this something that's natural 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:29.200 to humans, this impulse to buy and possess things, or 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.960 is it something that really is more symptomatic of modern man, 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.960 particularly from the nineteenth century on, right, when things became 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.880 much easier to produce, to produce cheaply, and then to 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.760 acquire cheaply. Yeah, And I mean when it comes to 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.880 stockpiling things that are important. I mean, when once we 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.960 get out of this, uh, this transitory nature of culture 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.280 and we get into into actually settling in areas and 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.240 growing food. I mean, being able to stockpile food. I 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.200 mean that's part and partial to a lot of our 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.000 cultural growth as as a as a species, our ability 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.760 to put food away, have more food than we need, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.600 and then specialize our roles within a community. But what 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.679 about just buying lots of plastic things, right and putting 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.200 them in a storage unit and then that storage and 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.200 it being auctioned off in a show called Storage Wars 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.160 or something like that, right, Yeah, Because yeah, then it 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.040 seems like we're definitely getting into pathological area. We're getting 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.280 into an area where it is just it is a sickness. 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.320 It is some natural instinct that has been perverted. Because 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.040 even even though the you know, the native peoples of 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.320 the Americas couldn't understand the less for gold. If you 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.360 put gold within the context of of wealth, and then 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.000 wealth equals power, wealth equals comfort, wealth equals food. Then 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.000 I can see the cognitive steps you know, necessary to 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.200 think I gotta have all the gold, right because I 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.920 have to possess the symbol of it, which is probably 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.040 a large part of why we do have this such 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.920 such a high degree of acquisitiveness, right, like wanting to 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.000 get acquire everything. Um. But you know, the question is 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.720 is it genetic? Well was a study by Justine Giddon's, 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.640 Julie Shermer and Philip Vernon from the University of Western Ontario, 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.599 and they wanted to know how much of it was environmental, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.959 how much of it which genetics. Of course, they turned 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.400 to the twins. They recruited two hundred and forty pairs 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.559 of twins identical and fraternal, and they looked at the 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:25.680 benchmark of individual differences um, personality, values, happiness, and we 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.760 know about forty percent of those traits are heritable. Right. 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.000 So to the surprise of these researchers, they found that 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:37.319 individual differences in materialism were almost entirely attributed to environmental 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.160 factors and not a genetic thing going on here. So 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.720 that kind of makes sense. Right, And that actually makes 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.920 sense to me in the context of hoarding, because, yes, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:52.400 hoarding does have some pathological brain disorder elements to it, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:58.559 but a lot of the triggers for hoarding our environmental. So, um, 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:00.880 you know, if you had a loved one who recently 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.760 passed away or something that was life changing, that kind 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:05.760 of sort of flipped the switch and hoarding behavior. And 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.040 when I talk about hoarding behavior, I'm talking about an 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.480 excessive collection of objects. This is like one of those 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.520 things where it's like I must keep every newspaper that 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.720 has ever come out. And it's not just keep them, 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.319 but like if you were to be separated from those newspapers, 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.360 you would suffer, you would feel pain, you would you 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.360 would be confused, you'd have an inability to really make 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.760 clearheaded decisions about the sort of stuff in your life. Yeah, 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.000 and you've seen one of these shows. To me, that's 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.360 enough recording shows, because it can be a bit much 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:33.800 to take in that it can be. I mean, they're 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.000 they're kind of depressing, uh, But but I think I 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:38.960 saw one once where it was like food items and 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:40.920 it wasn't in a sense that like I need to 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.120 save all the sweet potatoes because I love sweet potatoes 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.720 and I need need to eat these sweet podata is later. 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.800 But it would be like, oh, the sweet potato looked 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.240 really good. This is a really cool looking sweet potata, 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.720 and like this weird emotional attachment to the sweet potato, 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.720 and then it must be kept even though it's rotting 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.880 in the refrigerator. Yeah. Well, it turns out that people 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:04.040 who have hoarding behavior or hoarding disorder, they actually have 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.240 a part of their brain. Um, this is an interior 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.200 singular cortex. This part of their brain is actually not 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.720 behaving the same way as quote unquote normal people because 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.000 that is the part of the brain that's actually governing 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:23.560 your decisions and re um some some impulse control yeah, um, 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.440 but primarily it's the decision making. And so if you 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.719 take people who have the hoarding disorder and you look 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:30.440 at them in m r I scans when they are 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:32.520 considering whether or not to part from an object that 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.480 they own, you'll see that You'll see the fuzzy nature 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:37.920 going on there, So you know that it is, um, 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.000 it is a brain disorder. It is this this part 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.120 of their brain that is saying, I just don't know 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:47.040 what to do here, and so it's not just like Okay, 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.520 I need to have everything in the world, or some 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.240 sort of gluttonous you know, void that they're trying to fill. 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.840 It really is coming from the decisions that their their 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.960 brain circuitry is making. And Um, this is I thought 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.560 this was really interesting when I found out about it. Um, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.199 hoarding behavior actually has some connection, or a lot of 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.520 connection to narcissism. So you think about narcissism, and you 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.679 think about vanity, you think about narcissus, do you think 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.360 about the reflection in the pool captivated by one's appearance. 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.679 But it really is sort of a coping mechanism, and 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:22.840 I believe it was Dr Rebecca Beaten. She explained this 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:24.520 to me a couple of years ago when I interviewed 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.800 her um about hoarding. She told me that kids who 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.000 are feeling abandoned from their parents, or they don't have 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.960 a significant relationship with a parent or really any sort 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.520 of guardian in other words, they they're not getting that 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.640 emotional connection or even sort of the touch of the 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.480 hug or any of that, they begin to turn inward 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.680 and they began to become narcissists because they have to 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.800 find self comfort from themselves and some of that gets 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.680 attributed to objects, so then they began to collect objects. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.280 Is this part of comfort? And that's where you see 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.720 the behavior played out. And of course this brings to 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.680 mind and the Peanuts character Linus and it's blanket, right, 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.040 his wooby, his his comfort blanket, his uh or if 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.560 you want to get into the more technical, his comfort object, 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.320 his transitional object, which is something you see with a 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.240 lot of a lot of kids. I mean it's uh, 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:18.800 let's see, did I have now my now, my sister 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.080 definitely had a blanket called blank e and uh. And 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:23.599 it got to the point where they ended up like 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.040 cutting off the edge of Blanky so that she could 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.480 continue to carry blankly around with her. And I think 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.840 she may still have I think she still keeps blankly around. Well, 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.960 you know, my daughter's four, and the same thing has 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.800 happened to her blanket. She calls it Blanky's blanky. Wait, now, 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.760 the part that came off she carries around is called 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.559 blank's blanky. So it's the blank like the shard of blanket. 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.960 It's all right, it's like a like it's kind of 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.360 like a religious artifact kind of. And she hides it 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.160 in her bed and she's really freaky about it, like 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.440 we can't find it. It's like blank is blanket? Well, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.199 I mean to an uninformed observer, it could in a 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:01.960 little freaky because it's like, because it is kind of 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.840 borderline religious obsession, it may seem like. In fact, if 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.920 you go back to the nineteen forties, attachment to a 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.160 special object by a child was regarded as just pathological 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.520 behavior and it's just a case of childhood fetish reflecting 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.680 something askew in the mother child relationship. Yeah, it must 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.600 be doing something wrong because your kid has this gross 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.480 scrap of a blanket that they're carrying around. And I 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.080 think it's interesting that they look at it as a fetish, 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.080 particularly if you kind of take a wide angle view 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:29.880 of that period anyway, where you see a lot of 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.560 this idea as of fetish or fetishism coming out. Um. 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.520 But yeah, it wasn't until the fifties right when they 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.240 started to say, you know what, this is actually a 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.040 normal thing. It's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, people like DW. 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.280 Wincott started defining these as normal and necessary and as 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.120 a transitional experience. A key step in an infantsi ability 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.960 to distinguish this inner subjective world from the outside reality. 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.400 So you know, through the even through the seventies and eighties, 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:57.520 there was still this sort of people are still clinging 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.680 to this old notion that it's there's something wrong that 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.520 the kid has some you know, some anxiety problems or something, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.920 and that's why they're holding onto it. But but really, 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.080 the the the academic understanding of it was was pretty 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.640 much in place, yeah, because it began to understand that 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.880 this could really help allay some of the fears, um 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.240 some of the anxieties that children have. Of course they 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:20.840 haven't because remember they have an entirely new view of life, 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.840 so they have to categorize every loud sound, every image 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:27.760 and try to make sense of it. Is it a threat? 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.800 Is it not a threat? And so this transitional object 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:32.600 really does help because it is sort of like the 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.000 stand in for, you know, a parental unit or something else. 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.040 There's a study by G. J. Bara, R. H. Passman, 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.520 and C. Eisenberg, and they found that during a routine 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.920 third year pediatric examination, the security object enhanced rapport with 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.000 the examining nurse, and then children attached to a blanket 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.600 who were allowed access to it were rated as less 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:57.080 distressed and they experienced less physiological stress um and that 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.240 is evidenced by the heart rate and the systolic blood press. Sure, 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.080 so this is in contrast to kids who are undergoing 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.040 medical evaluate evaluation without their woobies. Really yeah, and certainly 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.600 these woobies, um, as you said that they can end 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.760 up becoming like an important parenting tool, I understand as well. 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.560 I mean, if you're, if you're, you use it wisely, right, 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:17.800 I mean it's I guess it's powerful stuff to play with, 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.480 But I was reading about how you know a parent 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.480 can can use it to their advantage, and a kid 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.840 needs the movie too to remain comfortable in a position 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.880 when the mother is away. I think it's really important 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.920 to um, like around age one and so on and 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.640 so forth, when when they start to feel the separation anxiety, 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:36.560 as you say, like leaving the house or even just 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.200 sleeping at night, I think having something to grab onto 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.560 is really important. One of the interesting things about studying 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.760 transitional objects is that is that there's ultimately a kind 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.920 of a lack of uniformity in the definition of it 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.720 and also the cultural significance of it. Like some of 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.880 the cultural stats are pretty interesting, like um, the United 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.760 the States sixty of children have at least a mild 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.520 degree of attachment to some sort of soft and animal object. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:02.960 And I think, looking back, I did have I had 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.639 a stuffed rhinoceros named RINCHI that I would had an 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.560 attachment to um. But but I don't know. Then you're 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.560 getting into like stuffed animals. You're getting into a whole 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.120 different area because those have personality. I don't know. Does 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:19.120 Blankie or does Blankie's Blankie have a personality? Do you think, well, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.960 sometimes Blanky's Blankie gets in trouble or does things like 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:24.919 takes all the toilet paper off the toilet roll or 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.399 something like that. But um, generally, I think that's just 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:32.800 general scoundrelness right now. Well, okay, so anyway, six children 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.760 in the US have some sort of mild degree exhibit 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.199 strong attachment. But then if you look at incidences of 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.520 attachment in the Netherlands and New Zealand and Sweden, that's 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.040 that's comparable to the United States. Korean children have substantially 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:50.800 fewer attachments to blankets down to eight uh that compared 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.600 to American children, but in Korean born children living in 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.480 the United States to play an intermediate percentage of thirty 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:02.080 four five percent of rural Italian children have transitional objects 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.280 compared tot of urban Italians, and it goes as far 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.320 as the sixty two of foreign children living in Rome. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.160 So don't you just see the stats I guess kind 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.080 of skewing towards urban areas. Yeahs say, that's interesting to 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.280 see that it can be. You know, within one country 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.640 you could have such a so many different variables there 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:25.760 and oh but in London, just six of children have 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.199 a special security object in there. That's London, So there 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.080 goes the urban argument. So it's just it's it's hard 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.960 to find the exactly what's going on. There's just so 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.320 many cultural factors to look at the I guess well, 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:37.840 and you have to wonder too if if part of 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.600 that is just to say, like, that's not as accepted 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:45.000 and therefore maybe in that culture it's not as encouraged, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.040 or it's not maybe as prominent, people don't see it 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.120 as much, yeah, or maybe there's less of a culture 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.639 of these are my objects and these are your objects, 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.679 and it's more these are our objects. You know. Some 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.600 of this had to do with memory to write, like 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:58.760 they would go back and say, oh, did I have 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.840 an object that I was connected to, and so they're 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.280 collecting some of this data from faulty memory where people 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.040 are saying yes or no and they couldn't exactly remember. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.439 I also want to point out too that you know, 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.320 transitional object is very different from a pacifier, And of 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.120 course a pacifier is something that's used to self soothe 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.800 and babies, but I kind of think of it as 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.800 gum for babies. You know, it's an activity to to 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.359 try to help them with their eventual um eating skills, uh, 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.280 they're swallowing skills, and it kind of helps keep them 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.960 occupied if they're hungry and you're trying to prepare a 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.840 bottle or something like that. But it is very different 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.720 in terms of comfort. All Right, we're gonna take a 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:54.560 quick break, Okay, so we're back, yeah, and we're going 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.600 to get into the realm of magical thinking. This is 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.119 charactery that we've we've moved through many times before that it 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.520 it continues to be important because it really does deal 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.800 with how we think about the world and versus how 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.280 the world really is. I mean we Magical thinking, of course, 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.000 is the belief that an object, action, or circumstance not 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.520 logically related to a course of events can influence its outcome. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.000 So in magical thinking, you get into all these ideas 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:24.080 of of everything from a haunted house, the idea that, oh, 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.520 something bad happened here, so now something is bad with 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.679 the house, you know, like the idea that that that 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.359 that an event can affect the physical object, or even 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.040 like mere mementos. I mean I've mentioned my father's watch before, 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.879 you know, like obviously that's that's something that has significance 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:42.840 to me. And there's a certain amount of magical thinking 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.439 involved there. Um, you know, even if it's at a 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:47.919 subconscious level, even if I'm not thinking, oh this this 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.200 has the spirit of my dad, and I think, oh 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.560