This morning on NPR they were discussing how one of the unforeseen negative consequences of Superstorm Sandy could be that a lot of toxic substances like cancer-causing dioxins and other nasty chemicals could have been washed into people's homes and gardens with the storm surge. There's been a scramble to test soil samples and floodwater for these chemicals, and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has decided to clean up at least one site.
One irate New Yorker said she hopes that the next time something like Sandy happens, the government will say what it knows straight away, implying that the government didn't want to reveal the extent of the problem out of fear of bad publicity. However, André, who works at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, noted that the government does not currently have any models to model the distribution of toxic chemicals in case of flooding; in fact, due to current budget cuts (quite apart from any sequestration), they have had to close down the department that was responsible for modeling air quality, i.e., if there is an explosion in a chemical plant, they have no way of knowing where the pollutants go.
André commented that it's interesting to hear people demand certain services from the government while people like him on the inside know that this is incompatible with the popular call for smaller government and fewer taxes. I am afraid a lot of harm will be done before people realize the consequences of this harmful political dogma, and that a well-functioning "big government" is not necessarily the interfering, style-cramping menace that many on the right paint it as, but actually offers protection from harm.
This comes at a price, however: higher taxes.
Perhaps the cut-price trade with China of the past decade has fooled people into thinking that it is possible for things to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. Government services cannot be outsourced to places where labor is cheap, however. (Besides the fact that rising wages in China mean that manufacturing is starting to seep off toward cheaper economies like Cambodia and Vietnam). I think politicians on the left have a responsibility to educate people on the true cost of the services that they expect from government. If people realize what they're getting in return for their money, perhaps they would be less reluctant to pay for it.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
On the ethics of depression
A little light reading ;-)
It's been more than a year now: more than a year since I plunged back into the deep, dark hole of depression. It crept up on me: just a lack of motivation, you could say, a difficulty in disciplining myself; a growing despondency. There were external factors: the daunting task of finding a job in a foreign country where I realized my qualifications didn't get me very far at all; A's increasing frustration with my inaction turning into hostility and contempt; pain, humiliation, my pride being crushed and the very foundation on which I built my life crumbling under my feet.
What A was confronting me with was the fact that people judge character by actions. I had always seen character as something inate, something you are born with. Because I used to be a certain way, I thought that defined my essence. If my actions deviated from that or contradicted that it was always a temporary glitch, and aberration. What I was confronted with, to my horror, was that A was applying labels to me that were very much at odds with my view of myself: lazy, selfish, irresponsible, negligent, careless, indifferent. Some were justified: I do tend to be headstrong, for instance - that has always been a feature, alas - but the rest felt grossly cruel and unjust. Didn't he know that I was kind, and loving, and that I wanted his good? Why was he accusing me of sabotaging his life?
Since accepting that I have been suffering from depression last May through the diagnosis of a psychologist, I have found myself tugged between two very conflicting views of what has been happening over the last two years. On the one hand, I have had A telling me that I am lazy, undisciplined, etc., with no allowances made whatsoever, and on the other I've heard from the psychologist that the fact that I have been suffering from depression exempts me from all responsibility for my actions/inaction. While I felt A's assesment of me to be a terrible injustice and devastatingly unfair attack on my self-worth, the psychologist's assessment - as welcome as it was - didn't quite sit right with me either.
I had been complacent; I had used the idea that I had 3 years to find a job as an excuse to put off doing something I was scared of; I had responded angrily and defensively when A asked me how the job hunt was going; I did take too long to find something. Besides, I know that I am a sinner, and that I have monumentous pride issues. In the Bible we are told that the heart is deceitful above all things, and I had deceived myself into believing that my external actions didn't matter. True, my external actions as a depression sufferer weren't an accurate reflection of my desires and intentions - this is the agony of depression, that there is a disconnect between what we will and the extent to which we can actually translate that into action - but it wasn't enough to just feel love for A: I needed to also demonstrate it in my actions (as far as this was possible for me).
The thing is this: actions can be judged as sinful apart from our justifications for them. If my action (or inaction) is in my interest to the detriment of someone else, it remains selfish. As depression sufferers, we need to be careful to walk the fine line between using our depression to justify our action/inaction and falling into the trap of judging our worth by what we are (in)capable of doing in our impaired state. At the same time, we cannot disregard the ethical implications of how we live, not least of which is the effect on those closest to us. The idea here is not to stoke guilt feelings (because, after all, guilt is one of the markers of depression!), but to say: as Christians who love Jesus and want to serve Jesus, we need to rest in Him and the knowledge that we receive grace from Him, even when we aren't receiving it from those close to us, and draw strength in Him to act in love and give of ourselves at a time when this act of self-sacrifice costs us the most.
This is the product of months of thinking and praying and wrestling this down. I'm still struggling, in the thick of the haze of depression, but I have this hope and this joy inside me that just will not die!
It's been more than a year now: more than a year since I plunged back into the deep, dark hole of depression. It crept up on me: just a lack of motivation, you could say, a difficulty in disciplining myself; a growing despondency. There were external factors: the daunting task of finding a job in a foreign country where I realized my qualifications didn't get me very far at all; A's increasing frustration with my inaction turning into hostility and contempt; pain, humiliation, my pride being crushed and the very foundation on which I built my life crumbling under my feet.
What A was confronting me with was the fact that people judge character by actions. I had always seen character as something inate, something you are born with. Because I used to be a certain way, I thought that defined my essence. If my actions deviated from that or contradicted that it was always a temporary glitch, and aberration. What I was confronted with, to my horror, was that A was applying labels to me that were very much at odds with my view of myself: lazy, selfish, irresponsible, negligent, careless, indifferent. Some were justified: I do tend to be headstrong, for instance - that has always been a feature, alas - but the rest felt grossly cruel and unjust. Didn't he know that I was kind, and loving, and that I wanted his good? Why was he accusing me of sabotaging his life?
Since accepting that I have been suffering from depression last May through the diagnosis of a psychologist, I have found myself tugged between two very conflicting views of what has been happening over the last two years. On the one hand, I have had A telling me that I am lazy, undisciplined, etc., with no allowances made whatsoever, and on the other I've heard from the psychologist that the fact that I have been suffering from depression exempts me from all responsibility for my actions/inaction. While I felt A's assesment of me to be a terrible injustice and devastatingly unfair attack on my self-worth, the psychologist's assessment - as welcome as it was - didn't quite sit right with me either.
I had been complacent; I had used the idea that I had 3 years to find a job as an excuse to put off doing something I was scared of; I had responded angrily and defensively when A asked me how the job hunt was going; I did take too long to find something. Besides, I know that I am a sinner, and that I have monumentous pride issues. In the Bible we are told that the heart is deceitful above all things, and I had deceived myself into believing that my external actions didn't matter. True, my external actions as a depression sufferer weren't an accurate reflection of my desires and intentions - this is the agony of depression, that there is a disconnect between what we will and the extent to which we can actually translate that into action - but it wasn't enough to just feel love for A: I needed to also demonstrate it in my actions (as far as this was possible for me).
The thing is this: actions can be judged as sinful apart from our justifications for them. If my action (or inaction) is in my interest to the detriment of someone else, it remains selfish. As depression sufferers, we need to be careful to walk the fine line between using our depression to justify our action/inaction and falling into the trap of judging our worth by what we are (in)capable of doing in our impaired state. At the same time, we cannot disregard the ethical implications of how we live, not least of which is the effect on those closest to us. The idea here is not to stoke guilt feelings (because, after all, guilt is one of the markers of depression!), but to say: as Christians who love Jesus and want to serve Jesus, we need to rest in Him and the knowledge that we receive grace from Him, even when we aren't receiving it from those close to us, and draw strength in Him to act in love and give of ourselves at a time when this act of self-sacrifice costs us the most.
This is the product of months of thinking and praying and wrestling this down. I'm still struggling, in the thick of the haze of depression, but I have this hope and this joy inside me that just will not die!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Glossaries and cruise control
Yesterday, I learned to do two things that will revolutionize my life:
1) I learned to turn a four-column Excel file of acronyms and abbreviations into a Trados termbase
2) I learned to use cruise control on the car
Now you may not quite understand what the first one is about, so let me explain a bit. Trados is this fantastic software for translators that basic makes our job easier. One of its functions is anh add-on program called Multiterm that allows you to create glossaries. As you are translating, it recognizes terms in the glossary you have open, and tells you how to translate them. For a simple bilingual glossary, this is relatively easy, but for a list of acronyms and abbreviations, where you have not just the actual abbreviations, but also information on what they stand for, it becomes really complicated to import them into Multiterm. Trados is a notoriously un-userfriendly program, and I managed to figure it out without having to wade through its opaque manual. I think I'm going to do a separate blog entry on this, because I can't find clear instructions for it anywhere on the web, and I see it as a service to my fellow translators. You, however, will not be bored by it!
The second thing is the cruise control. The Volvo S40 we bought for my commute is a fantastic car for all sorts of reasons. It isn't the most luxurious model: it doesn't have leather seats or a sun roof or automatic climate control. However, it does have heated seats (man, those things are da bomb in winter!), and it has cruise control. What this effectively means is that a computer automatically keeps the car traveling at the same speed. You can take your foot off the accelerator, and it automatically gives more on the uphills and less on the downhills. This has a number of advantages: 1) You don't have to keep glancing at the speedometer, so you can give all your attention to what is going on around you on the road; this makes driving a lot less tiring. 2) It actually increases your average speed, and hence reduces the commute time. I tested this this morning on a hunch, and it really works! I shaved about 10 minutes off my commute. The reason for this is that I found I would often lose speed on an uphill without realizing it. With cruise control, the car just powers up the hills at the same speed.
It's absolutely safe, because at any time you can brake or accelerate, and hence override it. Once you're back in a place where you can keep a constant speed again, you can turn it back on.
Today is Valentine's Day, and I have a lot to be thankful for. I was a bit disappointed that André didn't buy me anything, but hey, I forgot his birthday last year, so I reckon he's got some credit! He got a card and some caramel chocolates with sea salt. I suppose the contrast with his birthday last September is what makes me grateful. That was such a terrible time, with me very, very sick with depression and him at the end of his tether with the situation, and that was the utter low-point. But he didn't give up and stuck around, even when he felt he least had reason to. And that's what I'm grateful for: that we've both reached those points where we've realized that the things we hoped for in marriage were not materializing the way we envisioned - back in NL I realized that we would probably never have a lot of free time to spend together, and he was disappointed that I had dropped the ball on what he felt was one of the most fundamental benefits of being in a relationship (that someone remembers your birthday) - but we've stuck it out through sickness and in health, and I'm so very, very glad.
1) I learned to turn a four-column Excel file of acronyms and abbreviations into a Trados termbase
2) I learned to use cruise control on the car
Now you may not quite understand what the first one is about, so let me explain a bit. Trados is this fantastic software for translators that basic makes our job easier. One of its functions is anh add-on program called Multiterm that allows you to create glossaries. As you are translating, it recognizes terms in the glossary you have open, and tells you how to translate them. For a simple bilingual glossary, this is relatively easy, but for a list of acronyms and abbreviations, where you have not just the actual abbreviations, but also information on what they stand for, it becomes really complicated to import them into Multiterm. Trados is a notoriously un-userfriendly program, and I managed to figure it out without having to wade through its opaque manual. I think I'm going to do a separate blog entry on this, because I can't find clear instructions for it anywhere on the web, and I see it as a service to my fellow translators. You, however, will not be bored by it!
The second thing is the cruise control. The Volvo S40 we bought for my commute is a fantastic car for all sorts of reasons. It isn't the most luxurious model: it doesn't have leather seats or a sun roof or automatic climate control. However, it does have heated seats (man, those things are da bomb in winter!), and it has cruise control. What this effectively means is that a computer automatically keeps the car traveling at the same speed. You can take your foot off the accelerator, and it automatically gives more on the uphills and less on the downhills. This has a number of advantages: 1) You don't have to keep glancing at the speedometer, so you can give all your attention to what is going on around you on the road; this makes driving a lot less tiring. 2) It actually increases your average speed, and hence reduces the commute time. I tested this this morning on a hunch, and it really works! I shaved about 10 minutes off my commute. The reason for this is that I found I would often lose speed on an uphill without realizing it. With cruise control, the car just powers up the hills at the same speed.
It's absolutely safe, because at any time you can brake or accelerate, and hence override it. Once you're back in a place where you can keep a constant speed again, you can turn it back on.
Today is Valentine's Day, and I have a lot to be thankful for. I was a bit disappointed that André didn't buy me anything, but hey, I forgot his birthday last year, so I reckon he's got some credit! He got a card and some caramel chocolates with sea salt. I suppose the contrast with his birthday last September is what makes me grateful. That was such a terrible time, with me very, very sick with depression and him at the end of his tether with the situation, and that was the utter low-point. But he didn't give up and stuck around, even when he felt he least had reason to. And that's what I'm grateful for: that we've both reached those points where we've realized that the things we hoped for in marriage were not materializing the way we envisioned - back in NL I realized that we would probably never have a lot of free time to spend together, and he was disappointed that I had dropped the ball on what he felt was one of the most fundamental benefits of being in a relationship (that someone remembers your birthday) - but we've stuck it out through sickness and in health, and I'm so very, very glad.
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