Vision and Dopamine
posted by 4th Dwarf
5M wasn't up particularly early for her. Radio Australia was on from 5:05 to 6:00.
I'd be very interested to see what Conch Shell has to say about the brain injury affecting dopamine theory for M.
From Wikipedia:
Dopamine is commonly associated with the 'pleasure system' of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate us to do, or continue doing, certain activities. Certainly dopamine is released (particularly in areas such as the nucleus accumbens and striatum) by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex, use of certain drugs and neutral stimuli that become associated with them.
It's good to see her recovering so well. With the cornea having the most pain sensitive nerves in the body, I'd have expected more trouble.
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He got a bump on the head once, and that explains everything? All is forgiven as a consequence? I think not. Whatever's at the root of M's disinterest in the m*se, she's not going to change it, with all the persistence, all the information and all the understanding in the world. I'd wager that all of those will eventually put her, with him, emotionally, exactly where she is now. Except bitterer. Dopey, not dopamine, is the word we want here.
On another, more felicitous, matter, I cannot leave unremarked the fact that International Talk Like A Pirate Day is now for the first time fewer than 100 days distant. We're past the century mark!
And speaking as a dyed-in-the-fur coyote (hard not to do, given the state of my pearly-white choppers...) I just want to point out that to 'arrr' is human, but to 'arrrroooooo' is divine....
The 5M's eyes may be well on the way to healing. But what about her obviously still-ailing heart? Or lcp's for that matter?
Now, with the Heart-Repair Calculator, from http://healmybrokenheart.com/, we can do a little research into anticipated recuperation times.
By my quick calculation (making an assumption or two), lcp will need at least six or seven more weeks before departing the ranks of the walking wounded.
I haven't amassed the baseline data for the 5M and will leave that to one of you intrepid souls.
Sorry, Chair, to stray into your field of bustedromanceology, where you are well on the way to amassing a Nobel-worthy body of work. Feel free to peer review this theory.
Let's take a peek (some names have been changed):
Time is the great healer. But how long will it take? After much study, this is the best formula for getting an estimate:
Short relationships (3 MONTHS OR LESS)
A. count the number of weeks that you knew the person before the relationship turned romantic, and then divide this number by 2
B. count the number of weeks that you were romantically involved
C. add-up A and B
D. count the average number of days per week you saw him/her during the romance, and divide this number by 2
E. multiply C and D - that's how many weeks it will take to begin feeling normal
Example: Peter met Belinda. After 4 weeks they started dating. They dated for 8 weeks, seeing each other an average of 4 nights per week. Then Belinda left. It will take Peter's heart about 20 weeks (or just under 5 months) to recover.
Mid-length relationships (1 YEAR OR LESS)
A. count the number of months that you were romantically involved
B. count the average number of days per week you saw him/her during the romance, and divide this number by 2
C. multiply A and B - that's how many months it will take to begin feeling normal
Example: Fred met Sandra. They had a passionate romance for 8 months, seeing each other about 3 times per week. Then Sandra left. It will take Fred's heart about 12 months (1 year) to recover.
Long relationships (1 YEAR OR MORE)
A. estimate how happy you were (day to day) on a scale of 1 to 3
B. estimate how physically attractive you found your mate on a scale of 1 to 3
C. add up A and B - and then divide this number by 2-- this will give you a number in years
D. subtract one year from the total
Example: John was happily married to Mary (he ranked his happiness a 2 out of 3. He found Mary very attractive, a 3 out of 3. Mary leaves. John's heart will take 1 ½ years to recover.
A very useful resource, Independent Observer. I have been trying to crack that equation for years now.
My problem: I was trying to find a unifying equation when in reality there are three distinct formulas based on the relationship longevity. This depiction seems to be the best approach. I spent months thinking that there might be some combination of a power / logarithmic function to describe the walking wounded time but it never yielded anything practical.
I had, what I thought, was a reasonable unifying equation but it had the caveat that for relationships of less than three months, it was predicting a walking-wounded mode prior to meeting the love interest. I couldn't convince my colleagues that this could be treated as background noise and ignored. The purests wholly rejected my thesis, and Cosmopolitan magazine pulled the funding.
I still hope someday to find a unifying equation but I may have to leave that research for younger, more ambitious minds to resolve.
Ah, Agatha. Let it not be said that you are a wistful romantic.
One fact worth noting on the formulas is the time for mending the broken heart that falls out of the long-term-acquaintance-turned-short-romance scenario. One may be better off trying to make those situations last longer than three months as it could take years to overcome the heartbreak from a short tryst with a longtime friend compared to the 2 year maximum if you dated for more than a year.
Nothing like being with someone for some time to get those rose coloured glasses fixed and realize you can easily get over them.
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