The Tipping Point. Malcom Gladwell. 자살과 담배

어쩌다 보니 다시 맬컴 글래드웰이다.

한 미크로네시아 소년의 자살원인 과 그 방법에 대한 소소한 이야기는 보다 복잡한 이야기- 입소문의 파급력, 그에 개재된 각종 특정 성향과 능력을 가진 자들의 역할과 그 결과에 대한-의 일부에 지나지 않지만 매우 흥미롭다. 결코 진부하지 않은, 벌어진 입에서 침이 줄줄 흘러 내려도 닥아낼 생각조차 잊어 먹게 만든다... 그는 진정한 글쟁이다.

 

담배에 대한 이야기가 더 급선무다.

요는, 담배습관는 유전적 결함또는 환경에서 기인한, 신경전달 물질 세로토닌, 도파민의 결핍, 니코틴이 그 값싼 대체제 역할을 하고 있는 것일 뿐이므로 빨리 다른 방법으로 심적 침체로부터 벗어날 방법을 찾아내야만.

 

 

The Tipping Point. By Malcom Gladwell.

P.82-83  [The Law of the Few]

Subject: A word-of-mouth epidemic

Subsequent research has revealed that it isn’t just gesture that is harmonized, but also conversational rhythm. When two people talk, their volume and pitch fall into balance. What linguistics call speech rate – the number of speech sounds per second – equalizes. So does what is known as latency, the period of time that lapses between the moment one speaker stops talking and the moment the other speaker begins. Two people may arrive at a conversation with very different conversational patterns. Bu almost instantly they reach a common ground… fell into physical and conversational harmony. We were dancing.

 

P.216

Seven

Case Study

Suicide, Smoking, And The Search for The Unsticky Cigarette

P.217

…But it is a day of celebration for Papa. Today Papa sent me away. Thank you for loving me so little.

Give my farewell to Mama. Mama you won’t have any more frustration or trouble from your boy….

The suicide notes tends to express not depression but a kind of wounded pride and self-pity, a protest against mistreatment….. He finds a remote spot or empty house. He takes a rope and make a noose, but he does not suspend himself, as in typical Western hanging. He ties the noose to a low branch or window or doorknob and leans forward, so that the weight of his body draws the noose tightly around his neck, cutting off the flow of blood to the brain. Unconsciousness follows. Death results from anoxia- the shortage of blood to the brain.

 

p.253

Then somebody else does it and so I do too. It’s kind of imitation. I am getting permission to act from someone else who is engaging in deviant act as well.

P.237

…There are genes in the brains of mice that govern how nicotine is processed…….Since nicotine is known to relieve boredom and stress, for example, people who are in boring and stressful situations are always going to smoke more than people who are not……..

 

P.244-245

They get a jolt from a cigarette, then pause, then get another jolt….. There are a number of theories as to why smoking matches up so strongly with emotional problems. The first is that the same kinds of things that would make someone susceptible to the contagious effects of smoking- low self-esteem, say, or an unhealthy and unhappy home life are also the kinds of things that contribute to depression. More tantalizing, though, is some preliminary evidence that the two problems might have the same genetic root. For example, depression is believed to be the result, at least in part, of a problem in the production of certain key brain chemicals, in particular the neurotransmitters known as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These are the chemicals that regulate mood, that contribute to feelings of confidence and mastery and pleasure…. Nicotine appears to do exactly the same thing with the other two key neurotransmitters- dopamine and norepinephrine. Those smokers who are depressed, in short, are essentially using tobacco as a cheap way of treating their own depression, of boosting the level of brain chemicals they need to function normally…….If you can treat smokers for depression, you may be able to make the habit an awful lot easier to break……antidepressant called bupropion…… what they soon realized was that bupropion was functioning as a kind of nicotine substitute.

2013. 6. 23

휴일 아침. 커피를 마구 마셔대며,  

책상앞에 앉아 주억거리다 고요에 고개를 들다.

사위는 조용.

인간들은 모두 나를 떠난다.

개 한마리, 한가한 오후를 지켜주고 있다.