Author Archives: Paul Junior Louigene

Smile…Scare Saddness Away

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Major depressive disorder, more commonly known as depression, is one of hardest mood disorders to undergo. A lot of people underestimate depression and its severity. They make the claim that their one day of sadness is labeled as depression. This may be the case but it is only a mild case. The most commonly diagnosed cases of depression last two weeks or more. A genuine depressive disorder is defined as an extreme and abnormal sadness. They exhibit many different characteristics. The individual cannot even function or go about his/her day properly because of the emotional distress that they are going through. They function very slowly, they show a loss of interest in activities or even things they used to like, they have a loss of interest in friends and family, they feel worthless and as though they have no purpose on this earth.

Depression is diagnosed in many different ways but one of the main methods is the explanatory style. Psychologists use this style to differentiate the difference between the way a normal person would react or think about a situation and the way a depressed person would. For example, a normal person would look at the break up with a significant other as something sad but they would be able to get over it. A depressed individual looks at the break up as something detrimental that they will have a lasting effect on the rest of their lives. I have had people in my past who have undergone deep depression. I remember when my one friend, Sarah, had lost her mother in a car accident back in middle school. She fell into a deep depression that caused her to drop out of school for the remainder of the school year. Before the event, she was known around school as one of the happiest people to roam the hallways. Always smiling, always optimistic; she even won the best smile award at the end of 7th grade. But after the death of her mom, it seemed as though she snapped. It was the saddest thing in the world.

Major depressive disorder really affects people in the harshest of ways. The lasting effects of depression can really leave a mark on a person’s mental. And the thing with this disorder is that it can happen to anyone. As stated above with Sarah, even the happiest people can be struck with this just because of a devastating event. No one is excluded from clutches of depression. But I guess it’s a good thing depression has a really simple cure then. And that cure is love.

Remembah? *Drake Voice*

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Memory is defined, by the words of Mr. Wede, to be the persistence of learning through different mechanisms. Those mechanisms are encoding, storage and retrieval. Encoding is the process of interpreting an event and getting into your memory. This is the first step in a three step memory process. Second comes storage. This is vital because this stowing away the information. Memory is stored using sensory memory, which has a limit of only a few seconds, short term memory, with a limit of about 30 seconds and long term memory which is somewhat permanent. Each of these play a factor in keeping a tab of everything that we see and do during the course of 24 hours. Lastly, there is retrieval. This is probably one of the most important steps in the process because it involves accessing the memories that you have locked away. Think about it, what is the point of being able to hold something if you can’t use it for your benefit later?

Memory is an extremely powerful tool. It is the basis for our thinking, decision making, the way we interpret things, etc. When you think about it, memory plays a role in almost every aspect of your life. Even when doing something as mindless as playing video games or watching television, we are storing bits and pieces to our long term memory and almost instantaneously processing all that we see and relating it to past events or images that are similar(retrieval cues). The thing is that some people have better memory than others. I am in a constant battle with memory when it comes to my involvement with music. I am a singer and so I perform at many different venues around Penn State and around New Jersey, when I head home for breaks. Different performances mean different songs and different songs mean different lyrics and as you can predict, each set of lyrics for every song has to be memorized by the time of each performance. As you can imagine, that is not the simplest task in the world but because I love what I do and as time goes on, it becomes easier and easier.

If I didn’t have a strong long term memory, I wouldn’t be able to have a music “career” because I would forget everything that I studied so hard to remember. It would last as long as sensory memory does and fall out of my head right after. Retrieval plays a large role because I need to be able to quickly access information while I am performing. If this process had a time lapse or if I had a problem with my ability to retrieve memories, again, I wouldn’t really make it too far in the music industry but thank God I do not have to deal with that. Our memories are from our experiences and our experiences shape us. So I am grateful for memory, because I wouldn’t be Paul without them.

“Motivated to seek pleasure, not pain”

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Behavior is truly a fascinating concept to try to understand. It has long been the topic of many heated discussions from even the “Pre-Greek” times. Humans are pleasure seeking individuals. It is sad to say it but humans are selfish in terms of their desires. Aristotle stated that concept perfectly and exposed it with his research. He noticed that humans are motivated to seek what feels good to them and place a long distance on what doesn’t. What is incredible about that is that what he thought, holds true even in our modern times. People hate to do what they don’t like doing and that is understandable but because of that, they tend to make extremely impulsive decisions based on what their own desires are. And what their desires aren’t always the best thing for them.

I used to have a friend, we will call him James for the purpose of this story. He was a very devoted Christian who went to church every Sunday, always made sure the things that he did never counteracted with his morals, what you would describe as the “perfect little church boy”. But that was when James was in his younger more naïve years. Once he reached high school, it seemed like a switch just went off in him that was causing him to act in ways that no one has ever seen him act before. Drugs, sex with almost anyone, disrespecting his parents and crazy parties became somewhat of a common lifestyle for James. And whenever someone would approach him about it, he always gave the same response, “I just feel like doing it. It makes me happy, don’t judge me.” I’ve even spoken to him and it is clear that he knows that what he is doing is wrong. He realizes and accepts that and continues to go against all that he is founded on and all that his religion asks of him…all because he “feels like it”.

It seems as though more and more people are just doing anything because they really believe that they should have that right and no one should take away that right. Aristotle’s take on how people behave was a brilliant one but also a blatant one. If you study any person, you can tell that it is their innate instinct to do what they want to do. They don’t want to be held down by rules or people telling them to do otherwise so they go out of their way to rebel and do whatever they were going to do in the first place. It is the way it has been, the way it is now and the way it will continue to be. I am not necessarily saying that there is something wrong with people following their own desires, but it is some of the decisions that people make that really raises the question of if following your desires is always the right thing. People like to be themselves and I get it, but being too vain and disregarding criticism sometimes can lead you to be something you never thought you would be.