Category Archives: Quotes

5 tänkvärda citat från BTS’ RM

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BTS från Sydkorea har kommit att bli en av världens allra största och mest framgångsrika manliga grupper. Deras attraktiva utseenden och medryckande blandning mellan hiphop och pop har gått hem i världen i allmänhet och Östasien i synnerhet. Musikvideon “DNA” har nästan 600 miljoner visningar på YouTube och gruppen är en av få inom k-pop som har nått framgångar även i USA och Storbritannien, samt har hypats av PewDiePie.

En bra sak med BTS är att de tillsammans med Big Bang, (G)I-dle och några till inom den sydkoreanska musikindustrin skriver sina egna texter och lyfter fram fler ämnen än kärlek och att ha roligt i en del av dessa. Låtar som “Silver Spoon”, “Cypher 4” och “Not Today” visar på en inte helt irrelevant samhällskritik och vikten av att älska sig själv och inte ge upp, oavsett förutsättningar (vilket i och för sig rimmar lite illa med deras Gucci- och Dior-jackor och finpolerade ansikten).

Nyligen blev jag varse om ett antal citat från gruppledaren RM, varav några går utöver rena plattityder. Eftersom BTS har potential till att influera yngre människor och människor i allmänhet, precis som till exempel Jordan Peterson och PewDiePie, är det värt att lyfta fram några av dessa.

En del påminner lite om filosofer som Friedrich Nietzsche och José Ortega y Gasset och intelligenta rappare som Aesop Rock och Chino Xl fast med en mer ungdomlig finess och utan abstraktioner. Enligt vissa uppgifter har RM en IQ på hela 148 så det är inte konstigt om han kan uttrycka något smart. Fast detta är mer jordnära än nördigt.

1. “I believe that there’s no improvement if you have an inferiority complex and victim mentality.”

2. “I think the biggest love is the love for oneself, so if you want to love others, you should love yourself first.”

3. “You know in your twenties, you have so many thoughts, they’re like many branches in a tree. If my brain is a tree, there are so many branches…There’s sadness, desperation, devastation. There’s happiness, hope, everything, but when you get old, it gets cut […] We have to feel pain and have to experience many things. But after that, if you got so many branches in your twenties you will someday become a beautiful tree by your thirties and forties.”

4. “In life, one must be determined and not just go with the flow.”

5. “We gotta dance in the rain, dance in the pain.”

Alla killar och män är inte likadana – men de skiljer sig generellt från tjejer och kvinnor

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Då och då blossar det upp debatter om könsskillnader kopplade till olika typer av våldsbrott. Den senaste tiden har det skett som en följd av ett kategoriskt uttalande av den framgångsrika svenska popstjärnan Zara Larsson, varpå Sven Melander har ryckt ut till hennes försvar efter den hårda kritikstormen.

Det finns en viss polariseringstendens i debatten: å ena sidan de som säger att alla killar är svin; å andra sidan de som menar att den absoluta merparten av dem inte är det och att det främst är ensamkommande flyktingbarn och andra individer och grupper med icke-västerländsk bakgrund som ger upphov till sexuellt ofredande och överfallsvåldtäkter. Några – kanske de flesta – intar en mer balanserad mellanposition.

Utifrån både ett sociokulturellt- och genusperspektiv är det rimligt att anta att båda dessa faktorer spelar roll, och att det numer är en betydligt mindre andel svenska killar och män med svensk eller annat slags västerländsk bakgrund som antastar tjejer och kvinnor. Detta beror delvis på att killar och män är mer genusmedvetna och att kulturen har blivit mindre patriarkal och mer jämlik. Därmed inte sagt att det enbart är individer med icke-västerländsk bakgrund som begår den här typen av brott, eller att merparten inom denna ganska heterogena grupp skulle vara brottsbenägna i det avseendet. Överrepresentation handlar dock inte om majoritet utan om andelar – ett statistiskt fenomen.

Vad många dock har svårt att förstå att vid sidan av potentiellt ganska snabbt föränderliga genus- och sociokulturella aspekter finns även evolutionspsykologiska och biologiska dimensioner med i bilden som leder till att dels skiljer sig vissa män från andra män, dels skiljer sig män generellt från kvinnor. För att förklara detta har jag utgått från Cindy Meston och David Buss bok Why Women Have Sex (2009) och artikeln “The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women” (Anne Campbell et al, 2013). Resonemangen bygger vidare på en del tidigare inlägg. Min förhoppning är att människor i större utsträckning kan förstå varför en betydande andel killar/män beter sig som de gör och att detta delvis har en evolutionär orsak. Det handlar inte enbart om sexuella övergrepp utan om att en betydande andel killar och män ofta “beter sig som svin” och att det är rationellt att göra det ur ett biologiskt perspektiv.

Följande utdrag från den sistnämnda artikeln sätter fingret på vad den mörka triaden är och att män och kvinnor skiljer sig åt (min fetstil):

Narcissism is defined by a sense of entitlement, dominance and a grandiose self-view (Raskin & Terry, 1988). Virtually all studies report greater narcissism in men, including cross-culturally (Foster, Campbell, & Twenge, 2003). Holtzman and Strube (2010) propose that narcissism emerged in response to problems posed by the adoption of a short-term mating strategy in men. Adaptive narcissistic solutions include a willingness and ability to compete with one’s own sex, and to repel mates shortly after intercourse. Narcissists find it comparatively easy to begin new relationships, perceive multiple opportunities available to them, and are less likely to remain monogamous (Campbell & Foster, 2002; Campbell, Foster, & Finkel, 2002). Narcissistic men also have more illegitimate children than those scoring lower for the trait (Rowe, 1995).

Vidare om machiavellism och psykopatism:

Machiavellians are interpersonally duplicitous (McHoskey, 2001a), insincere (Christie & Geis, 1970) and extraverted (AllsoppEysenck, & Eysenck, 1991). Men score higher than women on Machiavellian traits (Lee & Ashton, 2005; McHoskey, 2001b). Machiavellianism is associated with social manipulation and opportunism, both beneficial to the pursuit of short-term mating. Machiavellians report a tendency towards promiscuous behaviours and love-feigning (McHoskey, 2001b). Machiavellian men also report more sexual partners (including affairs), earlier sexual activity, and are inclined towards sexual coercion (McHoskey, 2001b).

Psychopathy consists of callousness, a lack of empathy, and antisocial, erratic behaviour (Hare, 2003). Men show higher levels of sub-clinical psychopathy than women (Lee & Ashton, 2005). Reise and Wright (1996) propose that psychopathic traits (lack of morality; interpersonal hostility) are beneficial to a short-term strategy and are correlated with unrestricted pattern of sexual behaviour. Psychopathy is further associated with superficial charm, and a deceitful and sexually-exploitative interpersonal style (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Psychopathy is significantly correlated with a larger number of self-reported sexual partners, longterm relationship breakdown, earlier age of first intercourse, and self- and female-rated physical attractiveness (Visser et al., 2010).

Och slutligen om den mörka triaden:

The Dark Triad is the collective term for these moderately intercorrelated, self-interested traits (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Common to all three are extraverted behaviours likely to make a good first impression, such as a tendency to socialise and to talk about friends. All three overlap in exploitation, manipulation and selfimportance (Lee & Ashton, 2005). Consistent with findings for the constituent traits, the composite Dark Triad is positively correlated with number of self-reported lifetime sex-partners, preference for an unrestricted, short-term mating style and high rates of matepoaching (Jonason, Li, & Buss, 2010a; Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009). It has been suggested that, for men, the Dark Triad ‘‘reflects an evolutionarily stable solution to the adaptive problem of reproduction’’ (Jonason et al., 2009, p. 13; see also Paulhus & Williams, 2002).

I en recension av Meston och Buss oerhört intressanta bok kan vi läsa följande, som ytterligare betonar skillnader mellan kvinnor och män, och mellan olika typer av män:

Then I learn why women marry accountants; it’s a trade-off. “Clooneyish” men tend to be unfaithful, because men have a different genetic agenda from women – they want to impregnate lots of healthy women. Meston and Buss call them “risk-taking, womanising ‘bad boys'”. So, women might use sex to bag a less dazzling but more faithful mate. He will have fewer genetic benefits but more resource benefits that he will make available, because he will not run away.

Sammantaget är det troligt att vissa av dessa karaktärsdrag inte går att minska till fullo, och hos en del individer inte särskilt mycket alls. Med mer genusmedvetenhet kan dock fler bli varse om att alla tjänar på att behandla tjejer och kvinnor bättre och åtminstone inte ofreda dem sexuellt. Vi lever i en narcissistisk kultur, och narcissism och i viss mån även andra anknutna karaktärsdrag som machiavellism och psykopatism är fördelaktiga, och det finns därför inte incitament till att förändra sig när det gäller att bete sig svinigt (även om en viss andel killar och män själva kan förlora på att ha många olika partners i en del sammanhang). Vissa av de här sakerna har inte alls att göra med sexuellt ofredande men det är viktigt för att förstå andra intressanta saker av tillvaron och samhället.

Här kan du själv mäta din egen mörka triad.

5 life hacks that might help to do your best under the circumstances

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This text is an extension of this lengthier post, as well as this more brief one. It focuses on concrete life hacks that will get a person – males in particular – look better, feel better, and experience more valuable things in life. It is directed towards active persons who put demands on themselves. Rather than to try to live the perfect life it is more about to do the best under the individual circumstances. “I am I and my circumstance; and, if I do not save it, I do not save myself”, as the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset has asserted.

1. Consume protein
Regardless of place of sojourn or residence, go find youself some quality, mainly animal proteins. Proteins constitute the basis for a healthy, strong and athletic physique. This is not the same as to say that other (macro) nutrients are unimportant – each and everyone should strive for a balanced diet – but proteins are one’s priority, and vital.

In the Western world it is generally very easy to find proteins, whereas in other locations it is sometimes a bit trickier – quark and cottage cheese can be hard to find in for instance certain parts of Southeast Asia or Africa. But eggs, fish, beef and chicken can be found even in the most distant places. While travelling in emerging markets or far-off locations, I often pay extra for more fish and chicken, in order to cover the requirement, while eating less of foodstuffs such as bread, rice and sauce.

2. Get into shape while saving money for a trip
To travel and to experience trully interesting things ought to be a top priority, although not throughout one’s entire existence. While one saves money and plan for a trip, it is wise to focus on other siginificant things, not the least to come into decent shape.

Let’s face it: if you are going to visit Bali, or New York, or Paris, or some other interesting location, do you want to appear as a random and average tourist or be a top version of yourself (and if not for other reasons, then because it makes you feel better about yourself, and plus looks better in pictures)? 10 per cent of body fat or slightly lower is a good benchmark, regardless of degree of muscularity. Everything above is below one’s true potential.

3. Invest in fashion – not electronics
Besides from a very limited number of professional gamers and YouTube celebrities like PewDiePie – who make up much less than a per mille of the total global middle class – the consumption of electronics will not get you anywhere. It is mere distraction and pastime – at best more or less worthless and somewhat relaxing for those few who actually deserve a moment of numbness after a hard day of work. However, most don’t. The same goes for social media, TV series and films, although there are some particular products that should catch one’s attention. Selection is the key in this regard, both time- and money-wise.

Fashion on the other hand is, in conjuction with physical development and personal hygiene, worth to invest in to a reasonable extent. It makes you feel better about yourself and appear better in the eyes of most beholders. In a competitive society, it is sometimes good demeanor that is the key difference between loneliness or a good relationship, or at least a couple of temporary liaisons.

Just think about it: Who would a girl/woman rather hang out with (if we for the sake of the argument ignore other crucial factors such as personal chemistry): The well-dressed guy with 10% per cent of body fat, or the complacent sucker for social media and online games that is dressed in yesterday’s shirt? Hence, dress well, at least often. For inspiration, check out for instance Exo’s video just below.

4. If you withdraw from the city – do something constructive in the meantime
This conception will perhaps change in the future, but to live in the countryside or in a small town is just boring. The goal should be to live in a city of at least a reasonable size. However, sometimes one just have to stand a period of time of withdrawal from the urban landscape. It can even be a wise choice to do it deliberately, if the goal is to eventually move somewhere else, more akin to one’s individual taste. (Some prefer Uppsala more than New York.)

For instance, at the end of my master studies I resided in my parent’s big house for more than a year. They are just a normal middle-income household, but since they are fine with to live outside city areas, they have taken the opportunity to rent big and quite impressive buildings in the past. To rent a small mansion (herrgård or slottsflygel in Swedish) is actually good life hack if one prefers that kind of living. It is not very expensive but will get you a lot of space in return.

Instead of complaining too much, I grasped the situation and did what I thought was the best things to do: worked out 4-5 times a week, joined the local football team, read tons of books, and dated to the extent to which it was possible in that context. I also visited my friends in Norrköping and Stockholm quite frequently, so that I was not cut off from social life. Occasionally, I also invited people to the big house for dinners and parties. Overall, I think that this time was great in many ways.

Most importantly, I saved money so that I could travel parts of Europe, The U.S., and Southeast Asia. Another limited period of my life, I spent in a small town, working as a upper-secondary school teacher. Much like while living with my parents, I concentrated on work, meeting some new friends, training and saving disposable income, but always focused on the next step. Thanks to the savings I could afford to go to Iceland, Austria, Morocco and East Asia. That would probably have been much more difficult, although not impossible, if I had lived a more costly urban life.

5. Read at least one good book per month
To read relevant literature makes you smarter, more focused, and extend one’s inner universe beyond the limitations of computers, TV screens and smart phones. If you have more time and read relatively fast, it is reasonable to deal with more than a whole book per month. Sometimes one can read as much as two or three in a week. But overall, only one entire title per month is a decent aim in this respect.

And linked to the above concept: read before you travel and while you travel. For some it is the perfect, perhaps only opportunity to read. In conjunction with trips, there tend to be plenty of time to wait – at the airport, on the airplane, and while travelling with bus or train – and which makes it the best time to consume literature.

Personality and obesity

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As I have asserted in earlier posts, personality is partly genetic, partly malleable (let’s say 50/50 for the sake of simplicity). Hence, one cannot blame oneself for every negative outcome or behavior, but still to some extent a person can be changed – hopefully in the right direction.

For instance, a person can learn to be more extrovert, conscientious, agreeable and less neurotic; and a too agreeable person – someone who might be used by other people due to a complete lack of cynicism – can learn to be slightly more antagonistic and calculating.

Personality traits can often be linked to the so called Big Five personality factors: Openness, Conscientousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. In addition, there are of course other important characteristics such as the Dark Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy). However, in the current post I will only focus on the Big Five and their links to obesity, or adiposity.

As substantial research indicates, personality traits are related to people’s tendency to gain weight. The research article “Personality and Obesity across the Adult Lifespan” (2011) stresses the significance of personality traits for obesity:

Societal shifts in food quality, quantity, and availability are certainly major contributors to this recent increase in obesity. Yet, many other factors are also implicated in weight control. In particular, personality traits are consistently associated with the controllable behaviors that lead to obesity (Provencher et al., 2008) and personality has an effect on adiposity even after controlling for known demographic and genetic influences (Terracciano et al., 2009). Most studies of personality and weight have been cross-sectional; long-term longitudinal studies are needed to test how personality is associated with weight change across the adult lifespan.

The authors also emphasize the importance of avoiding obesity for a variety of reasons – health, individual well-being, as well as economic and social status:

Body weight is a fundamental individual difference variable that has a pervasive effect on nearly every aspect of our lives. Although most commonly implicated in physical health, adiposity contributes to a variety of psychological processes, such as well-being, identity formation, and person perception. Overweight individuals are prone to depression (Luppino et al., 2010), have poor body image (Schwartz & Brownell, 2004), are evaluated negatively by others (Crandall, 1994), and are ascribed traits based on their body size (Roehling, Roehling, & Odland, 2008). In fact, just being associated with someone who is overweight can lead to negative evaluations (Hebl & Mannix, 2003). As such, body weight contributes to how we understand ourselves, how we see others, and how others see us.

As far as earlier studies indicate, Conscientiousness is the most consistently related to overweight of the Big Five. More conscientious people are less likely to be obese and the other way around. This has got to do with one of its corresponding main characteristics, self-discipline:

The traits within the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, have been linked to health behaviors and outcomes in general (Friedman, 2008; Goodwin & Friedman, 2006; Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006) and to abnormal weight in particular (Brummett et al., 2006; Chapman, Fiscella, Duberstein, Coletta, & Kawachi, 2009; Terracciano et al., 2009). Of the five traits, Conscientiousness is the most consistently associated with adiposity. Across different personality measures, populations, and both self-reported and clinician-assessed weight, conscientious individuals have lower adiposity (Brummett et al., 2006; Chapman et al., 2009; Roehling et al., 2008; Sullivan, Cloninger, Przybeck, & Klein, 2007; Terracciano et al., 2009). In particular, the order and self-discipline facets of Conscientiousness are strongly associated with weight (Terracciano et al., 2009). Presumably, those who score higher on Order and Self-Discipline are leaner because they are organized and stick to their diet and meal schedule. The lifestyle choices of individuals high in Conscientiousness likely contribute to their healthy weight. These individuals, for example, are physically active (Rhodes & Smith, 2006), restrain from binge eating and drinking (Rush et al., 2009), and are less likely to have disordered eating (Bogg & Roberts, 2004).

Another important notion is that weight is not static – it is misguided to put oneself into everlasting categories. The important thing is to change the ‘eventual fact’ that one has to gain fat weight over time in one’s life span:

For most people, weight is not static, but fluctuates over time. As individuals age, their metabolic needs decrease, but their energy intake typically remains constant or increases (Bosy-Westphal et al., 2003; Elia, Ritz, & Stubbs, 2000). As a result, until old age, adults tend to gradually gain weight as they age. Similar to weight at any one given point in time, there are considerable individual differences in the extent to which BMI fluctuates across the lifespan.

The general conclusion:

Neuroticism and Conscientiousness are both associated with the health-risk behaviors that contribute to abnormal weight. Individuals high in Neuroticism and low in Conscientiousness are more likely to smoke (Terracciano & Costa, 2004), abuse drugs (Terracciano, Löckenhoff, Crum, Bienvenu, & Costa, 2008), be physically inactive (Rhodes & Smith, 2006), and binge eat and drink (Rush et al., 2009). Consistent with these more recent studies, a meta-analysis found that Conscientiousness correlated negatively with health behaviors that are among the leading behavioral contributors to mortality, including disordered eating, physical inactivity, alcohol and drug use, and smoking (Bogg & Roberts, 2004). Individuals high in Neuroticism, in addition to their other health-risk behaviors, tend to be overly concerned with their shape and weight and, despite their attempts at restraint, tend to lose control over their food intake (Provencher et al., 2008). One outcome of these maladaptive cognitive and behavioral patterns is difficulty with weight regulation.

So if someone has a problem with binge eating, obesity and/or fast fat weight gains, it may important to try to be less neurotic (easier said than done for many who suffer from depression or anxiety disorders) and more conscientious. Perhaps a well-planned and consistent diet schedule with the aim to lose weight over time may be a very wise investment – and even to help save money in the long run.

The Prince – quote

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A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designating to hit the mark which appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take him much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able to with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach.
– Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince