In 1977, John Paul Young released, “Love is in the Air”, his only worldwide hit. This could easily be the theme song for Valentine’s Day and the month of February.
Love is in the air everywhere I look around
Love is in the air every sight and every sound
And I don’t know if I’m being foolish, don’t know if I’m being wise
But it’s something that I must believe in, and it’s there when I look in your eyes.
Fifty Shades of Grey sold 100 million copies worldwide, mainly to women, of all different ages, cultures and backgrounds. The book was so popular that Hollywood made a movie out of it. What was the enormous appeal?
The makers of Fifty Shades of Grey call it a fairy tale. We can safely say it meets the criteria of a fairytale, albeit a very adult one, in all its nuances. Fairy tales commonly involve fantastic forces or beings. Christian Grey is definitely “fantastic.” The stories have improbable events that lead to a happy ending. In Fifty Shades, Ana receives the attention and adoration of the most eligible bachelor of the day. Finally, fairy tales are seen as made-up stories designed to mislead their audiences. Fifty Shades of Grey can lead the reader or viewer into dangerous misconceptions of how life can be.
In the early 1900’s Freud and his colleagues were developing new and radical ideas about the psychological makeup of humans. It may not seem so today, but their ideas on love were on target.
They theorized what we believe about love is based on our early experience with our main caretakers. Freud and his colleagues said these early events determine, on an unconscious level, what we experience as love.
OH, NO! The groundhog saw his shadow, and there will be six more weeks of bad weather. This is just awful. How am I going to survive? I am so sick of this weather, the rain, the overcast days and the cold. I just hate the cold. I don’t want to go out of my house. I don’t even want to leave long enough to do something fun, much less something like exercise. This is such bad news.
How many ways can we distract ourselves? There is a plethora of ways. Are all our distractions a waste of time? No. In fact, some of the most engaging ways to distract ourselves are useful and at times, important. Distraction can be a way to fill time, enable us to zone out and not think about or be aware of time passing.
Being distracted plays an important role in many people’s lives. The purpose of distraction varies according to one’s needs at any moment. I call the many ways of distracting ourselves the good, the bad and the ugly.