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Judge People Everywhere. Even In A Supermarket


debrand

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This article was about how searching for happiness is making Americans miserable. There is a lot that I disagree with but this quote actually both stunned me and make me laugh. It is an example of someone looking for proof of their own beliefs.

“The Pursuit of Emptiness,†John Perry Barlow observes: “Of my legion friends and acquaintances who have become citizens of Prozac Nation, I have never heard any of them claim that these drugs bring them any closer to actual happiness. Rather, they murmur with listless gratitude, anti-depressants have pulled them back from The Abyss. They are not pursuing happiness. They are fleeing suicide.†Barlow reports on an experiment in looking for smiles on the faces of people in the “upscale organic supermarket†in San Francisco in which he regularly shops. In eleven months, seeing thousands of faces, “nearly all of them healthy, beautiful, and very expensively groomed,†he counted seven smiles, three of which he judged insincere. Instead, in supermarkets and elsewhere, he sees a characteristic “expression of troubled self-absorption [which] has become a nearly universal mask.†Trying to find happiness on our own terms, rather than on the terms our Creator has built into our nature, is an exhausting and disappointing undertaking.

My face does not naturally smile. That doesn't mean that I am not happy or at peace. In fact, a rather blank look is probably proof that I am at ease, neither happy nor sad. It is strange that this person went to a supermarket and decided that he could tell who was happy or not. And those people who did smile, he decided were insincere. To be honest, I would be more afraid of someone who walked around constantly smiling than a person who looks absorbed in their own life.

As far his comments on prozac, it is telling that he uses adjectives like listless to describe his friends' gratitude. That shows that he has decided that such medication is wrong and is attributing emotions to his friends that they might not actually feel.

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I'm not a natural smiler.

Frankly I'm disappointed in JPB and his opinion expressed in the article. This is a man who has always advocated for better living through chemistry and now he is down on prozac. I'm thinking he's a bit conflicted, but I'm not going to make excuses for his opinions. I think he is way off base in this article.

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This article was about how searching for happiness is making Americans miserable. There is a lot that I disagree with but this quote actually both stunned me and make me laugh. It is an example of someone looking for proof of their own beliefs.

My face does not naturally smile. That doesn't mean that I am not happy or at peace. In fact, a rather blank look is probably proof that I am at ease, neither happy nor sad. It is strange that this person went to a supermarket and decided that he could tell who was happy or not. And those people who did smile, he decided were insincere. To be honest, I would be more afraid of someone who walked around constantly smiling than a person who looks absorbed in their own life.

As far his comments on prozac, it is telling that he uses adjectives like listless to describe his friends' gratitude. That shows that he has decided that such medication is wrong and is attributing emotions to his friends that they might not actually feel.

Maybe the people he saw in the upscale organic supermarket just don't enjoy grocery shopping. I don't mind grocery shopping and still, I've never found much to smile about in Whole Foods.

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Yeah I know, how horrible.

It's not good enough to flee suicide doncha know, you have to pursue happiness and if you don't he gets to judge you!

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I judge people. Mostly based on their clothing choices. I firmly believe that "house shoes" aka slippers should not be worn out of the house, and I will judge harshly those who do venture out in public with them on.

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What does an "expression of troubled self-absorption" even look like?

And "fleeing suicide" is now a bad thing? I thought that was supposed to be one of the goals of antidepressants, to help people who are suicidal.

And I would wager to guess that 99% of all Americans find grocery shopping boring. If he wants to truly judge whether people are happy maybe he should hang out and unfairly judge people. . . I mean, conduct his research, in a place that people actually enjoy going to.

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I judge people. Mostly based on their clothing choices. I firmly believe that "house shoes" aka slippers should not be worn out of the house, and I will judge harshly those who do venture out in public with them on.

How about Spongebob Squarepants fuzzy pajama bottoms on a grown woman at the mall? As far as the frowning at the grocery store - has he ever shopped for groceries? Especially with children? And at the prices you find at most organic supermarkets? Yeah, I'd be frowning too.

And I don't naturally smile either. Sometimes people will say, "Cheer up." when I'm not unhappy. After that I'm rather irritated, though.

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How about Spongebob Squarepants fuzzy pajama bottoms on a grown woman at the mall? As far as the frowning at the grocery store - has he ever shopped for groceries? Especially with children? And at the prices you find at most organic supermarkets? Yeah, I'd be frowning too.

And I don't naturally smile either. Sometimes people will say, "Cheer up." when I'm not unhappy. After that I'm rather irritated, though.

When I was younger, I had a couple of men tell me that I would look so much prettier if I would smile. What? Why should I go around with a fake smile plastered on my face? And why would they feel entitled to make an unasked for comment on a stranger's appearance?

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That sort of bullshit is what kept my husband from getting help he needed and ended w/a stay in the psych ward and his business folding instead of the evils of prozac (actually, not prozac, it's not one that works well for him, but one of it's sibling drugs) letting him move on with life.

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I must have a weird face. People assume I'm unhappy even when I'm content and/or just lost in thought (I often get "Cheer up" or "Smile" or "It'll get better" lectures from strangers while in the grocery store or on elevators) I don't know about anyone else but I usually don't go shopping for social interaction, so I don't see the problem with people being self-absorbed in the stores.

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Um, if I'm grocery shopping by myself, I may smile at someone else, but I generally don't walk around smiling like a fool. I smiled outside a Whole Foods recently because I was talking with a woman who had a hurt back after I brought her a cart, and we were comparing our war stories. But once I was inside, debating the merits of $11.99/lb pasta salad? Not so much.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. I'm someone with a naturally higher-than-average happiness baseline, and I'm normally quite happy unless there's something going on in my life to make me specifically unhappy. But still, $11.99/lb for pasta salad doesn't give anyone the giggles.

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How many people walk around grinning madly while doing a chore? I think I am more worried about the people who *were* smiling in his little study!

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Ugh..I get the "smile" comments too! It's so annoying! Unless I am actively interacting with someone why do I need to smile? I got it a lot when I was waitressing and walking around clearing off tables..customers would randomly tell me to smile. I'm not going to walk around with a permagrin. When I would walk up and greet a table I would certainly smile, but not while walking around minding my own business.

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I'm not a natural smiler.

Frankly I'm disappointed in JPB and his opinion expressed in the article. This is a man who has always advocated for better living through chemistry and now he is down on prozac. I'm thinking he's a bit conflicted, but I'm not going to make excuses for his opinions. I think he is way off base in this article.

I'm not a natural smiler either. And that was before Lexapro, and since.

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I don't think anyone just goes around with a smile plastered on their face. And if I did see someone just smiling inanely at nothing I would carefully and quietly back away.

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The last person I saw grocery shopping with a huge smile on her face came up to me and my kids, asked if we knew the Lord, and then proceeded to do a hurky-jerky chicken dance right there in front of everyone. I was the hell out of there with my kids.

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I have always loathed the "Hey Smile!" brigade. I do not have a naturally smiley countenance, and if I am concentrating/thinking, I can look downright peeved. My resting face has a turned down look at the mouth, and it is a large mouth (Yes, I know), so it does take up a lot of facial real estate. I also have a tendency to walk with purpose, and be very focused, which adds to the "Angri-la is a bitch on heel" mystique.

But this has been a whole life thing: Sister Anella, in 3rd grade told my mother I glared at her all day long in math class. My report card is perfect except for "deportment", as I did not sit with a glazed over smile through class. I was learning!

Who walks around the grocery with a big old smile on their face? Whole Foods is expensive, and I am usually thinking "I should have gone to ________ <-insert cheaper store there, as this single potato is more expensive than a 10# bag!"

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I lost count of the number of people who have asked me "what's wrong?" when it wasn't warranted. In fact I can only think of one such instance where it was even understandable that they would think I was unhappy (really bad allergies = really watery eyes = me looking like I was crying). I don't think I look sad with my natural facial expression, but I don't smile meaninglessly either. I just don't smile when I am not entertained by something. Seriously, I'm guessing most people don't either.

I do sometimes smile because I tell me self a joke or come up with a funny situation in my head, though. In which case people have to ask me why I'm grinning (only people that know me though, since they know it wont happen for no reason). Frankly I don't want to be happy enough to smile all the time! Then it becomes a neutral state and it gets harder to be genuinely happy.

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I judge people. Mostly based on their clothing choices. I firmly believe that "house shoes" aka slippers should not be worn out of the house, and I will judge harshly those who do venture out in public with them on.

I feel the same way about pajamas!

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Seriously, I walk around supermarkets thinking, "Where the hell do they store [insert rarely used ingredient here]?" and "Why is cheese so expensive?" and "Ugh, why does no one carry chipotles in adobo?" Of course I look troubled and self-absorbed. The only times I smile are when I get in the check-out line behind someone with a baby, but even then sometimes I feel too weird about making faces at a stranger's baby.

Also, how did he judge the faces as "beautiful" vs "not-beautiful"? Could I get a breakdown of whether the smilers were beautiful or not, or was he afraid the data weren't statistically significant? How does he know he saw "thousands" of faces--I would have guessed only like, one thousand, if not in the hundreds, of people encountered at the upscale organic food store in a year--but maybe that's just because the ones I've gone to were cramped. Did he count each face separately, or did he account for seeing someone more than once--which is likely if you shop at around the same time every week. Speaking of which, what if people shopping at around his shopping time are troubled and self-absorbed, but people shopping at a different time are giddy? I would imagine, for instance, that the five o'clock weekday crowd would be different from the Saturday afternoon crowd. Did you have to show teeth to be counted as a smile or could you just have upturned mouth? OK, I think I'm taking this too seriously.

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I judge people. Mostly based on their clothing choices. I firmly believe that "house shoes" aka slippers should not be worn out of the house, and I will judge harshly those who do venture out in public with them on.

Heck, yeah! There's a whole website devoted to judging people based on their clothing choices. (peopleofwalmart.com) but I don't know if anyone has tried to determine whether those people are happy or self-absorbed.

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