E.Bernays, Bulimic society and celebrity culture

   Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Frued, son to his sister Anna Freud. He used his uncle's theories of the subconscious mind in the world of business to make money. In his day, the mass media presented products based purely on their practical advantages, so that a car, for example, would be presented on grounds of its speed, useful life and materials. Rather, Bernays found that by linking the product to one of the innate desires of the subconscious, like power and liberty. Thus, it is common today to see cars being promoted as pathways toward these ideas. The first trial Bernays conducted was with a sale of cigarettes: at the time there was a taboo against women smoking, and the owner of a cigarette company, George Hill, asked him to solve this, as that would increase his sales. Bernays took advantage of the feminist movements, and in one propaganda for Hill's cigarettes, where he got female actors to smoke, he presented the product as torches of freedom. Thus, the cigarettes were made into a symbol of the fight against male oppression, and sales of them, specially the brand featured in the propaganda, shot up. More strategies to appeal to the subconscious mind include emitting a sense of urgency (This product is exclusive and can't be bought anywhere else after the following 15 seconds!) and social conformity (Everyone is buying this product. What are you waiting for?).

   I think we can all agree, even smokers out there, that cigarettes are not necessary, however much desirable a person might find them, and it is exactly this on which the paradigm of consumerism is based: people must want to buy things even when they don't need them. Bernays' approach is the best profitability-wise, but it requires a culture of desire, and this leads to what Young calls social bulimia (see Bulimic society, 07/06/2020). In this culture of desire, there is a hierarchy where the highest and more valued are those who consume more and more expensive products, especially if they share these products and experiences on social media – show yourself to be someone. With the introduction of Neo-liberalism, the free market economy (offer and demand), Fordism, the mass production of standardised goods, becomes Post-Fordism, which is the production of personalised goods for niche, specialised markets. Thus, for example, there are now many brands of clothing for all tastes and styles, while not long ago the options would have been limited. Moreover, businesses were able to use to their advantage something that had been created relatively recently: celebrity culture. Celebrities, defined simply as someone who is widely known, have always existed – you can even think of Achilles and Agamemnon, in the XIII - XII century BC – but the mass media, by focusing heavily on famous people, have created a culture of celebrity worship. In his book the Science of Celebrity – Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?, T. Caulfield presents various studies where primary school children report that their primary life goal is being famous – they don't even note how, as in rock star or actor, just being famous, and this is rated even over being rich. A para-social relationship is one where one of the parties involved invests tremendous amounts of effort on the other, but the other knows little to nothing about them. For example, a person might claim that they have an intimate romantic relationship with their favourite singer, but they have only communicated with them via Twitter (social media messaging creates the illusion that there is contact). However extreme this might be, the tendency to follow well-known people is a human thing. It has been speculated that it stems from tribal structures, where the leader, who got his position through being noted as the best hunter, is to be imitated so that others too become better hunters. Businesses use this to their advantage: adverts that feature celebrities using new products highly increase their consumption by the general public, because they want to feel similar to that celebrity, as this gives them the feeling that they too are successful. However, Caulfield notes, even the idea of success is an illusion: people think that being a movie star is the highlife, but in fact Hollywood actors are subject to tremendous pressure to remain fit, thin and attractive and, for women, their career tends to be over by the time they are 40.

   Thus, Bernays created, using psychoanalytical theory, the system of propaganda that would lead to the consumerist and bulimic society, where the economy is maintained by making people want things they don't need and, in truth, are not as desirable as painted. However, as it seems, if people didn't consume so much, businesses would go bankrupt and the economy would crush, as this is no simple question.

   Thank you for reading, if you found it interesting share it with you friends and family. To investigate further ron the topic, I would recommend Timothy Caulfield's book the Science of Celebrity – Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?, and the documentaries the Century of the Self and Starsuckers Documentary, both available on YouTube.

Review on the Gift by Marcel Mauss

   This week I've finished reading the book the Gift by Marcel Mauss, who seems to have worked with Durkheim, a sociologist whom we've spoken of before in this blog (look at: Definitions of Religion, 04/05/2020, and Changes Brought by Industrialisation, 15/06/2020). The book looks into the institution of gift giving, primarily in indigenous cultures of North West America, Alaska and Siberia and Melanesia, an archipelago near Australia, but it further comments on how these practices are still vacant today (by today he means the 1920s and 30s). I must say that I enjoyed this book and found many of its concepts fascinating, so if you decide to read it, I hope it will have the same effect.

   Mauss focuses on the obligations to give and to receive, which, he explains, are masked selfless generosity. For example, in the Hindu tradition, of which, due to the limited availability of sources, only the culture of the cast of the Brahmins is commented, he explains that objects are seen to have in their nature the tendency to be shared, so that if someone keeps food, for example, for themselves, s/he "kills its essence for others and for himself", and this, following a doctrine of magic, can lead to death. Similarly, in a myth of the Melanesians, in one tribe a princess gives birth to an otter who makes them rich in food (as he is a better hunter than any human), and they invite all surrounding tribes, except one which they forget about, to taste their food. This sharing of their riches gives them immense status, but the tribe which has not been invited kills the otter and assaults the village. Indeed, Mauss notes that refusing to give or refusing to receive is equivalent to a declaration of war, because gift exchange reinforces commercial links and alliances between tribes. In most cultures, there is an idea of debt, where every gift had to be reciprocated with interest, and this was frequently accompanied by magic: for example, the Trobriands have the concept of hau, which is the spirit of the thing given that is always attached to the primary owner. It works thus: I give a gift to my neighbour, and thus he is burdened with the hau of the object; then my neighbour gives my gift to his cousin, and she, burdened with my neighbour's hau, reciprocates this gift. Now that my neighbour has been paid back, he can't keep the gift because he is still burdened with my gift's hau, so he must give it over to me. In this way, Mauss notes, many Germanic languages use the same word for gift than for poison. This institution of gifting and reciprocating he calls system of total prestation.

   In Melanesia, the author describes an economy of gifts where vaygu'a, which he describes as types of money or standardised trading goods, circulate the islands. There are two types of vaygu'a: the mwali are armshells, and they are crafted in the islands of the west and are gifted from tribe to tribe toward the east; the soulava are necklaces, and their motion has the opposite direction. These exchanges happen in intertribal meetings called kula, in which, each year, there is a host tribe in whose village all tribes congregate. The host tribe will be the giver of gifts, but the next year, when it is invited by the next hosting tribe, it will receive reciprocation with interest. Mauss notes how there is a sense of legitimacy of contract within the public exchange: since there is no writing, he says, a contract can only be validated by making it public. In this way, any tribe could negate that they had received a gift from another tribe and not reciprocate, but by having other witnesses in theory unbiased they ensure this doesn't happen. The North American peoples have an institution similar to the kula called potlatch, and he stresses the obligation to accept gifts in relation to status; a clan who does not want to accept a gift is seen as being afraid to having to reciprocate and thus losses status and power within the tribe. In a similar way, when one fives a gift away, one must give the impression that one does not wisher care to have it reciprocated, even though it is known by all members that it must. Mauss explains that this custom is still vacant today (first publication of the book in 1923). In my experience, in XXI century Europe it is no longer an important thing, probably due, I speculate, to anomie (see last post: 15/06/2020), but I have evidence that it was for my own grand- and great grandparents: the other day, commenting the book to my grandmother, she recalled her mother say "why are they [other people in town] giving me gifts? Like I have enough [money and resources] to give any back!" Although not taken with pleasure, this view proves that there was until then an obligation to reciprocate. Moreover, I myself experienced the obligation to accept: when I was a child, my other grandma gifted me, out of the blue, a black jacket with purple straps; it was the ugliest jacket you could imagine, and I believe it had belonged to an older cousin, so I, a naïve kid unknowledgeable of cultural customs, rejected it. "One never rejects a gift", my grandma said. Similarly, there is a traditional saying in Spanish, which further illustrates this point: a caballo regalado no le mires la dentadura – "don't check the teeth of a gifted horse".

   Thanks for reading, if you liked it share it with friends and family, and tell me in the comments any personal anecdote where you experienced the system of total prestation.

Changes brought by industrialisation

   In preindustrial Europe, the Catholic Church had the monopoly of truth – it was the only powerful source of truth and therefore its claims went unchallenged. It believed in what Weber calls the Enchanted Garden, where everything that happens in the world is the result of God's will and action. This monopoly, argues Durkheim, helped establish an absolute moral and ethical* law based on divine command, and people were effectively socialised into shared norms and values, a dominant culture. He calls this social solidarity, where we can function finely in community because we all hold the same values. This was reflected on the form of punishment: retribution was the norm, because, when there was an offence, the entire community was offended, which led to public hysteria and corporal punishment as a sort of vengeance. Parsons argues that the orientation of people was communal, meaning that they put the needs of the group before their own. From this, we get phenomena such as punishing a relative for staining the name of the family. In this extended rural family*, they had ascribed status, meaning that the position in which you were born (e.g. primogeniture, or first born male descendent) was the position in which you most likely would die. Their rural lifestyle meant also that they were a unit of production which cultivated its own nutrients and grew its own animals for food and clothing etc. Parsons also notes that in preindustrial society people had immediate gratification, that they preferred to obtain now a minor good than work for a future greater good, diffuseness, that relations were wide and multi-teleological (with many purposes), and particularism, were each individual was judged by people not on a standardised criteria but on personal whim – for example, you would employ someone in your farm only because they or someone in their family are your friend.

* Ethics vs Morality: morality refers simply to the distinction between good and evil, while ethics is about how we should live our lives. Thus, the Catholic Church, having monopoly over the view of morality, was able to impose an absolutist ethical doctrine.
*Extended family: a family unit with three generations. Children + Parents + Grandparents

   Nevertheless, Weber argues that with the Protestant Revolution in the 1500s starts the process of rationalisation. Calvinism, a branch of Protestantism, introduced this-worldly asceticism and the idea that God favours the hardworking. The former doctrine argues that one should not seek luxuries and rather live a life of modesty and contemplation, and thus people, who wanted to be saved after their death, began businesses like sales of crops but did not invest their gainings on luxuries, reinventing them on their business. Thus, they grew richer and richer, and this, eventually, led to industrialisation. In this process large cities gain power because work becomes centred in factories. Parsons, in his theory of the functional fit, argues that it is this that gave origin to the nuclear family (two parents and their children). In rural communities families were extended, but when they had to move to cities grandparents had to be left behind because the voyage had to be done by foot and their health wasn't sufficient for such endeavour.

   Now, in large cities under these circumstances, people became isolated because they encountered new communities and in any case they were made to inhabit small apartments in buildings. Thus, he argues, the communal orientation begins to fade and give place to self-orientation or individualism, meaning they have more freedom of choice. In factories workers were alienated from their work, that whatever they produced they didn't own or have any rights upon, and rather had to buy it if they wanted it. Thus the family ceases to be a unit of production and becomes a unit of consumption, beneficial for the capitalist dynamic. Moreover, relations cease to be diffuse to become specific, meaning that each relation has a single purpose, for example boss – employee, shopkeeper – customer. Isolation from the community also results in the abandoning of particularism to adopt universalism, in which people are treated (at least in theory) according to standardised criteria. In this way, any person has the same chances of being employed by any employer who only judges them for their ability, and not their family. Both in the family and in the workplace, social mobility, the ability to climb up the social hierarchy, increases, so that status ceases to be ascribed and become achieved. In this way, people get used to working toward goals, and immediate gratification becomes deterred gratification. Additionally, the family looses most of its functions: rural extended families were responsible for nurture, education, health, employment etc, but, through the process of structural differentiation, where the emerging institutions (schools, hospitals, etc) absorbe these functions.

   Durkheim notes that since so many cultures are mixed in one place, social solidarity is weakened, leading to a state of anomie in which moral standards are unclear. He blames this on the breakdown of the family and on the excess of hope: propaganda aiming to attract workers form rural areas exaggerated social mobility, and thus people arrived in cities with much too high and unrealistic expectations. Furthermore, multiculturalism removed the Church's monopoly of truth, because many cultures and worldviews met. Thus, the ethical and moral code imposed by the Church also loses credibility and is abandoned by many – atheism begins to grow in society. With no shared God that dictates to all members of society how to behave, argues Durkheim, people fail to be socialised so rigidly into social solidarity. All these factors lead to anomie. This had effects on the type of punishment: when there is an offence, there no longer is public hysteria, and thus retribution no longer works; moreover, the effect on which retribution bases its functioning for deterring re-offending, namely shame, also looses power, because due to higher geographical mobility the offender can simply move some place else where s/he is not known; rather, the punishment now practiced is restitution, where efforts are made to reintegrate the offender into society so s/he can make a living within the law.

   I hope you found this useful. If so, please share with friends and family, and don't hesitate to leave a comment!

Bulimic society

   In his Vertigo of Late Modernity, Jock Young proposes that today's society is bulimic, unhealthily consumerist. It has two important consequences: one for crime and the other for nature. In a bulimic society, the mass media bombards us with the idea that to be someone or to be part of society, you have to constantly consume products and experiences and , most importantly, share them on social media. Thus a new hierarchy is born, where those who consume more, or have more, and with more frequency, are higher and more 'important'.

   This society is culturally inclusive but structurally exclusive. It's being culturally inclusive means that all people are welcomed into the norms and values that it holds, that all people come to value consumerism and present consumerist conducts. In sociology, whenever you see the word structural you can be pretty confident that it has to do with social class, and a structurally exclusive society is no exception. What it means is that although everyone is given these bulimic values, the lower classes are excluded from the possibility to satiate them, because they are socially marginalised, and if they don't abbey to the norms of consumption, they are not in the community. This causes relative deprivation, which means that they feel, in comparison to others, that they lack something important. Thus, they will come together with other working class people and form subcultures (a group of people that hold norms and values different from those of the mainstream society). Cloward & Ohlin argue that there are different types of deviant subcultures. Conflict gangs commit non-utilitarian crime - crime that doesn't provide financial benefit, which may include 'turf wars', where they fight other gangs for territory - and criminal gangs commit utilitarian crime. Moreover, A. Cohen would argue that some may too invert these values, so that their status frustration* is able to be satiated through deviant activities valued within the subculture. For example, a conflict gang may value edge-work and thus its members will climb up their own hierarchy by graffitiing a wall, rather than unsuccessfully try to climb the bulimic hierarchy by getting the last model of Nikes. However, Young notes that the w/c, being the most structurally excluded, are the most bulimic and will spend lot's of time, money and effort in trying to appear wealthier than they are in order to seem higher in the social hierarchy. Thus, a bulimic society causes crime because it subjects people to strain.

   Merton argues that strain, which he defines as the tension between that which one desires and ethical and moral limitations, causes anomie, which a state of ambiguity where these limitations become unclear - or perhaps they are abandoned. Bauman adds that in such conditions, and in an individualistic society, we are left alone to make our decisions on our conduct, and these will be based on our own personal desires. All this leads to anthropocentric values, where we see humans as the centre of the universe and are keen to trample nature for our benefit. In Neo-liberalism, the free-market economy, more demand means more production. Bulimia and anthropocentric values lead to over consumption, where people buy things they don't need only to show others that they can consume it. As we saw in the post on the Theories of Today's society (25/05/2020), Goffman argues that, through the image that we show others, we get the sense of being that which we want to be. In an era of disembedding (Giddens, same post), of liquid identity (Bauman), we must constantly reassure ourselves that we are this illusion, even if it is by creating an avatar of ourselves. Large corporations, who provide us with the products necessary to satiate our social bulimia, will over-produce their products, and consequently they will deforest, pollute and exploit nature and workers ever more. Thus, the tension we experience from the sickly hunger for goods and the pressure put on us by the media causes that we become blind to the damage it causes, and this perpetuates harm against nature.

* A. Cohen's concept of status frustration comes from a theory on education, arguing that w/c children, lacking cultural capital, aren't able to gain status from their teachers (More on this in future posts)

How does stress affect my body?

   Stressful situations activate the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), also known as SNS. Stress activates the fight or flight response, thus making you more able to combat the stressor, but if the situation is stretched for long periods of time, it can have negative effects on the health, including ulcers and a weakened immune system. Let's have a closer look at what this means and how it happens.

Index:
- Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), SAM and HPA
- General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
- Stress on heath
- Stress through life changes
- Daily hassles
- Evaluation of the studies


AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM (ANS), SAM  and HPA
   The ANS is a part of the Nervous System which serve the task of controlling involuntary actions, such as the functioning of organs. It is subdivided into the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems (SNS and PsNS). The SNS is involved in the fight or flight response, which prepares the organism for a reaction to a danger, be it by fighting it or escaping from it (i.e. running), and when this is over, the PsNS will make everything go back to normal.

   SAM is the sympathomedullary pathway, and it is the response to immediate stressors. When a danger is detected by the senses, the SNS (S) alerts the adrenal medulla (M) through signals sent via the Central Nervous System (CNS) - which consists of the brain and the spinal-chord. The adrenal medulla is the middle part of the adrenal gland, located just above the kidneys, and in response to this signal it will secrete adrenaline and noradrenaline (A). These hormones will travel through the bloodstream, stimulating specific organs. For example, the heart will beat faster to pump more blood, respiration will accelerate in order to have more oxygen in the blood, and blood pressure increases so that muscles get more energy that readies them to respond to a threat.

SNS > CNS > adrenal medulla > adrenaline and noradrenaline > fight or flight

   The HPA is the response that the body has for long term or ongoing stressors, and it stands for hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal axis. Like the SAM, it begins activating the SNS, specifically the hypothalamus (H), which is located in the brain, close to the amygdalas. The hypothalamus secretes corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH), which travels to the pituitary gland (P), also known as the mother gland of the endocrine system*, and stimulates it to produce adrenocorticotrophin hormone (ACTH). The ACTH hormone will travel through the bloodstream and stimulate the adrenal cortex (A), which will release various stress related hormones, including cortisol, which, if out in the brain for too long, can literally shrink its size.

Hypothalamus > CRH > pituitary gland > ACTH > adrenal cortex > stress-related hormones

*Endocrine system: the system formed by all the glans in the body. The hypothalamus is the sensory register that connects it to the real world, and the pituitary gland is called its mother gland because from it the instructions of the hypothalamus are communicated to all other glands.

GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME (GAS)

   The Hungarian researcher Hans Selye was the proposer of this model. It is divided into three stages:

Stage 1 is where the hypothalamus detects the danger and the SNS is activated. This leads to Stage 2, in which the body will be in the fight or flight response. Here the adrenal gland is secreting adrenaline and noradrenaline to provide energy to the muscles. However, it is when the stressor elongates for long periods that we enter Stage 3. Throughout Stage 2, the organism has adapted to the environment, meaning that, in the knowledge that some kind of danger is imminent, the adrenal gland perpetually secretes stress-related hormones, to maintain the body in a stable state of readiness. However, to do this it needs of resources - sugars, proteins, neurotransmitters, hormones - and when these run out, the individual will again experience the initial symptoms of stress, including dizziness, exhaustion, sweating. Selye proposes that further damage to the health is caused by damage to the adrenal gland, which is now like an old car engine: overused and exhausted. However, Sheridan & Radmacher found that the body does not at any point run out of resources (given diet is maintained steadily), but in Stage 3 the adrenal gland begins to work faster and it is this overuse of it that causes harm, including ulcers or psychological issues such as depression.

STRESS ON HEALTH
   Kiecolt-Glaser found that ongoing stress has a negative effect on the immune system. Natural Killer cells (NKs) are a type of white blood cells that detect and destroy antigens such as viruses. In her study of 1984 (Kiecolt-Glaser et al), she took a sample of 75 medical students, and took two blood samples: one a month before their exams (low stress) and one during their exam period (high ongoing stress). She also had them complete a Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)* to measure their general levels of stress and a loneliness scale to assess their social circles. They found that for all student, there were less NKs in the second blood sample, and the effect was worse for those who had scored high in the SRRS and the loneliness scale. This suggests that there is a correlation between life change, healthy relationships and ongoing stressors with the immune system.

*The SRRS is a scale that lists a series of events that would change significantly a person's life, such as the death of a spouse or close relative, or being fired from work. Each event has a life change unit (LCU) attached to it. These are like points. Death of a relative gives 100 LCUs, while being fired from work gives 47. It is completed for an agreed time period, for example for events within the last three months.

   Furthermore, Williams et al (2000) investigated the effects of anger of cardiovascular health. Like stress, anger activates the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS). In their study they had 13 000 complete an anger scale, asking them to describe how they acted when angry - the questions explored whether the person got annoyed when not given recognition for some accomplishment, or whether they had violent thoughts when they were angry. Six years later, they found that 256 out of the 13 000 people had had heart attacks, and there was an important positive correlation between score in the anger scale and likelihood to be in this group. People who scored high were up to 2'5 time more likely to suffer a heart attack.

LIFE CHANGE
   Rahe & Kanner et al conducted a study on US Navy officials with a variant of the SRRS called Schedule of Recent Events (SRE). In this questionnaire they were asked to self-report about their life for the past two years (the SRE was adapted to be relevant for their profession). This was done just before they boarded on a trip for 8 months overseas, and during this time each was monitored on how many times they attended the sick bay and how severe their illness was. They found that frequency of visits and severity of illness was positively correlated to SRE score. The SRE includes not only negative events, such as the explained above in the SRRS* section, but also positive ones like Christmas. This suggests that stress is not only caused by negative things, but can stem from the simple change of lifestyle. For example, a parent will get stress from having to find time to buy Christmas presents for his or her children. This is due to what they called psychic energy, which is extra mental and emotional effort.

DAILY HASSLES
   These are minor stressors in everyday life, like traffic on your way to work, but evidence suggests that daily hassles actually more impact on levels of stress than major life changes. Kanner and Lazarus et al (1981) conducted a study in which 100 participants, male and female, took an SRRS of the past six months, and every month for the next 9 months they took a Hassles and Uplifts scale (HSUP). At the end of the 9 months they took another SRRS and two scales measuring their psychological well-being (Hopkins Symptom Checklist and Bradburn Morale Scale). They found that the correlation between hassles and well-being was much more important than that between life-change and well-being. Moreover, hassles were a better predictor of well-being than uplifts. Flett et al (1995) suggest that this might be due to hassles attracting less moral support than major life-changes. Lazarus argues that daily hassles generate large stress because they accumulate over time. Another explanation for this phenomenon is amplification, where someone who is undergoing a life-change becomes more sensitive to minor hassles. For example, a worker who has just divorced is likely to be more disturbed by inconveniences due to traffic than he or she normally would.

EVALUATION OF THE STUDIES
   Most of these studies are correlational, rather than focusing of causation. This means that they only find that when A happens, B tends to happen. They tell us nothing of whether A causes B or B causes A or if C causes both B and A. It could be that those who reported more negative events turned out as the ones who presented more symptoms of depression and anxiety because being depressed and anxious gave them a negative worldview and they remembered more the negative things that happened.
   There are a number of individual differences. For example, the SNS is not equally sensitive for all people, and thus some might have more dramatic responses of the adrenal medulla from the same stressor. In this way, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) argue that there is a cognitive stage before any response to danger is enacted. In this stage, the individual assesses and compares the perceived demands and his or her perceives ability to meet them, in such way that if an individual feels able to overcome the danger, there will be no response, or a lesser one. Taylor et al (2000) found that females respond differently to danger than males. They don't use the fight-or-flight response, but rather a tend-and-befriend approach. They suggest that this might be due to a desire to keep violence away from their offspring. Until then, most research on the topic had been done on male non-human animals, because it was a concern that hormonal cycles in females might affect negatively the validity of studies.
   Furthermore, the SRRS has been criticised because not everyone will value and be affected in the same way by the life changes listed, so a point system is too simplistic. For example, being fired from work affects differently a person who liked their job and feels unable to find another one compared to someone who hated their job and think they will be employed soon in something else. More methodological issues concern the use of self-report techniques, which are methods where the participants report about themselves, as in questionnaires. For a start, these always run the risk of being biased, because they are subjective and vulnerable to social desirability - the participant modifies their answers to match what's socially acceptable or praised. This reduces their validity, but there is also a problem with reliability. Lazarus (1995) conducted test re-test* on SRRS and found that the longer the period participants had to report about, the lower the reliability/consistency of their answers, because the method relies heavily on memory.

*Test re-test is a way to measure the reliability of a research method which involves giving participants the test one first time and then retaking it after a time-lapse sufficient for them to have forgotten their answers, for example three weeks.

Thanks for reading, I hope this has been useful. If you think this information is valuable, sharing it with friends and family would be appreciated.