>> What is “mental health”? How do we define it? If mental disorders are social and cultural constructions (consider antisocial personality disorder, which within its very definition is “failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest”…. though this does not mean that all mental disorders do not exist—consider someone with highly impairing schizophrenia), that means that society defines mental health.

So what is the definition?

Is there a “majority”? Should there be a “majority”? Do we measure the means of certain variables across the population? Do we talk about standard deviations and confidence intervals? Do we assess behaviors only? Do we judge behaviors that only (adversely) affect other people, or do we also judge behaviors that affect the individual himself? What about thoughts? If one believes thoughts are precursors to behaviors (a concept that is not universally embraced), what about monitoring thoughts? How about emotions? What does it mean to be “overly emotional”? Or even just “emotional”?

Must “normalcy” be first defined before “abnormalcy”?

How do we know when something is a problem and when it is not? What is the difference between “problem” and “diversity”?

Who determines what is healthy and what is not? How rigid are the standards? What happens if the standards waver? Do treatments help define “abnormalcy”? What exactly are people trying to “fix”?

What exactly is “quality of life”? Is there a universal yardstick (meterstick? what units do we use?) for “quality”? Are our expectations too high? too low? invalid? unreliable? Who set these expectations? Why do we accept them? reject them? Why do we even care?

Don’t believe everything you think.

>> Someone offered this definition of love (versus infatuation, lust, etc.): “Love is the willingness to extend yourself consistently for another person.”

>> How do I explain the pager? Periodically, while dancing, a lead’s hand will brush or land on the pager on my waist. Some leads never touch that area and never realize I’m wearing one; others somehow discover it moments after the dance starts.

Recently, a lead asked me to dance and within the first four bars of the song, suddenly remarked, “Whoa—you’ve got a pager.” I don’t think he even touched it.

“Yes, I do,” I confirmed.

“That’s, like, totally old-school,” he continued.

“I wear it for work,” I explained… except it really wasn’t an explanation.

We didn’t talk for the rest of the dance. We just smiled a lot.

I’m never sure if I should warn leads about the pager—it is a bit strange to expect a warm, pliable waist and instead feel a hard, squarish object. On the other hand, it also seems odd to provide a disclaimer before dancing. Most leads who discover it in the course of dancing express verbal surprise; some remove their hands quickly as if they touched a hot stove. There are the few, though, whose facial expressions betray something like shock or disdain. Maybe disbelief? I don’t know. They look better when they smile.

I could move the pager… though if I move it to the back, the same problem exists. Moving the pager to the zipper/rise of my pants also doesn’t seem right. It’s a weird place to have a bulge, squarish or not. (I’m just saying.)