So adopted children match the IQ's of their adoptee families more closely than their biological parents when they are still living with their adoptee family. When they get out on their own, they end up reverting back to whatever their biologicals were, or more exactly they go off toward whatever their own DNA combo from their parents makes them. Which can be quite different of course from what their parents were.

I think that of course this can work both ways. The family you're stuck with can bring you down also and once you get out on your own you can slowly turn it around to some extent. Think this happened with me, though it took a while. My mom and stepfather were a huge negative for me and it took many years of being mostly away from them for me to rise up more or less to my potential.

So, when I look back at my childhood and who I was, how I related to other children, etc, it's all a bunch of shit. My father was extremely eccentric in his interactions thus I never learned how to interact with others. But worse, I lived in constant fear of him, his violent outbursts, his whole mindset of trying to beat me into being just like him, while having no ability to comprehend who I actually was.

In effect I have a lost childhood. A childhood full almost solely of negative memories. Which means I want to just forget it. But it's my foundation. And to the extent I forget my childhood, I wonder what that does to me. I find myself forgetting in general and wonder if it will lead to early althzeimers(sp).

A key to happiness for me is a feeling of security (as opposed to hope) is that I'm motivated by positive reinforcement, not negative. In a capitalist society the negative usually wins out for me. The possibility of ending up homeless is of more interest to keep on the edge of my consciousness then whatever positive capitalism offers. So then something that works at least for me is thinking that if I won the lottery I'd want to keep my current job.... Maybe not something to look at too closely. (Because maybe I could find some better way to improve this world than in my current job...) But as a nurse I certainly can do more than most. So, I like to think as if I've won the lottery and yet, by choice, off to work I still go. This pretty effectively negates most negative reinforcement. Gets rid of the stressful nature that perhaps plagues me more than usual. Of course few people can say in any sense though that they'd continue their job even if they won the lottery/got many millions somehow, so this is of little use to most, except that they may want to try to find a job for which it is true of.

My I'm in such a good mood today.

Best not to think. I might ruin it.

...(sigh) Now it occurs to me I missed a training class that was right after the 8 hour training class I had. This gives me anxiety about the possibility that some punishment awaits me. Some rightwing force stuff to keep us workers on the straight and narrow. Now I lay here with a tinge of anxiety that ruins the happiness I was feeling.

So then:

When fearful, when anxious, find someone else to be concerned about. Someone else to worry about instead of yourself. Someone else to focus your concern upon other than yourself. That's what I was doing previously today. How unfortunate to be pulled down into selfish concerns.

I suppose that's an original thought. That a society based on negative reinforcement stops people from being empathetic, compassionate and pulls them down into being selfish, simply for self preservation.

But instead must redirect.

And when thinking negatively of someone, of their unethical actions, redirect to the social norms of this society. It's the system, not the people.

Redirect.

...what works even better in this case is to pretend I hadn't remembered about the class I missed. Or forget that I remembered.