Friday, November 17, 2006

Different people have different thresholds for various different things. One could smile in the face of ten noisy 3 years-olds and I know of someone who just will kill them if she could (I am so not talking about you Karen). It's this difference in the threshold that makes people interesting.

Individual should have a certain amount of Total Threshold. We then dispatch different level of tolerance to different kind of situations, in a sense we use accordingly to what we already have. It becomes a positional kind of relationship when increasing the amount for one leads to an inevitable decrease from another.

Don't get what I mean? Imagine a full beaker of water, let's say 250ml. Next think of several small test tubes. Filling the test tubes of water drains the main resource (beaker) and when the main resource drains out, you have to take from neighboring test tubes.

Some people have very high threshold of pain, like a very strong and fortified defense mechanism they build to keep people out. Maybe the keeping of people out is not very intentional, just that they do so without even knowing it. Then the theory makes sense, channeling this huge amount of ‘available water’ to this threshold of pain drains their other thresholds. So it’s a balancing act we must perform, in order to stop ourselves from tipping over one edge.

There are many ways to define threshold. The dictionary does so in by stating it as the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to begin to produce an effect. To me it’s more like the maximum level of tolerance for something. More simply the ability to withstand a particular condition. I guess it would be fun to understand your own thresholds, because if we bank on the thresholds we know are relatively high we should be more comfortable with what we do.

I have very high tolerance for kids (noisy or not) and almost zero tolerance for everything else. HAHA! Don’t worry that is so not true. I don’t know my own threshold; last I was told my threshold of pain is relatively low. I beg to differ though; I just don’t enjoy having needles on my feet that’s all. Alright fine, maybe I should admit I have low threshold of PHYSICAL pain. I have a high threshold of repetition I think. Is that the way it should be phrased? But anyhow, what I meant is that I can take many repetitions before I actually get bored. I can eat the same thing 7 times a week without complaint; I can watch the same show over many times. It is not so much about not wanting to change or the need to seek familiarity, but more of being alright with repetitions.

I know I cannot stand bad smell. I react strongly to smell. I know Peishan is coming because I can smell her (sweat smell or deodorant smell). Okay that just make me sound like a dog but seriously, smell does get to me. Don’t get me wrong ps! Nothing wrong with you. What draws me will be a person with a nice smell (chit you know who right!), it just seems to add some plus points about the person.

Okay, I have been pointless and I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore. Maybe it’s the exams stress that has induced me to rant. Good luck peeps for all the papers that have yet to come. I can’t wait for exams to be over soon. My list of What-to-do-after-exams seems to be getting longer than my notes. Bye for now!