^^ Thank you so much!
Your recording's really help me.
30.
Her nerves were hurting her. She looked automatically again at the high, uncurtained windows. As night fell, she could just perceive outside a huge tree swinging its
branches. The rain came flying on the window. Ah, why didn’t she have peace? These two men, her husband and
her son, why did they not come? She wrapped a large scarf around her and hesitated for a moment. She opened
the door and stepped out into the backyard. There was no sign of a light anywhere. She listened with all her ears but could hear nothing but the night. “James! Shawn!”
she called, but nothing came from the darkness.
31.
Sheets of paper exist almost entirely for the purpose of
carrying information, so we tend to think of them as neutral objects. We rarely interpret marks on paper as
references to the paper itself. However , when we see the text, characters, and images on artifacts that serve other purposes, we generally interpret these marks as labels that do refer to their carriers. Natural objects do not come with labels, of course, but these days, most physical artifacts
do. That is , their designers have chosen to shift part of the burden of communication from the form and materials of the artifact itself to lightweight surface symbols. So, for
example, a designer of door handles might not worry about communicating their functions through their shapes, but might simply mark them ‘push’ and ‘pull.’
32.
Many people believe that they will be free of their anger if they express it, and that their tears will release their pain. This belief derives from a nineteenth-century
understanding of emotions, and it is no truer than the flat earth. It sees the brain as a steam kettle in which negative feelings build up pressure. But no psychologist has ever succeeded in proving the unburdening effects of the
supposed safety valves of tears and anger. On the contrary, over forty years ago, controlled studies showed that fits of anger are more likely to intensify anger, and that tears can drive us still deeper into depression. Our heads do not
resemble steam kettles, and our brains involve a much more complicated system than can be accounted for by images taken from nineteenth-century technology.
