“And now the leaves suddenly lose strength.” - A sonnet by Philip Larkin
And now the leaves suddenly lose strength.
Decaying towers stand still, lurid, lanes-long,
And seen from landing windows, or the length
Of gardens, rubricate afternoons. New strong
Rain-bearing night-winds come: then
Leaves chase warm buses, speckle statued air,
Pile up in corners, fetch out vague broomed men
Through mists at morning.
And no matter where goes down,
The sallow lapsing drift in fields
Or squares behind hoardings, all men hesitate
Separately, always, seeing another year gone -
Frockcoated gentleman, farmer at his gate,
Villein with mattock, soldiers on their shields,
All silent, watching the winter coming on.
—
Philip Larkin (1961)
Ghani Khan’s ghazal sung by Sardar Ali Takkar:
haghe wai meena yo gul dai, uss taza wi uss fana shi
ma wai yo gul che shi mRawai sal guluna tray paida shi
(s)he says, love is a flower, now fresh, now oblivioned
I say, when one flower dies, a hundred are born of it.
“A Quiet Normal Life” by Wallace Stevens
His place, as he sat and as he thought, was not
In anything that he constructed, so frail,
So barely lit, so shadowed over and naught,
As, for example, a world in which, like snow,
He became an inhabitant, obedient
To gallant notions on the part of cold.
It was here. This was the setting and the time
Of year. Here in his house and in his room,
In his chair, the most tranquil thought grew peaked
And the oldest and warmest heart was cut
By gallent notions on the part of night -
Both late and alone, above the crickets’ chords,
Babbling, each one, the uniqueness of its sound.
There was no fury in transcendent forms.
But his actual candle blazed with artifice.
—-
Wallace Stevens 1879-1955
His Da Ishq La Ghama Na Di Barabar Ghamuna Kul - one of Ghani Khan’s teenage ghazals sung by Sardar Ali Takkar.
Social Phobia is Distinct From Shyness
Posted: 01/05/2012; Journal Watch © 2011 Massachusetts Medical Society
Abstract
Teens who met criteria for social phobia reported greater impairment and were more likely to have psychiatric comorbidities than youth who rated themselves as shy.
Introduction
To determine if social phobia (a type of anxiety disorder) is a distinct entity or merely the “medicalization” of common human shyness, NIH investigators analyzed data from 10,123 adolescents (age range, 13–18 years) who participated in the nationally representative National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement. Adolescents completed a structured diagnostic interview that assessed a broad range of mental health disorders. Those who met all eight lifetime DSM-IV criteria for social phobia, including one or more social fears, were classified as having social phobia, regardless of shyness. Adolescents were considered shy if they reported being “very” or “somewhat” shy around same-aged peers they did not know very well and did not meet social phobia criteria. Other assessments included impairments in the past year during chores, school/work, family relationships, and social life; prescribed psychiatric medication use; and lifetime treatment for anxiety disorders.
Overall, 43% of males and 51% of females rated themselves as shy, but only 12% of these youth met criteria for social phobia. Five percent of youth who did not rate themselves as shy met social phobia criteria. The prevalence of social phobia increased with age (6.3% of 13- to 14-year-olds, 9.6% of 15- to 16-year-olds, and 10.4% of 17- to 18-year-olds). Compared with shy adolescents, those with social phobia were significantly more likely to have an anxiety disorder (odds ratio, 2.79), major depressive disorder (OR, 2.06), oppositional defiant disorder (OR, 1.99), or drug use disorder (OR, 3.27). They also had significantly greater impairment in school/work, family relationships, and social life. Only 23% of adolescents with social phobia sought professional treatment for anxiety, and just 12% received psychiatric medication.
—
Comment
These results contradict the notion that social phobia is “medicalization” of a normal human emotion. The major distinction between social anxiety and shyness is that the anxiety associated with social phobia results in impairments that are significant enough to negatively impact one or more life areas (school, work, relations with friends or family). Few adolescents with social phobia ever sought treatment for anxiety or received psychiatric medication, which indicates that we need a better system for identifying these youth and helping them get the care they really need to treat the social phobia and other identified comorbidities. The SCARED screening tool is a standardized instrument to screen for child anxiety disorders in primary care and includes questions about shyness and specific anxieties.
—
References
- Burstein M et al. Shyness versus social phobia in US youth. Pediatrics 2011 Nov; 128:917.
Journal Watch © 2011 Massachusetts Medical Society
Celebrating Hume’s Birthday: panel discussion
Rabindranath Tagore - 1961 Documentary by Satyajit Ray
In Search of Lost Time
“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”
It was over 12 years ago that I thought of collecting the entire set but never managed as there were other books to read, many volumes were either too expensive or unavailable and so on. Now these books are in the public domain and - thanks to microsoft and google - downloadable in PDF format.
