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Does hitting the snooze button really help you feel better?
"Bottom line: It's probably best to set your alarm for a specific time and get up then."
To sleep or to snooze? You probably know the answer, but you don't prefer it.
Most of us probably use the snooze function on our alarm clocks at some point in our lives. Just a few more minutes under the covers, a time to gather our thoughts, right?
While such snoozing might seem harmless, it may not be. For starters, it is important to understand why we are using the snooze button in the first place. For some it's a habit that started early on. But for many, it can signal a significant problem with sleep. Poor sleep has been shown to be associated with a number of health disorders including high blood pressure, memory problems and even weight control.
I'm a facial pain specialist and have extensively studied sleep and how it impacts painful conditions. With testing, we discover that many of our chronic pain patients also suffer with various sleep disorders.
What does normal sleep look like?
If one is tired when the alarm goes off, is it helpful to use the snooze button? While there are no scientific studies that address this topic specifically, the answer is probably not. Our natural body clock regulates functions through what's known as circadian rhythms – physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a daily cycle.
Most adults require approximately seven and a half to eight hours of good sleep per night. This enables us to spend adequate time in the stages of sleep known as nonrapid eye movement sleep (NREM) and rapid eye movement sleep (REM).
We tend to cycle from the three stages of NREM into REM sleep four to six times per night. The first portion of the night is mostly NREM deep sleep and the last portion consists of mostly REM sleep.
Good sleep is important
Maintaining this well-defined structure is important for good, restful sleep. If this process is disturbed, we tend to awaken still feeling tired in the morning.
A number of factors can affect the sleep cycles. For example, if a person is not breathing well during sleep (snoring or sleep apnea), this will disturb the normal sequences and cause the individual to awaken feeling unrestored. Sleep quality can be diminished by the use of electronic devices, tobacco or alcohol in the evening. Even eating too close to bedtime can be problematic.
The use of snooze buttons often starts during the teenage years, when our circadian rhythms are altered somewhat, causing us to want to stay up later and get up later in the morning. Delaying getting out of bed for nine minutes by hitting the snooze is simply not going to give us any more restorative sleep. In fact, it may serve to confuse the brain into starting the process of secreting more neurochemicals that cause sleep to occur, according to some hypotheses.
Bottom line: It's probably best to set your alarm for a specific time and get up then. If you are consistently tired in the morning, consult with a sleep specialist to find out why.
Steven Bender, Clinical Assistant Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Texas A&M University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Live on Tuesday | Personal finance in the COVID-19 era
Sallie Krawcheck and Bob Kulhan will be talking money, jobs, and how the pandemic will disproportionally affect women's finances.
04 July, 2020
Big Think LIVE
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<p>
<strong>What should you be doing with your money during the coronavirus financial crisis?</strong> In this Big Think Live session, Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and co-founder of <a href="https://www.ellevest.com/" target="_blank">Ellevest</a>, a financial advisory and investment platform for women, will discuss personal finance and wealth-building career strategies with Bob Kulhan, founder and CEO of <a href="http://businessimprov.com/" target="_blank">Business Improv</a>. What steps can we take to guard ourselves from an uncertain financial future? <strong>Find out on Tuesday at 1 pm ET.</strong><br>
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Ask your questions for Sallie Krawcheck during the Q&A!</p>
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3 "symptoms" of atheism, as described by a Christian minister
Do you get worried or angry? Ever forget to tithe? One minister has bad news for you.
23 February, 2020
Painting by John Bridges via Wikimedia Commons
Culture & Religion
- A recently published article claims to identify the symptoms of "low-level atheism."
- Among these symptoms are worrying, cursing, and not tithing.
- There is a solution to all of this though, not being an atheist. Sending in money is also involved.
Alaskan minister Tad Lindley recently published an <a href="https://deltadiscovery.com/are-you-suffering-from-atheistic-tendencies-3/" target="_blank">essay</a> pointing out the symptoms of low-level atheism. This groundbreaking work, destined to be the foundation of further theological study for decades to come, identifies three major symptoms of the condition that can manifest in anybody.
Are you worried about literally anything? You're an atheist now!
<p>The essay begins by focusing on worrying, an all too common problem and gateway emotion to atheism:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"Every time we take a thought break and begin to wonder about how we will pay the stove oil bill, or the light bill, or what we are going to do if we get laid off from work in six months, we are worrying. We are actually telling the Lord, 'Jesus, you know all that stuff you said in Matthew chapter six about how you will take care of us? I don't believe it. I don't believe that you can do what you promised, so I am taking matters into my own hands; I'm going to worry about it until the situation is taken care of.'"</em></p><p>As it turns out, God plans his days around your dilemmas and will get to them in due course. So, if you are bothered about not being sure where your rent is coming form this month, you're doubting the Lord. Concerned about things like climate change? You're practically an iconoclast. Anxious at the thought that you aren't a good enough Christian? According to this, that exact worry is a sign that you aren't!</p><p>Are you feeling even more worried now? Oh, that isn't a good sign at all. You ought to be worried about that. </p>Swearing and occasionally being angry, now signs of metaphysical distress!
<p>According to Lindley:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"I have only sworn two times since receiving the Holy Ghost. The Lord has the power to change our attitudes and habits. I wish I could say that I never get angry anymore either, but that is not the case. Just like you, I struggle with atheistic tendencies.</em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"Every time something doesn't go the way we want it to and we get angry, we are telling the world, 'I am losing my temper, because this problem is so messed up that not even God can sort it out.' When we slam doors, swear, yell, break dishes, speed, or shake our fist at somebody we are in the grip of an atheism attack. </em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"You see the Bible very clearly states that there is nothing too hard for God to fix.</em> <em>'And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.' </em>(Romans 8:28 NKJV) <em>This is why a person who has been born again can hit their thumb with a hammer and not swear. This is why the sincere Christian can look at a flat tire and say, 'I guess God needs to slow me down, because he has someone he needs me to cross paths with today.' Swearing and getting angry only says, 'There is absolutely no way that God can turn this flat tire into a blessing!'"</em><em></em></p><p>Well, shit. It seems that being angry with things, including things that might seem to be perfectly reasonable things to be mad at, is admitting that you think God is useless.</p><p>How exactly this reconciles with Jesus getting pissed off at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple" target="_blank">the moneylenders in the temple</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+3&version=NIV" target="_blank">healers that refused to save lives on Sunday</a> is unclear. Neither of these incidents seem to be the things that happen to somebody without bursts of anger, though I do suppose it is possible Christ had fits of atheism multiple times in his life. </p><p>Sometimes I don't believe in myself either. </p>Stinginess, now coming to a den of heathens near you!
<p>Lindley points out the final, most advanced symptom of atheism last: Not sending God money. He writes:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"<em>Some people are so greedy that they actually rob God.</em> <em>'…In what way have we robbed God? In tithes and offerings</em>.' (Malachi 3:8 NKJV)) <em>To those who would hold back the tithe the Lord has a challenge</em>: <em>'Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this' says the Lord of hosts, 'If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.' </em>(3:10 NKJV)"</p><p>While the God of Abraham is well known not to need money on account of his transcendental nature, it seems that he is still owed ten percent of everybody's earnings. This is not paid to him, of course, but to his helpers. In exchange for this, God will make good things happen. If you don't send money in addition to swearing or occasionally being grouchy, the minister assures us that <em>"you are at extreme risk for very serious complications from your atheism."</em></p><p>While this may look remarkably similar to a concept used by the mafia, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket" target="_blank">the protection racket</a>, it is an utterly different operation. In the case of the mob, the threat of punishment is used as a way to force people into paying part of their earnings to a larger organization. In return, they are promised the protection of that organization from vague threats, often including that organization. <br> <br> In this holy case, vague are threats used to show people the wisdom of paying part of their earnings to the church. In exchange for their payments, they are offered kickbacks from God and protection from vague threats made by the people telling them they need to send in money. </p><p>Luckily, Lindley suggests a solution for all three problems, especially the last one: Don't be an atheist! In particular, start praying and sending God money. This will resolve the third symptom automatically and the first two eventually.</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhnsHvz7UL8" target="_blank">It's an offer you can't refuse.</a> </p>And now, the serious part.
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="SuG8OGad" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e1bfda7981ed1abe9eb979157ea0496"> <div id="botr_SuG8OGad_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/SuG8OGad-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/SuG8OGad-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/SuG8OGad-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div> <p>While it is fun to mock the often-ludicrous positions of those who misunderstand atheism, that very misunderstanding is an all too common and all too real issue for the millions of Americans who are not religious. Atheists in the United States face <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists#United_States" target="_blank">discrimination</a>,<strong></strong> are not <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-25187-001" target="_blank">trusted</a>, and are barred from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists#Atheists_eligible_to_hold_office" target="_blank">running for office </a>in several states.</p><p> In my experience, many of these tend to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what atheism <em>is</em>. I, at various times, have been accused of being a Satanist, a pagan, or an amoralist, among other things. It is little wonder why a person who doesn't understand what atheism <em>is</em> would find a variety of issues arising from it. </p><p>The minister in this case makes a similar mistake: He begins by thinking that atheism is something other than the proposition that there are no gods and then works forward. In this case, he seems to presume it is some kind of psychological condition which manifests as a hybrid of anxiety, Tourette's syndrome, and kleptomania. His use of the word "symptoms" is revealing. </p><p>While it is true that atheism can be anxiety-inducing, this falls more under the category of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism#Angst_and_dread" target="_blank">existential dread</a>" than psychosis. John-Paul Sartre, the atheistic philosopher who made Existentialism popular, wrote on this extensively. In his essay <em>"</em><a href="http://www.mrsmoser.com/uploads/8/5/0/1/8501319/english_11_ib_-_no_exit_-_existentialism_is_a_humanism_-_sartre.pdf" target="_blank">Existentialism is a Humanism</a><em>," </em>he explains:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;"><em>"What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist see him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of himself … what do we mean by anguish? The existentialist frankly states that man is in anguish. His meaning is as follows: When a man commits himself to anything, fully realizing that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind—in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility."</em><em></em></p><p>If choosing what you are and what meaning your life will have doesn't give you anxiety, Sartre would suggest you're doing something wrong. </p><p>However, this anxiety isn't necessarily cured by belief. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/" target="_blank">Soren Kierkegaard</a>, the founder of Existentialism, wrote extensively on the topics of angst, dread, anxiety, and regretting all of your life choices while being a thoroughly devoted Christian. While he argues that the leap of faith can help, he also argues that we are still fundamentally alone and responsible for our choices when it comes to making that anxiety-inducing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Anxiety" target="_blank">leap</a>.</p><p>The minister's point about swearing as a result of lacking faith is bizarre enough to be left alone. Ten minutes in any bar in the middle section of the country on a Friday night should be enough to convince anybody that any sincere believer can swear while remaining a believer. </p><p>Furthermore, the minister presumes that a believer is going to be of the kind that thinks God is very engaged in human life. While he may suppose God was involved in his tire going flat, many other approaches to the divine reject that idea. Deists, who tend to think that there is a God who created the cosmos but leaves it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism#Aspects_of_contemporary_deism" target="_blank">alone</a>, would be an example. </p><p>All in all, the essay described above is an unintentionally hilarious look at what some people think being an atheist is like. It is hardly the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-atheist-be-in-awe-of-universe/" target="_blank">first</a>, and it won't be the last. Anxiety about atheism has a history going back to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_(Plato)#Accusers_of_Socrates" target="_blank">ancient Greece</a>—studies demonstrate the continued <a href="https://bigthink.com/ideafeed/atheists-threaten-believers-with-mortality" target="_blank">existence</a> of Christian anxiety about atheists—and this essay is another example of people being unduly concerned about it. </p><p>I'd accuse the minister of worrying too much about atheism, but then he'd be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Bnk6VU53Y" target="_blank">one of us</a>. </p>
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Why is everyone so selfish? Science explains
The coronavirus pandemic has brought out the perception of selfishness among many.
05 July, 2020
Credit: Adobe Stock, Olivier Le Moal.
Personal Growth
- Selfish behavior has been analyzed by philosophers and psychologists for centuries.
- New research shows people may be wired for altruistic behavior and get more benefits from it.
- Crisis times tend to increase self-centered acts.
<p>Why do so many people seem so selfish these days, putting their needs first? The coronavirus has not only decimated our population and placed lives on anxious hold, it has also been a test of character. A test that, by and large, we appear to be failing. People are at each other's throats over wearing masks, the true facts of the pandemic, blatant racism and old monuments, all the while appearing to be driven by pure selfishness to others – a feeling coming from all sides of the political spectrum. Where does this selfish behavior come from, exacerbated by a series of crises?</p><p>For starters, it is to some extent, natural to be self-oriented. After all, what else do we know? We are at the center of our own worlds, always looking to bolster the ego. Self-interest is the most fundamental human motivation, <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/" target="_blank">argued</a> English philosopher <strong>Thomas Hobbes</strong> all the way back in the 1600s. But acting out of self-interest is not necessarily the only thing on our minds. As research <a href="https://www.livescience.com/53533-women-prefer-altruism-over-looks.html" target="_blank">has shown</a>, human behavior can be motivated as much by altruism and moral considerations. So at what point does healthy self-care and the right amount of self-love become selfishness, a trait we judge negatively? </p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Psychologists, like <strong>F. Diane Barth</strong>, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201602/what-s-the-best-way-deal-rude-and-selfish-people" target="_blank">define selfishness</a> as having two primary pillars: "</span><span style="background-color: initial;">Being concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself" and "Having no regard for the needs or feelings of others." Of course, most of us probably live somewhere on a sliding scale of selfless to selfish moments. Still, in the public consciousness being selfish is erroneously associated with becoming more successful, even though the facts don't necessarily bear that out.</span></p><p>A 2020 <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-47966-001" target="_blank">study</a> published in the <em>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology </em>looked to figure out if people who prioritize self-oriented behavior did better in life. The team led by <strong>Kimmo Eriksson</strong> of Stockholm University compared such factors as the yearly income and number of biological children. They analyzed a large sample of responses by 5,294 Americans to the public opinion General Social Survey (GSS) between the years of 2002 and 2014, as well as European responses to the European Social Survey (ESS). The scientists identified the more selfish people by their answers to various survey questions. Overall, while the researchers found that in public perception, 68% of the people believed selfishness was a common trait of those who made more money, in reality, people with selfless attitudes and behavior had higher incomes and also more children. "Generosity pays," as states the title of their <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-47966-001" target="_blank">study</a>.</p>
Paul Krugman on the Virtues of Selfishness
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="7ZtAkm6C" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="828936bf6953080e9018307354c0c02b"> <div id="botr_7ZtAkm6C_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/7ZtAkm6C-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/7ZtAkm6C-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/7ZtAkm6C-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div> The Nobel Prize-winning economist on the virtues of selfishness.<p><span style="background-color: initial;">What's more, altruistic behavior may be the default option in our brains, suggests <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26942832/" target="_blank">research</a> carried out in 2016/2017 by a team led by </span><span style="background-color: initial;"><strong>Leonardo Christov-Moore</strong> from UCLA. They found an area of the prefrontal cortex that can be specifically affected to make people less giving.</span></p><p>So if selflessness is rooted in the brain, why do some people have such a hard time caring about the needs of others? The answer might lie in emotional intelligence, as pointed out psychologist Lisa Marie Bobby in an <a href="https://www.oprahmag.com/life/relationships-love/a29416336/dealing-selfish-people/" target="_blank">interview</a>. "Emotional intelligence exists on a spectrum, and some individuals are higher in emotional intelligence than others," she shared. "One symptom of low emotional intelligence is the tendency to be self-absorbed, or exclusively concerned about what <em>you're</em> thinking, feeling, needing and wanting, instead of the thoughts, feelings, needs and desires of others."</p>
Evolution Is Moving Us Away from Selfishness. But Where Is It Taking ...
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="cyeqmYCb" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="6c5efecb56456e9acc25cf36935b1826"> <div id="botr_cyeqmYCb_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/cyeqmYCb-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/cyeqmYCb-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/cyeqmYCb-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div><p><span style="background-color: initial;">Another unfortunate factor – </span><span style="background-color: initial;">many find it hard to detect selfishness in themselves. As a 2020 study from</span> Yale psychologists and economists at the University of Zurich found out, selfish people make adaptions to their memories to avoid feeling bad about their egotistical behavior. The research, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15602-4" target="_blank">published in the April 29 in the journal Nature Communications</a><span style="background-color: initial;">, revealed that people tend to remember themselves being better to others than they actually were.</span></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"When people behave in ways that fall short of their personal standards, one way they maintain their moral self-image is by misremembering their ethical lapses," <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2020/04/29/memory-misfires-help-selfish-maintain-their-self-image" target="_blank">explained</a> <strong>Molly Crockett</strong>, assistant professor of psychology at Yale University and the study's senior author.</p><p>Fast-forward a few years from now, and certainly more than a few people will be remembering their actions of today with a very different slant from what actually happened. As it is, getting a better grasp on behavior that doesn't take others into consideration is everyone's personal responsibility. Where does one right end (let's say, the liberty not to wear masks) and the right of everyone else to good health begin? At what point does your right not to get infected outweigh the right of another to pursue economic prosperity? How much does my right to survive depend on the good will and cooperation from others? Answering these truthfully, without feeling attacked, can stem the tide of real and perceived selfishness that goes against our better natures and costs us lives and societal degradation. </p>
Exploring Morality and Selfishness in Modern Times
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="02eX1Cag" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="45cc6180db791f32683988fb52faff26"> <div id="botr_02eX1Cag_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/02eX1Cag-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/02eX1Cag-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/02eX1Cag-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div> Philosopher Peter Singer discusses the state of global ethics.
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How Hemingway felt about fatherhood
Parenting could be a distraction from what mattered most to him: his writing.
05 July, 2020
Ernest Hemingway Holding His Son 1927 (Wikimedia Commons)
Culture & Religion
Ernest Hemingway was affectionately called “Papa," but what kind of dad was he?
<p>In my role as Associate Editor of the <a href="https://www.hemingwaysociety.org/hemingway-letters-project" target="_blank">Hemingway Letters Project</a>, I spend my time investigating the approximately 6,000 letters sent by Hemingway, 85% of which are now being published for the first time in a multivolume series. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/literary-texts/letters-ernest-hemingway-19321934-volume-5?format=HB&isbn=9780521897372" target="_blank">The latest volume</a> – the fifth – spans his letters from January 1932 through May 1934 and gives us an intimate look into Hemingway's daily life, not only as a writer and a sportsman, but also as a father.</p><p>During this period, Hemingway explored the emotional depths of fatherhood in his fiction. But his letters show that parenting could be a distraction from what mattered most to him: his writing. </p>
<h2>'No alibis' in the writing business</h2><p>Hemingway had three sons. His oldest, John – nicknamed "Bumby" – was born to Ernest and his first wife, Hadley, when Ernest was 24 years old. He had Patrick and Gregory with his second wife, Pauline.</p><p>Hemingway initially approached fatherhood with some ambivalence. In her 1933 memoir "<a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0608711.txt" target="_blank">The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</a>," Gertrude Stein recalls that one evening Hemingway came to visit and "announced…with great bitterness" that he was "too young to be a father."</p><p>As the fifth volume of letters opens in January 1932, Hemingway is trying to finish "<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Death_in_the_Afternoon.html?id=Wn69QsdwDlQC" target="_blank">Death in the Afternoon</a>," his nonfiction account of bullfighting, in a household with a six-week-old baby, a three-year-old who ingests ant poison and nearly dies, a wife still recovering from a C-section, along with all the quotidian problems of home ownership, from a leaky roof to faulty wiring.</p><p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342233/original/file-20200616-23227-ywfum4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342233/original/file-20200616-23227-ywfum4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></a></p><p>Ernest Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer Hemingway, with Gregory, Patrick and Bumby in Key West, 1933. (Princeton University Library, Author provided)</p><p>Hemingway explained to his mother-in-law, Mary Pfeiffer, that if his latest book fell short, he couldn't simply take readers aside and say, "But you ought to see what a big boy Gregory is…and you ought to see our wonderful water-work system and I go to church every Sunday and am a good father to my family or as good as I can be."</p><p>There are "no alibis" in the writing business, Hemingway continued, and "a man is a fool" to allow anything, even family, to interrupt his work. "Taking refuge in domestic successes," he added, "is merely a form of quitting."</p><p>For Hemingway, work didn't simply entail sitting at a desk and writing. It also included the various adventures he was famous for – the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Hemingway-on-Fishing/Ernest-Hemingway/9781476716411" target="_blank">fishing</a>, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/hemingwayadventure/africa.html" target="_blank">hunting</a>, traveling and socializing with the people he met along the way. Though he would teach the boys to fish and shoot when they were older, when they were very young he didn't hesitate to leave them with nannies or extended family for long stretches of time.</p><p>This separation was <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-hemingway/strange-tribe/" target="_blank">particularly hard</a> on the youngest, Gregory, who, from a very young age, was left for months in the care of Ada Stern, a governess who lived up to her last name. Patrick sometimes joined his parents on their travels or stayed with other relatives. Bumby, the oldest, divided his time between his father and his mother in Paris. The children's lives were so peripatetic that at the Letters Project we maintain a spreadsheet to keep track of their whereabouts at any given time.</p>
<h2>'Papa' explores fathers and sons in his fiction</h2><p>However, it would not be accurate to say that Hemingway did not care about his children. In the latest volume of letters, three are addressed to Patrick, two of them decorated with circled dots, a Hemingway family tradition called "toosies," which represented kisses.</p><p><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342482/original/file-20200617-94044-1rk64fc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip"></p><p>In his letters to his kids, Hemingway would sometimes draw dots called 'toosies,' which represented kisses. (Princeton University Library, Author provided)</p><p>In Hemingway's fiction, we can see the depth of that paternal feeling, and in his letters, the domestic moments that inspired him.</p><p>In November 1932, with his two youngest sons ill with whooping cough and being cared for by their mother at their grandparents' home in Arkansas, Hemingway postponed a trip to New York to stay in Key West with Bumby.</p><p>"He is a good kid and a good companion," Hemingway wrote his editor, Maxwell Perkins, "but I do not want to drag him around the speakies [bars] too much."</p><p>That same month Hemingway worked on the story of a father and son traveling together that would become "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons_(short_story)" target="_blank">Fathers and Sons</a>" in the collection "<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Winner_Take_Nothing.html?id=Bc8C0Hb9B5YC" target="_blank">Winner Take Nothing</a>." It's one of the only stories in which Nick Adams – a semi-autobiographical recurring character – is portrayed as a parent, and the reflective, melancholy piece was written just three years after Hemingway's own father <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2926355?seq=1" target="_blank">had died by suicide</a>.</p><p>In the story, Nick is driving along a stretch of highway in the countryside with "his son asleep on the seat by his side" when he starts thinking about his father.</p><p>Nick recalls many details about him: his eyesight, good; his body odor, bad; his advice on hunting, wise; his advice about sex, unsound. He reflects on viewing his father's face after the undertaker had made "certain dashingly executed repairs of doubtful artistic merit."</p>
<p>Nick is surprised when his son starts to speak to him because he "had felt quite alone" even though "this boy had been with him." As if reading his father's thoughts, the boy wonders, "What was it like, Papa, when you were a little boy and used to hunt with the Indians?'"</p><p>Hemingway's letters show that another story in the collection, "<a href="http://crmsl.weebly.com/uploads/6/3/1/4/63143381/a_day%E2%80%99s_wait_by_ernest_hemingway.pdf" target="_blank">A Day's Wait</a>," was inspired by Bumby's bout with influenza in the fall of 1932. It is a seemingly lighthearted story about a young boy's misunderstanding of the differences between the centigrade and Fahrenheit scales of temperature. Like Bumby, the protagonist, "Schatz" – one of Bumby's other nicknames, a term of endearment in German – attends school in France but is staying with his father when he becomes ill. Schatz had learned at school that no one can survive a temperature of 44 Celsius, so, unbeknownst to his father, he spends the day waiting to die of his fever of 102 Fahrenheit.</p><p>But there is more to this story than the twist. "You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you," the boy tells him. "It doesn't bother me," his father replies. He unwittingly leaves his son to believe, for an entire day, not only that the boy is going to die, but that his death is of no importance to his father.</p><p>In this slight story – one of those stories he told Perkins was written "absolutely as they happen" – we find an unexpected Hemingway hero in the form of a nine-year-old boy who bravely faces death alone.</p><p>Though he once wrote that he wanted "Winner Take Nothing" to make "a picture of the whole world," Hemingway also seemed to understand that no one ever truly knows the subjective experience of another, not even a father and son.</p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/verna-kale-408674" target="_blank">Verna Kale</a>, Associate Editor, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and Assistant Research Professor of English, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/pennsylvania-state-university-1258" target="_blank">Pennsylvania State University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hemingway-felt-about-fatherhood-139801" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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