The Best Temperature

It seems to me that the reaction people have to temperature is as much a relative as a physical one. It must be, because two different people entering two showers flowing water that is the same temperature are as likely to have opposite reactions to whether it feels hot or cold. I think most people anticipate whether they will be hot or cold and convince themselves they are right about it. That's why they like hot or cold more or less. (Put me down for liking cold temperatures far more).

My E mail friends in hot and humid Indonesia, for instance, will say it's "cold" if the temperature drops below 22 C or so, as it rarely does there. But those I know who live in Finland will go out in short pants and T shirts to celebrate the hot spell when it is 22 C. There is a physical conditioning to temperature that allows us to fool ourselves and imagine hot and cold differently than others. I'm sure that the Indonesian who complained about it being cold at 22C would change his or her perspective and think that temperature hot if he or she moved to and lived in Finland long enough to re-condition to the temperatures there.

So how come we can't adjust as easily to things other than temperature? We adjust to temperature but not, for instance, to personal dislikes. I hate to dance and refuse to do it, so that's why there is not adjustment to it. If I am out and people are dancing I'll watch, but never dance. No matter how many times I am there I won't dance because I already have determined that dancing is not interesting. You may hate sports or a particular sport and refuse to watch it. If so, no matter how many times "the game is on TV" and you are in the room where it is showing, you won't watch. Temperature is an external stimuli. We can't refuse to adjust to it, but much of what we do is under our own internal controls. Those things that give us a choice in adjusting we don't adjust to well at all.

Age or experience also often keeps us from adapting to new things or differences. Older people invariably are "old fashioned" because they simply reject any accommodation to newness...unless (as in the case of adapting to temperature) they are forced to adapt. When we are used to an experience we have had regularly over time, we more often resist change because we see change as a threat to the comfort we take in what we already like. On the other hand, the younger or less experienced person is much less set in a routine and the less likely to resist adaptation to the new. It's why Lady Gaga is the flavor of the month for the young while Frank Sinatra is the flavor of life for older adults.

Anyway....it's getting hot in here. I will open the window and enjoy the snow.