What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage

The book "What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage", which was published earlier this year, came about as a result of a 2006 New York Times article, "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage" by writer and journalist Amy Sutherland. The premise of the article, which was that people could be trained to exhibit the behaviour you wanted in the way animals were by their trainers, generated a lot of interest and consequently was the most emailed NYT article that year.

People either loved it, or hated it. Sutherland's premise was essentially treating human beings as animals. Some people accused her of belittling men. But she did not shy away from that accusation - indeed she writes that human beings are "human animals" with our own codes of habit and territorial needs. After the controversy around her article died down, Sutherland walked away with a movie and a book deal. This book, published in 2008, expands on the idea she wrote about in the NYT article, that is, we can use basic animal training techniques on people to achieve the behaviour we want from them. Simple enough.

I remember reading the article that year, laughing aloud as Sutherland described being irritated with certain aspects of her husband's behaviour - like when he hovered around her, talking to her about this and that while she was in the kitchen trying to cook, his sudden deafness when she wanted something done, him leaving dirty clothes and used tissues on the floor, and keeping her waiting at airports and restaurants because he lost track of the time, and so on.

While the behaviour was not something serious enough to warrant divorce, it did dull the love Sutherland had for her husband. So she resorted to nagging to correct her husband's behaviour, but it only made things worse - he drove faster when she wanted him to slow down, and he did not pick up his dirty clothes from the bathroom floor when she asked him to. Rebellion was on hand.

That certainly striked a note with me - who amongst us, females, have not had to deal with variations of this seemingly inconsiderate behaviour from our male companions. So it intrigued me enough to read the book, hoping for an elaboration of the training tactics she had talked about in the article so that I could utilise myself!

The book does expand on this with a light-hearted approach written in an easy narrative style. For example, she writes that about positive reinforcement - reward the behaviour you want, and ignore the behaviour you do not want. And to use"approximations," that is, rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior.

As she puts it "After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband. Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller".

In the animal training world, when an animal does something wrong, the trainer will not respond. He stands still, and is careful not to look at the animal, and then he returns to work. Any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. So if a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away. This is called the least reinforcing syndrome (LRS)

Incredible, but does it actually work on humans?

Sutherland writes that she discovered in the process of using the techniques that she has to examine her own behaviour and reactions to her husband, and the people around her. What was she doing that contributed to the exhibition of the unwanted behaviour in others? Animal trainers begin with the premise that it is "not the animal's fault" - Sutherland accepts this as well, as begins to accept that her husband's behaviour was not his fault. She managed to separate the unwanted behaviour her husband produced from the man that was her husband and whom she loved. That way, she manages to tackle the behaviour and not the man.

In the end, this book does not come up with a magical technique to "train" others, but rather, it tells us that we have to modify our reactions to unwanted behaviour, and it doing so, it help us minimize conflicts with our loved ones. And by rewarding the desirable behaviour, we ensure that we get more of it in the future.

The premise will keep you thinking beyond the finish of the book.

Further Recommended Readings in this area:

The 10 Women You'll be Before You're 35

I was at Barnes and Nobles the other day, and I came across this book by Alison James - The 10 Women You'll be Before You're 35. I spent some time flipping through the book, and I came away with a good feeling. The half-an-hour spent on the book actually put me in a good mood!

I was thoroughly entertained with James' choice of words, and her frivolous sense of humour in typecasting the various stages all of us women go through.

According to James, the 10 stages women will pass through before we are 35 are as follows: New Graduate, Dollarless Diva, Worker Bee, Party Girl, Body-Conscious Babe, Chameleon, Crisis Chick, Ms. Independence, Wirl (half woman/half girl) and finally the True You.

It starts with the New Graduate stage when you have just graduated from university - you are fresh, young, happy, excited, flighty and giggly, and ends with the True You stage, when you become finally who you really are - that is, you are no longer personified by a stage. The 8 other stages in between are full of quirky snapshots of what your life have been, or could be (if you're not there yet).

My favourite was the Crisis Chick, maybe because it was easily identified as the one most matching my present stage (somewhat anyway). Crisis Chick has a stable job, maybe a boyfriend, and she has a life almost eveyone thinks she should be happy with. But for whatever reason, the Crisis Chick is unhappy, feels that she is stuck in a rut, and she wants to change her life. She is confused and goes through agonizing periods of reflection. She flits between dramatic pronouncements of life changing decisions and helpless self-pity. She thinks of giving up her job to save the world by joining the Peace Corps, so she can give meaning to her life. Then decides she would not be able to realistically survive without showering (or having her other comforts) in poverty-stricken countries like Africa. She hermits herself in her apartment and lives on snack food! I just love the way James portrayed this stage - she managed to trivialize this stage with a humour that does not take away from the actual reality, which can be quite debilitating to people feeling this way. Almost like saying, it's a confusing time, but hang in there through all of this nonsense, and you'll come out just fine.

Now, anyone look for real self-help information in this book should be forewarned though - this will not help you solve any of your major problems. However, if you are looking for a light, fun read to occupy your spare time while relaxing, this would be a good companion book - a true chick lit gem.

In bed with a Book

I read, and I read, and I read. It's all about the words! I love reading books, then talking and writing about them. I think I read an average of four books every two weeks. But that is far more books read than I can write about! Still, I will try to post my thoughts on the books I've read right here on this site. In the least, it will be good training for me - the aspiring writer that I am. So watch out for the good, the bad, the boring, the touching, the profound, and the exciting as I encounter them myself.