The Group

For the past week, Cafe Selavy has experienced an incredible surge in the number of visitors who come to the site.  My exhibition at 591 was very popular, the most popular ever, I was told, and though I did not link this site to that show, some people may have found their way here.  Perhaps.  I was linked by a couple new blogs, I found, and that may have helped.  Then 591 re-blogged one of my entries with a nice note.  And I'm certain that helped, too.  But when I put up the photo of a girl in clothing, then an old travel link, and then a crummy picture of a dress, people quit coming.  Maybe it was coincidence.  I can prove no direct cause and effect connection there.  But I have picked up people who return to the site and that has remained higher, and that may be the real test.  More sustained visitors.  That is really something.  

So I'll put up a photo I like today and not worry so much.  I love the big, heart-shaped roundness of it, a Valentine of sorts.  Perhaps I should have saved it for that.

I posted something with references to oxytocin a while back.  Seems it is not the cuddle hormone it was once thought to be though.  Apparently, it only makes you love certain people, those who are in your inner circle.  The rest--well, they can go to hell.  Or so a study reported by the New York Times today shows.  In time, I'm sure we'll find that all our likes and dislikes are influenced in major ways by human chemistry.  Or just chemistry in general.  We have less soul than perhaps we like to think.  Carbon based machines.  I like this from the article:

"What does it mean that a chemical basis for ethnocentrism is embedded in the human brain? “In the ancestral environment it was very important for people to detect in others whether they had a long-term commitment to the group,” Dr. De Dreu said. “Ethnocentrism is a very basic part of humans, and it’s not something we can change by education. That doesn’t mean that the negative aspects of it should be taken for granted.'”

It scares me, though, that at present my "group" is so reduced.  And made up of many "races and creeds" as Fitzpatrick says in his travel films.  But I contradict myself, don't I, by saying "reduced" and "many," I mean.  It is possible right now that I have no oxytocin in my body at all.  Or maybe I am loyal only to the cat.  That would explain why I keep keep her around and love and protect her though I am hideously allergic to her.

I am too busy now for social relationships of any kind, though.  The new year has not brought me much that is good.  I will have to make my own luck, I guess, if I can.  And so for now, you all are it, my cyber-inner circle.  I wonder what effect that has on my neurotransmitters?  Let me know if you find out.