{"id":289,"date":"2017-08-29T12:08:39","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T16:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/?p=289"},"modified":"2017-08-29T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T18:21:19","slug":"the-totality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2017\/08\/29\/the-totality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Totality"},"content":{"rendered":"

My family and I went to Winnsboro, SC to watch the totality last Monday. \u00a0We had originally planned to stay in Charlotte because at 98%, that seems pretty “total” to me. \u00a0But a tweeting conversation with the local weather god, Brad Panovich<\/a>, convinced me that while it would be “awesome” in Charlotte, it would be a lifetime memory in totality.<\/p>\n

So we packed up and headed to the incredibly welcoming town of Winnsboro, SC and experienced 1:20 of totality.<\/p>\n

Wow. \u00a0Seriously. \u00a0WOW. \u00a0I can throw some words out to explain what it was like: \u00a0really, really, really awesome; beautiful; mind-blowing; unexpected; unifying; community-building; spiritual; and heart filling.<\/p>\n

But really, it was beyond words.<\/p>\n

But the feelings are still there. \u00a0While listening to this podcast <\/a>which started and ended with people’s reactions, I had the goosebumps all over again. And it was crazy to hear people from across the US having the same experiences and saying the same words my neighbors and I were.<\/p>\n

Why did we react this way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a psychologist, I am very interested in the effects of people’s physical and online environments on their lives. \u00a0For 99.999999% of our lives, the sun rises, we see sunshine, the sun sets, and we see dark. \u00a0We’re pretty used to that rhythm.<\/p>\n

In the solar eclipse, it got dark in the middle of the day. A dark hole in the sky had absolutely beautiful halos dancing around. \u00a0In a minute, it was gone, and we were back to normal.<\/p>\n

This short, extremely rare disruption of what is not only “normal” but what one has experienced nearly every single day of one’s life is apparently very powerful.<\/p>\n

We know that that the disruption of normal can have powerful negative effects (e.g., Hurricane Harvey right now). \u00a0Maybe the disruption of normal often means that something negative might happen.<\/p>\n

And I’m sure on some planets with lots of moons, a solar eclipse may not be such a big deal, maybe it is even “normal.” I’ll ask the Doctor<\/a> the next time I see him.<\/p>\n

But here on earth, I’m going to propose that because a total solar eclipse is extremely rare for any one human being to experience and because it is perfectly safe, it produces a deep positive and unifying experience among the people who experience it.<\/p>\n

I am going to the next Solar Eclipse in the states in 2024. \u00a0Maybe I’ll just have to test this proposition there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My family and I went to Winnsboro, SC to watch the totality last Monday. \u00a0We had originally planned to stay in Charlotte because at 98%, that seems pretty “total” to me. \u00a0But a tweeting conversation with the local weather god, Brad Panovich, convinced me that while it would be “awesome” in Charlotte, it would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67nDP-4F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":281,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2015\/05\/18\/the-op-ed-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":0},"title":"The Op-Ed Project","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"May 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Once, a bazillion years ago, when I worked for Citicorp POS, I had a life changing experience. \u00a0The executives took the entire company down to Florida from Connecticut for a three\u00a0day ropes team building course. \u00a0It was amazing, but not for the reason the executives anticipated. I have an enormous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":243,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2013\/10\/11\/football-at-unc-charlotte\/","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":1},"title":"Football at UNC Charlotte","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"October 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So, a lot of disclosures here: 1) \u00a0I planned on writing this BEFORE I was chosen to be a faculty coach. \u00a0(read what that is and my personal thoughts about that here) 2) \u00a0These are clearly my own thoughts and not those of anyone else at UNC Charlotte. I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":143,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2011\/09\/14\/sabbatical\/","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":2},"title":"Sabbatical","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"September 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am on sabbatical this semester, although at UNCC, we call it reassignment of duties leave. \u00a0(I think it's illegal to call it sabbatical in NC. \u00a0WHOOPS!) \u00a0So I tell people that I'm on leave this fall, which of course makes them think I'm sitting around eating bonbons and watching\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":259,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2014\/02\/21\/writing-and-thinking-and-theorizing\/","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":3},"title":"Writing and Thinking and Theorizing","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"February 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm teaching my Writing And Thinking in the Organizational Sciences graduate class again. \u00a0(Wow! \u00a0My academic blog is two years old. \u00a0I really need to post more often) \u00a0This is a course that I took with Allan Wicker many years ago and is based upon Allan's (1985) paper on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":348,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2019\/05\/06\/preliminary-thoughts-on-the-unc-charlotte-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":4},"title":"Preliminary Thoughts on the UNC Charlotte Shooting","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"May 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I want to be clear: this is what it has been like for me in the last week. There are over 30,000 students, faculty, and staff at UNC Charlotte and I'm pretty sure there have been over 30,001 reactions to a gunman shooting our students last Tuesday. So far, I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":205,"url":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/11\/09\/the-data-are-what-the-data-are-part-deux\/","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":5},"title":"The Data Are What The Data Are Part Deux","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"November 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I told you so. \u00a0 In case you missed it, Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight\u00a0among others\u00a0\u00a0correctly predicted the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election. \u00a0And not only \"correctly predicted\" but predicted to a highly accurate degree the final electoral counts (and how FLA was a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}