LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

Kafkaesque’s blog recently featured an extremely thoughtful and thorough discussion about the perennial issue of increasingly stringent EU regulations being proposed for the perfume industry. The latest version of the EU regulations would essentially ban a large number of traditionally used natural materials, thereby severely limiting the palettes of European perfumers and wreaking havoc on Grasse and other regions that produce essential oils and absolutes for the perfume industry. 

The ostensible argument for these regulations is that a very small percentage of the population might be allergic to the materials in question. Whether “allergic” is the right term to use is questionable, but that was the topic of a previous post a long time ago. Even if it were correct, the obvious approach would be to have perfume manufacturers list all of the potential allergens (or irritants) on the label and let people make up their own minds whether or not to use the product. This is what is currently done with foods “that may contain peanuts” and other materials that could cause an allergic reaction far worse than anything that could potentially result from a little bit of dilute oakmoss or bergamot on the skin.

By the EU’s reasoning, practically all food should be banned, and it appears that this process is already underway with the restriction of cinnamon in Danish pastries. Soon to follow will be all spices, nuts, dairy products, wheat products, meat products, fruits and vegetables. If allergies are a problem, then the EU should ban all pollen-producing plants, trees, and grass. Ever heard of “hay fever”? That’s a real allergy, but as far as I know, no one wants to get rid of forests, food crops, green lawns and pastures except the developers who put up ugly housing projects, strip malls, and parking lots.

Given that the reasoning behind the current and proposed regulations makes no sense at all from a logical point of view, the question of "why?" remains unanswered. No one is going to clearly benefit financially, and probably the regulations will harm many EU industries large and small.

Cynic that I am, my guess about the motives underlying this type of micromanagement by the EU is that it is mega-bureaucracy's way of instilling a feeling of learned helplessness in their subjects. I see this tactic used all the time by the administration of the university where I work, by the local, state, and federal governments, by religious organizations throughout history, and by corporations that do not want to provide any sort of service to their customers. 

Teach people not to ask why they are instructed to do or not to do something; teach them not to question “authority”; teach them not to ask to talk to a human being who takes responsibility for having made the rules; teach them that if they ask questions or complain they will get no response or at best a dismissive response; shame or penalize them if they have a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable rule. Eventually people will realize their powerlessness in the face of the mega-bureaucracy and obediently behave as the bureaucracy asks them to. 

A populace trained in learned helplessness will eventually swallow any bullshit piled upon them. Too many times history has seen oppression start with the ridiculous and end up as harm to the oppressed themselves, or as harm inflicted by the oppressed on those who have been designated by the authorities as inferiors or enemies. Often it begins with arbitrary, but seemingly harmless, rules. 

[Lavender, peanut butter and cinnamon roll photos from Wikimedia; last photo is from Orson Welles film of Kafka's "The Trial".]

NO ONE WANTS TO BE FREE PART 1: TECH SUPPORT

The other night I dreamed that I was writing a blog post with the title “No one wants to be free”. When I woke up, I realized that it was the perfect title for a rambling series of posts originally inspired by a NY Times article calling attention to the fact that so many people, especially creative ones, are expected to provide free content to feed the insatiable appetite of the internet and entertain that segment of the public that wants to do nothing but sit back like semi-conscious zombies and consume the content of other people’s brains. 

Contrary to the title, some of us (including readers of this blog!) do want to be free to create according to our own vision, whether it be perfume, writing, visual art, music, or even science. The price of this freedom is often doing what we do for free, or at least from the precarious perch of a free-lance existence or a demanding day job.

As an independent perfumer, I’m fortunate not to have to be constrained by a wealthy corporation’s miserly budgets and explicit briefs to make conservative-trendy fragrances that smell familiar to mass-market consumers. I don’t have to make perfumes for detergents or deodorants. If I want to buy expensive osmanthus absolute, I can do so and use it to my heart’s content, and if I want to make a perfume that doesn’t smell like anything else in existence, I can do that, too.

I’m fortunate to have reached a position where I make enough through sales to continue to finance my creative experiments, even as my production capacity grows and sucks up larger and larger amounts of materials. I may not make a living as a perfumer, but at least I break even. This year I even had a little extra to buy myself an expensive treat for my birthday.

The thing that has set me off on my latest rant was finding yet another bug in Blogger. I wanted to do a new post on Arabian perfumes, but needed to know where I last left off. The search function in Blogger doesn’t work! I type in a search term and nothing happens. I sent Google feedback through the window that seems to be there for the sole purpose of directing complaints to an automatic deletion system. Do I feel better for having vented? No, I don’t, because I know it was futile.

Instead of tech support, Google has forums where users can post their complaints and have them addressed by other users. This means that Google has a lot of geek wannabes working for nothing, spewing out html workarounds for Blogger’s many bugs. Google doesn’t have to pay a penny for tech support personnel because these people provide it for free.  The advice that users post may be inaccurate, incomplete, incomprehensible, irrelevant, or it might actually work, which is about the same level of help one would get from many “professional” tech support people. However, I really resent having to rely on self-appointed free workers for information and services that should be provided by the company. Google isn’t the only guilty party. It seems that more and more companies hide behind a firewall of anonymity while allowing customers to discuss problems among themselves and, if they’re lucky, stumble upon solutions.

Apparently the Blogger search function problem has been going on sporadically for a year or more without any resolution, but with extensive discussion on the users’ forum.  Maybe it’s time to finally move on to another platform, even though I’d probably lose a lot in the process. If anyone has made a successful switch from Blogger to Wordpress with no loss, I’d like to hear about it.

I’m eternally optimistic but profoundly cynical, so I would like to think Wordpress is better, but expect that it has its own set of problems, most likely similar to those of Blogger, especially a lack of real tech support.

[Painting of frustrated writer by Leonid Pasternak; zombie, osmanthus, and chain-gang images adapted from Wikimedia] 

THE BUTTERFLY BUSH PROBLEM

Some things can be done at leisure but other things demand to be done right away. Orders have to be shipped in a timely way, and a lot of outdoor gardening tasks have to be done at a certain time of year. Yesterday was a glorious sunny day. When I went out to inspect the garden, I saw that the cyclamens and primroses were in full bloom, the hyacinths were poking their heads up, and the red hellebores were pushing up their new growth. I realized that if I didn’t prune the roses and fruit trees immediately, it would be too late.  So prune I did.

After the roses and fruit trees, I started in on a butterfly bush that had become a problem, growing to the height of a tree and encroaching on neighboring vegetation. It was a huge job, and I’m not through yet because I have to go back with a saw to hack away the bigger pieces.

A few years back I planted a tiny sprig of a butterfly bush, a Buddleia species or hybrid, and it’s grown into the monster in question. I am confident that, even with severe pruning, it will again grow huge in no time. I planted it because I’d seen small, well-behaved Buddleia bushes in Europe, and didn’t think about the fact that in the Pacific Northwest everything grows to many times the size it does elsewhere.

Buddleia is native to North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and has been bred and domesticated in gardens throughout the world. I recently learned that it’s considered a “noxious weed” in Washington state, but if given the choice, I’d rather have it growing everywhere than blackberries. Bring on the armies of Buddleia to do battle with the hordes of Himalayan blackberry orcs!

Last spring the butterfly-tree was completely covered with electric purple flowers, and was quite a sight to see. With such colorful flowers, I expected a correspondingly colorful fragrance. However, this particular specimen isn’t the star member of its genus when it comes to scent. Yes, it’s fragrant, but it’s not perfume-worthy. It has its floral facets, including a generic lily-of-the valley type scent along with a bit of heliotrope, but it also has a flat, sour-milky smell along with the florals, and it has a little bit of that “semen” smell that’s characteristic of a lot of shrubs with small white flowers (more on that in another post).

Other butterfly bushes have a pleasant fragrance. There’s a magenta one down the street that has a light, floral fragrance with citrusy notes. There’s an even redder one on the university campus that has a deep, full floral fragrance that’s altogether pleasant, if not really novel. I suppose the moral of the story is that if you want to make sure that your garden shrub has pleasantly fragrant flowers, you need to check it out in bloom before buying it. 

[All photos are mine, from my garden]

THE BLIZZARD, FLEURS DE GLACE, AND THOUGHTS ON WRITING ABOUT PERFUME

It appears that as we in the Northwest enjoy our usual interminable stretch of cool, damp weather, the rest of the US is being frozen solid and buried under a massive blanket of snow. In a serendipitously timely post, John Reasinger of Cafleurebon just wrote a review of Fleurs de Glace, a perfume that I was in the process of discontinuing.  His description of it is so eloquent and evocative that it makes me have second thoughts about pulling it from my line!

It also made me think about the symbiotic relationship between perfumers and reviewers. It’s fascinating to see how a talented writer can make us see our creations in a new light, and perfume reviewers are especially adept at doing that. Perfume is like poetry. Everyone gets something a little different from it, and every interpretation is right. A good reviewer shows the perfumer aspects of their creation that they had not thought of and translates the perfumer’s intangible work into tangible words for the public to enjoy.

This may sound strange, but it reminds me of what happens in the relationship between a playwright and a director. Having been on both sides of the process and caught in the middle as an actor, I’ve always marveled at the transformations that invariably occur depending on the interpretation of the director and cast. Even though the words written in the script don’t change, their intent and message inexorably evolves on its own unique trajectory as rehearsals progress. Each production is a completely different entity that picks up on different aspects of what the writer intentionally or unintentionally put in the script. Sometimes the writer is surprised to find that what they thought was a fluffy comedy actually makes some profound statements, or what they thought was a serious philosophical and conceptual piece actually comes across as uproariously funny.

I hadn’t thought of this before, but perfume reviewers really do interpret the perfumer’s “script” for an audience, with many audience members doubling as actors, extending the interpretation with their informal reviews and comments. No one should ever underestimate the importance of perfume writers at every level in making our creations come to life. There can never be too many writers because each brings something unique to the process of understanding a perfume.

Writing this makes me realize how thankful I am to everyone who writes about perfume, whether they are professional journalists and bloggers or consumers who post informal reviews and comments. I learn something from each one of you, and that is the more valuable than I can express.

I’d like to end this by pointing out that there’s a drawing on Cafleurebon for a full-sized bottle of the reader’s choice of Olympic Amber or Fleurs de Glace for readers in the US. 

[All photos are mine. Snow and ice photos are from the last time we had a significant snowfall in Seattle. I don't remember what year it was.]