Behave...and Mirrors

 As I begin the hour commute back to work, at the recommendation of one of my colleagues, I am listening to Behave, by Robert Sapolsky.

The subtitle is: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.

Sapolsky is digging down as far as possible in regard to certain behaviors. 

Listening yesterday, after yet another episode in life where I shut down and found myself bitter and angry, Sapolsky held up a mirror with the following pages:

I can't get the image out of my head of my father, sulking and bitter on my wedding day. I think about the times over the years, way too many, where I have done the same thing: sulked and shut down, despite having the material things I need to survive.

Anhedonia - the inability to feel, anticipate, or pursue pleasure.

Am I there? At 50? Married with three young children?

Regardless, I think a paradigm shift is in order. I don't know how to practically make the shift and per Sapolsky, I think my biology, shaped by my early poverty/trauma, is getting in the way. It's like trying to avoid seeing yourself by looking in a mirror.

Species

I recently returned from a "vacation" from the outer banks in North Carolina. I put "vacation" in scare quotations because, well, I have three, count em, three young kids, so what I more accurately returned from was, a trip. Anyhoo, on said trip, I visited a putt putt golf, with said kids and...it felt...strange. (The Doors: People are strange, when you're a stranger...) Strange because it was insanely packed with vacationers (and perhaps some native outer banksers) put putting and the course itself was, how shall I say this, awful. The theme was dinosaurs, because who doesn't like to putt putt under a t-rex, but the greens were littered with, well, litter, and the dinos were crumbling and needed paiting and the waterfall had filth and muck and goo and slime and worst to mine eyes, a baby pacifier floating in it. And the, have to say it, people, there just seemed like a different species to me. Now I know I am getting old and am going through this mid-life/whole life crisis thingamagig, but I don't know what that has to do with people's fashion choices and vaping and chewing chaw and drinking coca-cola on a decrepid putt putt course. Some people marvel at the number of species on the planet. What plays a role in our vast, yes vast, number of species, has to do with geographic separation. Birds in South America can't produce viable offspring with birds in Norhtern Europe, let's say. Well, how do birds and other creatures get separated? Well, things like hurricanes and tropical storms and other assorted geographic separaters. So, it is roughly 700ish miles from Rhode Island to the outer banks. Is this enough geopraphic separation to make applicable a new species? Of course not. Through the fashion choices and the vaping and the coca-cola and the chaw and the vast differences, we could still produce viable offspring. Still, the experience was jarring and disorienting, like being thrown and tossed by a Nags Head wave.

Fixer-Upper

It was a fixer-upper, for the upper-middle class Needs met, wants a mere jest From bread and milk, to good head and silk The fixer-upper needs remodeled, the kids are coddled Camps and nannies and enhancement opportunities galore Less is not more Not here, have no fear You’ll see, money M-O-N-E-Y, to the sky The fixer-upper kitchen needs redone, hon. Italian marble here, one-of-a-kind backsplash there, money everywhere Spare no expense, a budget is nonsense Times are good and they’re gonna stay good The future isn’t unsure, to be sure, we have the cure For the fixer-upper

In Pursuit of Pursuit

This hit me so hard the other day. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/07/11/billy-mills-olympics Clearly, Billy Mills' pursuit of Olympic Gold and helping others, saved his life. As I continue to battle through my mid-life crisis, I listened to this and thought: What to pursue? I have pursued things and dreams in life and achieved some things and even met some goals...but now, with life half over (I'm a realist) and children to raise and help provide for, what to pursue? What are you pursuing? As Will Hunting asked in Good Will Huniting, "What winds your watch? Because time is ticking.