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.

Rough Week

Really rough.

Feeling very low and emotionally lethargic.

So these comments on my ENL 505 Autobiography Biography assignment were really needed:

Shannon, These two pieces validate the worth of the assignment. Both pushed hard at their limits, high and low, and both achieved a stunning originality. Further, there are numerous treats along the way: "the undeniable fact of the matter is that success for any brain, Shannon's or yours, must in part be determined by checking bank statements"; the concluding line of the biography; "cried like paint spilling over the side of the can"; "I fell. I'm falling. I will fall." 

Oh, I got paid to write a song. Sure it was off Craigslist and sure it wasn't for much and sure it isn't likely to win a Grammy or three but I can't help but wonder: what percentage of the population ever gets paid to write a song?

Order Up! Modus Ponens. Over Easy.

I’m reading a book entitled The Self-Driven Child.

I got interested through this article and by being a parent.

The beginning of the book is about the brain and having taught Psych 101 much of this was review.

But then, suddenly, one little idea…

When someone is depressed, logic is impaired.

Logic? Impaired?

The logician in me will order the modus ponens this way:

If one is depressed, then one’s logic is impaired.

Not too surprising, right?

The brain is an organ and requires the right mixture of chemicals and elements to think logically or to do logic. Even logic like which way is right and which way is left, let alone something like advanced quantification calculus. Depression affects the balance of chemicals.

But…

Could we order the modus ponens the other way?

If logic is impaired, then one is depressed.

No.

There could be other factors (antecedents), conditions that necessitate depression and logic impairment isn’t one of them.

Now consider this question and logic:

How logical is it to believe in an afterlife?

That you will continue to be when the organ that organizes/synthesizes your thoughts and your personality (consider that I recently came to learn about a man who was struck by lightning, but lived to tell about it, and how his doctor’s warned him that he will see personality changes) will decompose like other material entities.

Can we say that any person x that believes in an afterlife has impaired logic?

Which goes first?

If one believes in an afterlife, then logic is impaired.

If logic is impaired, then one believes in an afterlife.

Commute, Cornell

My daily two-hour commute is just a fucking drag.

But let us add some key ingredients to, oh I don’t know, build character. 

        1.  Record heat in New England on Thursday 

By BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — Heat records were burning up Thursday in cities in the Northeast as the region gets a summer preview.

The mercury reached 92 degrees in Boston shortly after noon Thursday, breaking the old record of 91 degrees for May 18 set in 1936, according to the National Weather Service.

2.  The AC in my near-200k-mileage car decided to just blow air sans all of that, oh I don’t know, cool, along with it. So I had to sweat like I was in a sauna for two hours yesterday and probably went closer to deaf from driving with the windows down.

Builds character, remember?

But, as I drove through the Bay state this morning up and onto the Braga Bridge where the sound of the pavement roared over the radio that was already up to 11, a beautiful thing happened: the very cool air from the water below filled the car along with the faintest whiff of salt, and for a minute I was one content commuter.

I’ll take a minute.

I don’t know a lot about Chris Cornell and I wasn’t a huge grunge fan from back in the day but I read some stuff about him over the years and knew that he suffered from depression and addiction. I also knew that he had talent, unadulterated, from-the-womb talent. 

So while not a huge fan and while it was hard to hear (please see above for reasons why windows were down), when the Providence rock station played a portion of his isolated vocal track to Black Hole Sun, I cried.

Build character, right?

Headlines

A lot of people are wondering what color that dress is. 

 I’m colorblind and depressed so it’s definitely black. 

Did you see those Llamas on the run in Arizona?

                Llamas on the lamb. Kinky.  

Madonna says she suffered whiplash from the Brit Awards fall.

           Thank goodness she had her Medical Guardian Panic Button.