litbitch

jesus says, "shut the fuck up"

So you may have heard about the book My Stroke of Genius. I was introduced to it almost a year ago on Fresh Air.  If you'd like to go right to the source, you can just click on over.
But here's my take.
So this neurologist had a massive stroke and, with the help of her mother et al, is now completely recovered.  That's the least interesting part of the story.  Her stroke attacked the language center of her brain, and most of her recovery was centered on communication skills, speech, etc.  But before the rehabilitation started, while her right brain was utterly dominant, even exclusive, she experienced a state that most would describe as enlightenment.  Without language, there was no delineation.  Without the power to name things, the recognition of the uniqueness of things vanished.  Without the other, she had no self, no ego.  She experienced, continually, her connection to the world and everything in it.  She was in a state of utter bliss.  So much so that she fought rehabilitation and reconciled her return to the world of intellect only if she could hang onto the ability to return to that place of peace, oneness, and selflessness. Astonishingly, she managed to do it.  She returned to her career, wrote this book, and continued her investigations of the workings of the human brain, as well as participating in the myriad petty concerns and stresses of the quotidian, but says that whenever she wants or needs it, she can simply turn off her right hemisphere.  She can tell her brain to shut the fuck up and be truly present and aware and part of the world. 

Religion is a right hemisphere story.  Enlightenment, nirvana, being saved, seeing the light, whatever your religion calls it - these are just different ways of describing the same thing: letting go of the analytical part of the brain.  For me, this is more proof that our higher power is simply our connection to everyone and everything, and our ability to transcend is simply our ability to let go.  I'm sure some religious people might find her experience disheartening.  The possibility that deep, spiritual peace is simply the deactivation of neurons or receptors or whatever might seem unglamorous, dull, utterly technical and lacking in magic.  To me, it is one of the most hopeful, inspiring things I've ever heard.  I don't do religion.  I'm not a scientist, but I'm a big fan of logic (too much so, in fact, ironically contributing to my resistance to achieving the non-magical, elevated state I seek).  And knowing that peace, happiness, presence is simply a matter of stopping the words, as difficult as that has proven to be, thrills me.  I do love the philosophy of secular Buddhism, and it has helped me more than I can express, but when it comes down to it, the understanding that suffering comes from grasping and clinging, that we are all connected, etc, etc, pales in comparison to feeling it.  I have, for a few seconds at a time, on good days, or at least I've come close.  But I want more. I want the non-wanting. I want it like I want 77 degrees, an ocean, and sunshine.  I want it like I want true, passionate, everlasting love. And I like the idea that I don't have to be special, or devoted, or a believer of any kind, to achieve that. Right now, I'd be happy to give up my reliable, supportive, destructive brain to get it.  Fortunately, I won't have to.  I just have to teach it how to listen when I tell it to shut the fuck up.  Or get hit with the perfect stroke, which, in all honesty, is probably just as likely.

Nice work, NRDC

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, I salute you.  Not only are you a tireless advocate for the environment, despite your perpetually exhausted larynx, but your timing is impeccable.  You managed to send me this address' first NRDC action alert on a day when I

1) am renegotiating my relationship with the world

2) just read about polar bears resorting to cannibalism

3) am becoming more and more terrified of the potential environmental impact of a McCain/Psychoalin presidency

4) have come to accept that, with as often as I now walk to the Wedge, I really could use another cloth bag for the groceries I can't cram in my backpack

nevermind that I

a) am perpetually worried about polar bears and

b) don't have the cash on hand to support the NRDC right now

It doesn't matter.  I will slam that dough on my credit card and get my complementary sappy, propagandist, polar bear-adorned produce bag, because you are a clever, clever man.

Damn you.

be afraid...

or don't.  I'm not big on fear as a way of life.  But for those of you who follow this blog religiously (cough cough), you may remember a post last October about fatal facial tumors in Tasmanian devils.  Well, I'm happy (?) to see I'm not the only one freaked out by the adverse potential that this development portends.  I've finally had a chance to read through some old Harper's, and the April issue had a feature article on contagious cancer, which I will provide for you, free of charge, here.  Because I care.  And I want us all to be scared.  Mwah hah hah!

mutualisms

I heard this story on NPR recently.  Here's the gist.  Elephants destroy trees.  Eat them "like cupcakes", the scientist said.  Bad simile, I think.  I would never think to compare a tree to a cupcake.  I think this says more about the scientist than the scientific phenomenon.  How about, "like celery stalks"? Or, if you want the sugar-addict connection, "like chik-o-sticks", or, better yet, "like chocolate covered pretzel sticks"?  Mmmmmm.  Anyway, in response to the constant threat from roaming Pachyderms, one African tree devised a brilliant little defensive measure.  It creates a delicious sap that attracts fire ants.  Thousands upon thousands of fire ants.  (If you've ever read accounts of ant swarms, or The Poisonwood Bible, your blood should be curdling now.)  When the elephants try to eat the tree, the ants attack them, crawling all over their faces and up their snouts (shiver).  So the tree survives and the elephant lunches somewhere else.  With the elephant population in perpetual and worsening threat in Africa, some scientists decided to do a little experiment, a kind of mini-example of the environmental effect of the devastation of this one animal. They put the trees in an elephantless control area.

What they found was not that the trees thrived, or grew in such abundance that they overwhelmed their environment.  Rather, with the absence of the imminent threat, the trees stopped producing the delicious sap.  No biggie, right?  Well, wrong.  Without the sap there were no ants, without the ants the tree was invaded by other, arboreally destructive bugs that chewed holes into the trees, turning them into dead, hollow shells. 

It's called mutualism.

I didn't spend 18 years in school to pass up a trope like this.

Buddhism and other spiritual practices preach that the people who annoy you, the people who stand in your way, the people who you would like to feed to the insatiable fire ants, are really your greatest teachers. Because they force you to confront what it is in yourself that allows them to set you off, I suppose.  It's hard to think of those fuckers as necessary, but, to extend the metaphor to it's absurd conclusion, if we don't find ways to cope with the people that eat away at us, we won't have the integrity to withstand the truly difficult challenges that will inevitably descend at some point.

So the "condescending little cunt" (her nickname when I'm not meditating), or "Princess meow-meow" (when I am) at work is not only a boon to my existence, she is essential.  I don't really care whether it's true or not.  It keeps me from stabbing her to death with a pickle fork.

but enough about me; let's talk tumors

So I saw a blurb on Yahoo news about Tasmanian devils with facial tumors, and I thought, "huh... wonder if it's anything like Prophet's."  Not. Even. Close.  I'm not going to link to the photos here, because I had to physically push myself away from the computer and get someone else to close the image when I benignly, innocently opened it up.  You want to be grossed out? You can find it yourself.  Crisis averted, I started reading up on the dog-like rodents and am now semi-obsessed with this fatal genetic & oncological oddity. 

interactive blog

So I'm seeing a therapist (I'm sure many of you are breathing a sigh of relief, or perhaps muttering "finally", or turning to your partner and laughing "fat lot of good it'll do that fuck up!"), and we've locked in on a problem that neither of us can (or has) solved to our satisfaction.  I have, for as long as I can remember, approached most challenges (looking for a job, meeting new people, auditioning for a play) with the attitude that I'm not good enough; I'm not smart enough; I'm not talented, pretty, experienced, witty, interesting, or clever enough, and why the hell would anyone like me?  Don't bother pitying me; at other times I am convinced that I'm the fuckin creme de la creme, and while those times are rare, their arrogance more than balances out the self-loathing.  Doesn't it?  Anyway, this feeling of insufficiency keeps me from applying for jobs, meeting new people, auditioning, etc..  Not always, but enough times to be embarrassing.  Embarrassing because I know it's bullshit, to some extent.  That is, I know I'm not nearly the person I want to be, but I can also see that while I may not be in the talented tenth (is that a misappropriation of that term?), I'm certainly not trolling on the other side of the spectrum. 

So... if this perception paralyzes and depresses me, why do I hang onto it?  Even if it is true (which, again, I sometimes believe and sometimes deny), what purpose is it serving for me to characterize myself in this way?  The only answer I can come up with is that it somehow protects me from disappointment, but it has to be bigger than that, doesn't it?  Any suggestions?  I'm a linear thinker; I need logic.  If I can ascertain the motivation, it might be easier to stop doing it.

p.s. All of you out there who know me and think I possess the characteristics denied above, you're all a little fucked up yourselves.  Or you're just saying I'm great because you love me.  And you just love me because... well, I haven't pieced that into the puzzle yet.

Or you're all damn lucky to know someone as fabulous as I.

Depends on the day.

March of the Penguins

Morgan Freeman's voiceover describes this documentary as a love story.  I'd probably believe anything Morgan Freeman says, but the filmmakers certainly don't harp on the idea.  In fact, the cynic could walk away from this film believing that what love there is is a love of survival.  But it's hard to be a cynic when you're watching penguins struggle through the hardest winter on earth in order to give life to a single chick.  What one can be, or what one troubled Zoe can be, is prolix and inquisitive about the nature of love. 

In attempting to examine this eternally difficult subject I find myself wishing we had as many words for love as the Eskimos (apocryphally?) do for snow.  By conflating so many diverse loves into one word we make ourselves crazy and, perhaps, compare things, feelings, people that have never played the same sport, let alone competed in the same weight class. (Do I sound even more removed, academic, and analytical than usual on this topic? Perhaps this is because I know I am utterly incapable of approaching the subject with anywhere near the beauty and quality it deserves? Or is it my imagination?)

What is "true love"?  Love that turns into a lifelong relationship?  Why do we equate love so often with permanence and exclusivity?  Is it merely a cultural imposition or is it organic?  Is "true love" love that you carry forever? love that makes you better? or is all love true love, and the ability to sustain a relationship something else entirely? Is a love that has no expectations, makes no demands, perhaps more pure than one that insists on commitment and exclusivity?  Is love only real when there is a shared history? a shared view of the world? If it is only a chemical reaction does that make it any less important, less real?  And is it the fear of the randomness of that primal chemical reaction that makes us try to transform it into something permanent? I've seen people try to justify a bad relationshp with the word love and try to legitimize love with a relationship.  "Prove your love" is a ridiculous request, but we do it all the time - by committing to exclusivity, by making changes in style or lifestyle for another person - but do these things have anything to do with love, or is love merely the justification for the real motivating factor - our fear of being alone?  Don't get me wrong - I liked being married, and I liked being in a relationship where sacrifices were made on both sides, but I don't know that those things had anything to do with romantic love.  Maybe if we had a word for "relationship love"....

Fucking penguins.

Is the connection made between two penguins, monogamous for a year and paired with the exclusive goal of creating and raising offspring, any different from our fucked up, overwrought human love?  If not, does that make our version of love any less extraordinary or magical?  Perhaps this primal emotion, this animalistic spark, is what's best in us rather than something to be sublimated.  Cuz I tell ya, you look at those penguins stroking beaks, pressed belly to belly, and you can't help but think "that's it".  For a moment, a month, or a lifetime that is it. 

"The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness."  I've always taken pride in being an outcast from that world, and the world would be an uglier and far more tedious place without the contributions of the self-aware, but maybe the loss of love - not the end of love, but the loss of the self, the psyche, the ego in love - is what allows each of us to enter into the world, to be embraced by it, to feel it was made for us.