I have been writing, off and on, for several days now. I have two pieces finished that are not ‘Bad’ as bad goes but neither are they stories I care to share. Come to think of it, this one could go off the tracks as easily as the others. I do not think mental illness is a problem because, whatever it is that I do have, it doesn’t diminish my quality of life or disturb anyone around me. Maybe using narrative will make this easier. The ‘Ugly Duckling’ fairytale should be familiar. Early on, neither parents nor siblings raised a concern but the ugly one sensed that something was, ‘not right’. In time, the mystery was resolved happily. The bird’s premonition was correct, something was not right. How about a true story: I have a long time, close friend who is short, 4’ 9”. To a casual observer, her life appears to be normal but not a day goes by that she is not reminded, “You are different. Something is not right and it involves you.” From reaching the gas pedal without having the steering wheel planted in her chest to needing a step stool to reach the back-bottom shelf in her kitchen cupboard, something isn’t right. They could build a car and kitchen cabinets to suit her but that's not how civilization works.
In my own way, I am like both the ugly duckling and my friend. I sense that my peers and cohorts are different from me, that I don’t mesh, don’t fit and that this world isn’t going to realign anything to help quell my uneasy feelings. A wise, psychologist friend told me, “Normal is an idea, a data point on a distribution curve. It has neither mass nor volume but we still try to assign it a measure. Truth is, we’re all a little (Nuts). So live! Be happy.” So I try; I live and be happy.
That was nearly 40 years ago. Things change, people change and if you can’t update your hardware (brain) to meet the increasing demands of new software, you go sit on the porch and make small talk with a geranium. Over those 40 years, a simple (incomplete) understanding of human behavior has evolved into a much deeper quest. I already understood the role of (+ potassium ions) in the transmission of nerve impulses and how a fatty myelin sheath on nerve cell axons facilitates the process. There was no mystery there. Yet the fragile, easily polluted ground between real science and human behavior is a different story, and that’s where I needed to dig. From truly shaky beginnings (Sigmund Freud) to credible, reliable science (E.O.Wilson) the study of human behavior has become a science.
What good research has uncovered and continues to reveal is that old, universally accepted, common sense beliefs were full of holes. The myth of ‘Free Will’, if not blown up is seriously fractured. Old school religion and politics argue passionately in their own best interest but, the writing is on the wall. Our brains function as two interdependent parts. One, the cerebrum, gives us the conscious awareness of rational thought, we think. The other, midbrain, is absolutely unavailable to the conscious mind. Everything it does, it does without our permission. We can not think our way into it or monitor what goes on there. What theologians/politicians hate is that, the subconscious, inaccessible midbrain is critical to decision making, either yes I will, or no I won’t. Before the conscious cerebrum can decide anything, the midbrain has to give its permission and there is no avenue for conscious input to the midbrain. You can not lobby for its approval in advance.
The best science can offer any argument is a probability ratio, not a universal constant. After tens of thousands of years of human civilization, we want universal constants. Even if they are grievously flawed, humans prefer the myth of universal truth and will believe about anything that validates us in that belief. What is more human than betting against the odds?
Here I’ve spent nearly 700 words just framing an introduction. Telling the story would fill a book and I want to keep this under 1000 words. But with an open mind, ‘most anyone could appreciate my sense of not belonging, of something being, ‘Not right.’ In sports or business, competition is a good thing. Normal=average=mediocre and you are a loser. But in the cultural setting, normal is our ticket to the dance. "When in Rome, do as the Romans. . ." Extreme belief or behavior is certainly a weird, bad thing.
So far I’ve followed the psychologist’s advice; Live and be happy. But it ain’t getting easier. I have written before at length about the differences between individual decisions and collective, cultural determinations. The properties of a falling raindrop change incalculably once it becomes part of an ocean; water is still water but something changes in a profound way. In the same way, our individual decisions unfold easily in private but are consumed by a greater force as we are incorporated into a larger demographic, community or nation. I look around my community/nation and feel, ‘Something is not right.’ In this world, (Monkey-see-monkey-do) is the prevailing dichotomy. That’s not such a bad thing in itself but with God-like technology and split second reactions, believing we are divinely inspired, rational intellectuals, fully capable of fixing what needs fixing; that is scary. Going there publicly, with my writing, it runs the risk of appearing too far out of the mainstream, weird for sure. My psychologist friend was right, we’re all a little nuts. If I roll with the punches and take comfort where I can, maybe I can appear to be normal. With a clever little quirk, I might be accepted as an interesting character. This is approaching 1000 words, a good place to stop.
In my own way, I am like both the ugly duckling and my friend. I sense that my peers and cohorts are different from me, that I don’t mesh, don’t fit and that this world isn’t going to realign anything to help quell my uneasy feelings. A wise, psychologist friend told me, “Normal is an idea, a data point on a distribution curve. It has neither mass nor volume but we still try to assign it a measure. Truth is, we’re all a little (Nuts). So live! Be happy.” So I try; I live and be happy.
That was nearly 40 years ago. Things change, people change and if you can’t update your hardware (brain) to meet the increasing demands of new software, you go sit on the porch and make small talk with a geranium. Over those 40 years, a simple (incomplete) understanding of human behavior has evolved into a much deeper quest. I already understood the role of (+ potassium ions) in the transmission of nerve impulses and how a fatty myelin sheath on nerve cell axons facilitates the process. There was no mystery there. Yet the fragile, easily polluted ground between real science and human behavior is a different story, and that’s where I needed to dig. From truly shaky beginnings (Sigmund Freud) to credible, reliable science (E.O.Wilson) the study of human behavior has become a science.
What good research has uncovered and continues to reveal is that old, universally accepted, common sense beliefs were full of holes. The myth of ‘Free Will’, if not blown up is seriously fractured. Old school religion and politics argue passionately in their own best interest but, the writing is on the wall. Our brains function as two interdependent parts. One, the cerebrum, gives us the conscious awareness of rational thought, we think. The other, midbrain, is absolutely unavailable to the conscious mind. Everything it does, it does without our permission. We can not think our way into it or monitor what goes on there. What theologians/politicians hate is that, the subconscious, inaccessible midbrain is critical to decision making, either yes I will, or no I won’t. Before the conscious cerebrum can decide anything, the midbrain has to give its permission and there is no avenue for conscious input to the midbrain. You can not lobby for its approval in advance.
The best science can offer any argument is a probability ratio, not a universal constant. After tens of thousands of years of human civilization, we want universal constants. Even if they are grievously flawed, humans prefer the myth of universal truth and will believe about anything that validates us in that belief. What is more human than betting against the odds?
Here I’ve spent nearly 700 words just framing an introduction. Telling the story would fill a book and I want to keep this under 1000 words. But with an open mind, ‘most anyone could appreciate my sense of not belonging, of something being, ‘Not right.’ In sports or business, competition is a good thing. Normal=average=mediocre and you are a loser. But in the cultural setting, normal is our ticket to the dance. "When in Rome, do as the Romans. . ." Extreme belief or behavior is certainly a weird, bad thing.
So far I’ve followed the psychologist’s advice; Live and be happy. But it ain’t getting easier. I have written before at length about the differences between individual decisions and collective, cultural determinations. The properties of a falling raindrop change incalculably once it becomes part of an ocean; water is still water but something changes in a profound way. In the same way, our individual decisions unfold easily in private but are consumed by a greater force as we are incorporated into a larger demographic, community or nation. I look around my community/nation and feel, ‘Something is not right.’ In this world, (Monkey-see-monkey-do) is the prevailing dichotomy. That’s not such a bad thing in itself but with God-like technology and split second reactions, believing we are divinely inspired, rational intellectuals, fully capable of fixing what needs fixing; that is scary. Going there publicly, with my writing, it runs the risk of appearing too far out of the mainstream, weird for sure. My psychologist friend was right, we’re all a little nuts. If I roll with the punches and take comfort where I can, maybe I can appear to be normal. With a clever little quirk, I might be accepted as an interesting character. This is approaching 1000 words, a good place to stop.
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