mind.your.garden

Growing The Garden Of The Mind:

I recently heard that: “Your mind is like a garden, and just like in a garden: either flowers or weeds will grow. The problem is, that if you do not plant flowers, weeds will sprout up automatically.” This got me thinking about the metaphor of "the garden" when living an intentional life.

It is within the landscape of our minds that we start to create our life, and if we do not start to create deliberately, then old fears, and bad mental habits will create a world for us. So how do we go about mental gardening? Here are some easy tips to grow a fragrant bouquet in your life:

1. WEEDING

You would never undertake a huge design project without some sort of premeditated idea or design. Nor should you haphazardly hack away at your inner landscape without at least an idea of what you want to achieve.  My first rule in design, and life, is to “let the good overcrowd the bad”.  Think about this whenever there is something you wish to change in your life. Instead of trying to rip and tear a bad habit, relationship, or mental pattern from your inner landscape, try instead to “crowd it out” with positive things.

Take, for example, a bad relationship: Yes, you could try to cut a toxic person out of your life. But, as many people have experienced, attachment can be a funny thing. If it where as easy as just not partaking in something bad for us, then the world would be full of perfect people. In the case of a relationship that no longer serves you, there is an easier way than just “ripping off the band aid.” Instead, fill the time you would have spent with that person, doing things for yourself. Cultivate friendships and hobbies; you know, those things that fall at the way side when you start spending all your time with that one person.  Part of the anxiety of letting go of someone is the anxiety of the void that they will leave in your life. Start to fill that void with good things, and all of a sudden, you will feel the organic separation that occurs when two incompatible people simply go their own ways.

 The same goes for bad habits. Instead of keeping your same routine, but cutting out one damaging aspect, try to crowd out the nasty habit with a few new options. If you like eating junk food at night, then commit to having a salad before dinner and snacking on veggies all day. Think of it as currency: for every serving of veggies I eat, I’m allowed one treat. If you want to quit smoking, then start a physical activity like jogging or spin class and allow yourself one cigarette for every 10 minutes of activity.  If you always watch TV, or are on the internet in your free time, commit to journaling for 10 minutes before you turn to your usual distractions, but then indulge guilt free. Your new habits are there to release you from the guilt that your old habit carry. Releasing guilt is an essential step for moving forward with your change.

You will find that your new habits work in a few ways: Firstly, they broaden your self-concept, now making room for a change. If you are now a runner, that becomes less compatible with being a smoker. If you eat healthier, you are no longer just an unhealthy eater. You broaden your self-concept, thus giving you the CHOICE to really change if you want to, because you can now see how the other side feels. At the same time, you have not yet “committed” to quitting your bad habit, which means you can out-grow it organically.  Most people think “just stopping” is the only option, but the fear of failure stops them from even trying. But when you broaden your horizons by adding good habits to your current ones, you will find that the older habits no longer serve you.  In contrast, if you were to just try to cut the habit out, the void that is left will be glaring, and if you do end up falling off the wagon you will just reinforce your identification with that bad habit. 

2. PLANTING SEEDS

You cannot have what you do not know you want!

 Many people live a default life. They take the jobs that they are offered. They date the people that cross their paths. They accept the truths that others tell them, and so their life passes them by, without having made a decision, at all, about how they would like to live.

“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” That might be tough to answer, but at least start with something smaller like: “what is your ideal job?” or “what qualities does your ideal mate have?” If you have never sat down and written out, in detail, about the essential features of your life, then you are not daring to live! Many people are scared of disappointment, and so they never ask. This, to me, is so sad. If you ask anyone who has tried this exercise, they will tell you that it works! WHEN YOU GET CLEAR ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT, IT IS LIKE SETTING A COURSE FOR YOUR SHIP TO SAIL. If you put no other work into your life, at least do this one thing. Yes, it might be years before you reach your destination, but the other option is just to drift aimlessly until you die. So really, what do you have to lose by setting a vision for yourself?

I personally love LISTS! I make a list for everything I want. I title it: "My New Job", or "Summer Body" or "My Relationship" or "My Perfect Partner"or "Me: 2012". I make lists over and over for the same thing...tweaking it as my needs/wants evolve. I write them whenever I get a chance, on anything I can get my hands on. You don't need to keep them, you just need to keep writing them! Write in the present "I have" ,"I live" ,"I do", not "I want/wish/will have" and write positives. Don't say: "I'll lose 10 pounds", instead say "I am fit, healthy, and attractive."

Make sure that you are DETAILED but not specific. This means focussing on feelings or features of what you want, but stay away from naming the exact thing. For instance, instead of saying "I want to lose 10 pounds", or "I want to be skinnier", focus on all the detailed feelings that you want. "I  see the definition in my leg muscles", "I feel full of energy", "Clothes look great on me", "I get compliments on my butt from strangers"...whatever will get you in the feeling place without constraining you. If at any time while making your list you feel stressed/anxious/tight in your body/mental resistance, then try to rephrase that item so that you feel FREEDOM! 

3. TENDING YOUR GARDEN

You should spend as much time in your garden as you can. If you neglect your garden, it will be at the mercy of nature and the elements, and will not turn out the way you would like. Read, learn, nourish yourself, and listen to your body and mind. Rest when you need it; laugh when you need it. Use the vision you set for yourself to guide your action when you start to feel lost again. For example: I was feeling totally hopeless about cultivating friendships. It just felt like hard work, and I had a problem getting close to people. Despite having no faith in the idea of cultivating close friendships with inspiring females, I set out to create a vision for myself nonetheless. Now, all of a sudden, I am spending a lot of time with inspiring woman, and really connecting. Also I have better relationships with my (small) group of current girlfriends, but we have rekindled or redefined our friendship. But, there are also new inspiring people that I want to connect with. I asked…and it was given!

4. LETTING THEM GROW

The Dalai Lama said: “When you plant seeds, you do not sit there and wait for them to grow. You carry on with your life, trusting in the process of nature.”

The same goes for your garden. You can tend it everyday, and ensure optimal conditions for growing, but in the end, you are wasting your life if you just sit there and wait for results. There likely is, in every one of our lives, something that we wished was different. We would maybe even go as far as to say that if this one thing changed, we would be happy. This is the biggest mistake people make. They waste huge chunks of their life waiting for things to change, instead of trusting the process. Ironically, trying to control the speed of change in our lives is the surest way of slowing this down. I don’t know how or why it works like that, but I can GUARANTEE that you are hindering your growth by “pushing it”. You can spend all day chasing butterflies and not catch a single one, but fall asleep in the grass and you will wake up with ten of them sitting all over your clothes.

Happy Gardening!

separation.desperation

separation is an illusion

an allusion to the past

of the colonies

of the takeover

of the perceived superiority

of the hetero

christian

rich

white

man

but there is no separation

no one is free

until we all are free

and so you continually enslave yourself

when you speak of your superiority

over any other

the coloured man that has tasted bitter oppression

uses that same tongue to call women bitches

keep enslaving yourself

the homosexual man who has won the fight with AIDS in his own country

looking down on Africans suffering

saying they deserve it

those fucking breeders

keep enslaving yourself

the poor man grown rich

extols the virtues of capitalism

that system that suffocated his family and lead to his suffering

keep enslaving yourself

the christian who in the same breath speaks of the love of God

and the fiery pits of hell reserved for those who do not believe

an intolerance of the grandest nature

keep enslaving yourself

the woman who fights everyday to make it in this world

and then turns around to her fellow sister

and calls her a slut

keep enslaving yourself

keep judging others

keep enslaving yourself…

the.thirst

Although our collective cultural enthrallment with Vampires has (pardon the pun) died down a bit, I believe that the story of the Vampire will forever hold a special place in the psyche of humans. Garlic, stakes, silver and sunlight aside, I believe we are all—metaphorically—Vampires.

Stories in a culture are a mirror held up to our collective consciousness, and the story of the Vampire is no exception. Even blood is an important metaphor here. Blood represents our life force in an important way. It animates us, and a body drained of blood is still intact and looks much the same, but is without life. Vampires do not eat us whole, ripping flesh from bone like any other meat eater; humans included. The poetic beauty of Vampires is that they only take our life force, leaving us otherwise intact. Also an apt metaphor for Capitalism, I think.

Vampirism could be seen as a metaphor for how we live much of our lives. Money, time, energy, and emotions… they are all life force. From time-to-time we feel suitably alive, and animated by the life force flowing through us. Other times, we feel drained of our life forces either through individuals, or through systems like Capitalism, that leave us feeling like we are barely clinging to life. This is to say, some times we feel more Vampire than human. If you are drained to such an extent that you die, you will inevitably turn into a vampire too: doomed to drain the life force from others and perpetuating the cycle. This is something to watch out for.

But, besides being a cautionary tale of energy exchange, the metaphor is also appropriate for how each of us chooses to live our lives. Humans all have the thirst; except for us, it translates into a feeling of “I need more”. This drive for always getting more is our human nature, and without it, our species would die off because we would completely stop striving for survival. But unfortunately this thirst cannot be quenched either. We never get to a point in our lives where we say: “Ok, this is enough. I am going to stop now and just live with what I have.” We somehow always feel like we are just teetering on the brink of survival. We are always parched, no matter how much we drink!

So why the fascination with Vampires, when they represent such an ugly truth about our nature? I think it is because the story of Vampires shows the outcomes of choosing (or not) to go against your biological tendencies. Good Vampires choose to be more than what nature rendered them as, whilst evil Vampires revel in their place in the food chain, and completely give in to their instinct to kill and drain. Ironically, even though Vampires represent an evolved species, when a vampire chooses to embrace his nature, he is reduced to nothing more than an animal. The good Vampire, that learns to live with his unquenchable thirst, goes on to pursue a meaningful life. Within this paradox lies our fascination with Vampires.

Homo sapiens sapien means “The man that knows that he knows”. We know much about our human nature, yet if we choose to give into it completely, we are reduced to animals. And that is what a vampire is: Homo sapiens anamalus…the man that knows he is an animal. In this way, we are all Vampires, unless we choose to be more than that.

So I propose we all learn to live with the thirst. Instead of telling ourselves: “I will be happy when I get more money/ a mate/ that house/ this new job/ more sex/ that next vacation etc”, we choose to accept the truth that even though this thirst might seem life threatening and very visceral, it is NOT going to be quenched by the next achieved goal. Of course, we will never stop striving, but we must learn to live a joyful life while we pursue our goals. It is a delicate balance, and since our lives are always in flux—dependent on a million factors from sleep, to traffic, to state of mind—the thirst will seem stronger sometimes. When we are tired, we reach for candy; when we are lonely we look for sex; when we are sad, we dream about money. Our suffering is vast and varied, but it is all connected. And therefore, most of it can be alleviated simply through acknowledgement. Acknowledge your thirst, and then move toward enjoying your life anyway.  

super.powers

My Strength is My Weakness

Just like Superman, the alien from the planet Krypton, the very thing that makes me powerful is also my downfall. See, I unabashedly believe in superpowers, and I think that we all have them. They are our innate preferences; skills and talents that might seem mediocre at first, but when cultivated, can become supernatural. Think of a powerful athlete that defies what we think is possible for our bodies. Think of math geniuses, elite musicians, and composers. There are also those people that appear “normal” to the untrained eye, but possess energetic, internal talents that everyone around them can attest to. Some are teachers; put on this earth to guide people through the labyrinth of life. Some are healers; with the ability to work empathetically with our life-source energy to heal, nourish and guide. Just like the X-Men had an array of quirky characters, some people in our midst are just as gifted. Some people are made of stone, in the sense that they are utterly unperturbed by life’s rough sees. Some have magic shields that afford them an unwavering optimism no matter how many blows they get dealt. Some are chameleon like in their ability to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. Some have a force field (what we know as a “strong personality”) around them that can blow people away, or bend them to their will: for good or evil. We know so many people with special abilities, and we also can see to what extent they have embraced those abilities. Maybe we have a friend who uses her optimism simply to carry on being a good administrative assistant, but we also know of the great optimists that have fully cultivated their abilities and have made it their careers. Martha Beck--a woman who has fully embraced her MANY superpowers--comes to mind. But whether you have embraced your superpowers or not, you know deep down inside what they are. We all do.

Our intuition is squashed from such a young age, we are all made to feel alien for doing what comes naturally to us. Optimists are told to get real, and that life is hard. Artists are told that they will be starving. We are told not to get our hopes up. We are told, essentially, not to do what feels right because the only actions deemed noble in this world are suffering, and working hard at something you don’t enjoy. No wonder the world is in such a mess. All the ills we see happening in the world are symptoms of this diseased thinking. For as long as I can remember, I have never felt like I truly belonged on planet earth. The funny thing is, most of us probably don’t.

I have felt like an alien for all of my life, until I met my partner Chris. He is the first person to see right through my “skin suit” to who I really am. He knows what my superpower is, and has encouraged me to develop it, and learn to control it so that it doesn’t control me. Looking back over my life, for as long as I can remember I have had the same superpower. It has always served me well, but has also made me feel like an outsider. Except, as I learn to accept more of the “unseen” things in the world I realize that I am indeed a weird little alien, but I am living among other weird little aliens, and we are all pretending to be normal…whatever that is!

So, what is my superpower? Well…try not to laugh…it’s X-Ray vision!  No seriously, it is. I don’t see through walls, I see through people, situations, and circumstances. When I meet people, I get “a read” on most of them within a few minutes of getting to know them. I also get clear insights into people’s motivations sometimes. It is more than just their behaviors, although those often give them away. The way they enter a room, watching to see who is watching them. The way they speak to try to hide their insecurities. Their mannerisms; their tone; the way they are around different people. The looks they give. All of this stuff most people that are “good with people” can pick out. But I feel, for lack of a better word, their energy. (If that word gives you hives, or engages your eye roll response then it is probably best you stop reading. The rest of this article is only going to get weirder.) It is so impossible for me to describe what I feel sometimes with people, but what I can best describe it as is psychic energy…as in…the vibes coming from their psyche/personality/thoughts (whether unconscious or not). 

When someone meets me that is threatened by my looks, it hits my like a brick wall. When someone is uncomfortable in a social situation, I can feel the fidgety energy. When someone is insecure I can taste the bitter taste of insecurity. When someone is trying to control the situation/conversation it is the worst because I start to vibrate, shiver and shake inside! It’s like I can actually feel their energy trying to bend me to their will-whether they realize they are doing it or not. Now imagine me trying to act normal while being bombarded by these energies. It is exhausting! I mean, most people are giving off some bad vibes at some point. We all feel insecure, or controlling, or restless at times. In a crowded room (where even the most self-assured person's insecurities come out), it is bound to be a mixed bag energy and I can feel all of it. I have found myself becoming more and more withdrawn lately since I have been consciously developing my superpower. As my ability gets stronger, I find it more and more intolerable to be around people and be bombarded by their issues. I say “issues”, because when someone is giving off positive energy I just bask in it unaffected, but when someone is having some sort of psychological conflict I am hit with it...hard! Now isn’t it so funny that my Superpower is also my Kryptonite? Actually, it’s a perfect design.

It is the age-old wisdom of the comic books that “with great power comes great responsibility”, and that if we do not control our powers, they will control us. Empathy and a natural ability to care for people can turn into a life of servitude to others. Power, if wielded unwisely, will be your downfall. Optimism, when used to mask real problems, can be destructive. Imagination, when used to escape and hide instead of build and create, is just an addiction. Teaching can become preaching. Healing can become manipulation. In all of our natural abilities lies our destruction. For me, having a front row seat to other people’s issues not only makes me a hermit, but also makes it hard for me to open up to some kinds of people. Mostly because my first response, without fail, is to give them what they want out of the social interaction so that my suffering from feeling their anxieties will stop! After that, not much energy is left for me to talk about myself. Especially when I can feel that they are so caught up in their own issues they don't really want to get to know me.

I have become quite the social chameleon. When I encounter that woman who is threatened by my looks, if I know I have to "be friendly" with her for a while I will instantly try to put her at ease by complementing her, and letting her feel that she is better than me in some way by revealing an insecurity or fault. I dial up my naïveté, and dial-down my exuberance. When I feel that someone is trying to control the situation or conversation, I quiet right down and submit to her. I nod a lot, and ask questions and say “oh really”—sometime as an exclamation and sometimes as a question, but always in a way that lets them prattle on. Why don't I assert my points? Talk over them? MAKE them listen to me? Well, trying to compete with someone energetically is impossible for me. The more I push, the more I intensify their controlling energy, which I can then feel magnified, so the worse I feel in return. Instead I nod and smile, while feeling myself vibrating faster and faster until I am shaking inside (and sometimes outside) with their dictatorial energy.

 In this way I feel totally incapacitated by this superpower. It has rendered me lonely and almost anti-social. But, every now and then, I have a day where I feel like nothing can touch me. I still feel all that energy, but instead of soaking it up and having it knot in my solar plexus like a toxic waste-dump, I can let it all roll off of me. I can still help that person if I truly want to, but I don’t have to alter my behaviour to make them feel better. Sometimes I can find that sweet separation between them and me, and I can let them have whatever mood they are in. The problem is, I am just learning how to do that.  That is the next act for me. I am learning to stop internalizing other people’s feeling states, and to go about my life-enjoying people for who they want to be, not what they are feeling in the moment.  But until then, if you run into me in a crowded room and you can see a faint twitching in the corner of my eye, just remind me to take a deep breath! 

hello.darkness

Where is my light, where does it come from?

Do you see it even when I don’t?

Where is my light, is it still shining?

Will you still love me when I can’t love myself?

I know I’m still growing, I’m not quite there yet

the seeds that I’m sowing wont be full of regret

My time will come, my dreams will find me

but will you be here while I’m searching blindly?

Where is my light, when will it find me

I can’t be in the darkness forever

Will you believe in me, when I can’t manage?

No one is shiny all the time

Where is my light? When will it find me?

When will I feel like I’m not faltering?

Blindly hoping that you’ll still want me

Even when I’m nothing. Nothing to myself.

I know you used to see it, but maybe now you notice

I used to be bright, but it’s all dull now

How do I hold on to you,

when I can’t get a grip on who I am?

Where is my light? I hope I find it

And I hope its not too late

Because when the day is dark as night

When you hold me
the spark turns me into my light.

jealous.much

I believe in listening to my intuition, to that gut feeling I get about something that is sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. Sometimes I have such strong emotional reaction to things that “shouldn’t” be a big deal, and it makes me feel crazy! In my case, the alarm usually screams from somewhere in my sternum, and moves it’s way up past my heart, and into my throat as the issue evolves, and eventually resolves itself through expression-whether that be to my partner, a friend, or through writing.

The latest of these feelings came in the form of a disgust-reflex I had at seeing a part of the movie The Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe. Every woman I knew has grown up with Marilyn in the periphery of her consciousness. She is after all our modern Helen of Troy. I honestly hadn’t given her that much though until lately, but it seems as though we are going through a Marilyn-appreciation resurgence. When we (my partner and I) watched a segment of that movie, I really couldn’t suppress the disgust reflex that bubbled up. My partner shook off my reaction as jealousy at her status, or insecurity in my own looks, which is why he thinks I don't like Kate Hudson either. For a while I wondered if that was all it was. Am I just having a good old jealousy attack? But if it was as simple as that, then why do some woman make me have this feeling while others don't? I am not jealous of Amanda Seyfried or Angelina Jolie, both of whom are insanely beautiful. Why am I so bothered by some women and not others? The feeling didn’t go away, and I have come to trust my inner navigation system enough not to try to suppress it. When my radar beeps, I don’t just assume that it’s malfunctioning. And so I let myself feel what I was feeling knowing that the discomfort, much like a pocket of air bubbling up from my stomach, would cause more ache if I didn’t just let it out.

And here it is:

The problem with someone that is so praised for their beauty, and for nothing else, is that they are not valued for being human, messy, and complex. They are crafted into an artificial notion of perfection, and no doubt her humanity withered under the suffocation of that lie. As the film rolled on, I got more and more uncomfortable with all the aspects of it. That poor woman! She was not only the original dumb blonde, but she is so thoroughly objectified and made a fool of that no wonder her life ended the way it did. To see her beauty, which really is not only timeless but radiant, be so thoroughly exploited was really hard to ignore. And she set the standard for the treatment of “The Bombshell” for decades to come. I couldn’t just shut off my brain and enjoy the film, because I was watching history being made, and I could see how she has shaped the world I live in as a woman today.

When I saw her for the first time in that film, it was the same as when I finally got to see the Mona Lisa. For anyone who hasn’t seen the Mona Lisa, it is very disappointing! The painting is only 30 inches tall, and housed behind a thick bullet proof case, cordoned off by velvet ropes so that there is no person that is able to get within 10 feet of her. I imagine it must have been much the same case with Marilyn, which led me to compare the two phenomena side by side. The Mona Lisa was never commissioned for a famous patron, nor was the painting displayed for many years after being finished. When the painting was finally displayed, it did not revolutionize the art world immediately. Part of the reason the Mona Lisa is so famous now is because fame is somewhat of a snowball effect. A man committed suicide in front of the Mona Lisa (which might have been a coincidence), and it has also been stolen twice. Is it because she has a magical power over people? If you have seen her you will likely agree that it is probably not the case. But regardless, part of her fame is, I’m sorry to say, some hype.

I think the same could be said of Marilyn Monroe. She was, no doubt beautiful and likely had an enigmatic quality about her, but now that she is gone what are we left with? You cannot reproduce the light that someone has, and so by reproducing this limited image of a smiling Marilyn over and over again in our culture, leads me to wonder if we are not just in love with her artificiality. After all, she was not even a natural blonde. She also had a stutter, and spent much of her childhood in foster homes. There is nothing perfect about her if you consider the whole picture, yet she seemed to do everything to try to escape those aspects of herself, and in our continued idealization of her we are trying to suppress her humanity (and perhaps our own) as well. That is not much of a tribute, in my opinion.

In the end, that is what sets my radar off, and ultimately bothers me about some people (famous or otherwise) and not others. How well do they embrace their humanity, their complexity, and their messiness? Sometimes I get the feeling that someone’s whole life is a performance, and usually my radar goes off when I am exposed to someone like that. It does not mean I am judging them as frivolous and inconsequential (well at least I try not to) but it does mean that I do not see them as strong women, and I do not appreciate them as much as someone who just goes about her life-strong in her sense of self, and not putting on a show for anyone.

child.like

Everything old is new again

Do you ever get the feeling that your life seems really uneventful, or kind of empty? Well, here is a seemingly unrelated question: Do you ever remember backing out of the driveway, or driving to work? Chances are, unless you hit a child or another vehicle, you usually don’t remember these things. That’s because your brain saves precious energy by putting you into autopilot when doing familiar tasks. 80% of the total amount of glucose your body uses gets used by that tangle of nerves between your ears, which makes your brain a very energetically expensive piece of machinery to operate!  So whenever your brain can save some energy, it will. This cognitive efficiency is great in theory, but is actually contributing to a problem in modern society. That’s because our perception of how “full” life is depends on how many memories we have, or in other words, how many events stand out to us in our memory of the day. The more events you remember from the day, the “fuller” your day will feel.

Memory has three components to it: Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval. Encoding is done through attention, and thus when you are not consciously paying attention to a task it does not get committed to memory at all. This means that all of those times you are on autopilot will be chunks of your life that will feel like they never really happened. So, when you don’t pay attention a thing/setting/person/task that you are familiar with, you will be unable to encode that event. And since encoding leads to memory, and memory is a crucial measure of how full, satisfying, and eventful our lives feel, not paying attention is one of the biggest reasons for feeling like you have an unfulfilling life!

But alas, knowing the problem is easier than fixing it. I can’t believe people are still giving the advice: JUST BE MINDFUL! I’m sorry, yogis are good people and all, but they really need to elaborate on that notion, because any advice that starts with “just” and that can be summed up in one phrase is, frankly, just bullshit. Mindfulness is a practice that, not only takes skill, determination, and a lot of free time, but also takes an insane amount of energy. Being mindful all of the time will actually result in mental fatigue. It would be like reasoning that because exercise releases endorphins, if you want to feel happy, just exercise all day! Don’t get me wrong, mindfulness is definitely a habit worth cultivating, but it is not really something you can do all day. Especially not if you have a life where you are not taking serene walks in nature, or doing yoga all day. Think of mindfulness like trying to walk up straight, or suck in your gut. If you’re not used to doing it, you will remember for about thirty seconds before you get distracted, and next thing you know you will catch yourself slouching again.

Our brains are built for efficiency, and they are not going to expend considerable resources reminding us to suck it in, walk up straight, or to be mindful. Thus, intention alone does not a lifestyle change make! When it comes to feeling like you have a fuller life, your secret weapon is Dopamine. Dopamine is the neurochemical responsible for all the greatest things in your life. Being the “reward chemical”, it is released when you get a new sexual partner, buy a dream car (or buy anything exciting), win the lottery, eat chocolate, go on vacation, or have an orgasm. It is the chemical that tells your brain: FUN, YAY, and MORE! Dopamine is also (surprise, surprise!) responsible for encoding very significant memories. This is because your brain has evolve, not only to reward you for behaviors that are essential for survival, but also to make them stand out in your memory so that you do them again.  Eating high calorie foods; having sex-especially with a new partner; shopping-which is the evolutionary equivalent of stockpiling up for the winter; and exploring-which was essential for finding new food sources and territories, are a few behaviors that release dopamine, and dopamine is like a giant flashing sign that says: PAY ATTENTION, ME LIKEY! In short, anything that can be considered a novel experience will release dopamine, and so, new experiences will stand out in your memory because of the dopamine release that facilitates very effective encoding.

New experiences-->Dopamine=good feelings+more attention being paid= a more exciting life!

Unfortunately, a dopamine surge is very short lived, and so if you are depending solely on high-calorie food, shopping, and orgasms to get your dopamine fix, your life will still feel unfulfilling, except it will have an out-of-control, addictive bent. Even though the dopamine is there, the memory won’t last because the access is too easy, so you will crave the experience again soon after it has passed. You will also get used to the experience, and so you will be on autopilot up until the moment the dopamine hits, and then in a few minutes you will be back on autopilot. In contrast, if you get your dopamine from extended novel experiences where there is a prolonged sequence of novel stimuli that forces you to pay attention, the dopamine gets released over a long period of time, and that whole time you will be creating a new memory. That is why most people remember vacations so vividly. On vacation, almost everything you see is new and exciting, which releases an ongoing stream of dopamine, and forces you to pay attention and commit it all to memory. On the other hand, when you are firmly stuck in a routine, dopamine is almost never released unless it is in the short bursts during sex, shopping, food intake, orgasm or the like. That is why so many people get addicted to these things. If you find your dependence on these things growing, it could be symptomatic of a boring life!

Dopamine is also the reason why people find sexual excitement deteriorating with the same partner. Sex becomes like your routine drive to work -automatic. Mindfulness is one way to make sex more satisfying, and novelty is another. I would use a combination though, because just using novelty could lead to an “escalating” kind of behavior that leans more toward addictive than adventurous. But that being said, some people could definitely use some novelty-whether it be a new sexy outfit, location, or even just a different sequence of foreplay. Again, why do you think you have such great sex on vacation? It is because the novel setting facilitates dopamine release, thus making you pay more attention to every sensation you are experiencing, and committing the event to memory.

Another interesting fact about memory is that it is responsible for the sensation that life speeds up as you age. There have been many theories as to why it feels like life passes by faster and faster as we age, but the latest one again has to do with novelty. It theorizes that as adults age they become more and more cognitively efficient, and also more set in their ways. This results in fewer new experiences and thus fewer memories. That gives new depth to the notion of “living life to the fullest” because it literally means that filling your life with new experiences will essentially make it feel fuller, and like it is passing by slower. But you want to start incorporating more novelty into every facet of your life, not just in big chunks like on vacations, or in the beginning of a romantic relationship. We cannot have an endless parade of vacations, new cars, and varying adventures, so the challenge comes from incorporating some novelty into everyday experience. The best way to do this is to act like a child. This is the easiest if you have a partner and/or friends that are up for trying the experiment with you. Commit to one week of doing things that children would do, and experiment with turning your world upside-down as much as possible that week. I know the results will astound you, and it will become a regular activity.

Try brushing each other’s teeth before bed. Put your pillows on the other end of the bed and wake up with a different worldview. Have a picnic on your living room floor. Commit to trying different restaurants, or have some totally different dates doing things you wouldn’t usually do. Make a bet on who can go the longest through the evening doing everything wearing oven mitts. Blindfold each other and pick out the clothes you will be going out in that night. Or blindfold each other and stay in, trying to navigate the house, and each other. Have theme-night dinners where you choose a culture, and make a traditional meal. It will be fun finding the stores and shopping for the food with your friends or your partner. There is so much to do, but the point is-it all takes a little bit of effort. If you feel like your life is boring, you are not putting the effort in. Hopefully now that you understand why it is important, you will do it more. Mediocrity is a terrible ailment-but in the end it is one that is easily remedied. All you need are a few partners in crime! This brings me to my last point:  if all the people in your life are content doing the same things over and over again, then maybe the change of scenery you need is a new group of friends! I know it sounds mean, but life really is too short not to live it to the max every day. If you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, then having boring friends without a sense of adventure can really rob you of a fulfilling life. But hey, hopefully you will be able to bring them over to the fun side instead? In the end, it’s all about acting like a child, seriously.

“Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?”-Kahlil Gibran

un.colour

I love beige. But, not just beige: my reverence extends to tan, ecru, sand, buff, and khaki. To be honest, I feel unequivocal love for a whole spectrum of non-colours. Firstly, I would be amiss not to mention classic sports grey; an incantation of grey that is neither dark enough to be somber, nor light enough to be fussy, and that has an equally important place in my heart, and in my closet. Beige and sports grey, to me, are like blue jeans. I own so much of it that my laundry piles are divided into grey and beige, as apposed to the usual lights and darks. The fact that the two together prove to be a combination rivaling tomato and basil, only adds to their individual appeal. And whilst on the topic of grey, one cannot forget to mention the lovely wispy sensibility of a light dove grey: a grey that seems to me as light as a spider’s web, even when woven into a thick cable knit sweater. This grey is the most perfect grey: an allusion to silver, but without the narcissistic plea for recognition. Then there is cream; a (non)colour so richly saturated that it is almost regal. Cream has a palpable sophistication that somehow manages to be so spitefully self-effacing that one must yield to the superiority of any person that dares to wear it head-to-toe. Try it once. Your wedding day would suffice.

On the darker side of the spectrum black needs no introduction, but perhaps navy blue does. Navy blue, along with a few other colours that read as neutrals, are the tint equivalents of the newly rich. Not born into status and power like a true neutral, they nonetheless have earned their sophistication by proving that they are just as able to fit into the upper crust, albeit only through association with the original royal bloodlines. Like any advantageous marriage, a subdued colour can ‘marry up’ by pairing with one of the original neutrals: as in the case of navy blue with cognac or cream. Other notable bourgeoisie colours are dusty rose: pink without the juvenility and desperation, mauve: the older sophisticated aunt of purple, and olive green: the only green, in my opinion, with aspirations beyond kindergarten finger painting.

Then there is white. Oh the odes I could write to white! White is the omega of all the hues: with abilities bordering on supernatural. No other colour has its uncanny ability to accentuate shape and design, while simultaneously making its own statement. White speaks to the flawless grace of the person who chooses it. A person’s commitment to wearing this pure hue is, by extension, a commitment to self-possession in all areas of life. No saucy foods, no coffee to go, no red wine, no dirt on one's vehicle or in one’s home. The reason this acetism intrigues me is because we live in a time of overbearing stimulation. Even the topic of overstimulation has been discussed at-nauseam, thus bombarding us with warnings of how bombarded we are. Discipline in an age of laxity simply fascinates me. Restraint, whether it be in fashion, décor, or lifestyle is more than a palate cleanser- it is the antithesis to reality TV, junk food, and the attention grabbing antics of the rapacious media.

Clothes have become generic, and bright colours serve to distract us from that fact. Pigment used to be rare and costly, and therefore would be used sparingly, and to poignant effect. Now we are oversaturated with unnatural hues in cheap fabrics. The most criminal of the bunch are Hi-Lighter Brights. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING should be the colour of radiation, especially not clothing. Just like we are overfed and undernourished, so our senses are being polluted with a disastrous array of tacky colour. Not to be excluded completely, I recognize colour as a potent seasoning, but alas, it should never be the meal.

Neutrals mean the absence of distraction, allowing one to see things as they really are. Neutrals reveal flaws in design, and highlights well made elements or good fabric. One cannot hide a flaw on white, nor can one hide behind grey. While a colourful outfit gives a lap dance to the senses, a neutral beckons one to come a little closer, and to take a longer look. Neutrals are stark in their confidence; colours are desperate in their ploy for attention.

cookie.jar

Professor Eric Anderson, Ph.D., is an American sociologist at the University of Winchester, England. He is known for his research on sexualities and masculinities studies. I start with this qualification because recently he has written a very controversial article for the Psychology Today website titled The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and The Reality of Cheating. In it, he argues that monogamy is simply too unnatural of a state for men to exist in, and thus will not remain the status quo for much longer. He posits that: "Despite...social-sexual progress… our culture has yet to erode the sexual taboo of engaging in—or even admitting to desperately wanting—sex with someone other than one's monogamous partner. Monogamy is so esteemed it remains virtually compulsory in our relationships."

Although this is a controversial issue, I can’t help but agree with Dr. Anderson’s observation. Our polyamorous nature has been completely suppressed in the name of an antiquated Victorian notion that monogamy is proper, moral, normal, and natural. But, as is always the case with a contentious issue, it is not that simple. Anderson has written a brave article that brings light to an issue that is wrongfully condemned in our culture. It is such a blatant truth that men (and women-he would do well to remember) want to have sex with other people, and that it has no bearing on how much they love their partner. It is evolution, our genes, our nature...whatever one wants to call it. However, where Dr. Anderson fails in his reasoning is his claim that sexual jealousy is only a social script: “open relationships” he claims,  “can wither jealousy scripts that lead to emotional distress in a relationship.” I would argue that sexual jealousy is very much a product of evolution, and developed in tandem with--and as defense against-- our desire for extra-pair copulations. If sexual jealousy were not an adaptive trait, then it would not have survived natural selection because it would have served no reproductive purpose. The reason it has been adopted into our collective morality is because of its function in aiding the successful reproduction of our genes by guarding against cuckolding for males, and the sharing/loss of resources for females. Any introductory evolutionary textbook will tell you this.

In the case of Monogamy vs. Open relationships we are not looking at an either/or situation. Yes, even though it is human nature to try to wrap things into neat little packages, we are regrettably stuck with a both/and situation. We want to both have extra-pair copulations AND fidelity in a relationship. And so, even though Dr. Anderson’s attempt to shed light on the darker side of this topic is admirable, he has not afforded his readers the indulgence of a fully rounded hypothesis. Exposing readers to only the information that supports his thesis means he is treating them like children. I, for one, love the challenge of a paradox. It makes me feel alive and incredibly insignificant all at the same time. Like staring into space and contemplating infinity, I like not having a simple answer to a problem.

We must also consider the evolutionary context of our desires. The way the world is now is not the way it always was. In “caveman times”, as I like to call it, we were surrounded by very few other people, and thus exposed to very few attractive alternatives to the mate we have. Back then, one would encounter as many non-relatives in your whole lifetime as we encounter on one city bus today. This is much different than our current environment, where we are bombarded with encounters with people, thus greatly increasing the chances of seeing an appealing alternative. This has been exponentially increased with the advent of ubiquitous media exposure, where the ideal type (which consists of about 2% of the population) is seen 99% of the time. Unfortunately our brain does not know the difference, and thus we are “convinced” that there are plenty of more attractive options out there.

Cheating evolved as an adaptive behavior to ensure the best chances for our genes. In the case of females, it meant that cheating would occur in a case where extra resources could be gained, or where better genetic material was up for grabs from a very attractive partner. In men, it evolved as a way to ensure that genes are passed on by being indiscriminate with mating- an urge that is curtailed when a female threatens to withhold mating from a male if he is found cheating. Both strategies were adaptive because they ensure genetic material had a good chance of being passed on and that their survival was probable due to extra resources and the desirable genetics of the offspring. It is much like how our desire for high sugar and fat content in food developed in an environment of scarcity. The very tendencies that were beneficial in the past are now the tendencies that we must overcome to thrive in our current environment. Our sexual appetites also want us to indulge indiscriminately, but unfortunately the smorgasboard of sexual satiates (in the form of pornography, and alternative sexual partners) has become a threat to our wellbeing. Sexual habituation will never go away-- just like a sweet tooth cannot be cured by going on a candy binge, having novel sexual partners will be an endless cycle without much true satisfaction. But where does this “sweet-tooth” metaphor end? Should we be allowed to dip our hand in the cookie jar every now and then, as long as we are “committed” to our healthy lifestyle? Well, when we eat unhealthily it only affects us, not the person we claim to love the most.

So in conclusion, Dr. Anderson brings to light an important issue--one that has been swept under rug for far too long. But, I believe he is intentionally oversimplifying the solution. Because, if in the end, it is as easy as simply having your cookie and eating someone else’s too, then us crafty humans would long ago have changed the rules to fit our needs. I believe that there should be a choice in the matter of monogamy, and that the choice should be up for revision during a relationship. But, I also believe that overcoming what he terms ‘social jealousy’ will take a tremendous amount of will and personal justification. I would argue that it is just as unnatural as monogamy: from a biological and evolutionary perspective. And that friends, is a paradox! Like watching a cute gazelle getting chased by a mother cheetah, trying to catch food for her young, we are watching this paradox unfold, and cheering both for the predator and the prey...in each of us.

un.love

An exercise in emotionality...

After 4+ years of writing academic essays, academic research papers, and academic opinion papers, I have become adept at writing the equivalent of an academic SlimQuick shake. Full of all the nutrition that the subject might need, but with an artificial aftertaste and an undeniable feeling of not having had a real meal. You might not care, but for me this is a really sad fact since I consider myself a good writer, and it's never pretty when one's idealized notion of self smashes tragically on the sharp cliffs of reality. Fine, so I'm not good (enough), but I am experienced. I can pick out the nuances in writing that I believe make it good or bad. I understand strategies to lead readers in the direction one might conceive, and to send them on a journey that will leave them reeling. I can critique other people's writing, and make it better. I am the literary equivalent of a 300 pound man in the stands at a hockey game, his gestures spilling beer on unfortunate fellow fans as he yells out instructions at the players. Unfortunately, my opinions whether written or spoken, always seem to mirror this unfortunate scene. Now that I'm taking an advanced writing course in my last few months at university, it is obvious how gaping the discrepancy between my knowledge and my execution is.

Story. Of. My. Life. I am brimming with knowledge, ideas, and idealism, but anemic in real world experience. My writing professor, bless his kind heart, sidestepped this developmental minefield and simply said that I need some more emotion behind my ideas. The purpose of my writing should not just be about bringing my readers to an end destination through facts and arguments, but coaxing them into a world where my ideas are viable by pulling back the curtain and revealing the other side. That's tough to do, because in academic writing you are obliged to deliver an argument without any emotional appeals or artsy sentiments. That's why my last academic paper was entitled: "The Problem with Animal Models of Behaviour in Studying Monogamy in Humans" and not entitled "Why You Want to Stick Your Dick in Everything, and Why I'd Prefer You Don't".  But I digress...

story.time

Here is an exercise in emotionality, and story telling with no purpose; and it was hard for me to write. Why write if not to persuade? Well, I can attest to the effectiveness of the exercise, if not to the success of this particular story. I'll warn whomever is reading this though, this story is not about you or anyone you know (including myself actually). It is totally made up, and draws on many areas of my life, including (unabashedly) my latest obsession with Sex and The City re-runs. So here is a little narrative morsel, à la Carrie Bradshaw...

I felt like I was falling, and like Alice in the Rabbit Hole, I had no sense of up or down. Until a few days ago I was supremely confident in my superiority, but as the event loomed I found my confidence wavering. I had spent a whole night obsessively studying her Facebook page, trying to get as much information about her as I could whilst maintaining a decidedly non-friend status. Between ordering clip-in hair extensions, and applying bronzer, I became privy to the fact that she works at Cowboys, and likes Akon and MAC makeup, the latter evident by the 2.7 tons of their product that she was sporting on her face.

The night came, and I spotted him alone at the bar with a beer in his hand right when I walked in. I was looking for him, of course, but I was sure that didn’t show in my face. He waved me over, and I concentrated so hard on looking sexy as I approached him that I almost ran into a table below my line of sight. I ordered a drink to give me an excuse to linger. “You look nice,” he said, and I waived away his compliment, and the four hours I spent getting ready, as if I hadn’t even noticed this was a black tie affair. I wanted to be the exact opposite of what she is, and she obviously tries too hard. I washed that irony down with a sip of scotch, and checked my hair in the mirror behind the bar, wondering who the girl is staring back at me.

 As if on cue, in she walked in a white dress that plunged down to her navel. It was an insult to my favourite colour, and I had to make a point not to stare, lest she mistake it for adoring attention, but it was like trying to avert my eyes from a bloody murder scene. There was no sign of my beloved colour; not the crisp white of egyptian cotton, nor the antiqued white of belgian linen. Hell, it wasn't even the seductive pure white of silk, but rather the screaming white of a cheap polyester that you see in every bad wedding dress from the eighties. The white jumped out at me in a way that felt like the particles of pigment were trying to disassociate themselves from her tasteless attire. "We're not with her" they screamed. "I can relate" I thought back. Such a pure colour should never be contrasted with the stretched orange skin of an artificially tanned boob job. Again, I felt like I was falling, and like Alice in the Rabbit Hole, I had no sense of up or down.

She had that typical tilt to her speaking: a peak at the end of each sentence like she was in perpetual inquiry of her own statements. She was the stereotype of our generation; not educated enough to speak properly, but with enough media exposure to Nuevo-riche pop icons to think that money and class mirrored each other. The result was grotesque: another Paris Hilton-esque call girl with a Chanel clutch afforded by her shooter-girl side job. With both of her hands occupied (one with her quilted status symbol and the other in his familiar hand) I casually fantasized about strangling the silicone right out of her as she prattled on about her modeling career. A career that my Facebook search had revealed as a single Boudoir photo shoot that she likely commissioned herself. I wanted to grab him. Shake him. Demand that he tell me what he sees in her. I mean, come on! She listed ‘tanning’ as an interest! How could it be that easy for him to be with a girl with no depth of character, no substance to speak of?  For every ridiculous statement she made, I wanted to throw back something compelling and intellectual. For every air-headed giggle that spilled out of her lips, I wanted to snarl with jaded intellectual Sinicism. I wanted so badly to prove how different I was, but was held back by a small shroud of dignity inside of me, while my reflection in the mirror looked back at me, begging me to be a bitch. Instead I smiled kindly and excused myself before I found myself being rude to a girl I didn’t even know.

In the bathroom I took a little time to regroup, and allowed myself a smile at the amount of effort I had put into tonight. I knew he was going to be here and I was hell bent on making him see what he was missing, while conveniently making his new girlfriend jealous. I didn’t like her out of principle, but as I stared at my own extension laden, fake eyelash-wearing, bronzed exterior, the judgment just didn’t stick. I realized it had less to do with her Barbie persona, and more to do with her Facebook status as girlfriend. I never got elevated to that rank, and after half a year of missed 'dates', Sports Net instead of movies, and his general apathy toward any activity for two that wasn’t horizontal, I had stormed out of his house with a shouted “Don’t ever call me again!” trailing behind me. The worst part was that during the whole fight, and as I was packing up my things, he didn’t even bother getting up from the edge of the bed. He just didn’t care. But then again, he didn’t care what was happening in the world unless in was going to affect his work, beer prices, or Sports Network. He went to the gym, played hockey, and got drunk with his buddies. I realized that he never bothered to ask about my interests because having a pretty girl around was, and still is, enough for him. He never had any interest in getting to know me. It’s not that he didn’t like who I was, it’s that he didn’t care who I was. I also had the sneaking suspicion that he never let me into his life because he didn't know who he was either. I never got the impression that he stood for anything, or knew what was important to him. Despite the inferno of our sexual relationship, I chose to stop seeing him because I couldn’t deny that I was better than this. Yes, he was beautiful (and a caveman in the way that all women like, but most don't admit), but at best he was a lapse in judgment, not a missed opportunity. I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get over him considering our terrible relationship. I always thought it meant he must have been really special. That night I realized that this gorgeous guy with the best smile in the world was my status symbol, and I had been clutching on to him pretty tight, even though he didn’t match my outfit. I figured it had taken me this long to distinguish between real love and status symbol love, because I couldn’t hear the voice in my head over the incessant chiming of my ovaries that being around him produced. Still, I felt like I was falling, but this time I recognized the feeling. This is what it felt like to fall out of love.

just.us.two

This is an amazing radio documentary for anyone in/entering/leaving a relationship. LISTEN HERE!