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It was a dark blue morning when I boarded the plane bound for southern Mexico. Snow drifted down from the slowly lightening sky, collecting in cotton-balls on the wing.
More ( behind the cut )
More ( behind the cut )
Jun. 3rd, 2014
Fragile Brains and Bicycling
Jun. 3rd, 2014 10:52 pmI love the stories on This American Life and Radiolab. The shows are inspiring and informative, and I look forward to every one. In fact, some of them are powerful enough to linger in my day to day thoughts, changing the way I see the world or myself in various ways.
There have been a number of them that focus on the fragility of the human mind. Both in terms of personality and in physical neurology, not to mention addressing the questionable validity of a distinction between them. The latest example I've listened to was about a woman whose behavior changed radically as a result of Pick's Disease. She forsook her career as a scientist and became a painter. After a series of other works, she became fascinated by composer Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," and transliterated it into a painting. Coincidentally, the scientist-turned-painter's increasing fascination with repeating elements in art was caused by the same debilitating condition that some speculate Ravel suffered from the early stages of when he composed Bolero, a song that essentially keeps the same basic melody for something like 15 minutes. These connections draw me in. Part of it, too, is that I have my own various kinds of neurological dysfunction; I feel a little kinship with other people dealing with brains that don't quite do what they're intended to.
But they also leave me with anxiety about the terribly fragile thing that is my consciousness. The "I" that I know rests on a precarious base of neurons and synapses and chemicals and electrical connections that can sometimes be notably degraded by something as simple as not eating the right kinds of food during the day. When I listen to stories like Radiolab's "Unraveling Bolero," or This American Life's "Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde," wherein undiagnosed Parkinson's disease may have slowly destroyed a physician's life over a painful span of years, I can't help but think of the fabulously complex and ill-understood organic computer in my own head. I start feeling sometimes as though I've been making more typos lately or dropping things more often. Or I remember the fainting spell I had before my trip to Chiapas that left me with trouble speaking for a few minutes, and I start analyzing myself for symptoms of some kind of degenerative neurological condition.
Not very seriously. Though I was more than a little anxious during one of my trips with Danae to Canada until I figured out that my feeling of just being mentally 'off' for a few days was most likely related to my changed diet. So no, not very seriously. But recurrently. Perhaps the scariest part of listening to this kind of story is simply realizing that though, personality, knowledge, feelings, experiences, are all a function of something that can so easily be disrupted by so many things. Still, the human body does a pretty good job of protecting that big brain it transports around; it's been an evolutionary priority for a very long time, and had a chance to adapt to a wide array of threats. Perhaps it's less fragile than these strange, memorable, distressing cases that make it into the media would have one believe.
----
I dropped my car off at Super Mechanic Juan's place this evening. He's going to help with getting it to pass the emissions check. I strapped my bike rack onto the trunk and drove over there with my bicycle hanging off the back end of my car. I think I've finally figured out how to properly attach the rack to my car; it hung solidly on during the trip across town. I feel better about driving to Chicago with it again. We talked a bit about bike gear and lighting systems, and I showed him my LED toy. Anyway, with the extra distance, I rode about 20 miles today. As Juan noted, cycling really is a good way to just generally get around town. If only the roads were better; Kenosha's pot-holed and frost-heaved pavement isn't as bad as I remember Detroit being, but it's getting there.
If I'd ever heard back from my alderman who I contacted before school ended, I might ask him about it. But no response has been forthcoming. I'm debating just posting something on his Facebook wall.
Well, I was going to edit more Chiapas photos, but I think I'm going to get to bed. I've been shorting myself on sleep regularly, and I bet one thing that will make a brain function the way it's supposed to is adequate rest. If I get to bed at 11 I will actually have a full eight hours there. I need to stop this getting to bed at 12:30 to 1:00 thing....
There have been a number of them that focus on the fragility of the human mind. Both in terms of personality and in physical neurology, not to mention addressing the questionable validity of a distinction between them. The latest example I've listened to was about a woman whose behavior changed radically as a result of Pick's Disease. She forsook her career as a scientist and became a painter. After a series of other works, she became fascinated by composer Maurice Ravel's "Bolero," and transliterated it into a painting. Coincidentally, the scientist-turned-painter's increasing fascination with repeating elements in art was caused by the same debilitating condition that some speculate Ravel suffered from the early stages of when he composed Bolero, a song that essentially keeps the same basic melody for something like 15 minutes. These connections draw me in. Part of it, too, is that I have my own various kinds of neurological dysfunction; I feel a little kinship with other people dealing with brains that don't quite do what they're intended to.
But they also leave me with anxiety about the terribly fragile thing that is my consciousness. The "I" that I know rests on a precarious base of neurons and synapses and chemicals and electrical connections that can sometimes be notably degraded by something as simple as not eating the right kinds of food during the day. When I listen to stories like Radiolab's "Unraveling Bolero," or This American Life's "Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde," wherein undiagnosed Parkinson's disease may have slowly destroyed a physician's life over a painful span of years, I can't help but think of the fabulously complex and ill-understood organic computer in my own head. I start feeling sometimes as though I've been making more typos lately or dropping things more often. Or I remember the fainting spell I had before my trip to Chiapas that left me with trouble speaking for a few minutes, and I start analyzing myself for symptoms of some kind of degenerative neurological condition.
Not very seriously. Though I was more than a little anxious during one of my trips with Danae to Canada until I figured out that my feeling of just being mentally 'off' for a few days was most likely related to my changed diet. So no, not very seriously. But recurrently. Perhaps the scariest part of listening to this kind of story is simply realizing that though, personality, knowledge, feelings, experiences, are all a function of something that can so easily be disrupted by so many things. Still, the human body does a pretty good job of protecting that big brain it transports around; it's been an evolutionary priority for a very long time, and had a chance to adapt to a wide array of threats. Perhaps it's less fragile than these strange, memorable, distressing cases that make it into the media would have one believe.
----
I dropped my car off at Super Mechanic Juan's place this evening. He's going to help with getting it to pass the emissions check. I strapped my bike rack onto the trunk and drove over there with my bicycle hanging off the back end of my car. I think I've finally figured out how to properly attach the rack to my car; it hung solidly on during the trip across town. I feel better about driving to Chicago with it again. We talked a bit about bike gear and lighting systems, and I showed him my LED toy. Anyway, with the extra distance, I rode about 20 miles today. As Juan noted, cycling really is a good way to just generally get around town. If only the roads were better; Kenosha's pot-holed and frost-heaved pavement isn't as bad as I remember Detroit being, but it's getting there.
If I'd ever heard back from my alderman who I contacted before school ended, I might ask him about it. But no response has been forthcoming. I'm debating just posting something on his Facebook wall.
Well, I was going to edit more Chiapas photos, but I think I'm going to get to bed. I've been shorting myself on sleep regularly, and I bet one thing that will make a brain function the way it's supposed to is adequate rest. If I get to bed at 11 I will actually have a full eight hours there. I need to stop this getting to bed at 12:30 to 1:00 thing....
