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January 8, 2013

Day 45: Two Sides to Every Story

Remember that post I wrote about Jill Bolte Taylor and her “Stroke of Insight?” (That’s okay—you can find the post here and watch her TED Talk here.)

Last Sunday, Robert Klitzman, M.D., Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University, posted a Huffington Post article inspired by Dr. Taylor’s remarks and warning against the tendency to simplify how we think about the brain.

I’m certainly no brain science expert, but I do find myself drawn to deconstructions like the below image, pulled from a Mercedes-Benz advertisement (it wasn’t directed at me; I drive an adorable little Hyundai).

Klitzman writes that the right brain has been romanticized as the seat of creativity and freedom, pitted against the logical and analytical left side. He says that in normal brains—in which the connection between the two halves is healthy—“the two sides work closely together.” So close, in fact, that our simplification of the brain into binaries “ignores critical intricacies, challenges and unknowns, doing ourselves, and our brains, a disservice.”

It will be exciting to learn more about the galaxies of the brain as science uncovers the mysteries. Perhaps Klitzman is right, and we are currently doing ourselves a disservice by creating a mythical two-sided brain creature.

But perhaps that’s just his left brain talking.

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January 2, 2013

Day 39: Brains and Souls

It’s a dream of mine to meet Oliver Sacks. One day this year, I will write a blog about him as a “person you should know” but I have so much to say, I’m not quite sure where to begin.

For now, suffice it to say that he is a physician and neurologist who has collected incredible stories from people with neurological disorders and anomalies. I just started reading Sacks’ most recent book, Hallucinations, a series of stories about others’ and his own mind-altering experiences. It’s fascinating so far.

Yesterday, Sacks tweeted about an article written by Daniel Levitin, a cognitive neuroscientist and writer who is also on my list of people to know. (Twitter is so great.)

The article, “Amnesia and the Self That Remains When Memory Is Lost,” is about Levitin’s experience reconnecting with one of his former Stanford psychology classmates—Tom, a man who has an inoperable brain tumor in his temporal lobe. Temporal lobe tumors make long-term memories irretrievable. They do not typically affect a person’s general demeanor, but they block access to much of the fabric of that person’s life. The tumor carrier retains his/her intelligence, but basically has no prior history from which to contextualize and examine his/her current experiences.

Levitin writes about going to see Tom, who was an acquaintance but not necessarily a friend. Tom had no recollection of his history with Levitin but was interested in hearing about how they knew each other and what they had each accomplished. What I found most touching about the article was Levitin’s final reflection: “When I saw Tom, something fundamentally Tom was still there. Some of us call it personality, or essence. Some call it the “soul.” Whatever it is, the tumor that took Tom’s memory had not touched it.”

It immediately brought me back to Irish philosopher John O’Donohue’s reflection on Meister Eckhart’s examination of the soul (yes, this is a winding—but connected—road). “…There is a place within the soul that neither time, nor space, nor flesh, nor no created thing can touch.”

Perhaps brain tumors and Alzheimer’s and traumatic injuries can’t touch that quiet place, either. Even when our neurological systems degrade and the people, places and things in our lives don’t mean anything to us anymore, something vital and enduring remains.

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January 1, 2013

Day 38: Happiness (and Boringness)

Okay, okay. Someone called me out on having a boring blog yesterday. Publicly. Like, as a blog comment.

Sometimes, I can only spend 20 minutes or so putting these posts together. And on those days, they aren’t stellar. Writing something for public view every single day is harder than I originally imagined. But, it’s a good and humbling experience. I recommend it to anyone looking for a way to push him/herself and experience a little vulnerability.

In that vein, today I’m paraphrasing a post written last January by Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who used to work with people at the very end of their lives. She chronicled the top five regrets people expressed on their deathbeds. In honor of beginning a fresh new year and approaching each day with a smile, here are the regrets she observed:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Because of the way it’s phrased, the fifth one strikes me the most. It doesn’t say, “I wish I had been happier.” It says, “I wish that I had let myself be happier.” As Bronnie points out, happiness is a choice. Every minute of the day, we get to choose how we live. And certainly, experiencing sadness and destruction is part of every life. But on the whole, if we practice being happy, we lead happier lives.

May you and yours have a very happy New Year.

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December 27, 2012

Day 33: Murphy and Newton

Last week, I asked for some blog content ideas so I could stock up before my big January trip. One of the post ideas offered was, “Murphy’s Law vs. Newton’s Laws.” I’m tackling it today because I just so happened to get an applicable Christmas gift that serves as a nice lead-in.

By some happy accident, I acquired “F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers” by Richard Benson at my family’s white elephant gift exchange (I stole it, someone stole it from me, someone stole it from that person and then I secretly traded a glass water bottle for it after the game was over).

The book chronicles test questions and a collection of ridiculous test answers from students. Here’s an example:

Q: What type of attractive force or bond holds the sodium ions and chloride ions together in a crystal of sodium chloride?
A: James Bond

Here’s the one that applies to this post (never mind the funky grammar):

Q: What was Sir Isaac Newton famous for?
A: He invented gravity.

It just so happens that my mother is in the process of finishing writing a pre-teen book called, “Isaac Newton Invented Gravity: and Other Myths.” It’s funny, smart and can get a kid hooked on physics. I can’t wait for it to be published so I can plug it here.

So—Murphy’s Law vs. Newton’s Laws.

The history of Murphy’s Law is actually pretty interesting. For now, we’re concerned with the law itself—“what can go wrong will go wrong” and a variety of iterations stating basically the same thing.

The similarity between Murphy and Newton’s Laws is that they tend to be widely simplified. That’s pretty much it.

Murphy’s Law is a simple statement suggesting a complex phenomenon that isn’t actually a law. For proof, see December 22, 2012 and my family’s white elephant gift exchange (my new favorite book could have permanently fallen into the wrong hands—or the fire—but it didn’t).

Newton’s Laws are complex scientific proofs that describe what appear to be the simple processes we observe every day. A thing moves or rests at a constant speed and in a constant direction until force acts on it (a sitting ball won’t start rolling on its own and a rolling ball will roll until it is stopped). Forces exist in pairs; to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (feet press on the ground and the ground presses back on feet). There are more laws that show how every motion—flying, walking, driving, swimming, sitting, resting, running, etc.—relies on a set of foundational truths about gravity. Newton didn’t invent or discover gravity, but he painstakingly codified how we understand it.

I never actually took physics, but I did take a two-week elementary school Summer Academy course in which I got to ride roller coasters and throw eggs. I feel pretty confident in my assessment of Newton’s Laws.

With that, this post about Murphy’s Law and Newton’s Laws concludes. Thank you for the idea, McLaughlin. Feel free to send more.

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December 12, 2012

Day 18: Stroke of Insight

Continuing the series of people you should know, I’m highlighting one of my favorite brain research scientists, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. If you and I know each other personally, I’ve probably (definitely) already made you watch her TED Talk or lent you her book, “My Stroke of Insight.” (Actually, I’m missing my copy, so if I lent it to you, let me know.)

Jill Bolte Taylor

Inspired by her brother’s schizophrenia, Taylor began her career by researching severe mental illnesses at Harvard. A dedicated and renowned neuroanatomist, she split time between intensive brain study and advocacy work with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

In 1996, at 37 years old, a blood vessel in her brain’s left hemisphere exploded. She had a stroke.

The morning of her stroke, Taylor became aware that something extraordinary was happening. As she went about her normal routine and wavered between types of consciousness, she recognized she was having a stroke when her right arm went numb. According to her reflection on the experience, she thought, “Wow, this is so cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?”

So, semi-aware but not entirely logical, she researched herself through the process of losing all function in her left hemisphere. As the hemorrhage spread, she could not read, write or identify herself as a being separate from her environment. One of the most intriguing parts of her incredibly intriguing TED talk is when she describes realizing the gravity of her situation and trying to call for help. In order to reach a colleague without being able to recognize numbers, she matched “the shape of the squiggles” on a business card to the “shape of the squiggles on the phone pad.”

(Seriously, watch her TED Talk. It’s poignant, funny, frightening and beautiful.)

When not engaged with the warning bells of her logical and ego-centered left hemisphere, Taylor experienced a euphoric uniting of herself with the entire world; in the midst of trauma, she had a powerful sense of peace and wonder.

The right sides of our brains recognize beauty and connectivity, and when fully engaged, release us from all the mundane concerns of living a life. Taylor’s post-stroke insights into the structure of the brain teach us that we can choose where to exist at any given moment. We can be peaceful, cellular beings in flow with the rest of the universe, or separate individuals with distinct personalities, goals and responsibilities. Her position is that the more time we spend engaged with our right hemispheres, the more peace we project into the world—and the more peaceful the world becomes.

What strikes me about her research is that we rely on our critical, categorizing, judging left hemispheres in order to survive. But without our present-moment, satisfied, universally conscious right hemispheres, there would be nothing to live for.

On this lucky and/or apocalyptic day (12/12/12), it’s something to think about.

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