tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15358480597774203522024-02-08T02:43:51.029-08:00loving the zoneAdventurelovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-85751775065626301852010-08-06T13:53:00.000-07:002010-08-06T13:53:01.630-07:00Tour de CrashContact sports with good quality smash factor are guaranteed moneymakers. Demolition Derby, football, and the fine art of Theater Wrestling packs coliseums and auditoriums with fans, just craving a good pileup. <br />
Cycling is different. Racers practice the fine art of avoiding each other. Rocking handlebars an inch apart, they somehow undulate with the grace of a bee swarm across the finish line. One nanosecond of a wrong move would ruin the party.<br />
So, what's to like about bike racing? No smashing with purpose. No big money. Aversion to physical contact. Uniforms made of tight-fitting Phospho-Lycra decorated with dozens of sponsor logos. Wild socks and strange helmets. <br />
Getting into all this stuff is interestingly called "suiting up." What?<br />
I've done a lot of bike racing, and I'm willing to admit I've probably been laughed at for years. A good friend who's an author has a place in Moab but doesn't ride. He calls it the Halloween Lycra Brigade. We're a little low on the spectator list and don't get much respect. <br />
Racing is strictly a participating sport for me. I'll watch others doing it for about ten seconds during the sprint, and then I'm done, "suited up," and out the door. <br />
This year however, I watched the entire Tour de France. I watched the replays. Twice. And for the first time, I got an attitude adjustment on my own sport. <br />
But it's complicated.<br />
Tour de France organizers are gifted event planners. They manage to lure thousands of fans who'll willingly camp in anyone's pasture for three weeks, waiting for a fast moving train of men in tights, who come and go in a flash. <br />
Then they jump in their Winnie and follow. Amped-up the whole time, fans conduct their own costume contest while they're at it, outclassing the bike racers. Women shove handbags and men bedsheet-sized flags into racer's faces, tangling with bikes and taking them down. <br />
Racers don't complain much. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back on the bike. They don't ask leashless dogs and free-range sheep why they cross the road. The critters do it anyway, and like any road-kill candidate, know how to pick their moment. <br />
This thrilling sideshow provides more demolition action for Tour fans than the Indy 500. The Longest Sports Production Ever still needs all the publicity it can get, and love-crazed spectators have no problem providing it.<br />
This year's Tour started politely enough in Stage 1. The French lengthened the course near the finish, knowing just-out-of-the-gate machismo would grind out some crashes. <br />
But in Stage 2, they ambushed a trusting Peloton by serving up a route the width of a luge run in a scheduled rainstorm. Motorcycle pacers leading the pack spun out, buttering up the road with transmission oil and producing, rather than preventing, nasty crashes. <br />
The Peloton reacted smartly with a boycott. Bunched together, they refused to race, casually cruising wet and mad en masse across the finish line. Tour officials were forced to play by their own rules and award the whole pack the same points. <br />
Fans were furieux.<br />
For the rest of the Tour though, racers provided the feature entertainment. A finishing-school-quality Ethics Revival broke out, quel surprise after last year, resulting in single acts of loyal camaraderie while infractions of honor were met with team disdain and boo-hisses from fans. <br />
After a day managing the Biggest Bike Race on the planet, French officials deserve a little amusement too. Although their crowd control was missing and a few routes sucked, they were still handing out stuffed animals to Stage winners, and one option on stand-by. <br />
A little relentless random drug testing in the middle of the night on a "person of interest" was entertaining. And while at it, they picked their favorite with just a little too much bon destin and heroisme, plus more Tour wins than any other racer in history. <br />
Worse yet, not a native of France but some Big State in another country that relishes the battle cry "Don't mess with Texas". Tenderized by accusations from other racers, not too squeaky clean themselves, they had their man. <br />
And yes, you guessed correctly. <br />
Last year, a talented Spaniard on the Astana team abandoned his job description front-running for Lance Armstrong. Alberto Contador jumped-and-dumped, leaving Lance behind to buck the wind all by himself. This shocking lack of respect for team cohesion resulted in massive mutiny by the Astana Team, leaving Alberto all alone on the ship. <br />
Before the Tour was even over, Astana announced the formation of their new Team Radio Shack, Contador not included. Alberto's consolation prize was to squeeze out Armstrong on the podium in Paris, breaking Lance's historic seven year winning streak. <br />
Armstrong's global following was huge, and his Foundation's work beyond impressive. With every success story though, a storm is not far behind. Fame and Infamy are identical twins. The French "questioned" Lance's almost superhuman accomplishments. He must be doping, or something. Let the tests begin . . . <br />
Cycling was about to get even more interesting, for all the wrong reasons.<br />
About our only reprieve this year from the persistent drone of the Lance Bashing Show was the Andy and Alberto Show. Still on a resurrected Astana Team and a favorite to win the Tour again, Contador's self-serving side made a comeback. Best Buds with Andy Schleck, also a favorite, he staged another jump-and-dump when Schleck popped a gear change and grinded to a halt on a tough climb. <br />
Winning the Stage, a sheepish Contador was rewarded with booing fans. Schleck, now rocket fueled with the rage of betrayal, relentlessly dragged Contador up the next day's Mountain Stage. Still perky from hitching a long free ride, Contador attempted another jump-and-dump. Schleck quickly bridged the gap, staring Contador down mano-a-mano, as if to say "Don't even think about it."<br />
Contador didn't, eased off, forced himself to eat his own crow, and gave Schleck the win by a hair. Promptly mobbed by the News Reporter Surge, he planted his palm on Schleck's jaw, twisted his head around, and flashed him a rather condescending wink. Contador knew he was winning the Tour anyway. <br />
While all this soapish drama was unfolding up front, Lance was back cruising with his team through his last Tour de France, licking multiple wounds. Battle weary and ripped to shreds from hitting the pavement almost daily in Peloton frenzy, he declared to an interviewer "The day wouldn't be complete without a crash."<br />
Armstrong's falling-out with Lady Luck was shored up by Versus commentators who ran daily re-runs of his best Tour moments of the past. Then it was back to another Stage commentary with more drama and surprise. Bob Rolled on as Phil Liggett made good use of his favorite British expletive "Oh my goodness me!" throughout the Wild and Crazy Tour of 2010.<br />
The warm and fuzzy memories didn't last long. Just when we thought our Hero Lance would ride lovingly into the Tour Sunset, somebody let the dogs out, biting at his wheels yet again. <br />
Apparently, the media, sour-graping racers, and the Privatized Police were missing The Soaps in France. <br />
On August 2nd, the US Anti-Doping Agency started up their own. USADA was quoted by unnamed sources they were promising racers previously busted a "sweetheart deal" if "you can finger Armstrong . . with anything harmful", and "we'll get out the eraser . . . everything is cool". USADA is reported to have reduced penalties for athletes caught doping in the past. If they provided evidence on other athletes, even though it's prohibited by USADA rules, the offenders were off the hook. <br />
Many are calling this bribery, and yet another oddity is USADA singling out Armstrong with charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, but no one else.<br />
Rounding up "illegals" is rather trendy right now. Illegal "aliens," illegal "drug users," illegal "celebrity probation jumpers" . . . All it seems to take is a few to agree some type of human behavior is "illegal" and lots of noise and punitive action is quickly justified. <br />
I'm trying to remember the last time I enjoyed something construed to be "legal" and wasn't rained on because they didn't like the color of my parade. <br />
Actually, now that I'm thinking, it was last night. I gazed up at a night sky planetarium in the Wasatch Mountains packed with real stars, and no one seemed offended. <br />
If I get on the bike tomorrow and the same thing happens, I just might be on a roll.lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-48653404415611513742010-08-02T14:32:00.000-07:002010-08-02T14:32:33.490-07:00The Butterfly Effect at 29,000 FeetAn image of Annapurna III in Nepal stretches across the top of my blog page. Athletes and mountain climbers often reference the Zone to describe the body's natural endorphin high when time slows down and intensifies every detail, sometimes for survival. <br />
When the Zone is launched, that deep-down wellspring of survivalist moxy flies into action. It's our reward for not giving up, just when pain is too great and our body wants to shut down. We're zeroing in on how we gain access to it, as neuroscience continues to reveal more about how our brain functions.<br />
It took nine days of trekking for our expedition to reach Annapurna Base Camp in "The Sanctuary." This venerated sanctity tag didn't last long. Hypodermic syringes from a previous expedition were littered everywhere. We had to assume their entire summit attempt was amped-up on a variety of drugs, and we were stunned. <br />
What happened to the venerated sanctity of the sport? Reverence for the mountain? How was this justified? How did it affect the Nepalese people's opinion of their wealthy foreign guests, bringing offerings of respect? <br />
We climbed as clean as it gets in high-altitude climbing. No oxygen. No Sherpas. When our carefully chosen route was trashed by avalanches, we paid another thousand and sat on the mountain for days, until the Nepalese approved our second choice, that included a 2000-foot vertical Half Dome of a cliff.<br />
Our expedition leader was a climbing buddy of Jon Krakauer, author of the best seller <em>Into Thin Air</em>. His personal account of the fatal and chaotic 1996 Everest Expedition cut close to the bone. I bought his book years after my climb, and it would be my first attempt to read about my own sport, nail-biting and all. <br />
I expected the familiar story of climbers and their teams preparing endlessly and meticulously for a six-hour window of opportunity to place one climbing pair on top, proudly displaying their national flag. Then come out alive.<br />
I was stunned again. <em>Into Thin Air</em> also changed my view of the ethics of mountain climbing forever. The pros were now tour guides, and for an extortionist's fee, would drag their clients, one way or another, to the summit of Everest. <br />
The use of drugs on Everest sensationalized the sport. Famous mountain climbers even died trying to push some of their inadequately prepared clients to the top. And some were left behind to die.<br />
It changed others too. At annual dinners in San Francisco of the American Himalayan Foundation, I met Sir Edmund Hillary and Maurice Herzog, in the rarefied air of the Climbing Tribe. But after <em>Into Thin Air</em>, the dinner topic subtly shifted from climbing to philanthropy. An honorable shift, but the ritual memorializing of recent climbs mysteriously vanished.<br />
Human endurance, even in the face of self-imposed death, attracts timeless attention. There are always stories of athletes who survive the impossible. But if they do, it's apparently with their brain, and not much else.<br />
At TED MED last year, Ken Kamler, a microsurgeon on the 1996 Everest climb, also had a personal account. He described how Beck Weathers may have survived after being left for dead. Other climbers, struggling against a sudden freezing wind, descended past him as he lay motionless in frozen snow with his eyes open.<br />
A day and a half later, just below the summit, Weathers walked down alone and into a tent set up for rescue. Face blackened with frostbite, he lucidly asked Ken "Do you accept my health insurance?" as he described his near-death experience. <br />
After the expedition, Ken hypothetically reconstructed Weather's brain activity from similar brain scans of patients. A dying brain powers down, and one by one, the lights go out. Ken displays fMRI images of the anterior cingulate gyrus, the "seat of will," and how it may have saved Weathers. Where the red of normal had been replaced by power-down blue, spots of power-up red re-appeared as Weathers zoned out on a comforting memory. Thirty-six hours later, like Superman, he launched himself out of the snow and walked down to the tent, as his anterior cingulate gyrus sent neuron signals to the frontal lobe, which powered up the red of self-preservation, sending signals to the posterior, which powered up the red of motor activity. A stunning Butterfly Effect staged in Weather's brain on Everest.<br />
What would our thoughts be if we knew we were dying? Would "life pass before our eyes"? What image would we choose to summon the Zone? For Weathers, it was his family. <br />
We like the idea love had something to do with it, and it did, but there's more... I found an online Scientific American article on magician David Blaine. He held his breath for a world record, accomplished on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Similar to high altitude climbing, David deprived his brain of oxygen intentionally. His initial nervousness on stage raised his heart rate to 150 beats per minute. The audience panicked and screamed as it was displayed. David could see it too. He relaxed anyway and hit the Zone. His heart rate dropped. He made friends with pain. After seventeen minutes, the audience cheered, snapping him out of the Zone. He knew he had just broken the world record.<br />
Another article I found by David Eagleman, "When Life Passes Before Your Eyes," describes what happens in his Laboratory for Perception and Action at Baylor College of Medicine. As a neuroscientist, he's in one of the only facilities dedicated to running experiments on how we perceive time. <br />
His experiments with people in a free-fall displayed a boost of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, which processes conflicting information. Test results indicate the brain has two separate versions of time, the perception of Now, and another in slow-motion, resolving information that conflicts with Now.<br />
David suspects the brain compensates for conflict by producing a single concept of time that slows the brain down in life-threatening situations. It only worked though, if test subjects kept their eyes open in the free-fall. One test subject couldn't do it, and was eliminated from the study. <br />
I'm reminded of my Big America roller coaster ride. My friend downgraded me for closing my eyes, so we did it again, and I failed. On the third, I was determined. Not only did I finish wide-eyed, I impressed him with the exact number of seismic bolts in the track every twenty feet. How I did it then I don't know -- until now -- realizing I slowed time down then.<br />
As Weather's brain powered down on Everest, his eyes remained open and aware of everything, including the comment of one climber, "He's dead." Like David Blaine, he relaxed anyway, his heart rate slowed way down, and he spent singular time thinking of his family. <br />
Peter Tse, a Harvard cognitive psychologist, offered another explanation. Evolution trained us to recognize novelty. Would we eat, or be eaten? The brain views our daily meal as boringly familiar. This repetition is "suppressed" and diminishes the brain's electrical activity. When we're about to become a meal, survival kicks in and our brain slows time down. Electrical activity soars and we pay hyper-attention to process more conflicting information per second. "It re-calibrates on-the-fly," Tse says.<br />
On Everest, a "dead" Weathers was actually hyper-alive, potentially recalibrating and processing more information per second. This could have saved his life.<br />
According to Einstein, time is relative, depending on whether we're in a spaceship or on the ground. David's free-fall test results of brain activity imply time is relative to the individual, not a location in space. Two individuals can be experiencing the same thing standing next to each other, but their concept of time is relative. <br />
These findings might question the validity of Einstein's theory, ruling in favor of the human brain, regardless of what happens in Space. <br />
Adventurous humans aren't the only heroes. The Everest Expedition was also notorious for featuring heroic machines on oxygen deprivation. <br />
Our expedition required two helicopter evacuations. Each Nepalese helicopter dispatched to Annapurna flew to the 10,000 foot limit of aviation technology that could fly in thin air. Our team physician, bitten by an inch-long centipede, was carried 3000 feet down to the helicopter pad with a massively necrotic arm, in a bamboo basket on the back of a Nepalese porter half his size.<br />
Beck Weathers was rescued by a private French Eurostar, which made an outrageous landing near 21,000 feet in practically no air at all. It's been contested as impossible, even with approach photos taken by the pilot, who risked his life in a pricey helicopter on his own dare.<br />
Epic stories like these viralize in the mountain climbing community, and then spread elsewhere. Something motivates humans, and even machines, to do amazing things. <br />
Now we have curious neuroscientists catching the wave, and attempting to explain the human brain in compelling circumstances.<br />
Climbers are constantly asked the same question. Why climb mountains so high that we might die? We all rehearse George Mallory's infamous 1924 excuse before he disappeared on the third British attempt of Everest. "Because it's there." <br />
Eight climbers died on Everest in 1996. Did they think of love in the end? As a climber, I try to imagine myself. Would this be my choice while powering down? Maybe love would have been the last thing on my mind, and yet...lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-47677021654060977862010-08-02T14:30:00.000-07:002010-08-02T14:30:24.136-07:00Surfing The Universe With Dr. JoAnnI'm checking out an entry in Wikipedia on Schrodinger's Equation, which remains unsolved. It's one of the most perplexing in quantum physics.<br />
"The atomic orbitals of hydrogen like ions are solutions to the Schrodinger Equation in a spherically symmetric potential".<br />
Wow. I've been invited to a Ball. A Big symmetric One. And it might have a clue how to solve this equation. <br />
I drive almost into the Pacific Ocean as I enter the campus at UC Santa Barbara. I spot my destination immediately. It's got a billboard-sized free-form graphic consuming half the face of the building. For academia, it's out of character and a refreshing hit of serendipity. I enter Elings Hall and take the elevator to the second floor. The door opens into a dark corridor. A guy on the elevator confirms, "It's over there." My eyes have no time to adjust. I don't see anyone. Then the outline of a woman with familiar long hair walks toward me. Her face is barely visible.<br />
"JoAnn, is that you?"<br />
Yes, it is. My brain is about to be blown open by the immersive 3D digital reality of the AlloSphere. <br />
When I saw a video of Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin at the TED conference, and then in person at the Humanity Plus conference, I became an immediate follower. My first thought was, she's got answers. A musician and composer, JoAnn is not a predictable candidate for scientists, physicists, physicians, architects, psychologists, cosmologists, and nanotechnologists to feign over. They're waiting in line to meet her and upload the contents of their brains into her virtual 3D program, which leaves audiences with mouths gaping and eyes a mile wide. <br />
Today I will experience some of JoAnn's brilliant visual art and musical composition. She could be mistaken for anyone. JoAnn doesn't carry around the compulsory hubris often expected of high profile PHD's. She's understaffed, driven too hard by her passion, and her Birkenstocks are wearing thin from pounding out hours in the AlloSphere. <br />
JoAnn unlocks a door and we enter. The Dome consumes three stories of Elings Hall. Thirty feet in diameter, it's the largest scientific instrument of it's kind in the world. <br />
A triangular steel grid forms this giant ball, and it resembles a geodesic dome. Anything with that appearance is instantly user-friendly to me. Buckminster Fuller was one of my architectural professors. <br />
Knowing this, JoAnn first takes me to a bridge near the top of the Dome so I can inspect its structural beauty. Curved metal perforated panels span the voids with perfect seams, where they attach to the spherical steel strut frame. A special black paint coats the panels so they reflect the entire color spectrum in the dark with surreal state-of-the-art intensity. <br />
In this giant near-to-anechoic chamber, Dr. JoAnn simulates daily the collective minds of geniuses and displays her brilliance as an inventor, musician, and artist. <br />
The architect for the project, Robert Venturi, was perplexed by some of her requirements, but fulfilled all of them, which doesn't surprise me. JoAnn's passion is addictive. She just "knows" what will work. She's so persuasive you have no choice but to follow her. <br />
As I do, I feel like Alice descending down a giant macrocosmic Bucky Ball of a rabbit hole.<br />
JoAnn is surprisingly animated by my visit, considering she's battling the misery of the flu. An incurable inquisitionist, she seems more than willing to capture another tenacious brain to influence in her web of hyper-reality. <br />
She takes me to another bridge in the middle of the Dome. I park my MacBook in small room filled with electronic equipment and a ganglion of cable. From a control panel out on the bridge, JoAnn picks up her favorite toy, a joystick, that ironically materializes the joy she's having creating Wonders of the Universe inside her Dome. A PC desktop pops up on the giant curved surface. She moves her cursor around and launches the show. <br />
"Ok Ann, put on your 3D glasses."<br />
Here we go. The rabbit hole is about to rocket me out the other end. I don't think I'll need popcorn for this one. <br />
The desktop minimizes off to the side and a gigantic 3D brain, floating in space like a hologram, consumes the Dome and my entire visual field. Knowing I'm an architect and I write about brain science, JoAnn is hitting me right where I live. <br />
She rotates the brain a little, inputs some data, and we zoom into the right side of the prefrontal cortex like a couple Nanobot Journalists on a mission. Collective bits of color and shape are flying all over like a flock of migrant birds in a hurricane. Then they critical mass and return like bees back to the hive of a neuron.<br />
"The grid you see is one of the horizontal slices taken through the brain of an Architect we put in a fMRI. We're also simulating the effects of pharmaceuticals, genetics, and the brain's own chemistry this way. We can see how thoughts travel based on emotion and imagery." <br />
Wow, again.<br />
I know an fMRI literally reconstructs imagination in the brain, uploading to a computer program that crunches data by mapping changes in cerebral blood flow in the visual cortex. Now data has become a very big show. Am I also watching how my own brain visualizes?<br />
"While he was in there we showed him visual images and then watched his brain light up. This is real-time simulation."<br />
No kidding. Now I'm visualizing Bucky in there, a computer uploading his brain with all 12 last-century phonebook-sized volumes of his legendary Dymaxion treatise, the World Design Science Decade. <br />
JoAnn tweaks with her joystick. All the shapes representing anything imaginable in the brain take off again as she describes what's happening. She's on verbal autopilot. Words spill out of her non-stop, creating seamless and precise descriptions. How can I interrupt her now? I've got a million questions as I fly high on my own internally launched candy-store frenzy . . . <br />
"Go HERE! Now over to the LEFT side! WHOA, back up a little . . . where's the amygdala? Add some ENDORPHINS to the CEREBELLUM!"<br />
Like a bad cough in the audience, I would have ruined her performance. <br />
Then her computer crashes. The desktop freezes. <br />
"This is a new one", she says. After spending some time trying to fix it and being overly apologetic, she calls her engineer to the bridge. JoAnn must be melting down the AlloSphere computer system with her data input, yet again. <br />
"We need a supercomputer. There's one upstairs, and I'm trying to get access to it." <br />
Well, yeah, I'm thinking. Give it to her, like NOW. I suggest Wolfram Alpha might help her crunch more data as her engineer successfully launches us again. She prepares her next event.<br />
"Here's Schrodinger." <br />
JoAnn produces his famous unsolved paradox on her minimized desktop. I'm prepared for another Avatar 3D experience, but when a massive hydrogen like atom amped up on computational simulation explodes in my face, I'm thrown into full-body 4D immersion. As JoAnn zooms in, out, around, and through, accelerating it all over the Dome, an expanding symmetry of color and shape comes right at me. <br />
Then it expands right through my head. I step back to get out of the way, but all I do is bump into the back wall. I step to the side, then lose my balance. The only way to get it back is to cross my eyes. This turns the quantum takeover into two stable images in front of me. I feel like I'm in a big round box, a paradox in itself. I think I may have bifurcated into two branched universes, not knowing where my body is and where it isn't.<br />
"I had one famous physicist in here, very skeptical. I ran my program of a hydrogen-like atom with various combinations of wave functioning equations. He couldn't believe it was so complicated and behaved in so many ways." <br />
This makes me smile, knowing this has never been seen by the human eye. If I'd been an atom on the wall, I would have given anything to see the expression on his face. <br />
I look at the equations again displayed on JoAnn's desktop that have stumped the best of them. Schrodinger's are analytically unsolved, but they're now growing and organically changing seamlessly into brilliant visual replications of his theory all through me. <br />
Two more visitors arrive on the bridge for their appointment with JoAnn. She introduces me to a student and a music professor checking out the progress of his collaboration with her. The show goes on all around me. <br />
Then they leave in the usual state of dropped jaws and big eyes. JoAnn returns to Schrodinger, grins, and reminds me to put my 3D glasses back on. She seems to be enjoying my 4 year-old Wonder Face as I dance around, this close to out-of-motor-control. <br />
"I think I can convince them that visualizing this is important."<br />
Well, yeah, I think again. I know she's on to something, and it's much bigger than her Dome. This could convince there really are multiple dimensions. <br />
Schrodinger is understood by few. A quantum physicist, he won the Nobel Prize in 1933 for his paradox of "many worlds". He invented an interesting scenario in an attempt to explain his theory. <br />
A cat is sealed up in a box with a tiny radioactive substance. If over time a radioactive atom decays, it's detected, poison released, and results in a dead cat. But it's also probable no atom decays and the cat is still alive, making it probable the cat is either dead or alive regardless of the behavior of an atom. <br />
What if the cat exists in both states? This is also probable, based on the measurable behavior of atomic particles that constitute all living matter. To exist in both states, a "branch point" event occurs, where the cat becomes two and assumes existence in different distinct dimensions of the Universe, being dead and alive simultaneously. If the box is opened, regardless of what's discovered, both are equally real. <br />
Solving Schrodinger's time-dependent and time-independent states of quantum theory would validate how being alive and dead at the same time could occur. As my grandmother might say, a crazy idea like this is "far-fetched", as in, you've got to go way out there to get it, a good reason why the cat-in-the-box is a challenge to wrap a brain around.<br />
Schrodinger's probability does align with what I know about Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspenky's "shock interval", Wilhelm Reich's Orgone Theory, and Garrett Lisi's E8 Theory. <br />
I've got a hunch. Our curiosity may not kill the cat. Refusing to be squashed by skepticism, our curiosity could manifest proof of Schrodinger's equation visually. Then the cat also lives. If missing particles explode out of the Large Hadron Collider completing E8 theory, we'll also have an Exceptional Theory of Everything. <br />
How could we possibly arrive at all this? How about transmuting analytical data into visually symmetrical imagery and watch what happens? <br />
When I Wiki-surfed Schrodinger, some interesting terms represented his equations. Wave, amplitude, oscillation, frequency . . these are words that coincidentally describe the sound and behavior of music. JoAnn's fascination with the structure of musical composition was running in the background as Guitar Hero and Rock Band launched the modern rhythm gaming craze. <br />
Eventually, the inventors designed joystick controllers shaped like musical instruments. The names of the games and inventors are also interesting, like Frequency, Amplitude, Harmonix...<br />
I like the frequencies of JoAnn's simulated music that back-drops her 3D shows. They sound like sonar recordings of whales, or the Cobe Satellite bringing back sounds of the Universe. <br />
I don't want to leave, but JoAnn's flu-fight, upcoming conferences demanding her presence, plus another typical day indulging persistent fans, has worn her down to what's left of her Birkenstocks. Guilt sets in, and I plan a quick, but grateful exit. <br />
Still, she's having a hard time powering down the Dome and leaving herself. I honorably body-coax her out and get her to lock the door as she continues to talk. <br />
She always has so much more to say . . .<br />
I'm hoping someone will find attractive bait to get her out of that Dome daily so we don't lose her in there forever. I'm also thinking that would be ok with JoAnn, and she would want to take a bunch of her friends with her. Maybe that's her next simulation . . .<br />
I gush, get profuse, and diminish myself in her presence, as I walk toward the elevator that will soon de-elevate me. Like an SNL bit, I am not worthy. I say goodbye to JoAnn, my arm raised in an arc and headed for her slumped shoulders bearing the weight of her passion and the flu.<br />
"Don't hug me. You'll get it."<br />
No worries. She can infect me with whatever she wants. I do it anyway, and then blur the fuzzy moment with a semi-trite evaluation. <br />
"You're not part of this world JoAnn. You are it."<br />
Finally, she doesn't know what to say. <br />
I walk back out into the setting sun and face the disappointing visual of a parking structure with my car in it. I read emails, check messages, and drive back out into Real Reality. <br />
Even with a Pacific Sunset Moment, I can't get my head out of the AlloSphere.<br />
Anybody got a contact for the Nobel Laureate Nominating Committee in Sweden?lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-64667773263517736152010-08-02T14:28:00.000-07:002010-08-02T14:28:28.381-07:00Objects may be larger or smaller than they appearI attended a conference in Southern California last December featuring current developments in human enhancement and life extension. Not sure it was worth the flight from San Francisco, I checked out the speakers, most whom I didn't know. A few had presented at the TED conference, which was a plus, and the program was compelling, so I went. <br />
I told one friend what the conference was about. He just looked at me, unsure where my head had gone for vacation. Then I joked to another friend I was curious if I could pick out the Cyborgs in the audience. This resulted in "Wow, I want to know all the details when you get back!" <br />
I guess our relationship with science hasn't changed much. What we don't think is possible either makes us edgy or gets us all excited. <br />
My preconceptions however, were completely reversed. For three days, my reality was transformed by an incredible and fascinating world of probability and possibility. "Hive mind" took over as a sizable collection of real human conferees began to think and feel alike. If there were any Cyborgs, they were excellent proof transhumanist technology has been perfected. <br />
I thought about a video circulated on the web recently of a guy who married the virtual one he created, and realized our New Century just might become a Brave New World.<br />
For me, The Humanity Plus conference was an over-the-top hit. I had a long list on my laptop of words to search after I left. One out of four failed spell-check. This is how rapidly our language is changing to suit our desires, inventions, and curiosity. <br />
I'm amazed at the thousands of scientific choices available for altering, enhancing, repairing, healing, and extending the lifespan of the human body. And more choices on how we can enhance our experience of what we currently call reality. Science fiction, digital animation, cinema, religion, spirituality, and altered states of consciousness are tools we use to experience what doesn't exist. One by one however, we're chipping away at the short list and transforming our visions into scientific fact. <br />
"Imagineering" is a buzzword now. We've been ramping up for centuries to manifest our wildest dreams. If you "imagine" something, is it "real", and will it "happen"? Can you "create" it? Does it "exist", and if so, to "whom"? Is it "true"? Do we need "science" to "prove" it? <br />
Wow. Check out all those quotation marks! These are familiar words we use every day, but is there scientific proof behind them? And if there is, for how long? If I say it's true and you say it isn't, who wins until next week? <br />
This could be the biggest transition in the history of technology and dictionaries. Add the power of Wikipedia (this failed spell-check too), and it's a world on a power drink. <br />
Instead of "no, it isn't," I've traded that one in for "that's interesting." It keeps the sign in front of my head flipped to "open." It also provides safe haven so I don't offend anyone until there's "proof," including myself. This conference provided so much to think about, all the heads attending were flipped open. <br />
Since the turn of the century we've come mind-blowingly close to solving some of our toughest challenges for quality of life and the nature of our universe. A modest awareness of quantum physics can provide the realization this is not the only dimension we may occupy. The film "Back to the Future" was a prequel to this possibility, and now it's a probability. <br />
Plenty has been written about the integrity of accepting the experiences of others as real to them, even if it isn't to us. This extends to the body as well. If you physically alter your DNA, your body, or use it as a canvas for art, or lose an arm and go get another one, does it change your experience or who you are to others? Or maybe change your brain? <br />
Psychologists and behaviorists specialize in counseling those who alter their body, and even their gender. We now have technology that can replace an arm with a robotic prosthesis and a small computer attached to the body that transmits the brain's neuron conversation to the replaced arm, telling it what to do. It literally "reads your mind." <br />
Dean Kamen, a robotics developer, has interfaced the latest technology, making this a reality. A robotic arm can now pick up a grape and not crush it. Captain Crunch can reach the mouth with all the milk in the spoon. Kamen's current goal is to refine the brain sensors so amputees can perform their next chess move, based on the decision made in their brain. He's also working with DARPA to make this existing technology affordable and available to anyone that needs a limb replaced. They're starting with victims of warfare, some who need four replacements. One recipient of a robotic arm has been without a real one for almost two decades.<br />
So what about technology that enhances human experience? Well, that exists too. One of the hot topics in the conference break room was the impending release of the film <em>Avatar</em>, produced with unique advances in 3D digital media. The film is as close to an immersive holographic environment I've seen so far, but I was amazed during one presentation to discover one actually exists, constructed inside a building. <br />
Dr. JoAnn Kuchera Morin, the ingenious mind behind the AlloSphere at UC Santa Barbara, explained how participants are surrounded with "true 3D" in a thirty-foot diameter dome laboratory, the largest in the world. This "scientific instrument" inputs the ingenuity of musicians, composers, artists, physicists, biologists, geneticists, psychologists, and astronomers into a computer software program and outputs sensory data that can simulate reality. Images are exploded to a thousand times their actual size and are in the face of participants inside the dome, whom transmit sensory feedback to the computer, altering the experience and creating the ideal feedback loop. <br />
So if the AlloSphere is also a tool for developing interactive and bodily intuition, can we think ourselves into a reality we choose? <br />
An interesting non-event at this conference was the still-present hush-ness about "digital sex." It was mentioned in the audience, maybe twice, and fast. Just a quickie. <br />
The powerful presence of this digital media in our world is still too powerful for most of us, even though the biological imperative to replicate ourselves wins out over all other senses. <br />
The United States is one of the few cultures with an expectation of monogamy, but humans can demand more input from their partner than is deliverable within the limits of human expression. <br />
This dilemma is rarely expressed openly, and is often tethered to endless forms of psychoanalytic, therapeutic, and spiritual discipline in order to maintain it. <br />
We like the term "chemistry" though, to describe that rare event with another human where bliss is experienced in sex, and we want it forever. But chemistry can also make us complete idiots. Even killers. Or forget to pay the bills, and if sex isn't consummated with a significant other, leave crumbs all over the place so we can be "found out", a rather subliminal tactic to confront cultural shame and guilt. <br />
It's obvious from recent world events we just can't make sex go away. We continue to engage humans, and some engagements reward the participant's lack of due-diligence with a world stage at the grocery check-out stand. Many of us feed on infractions of monogamy or celibacy, and then humans become the celebrity status casualties of their biological surges. <br />
Proliferation of human sexual expression through emotion, ritual, love, mind altered states, or chemicals has been the norm. We have control of our free will as to how often, with what, and with whom we enhance our experience. We can choose to immerse ourselves in human interaction, or join a virtual community that could take our current norm to the next level. <br />
Full immersive virtual technology with sensory input/output offers boundless opportunity for this option to exist within the next five years, outside the box we call a computer. <br />
Not much practice or commitment involved here. Just an admission ticket. Humans can maintain monogamy, control population, and avoid societal shame with a new twist. . .<br />
"It's not what you think, Dear. All I did Friday night was hang out at the Full Dome 4D Digital <br />
Immersion Multiplex. Look at our kids. They live in that computer with their games day and night. No big deal." <br />
The Ultimate Safe Sex. <br />
There are "private clubs" providing a choice in humans, but what might happen if we choose sensory input that goes straight to the brain without the middleperson? If we allow admittance into our head instead, what may come or go with it? This brand of enhancement might lease our free will with an open contract. We may turn ourselves over so our thoughts can be manipulated, our senses altered, and then just go along for the ride, getting off any time we want. Or so it seems. <br />
A long time friend of mine is the first woman physician in her Native American Tribe. She's traveled all over the world representing the health and well-being of her People. She always waits in our conversations until she can deliver a profound observation about anything. I spoke to her recently about this topic. We tossed around a lot of ideas, and then she made a statement I knew would be questioned by the entertainment industry. <br />
"Bollywood will surpass Hollywood here in a few years."<br />
Silence. No way, I thought. Not in the US. <br />
We exchanged our experiences in India and the movies we saw. After debating this for a while, I realized she was on to something. Traditional India pre-arranges marriages which make courtship obsolete, and even falling in love. We agreed the majority of movies made in Bollywood, even today, are about romance. Lots of singing, dancing, courting, fabulous costuming, opulent sets, camels racing, and The Big Kiss at the end when the audience goes wild. Every movie house in India is packed, and this now extends into the Mid East and Europe, <br />
where Bollywood is wildly popular. <br />
The emotional cravings for humans may not go away either. We agreed the day might come when popularity of this plot will surge back into cinema and video right here in the US, produced by Bollywood.<br />
It's obvious within the last few weeks the Internet may be controlled more than the inventors intended it to be. If open platforms via electronic data are regulated further based on market share, bandwidth, and predetermined cultural morality, to what extent will humans go to surmount deprivation of their free will in the virtual world? Enhancement through immersive digital media in a pay-per-experience theater environment could be one potential option to the powerful urges that still bother us. And for many, a "second life" to enjoy. <br />
What I'm curious about regarding all this emerging technology in human enhancement and sensory augmentation is the pay-off and potential sacrifice in our complex human arena with each other. It might also bring front and center some surprising attention to the existence of a human soul. More inventive science will be needed to prove this one, if only to restore "con-science" and fulfilling interactions with "humans".<br />
Until then, it's your call. Go to a nice romantic musical with camel races, or go to the Multiplex.lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-4140291578509725902010-05-14T12:39:00.000-07:002010-05-15T16:39:00.069-07:00The Miracle of Greg Lives On<span style="font-size: 10pt;">My cell goes off. It’s Greg’s daughter Tosh.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Annie, you better come.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“I know. The owls are landing in trees above my head.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">She knows the story my Navajo friend told me about one of the Legends. Owls bring messages one of us here on Earth is about to transition out of the body to the Other World. For weeks before my Mother and Father died two months apart, they were visiting me constantly. They started getting closer, telling me the time was near. And it was. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“On my bike ride yesterday, I stopped to take off my arm warmers. There was an owl right above me in an evergreen tree. It hooted twice. Then it flew away. That’s the closest one yet. I’ll fly out tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I’m on my way to Utah. I know what the owl’s message was. Greg has made his decision. He plans to go out, soon. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I arrive at the SLC airport, rent a car, and drive to Greg’s bedside. We smile at each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“I guess you know why I’m here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Yeah, I do.” he says.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">His brain tumor has paralyzed his left side, but his right side is still active. Now the tumor is growing again, and it has a mind of it’s own. It’s been athletic all its life and is fighting, punching, and grabbing at everything. I pull on Greg’s arm so he can do some curls. His muscles are craving it. After about ten minutes, his arm calms down and just lays there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">We have our little talk. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Ok, here’s how it goes down. I did this with my Mother, my Father, and my Dog. I know this works.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">He listens carefully, as if he too knows the words that are tumbling out of me come from somewhere else, The Great Manager of the Sky, anywhere but from me. I run him through the Bardo stages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, an instruction manual for the transition from life to death, and then into All That Is.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Greg, how do you want to prepare for the rest of the trip?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">He wants more chemo, the nastiest we can find. He wants to fight his invader to the end, and he knows it will kill him too.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“No, it won’t kill YOU. You’ll still be here. You’ll see.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">He knows what I mean.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Tosh and I take a walk as the emotion pours out of her like a broken dam. As soon as we’re outside, I hear owls.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Tosh. They’re here too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“The owls.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Are you sure that’s an owl? I’ve never heard any around here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Absolutely. It’s got the same rhythm. Who. Who-who-who. The first one is a sentence. Then followed by three more together. Every time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">We walk up the street a few blocks and stand outside the house of Greg’s best friend Alan, who is also his accountant. Another owl lands in a tree right across the street, hoots three times, and flies off.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“It won’t be much longer Tosh. Greg’s ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Just then Alan drives up, we all greet each other, then Tosh and I leave. She tells me Alan is barely coping, and then adds the latest development in the life and death cycles of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“I’m pregnant Annie. It’s Nathan’s.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Are you going to keep it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Yes. Nathan is so happy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“How does everyone else feel about this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“My sisters aren’t happy, but my Mom is.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Did you tell Greg?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“No. I’m not sure yet if I will.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Let’s go back” I tell her. “The three of us need to be with Greg.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Greg’s new Hospice caregiver arrives. The regular one broke his finger and she’s the replacement. I’m hoping Greg is comfortable with a woman changing his disposable brief and giving him a bed bath.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Hey Greg. This one’s a woman. Can you handle that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“The more the merrier”, he tells me as I crack up. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">She’s fully present as she comes in, we smile at each other, and I get that usual best-of-friends warmth coming back at me I’m familiar with here in Utah. Must be something in the water . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I ask her if I can help, knowing she’s in charge. I explain Greg can’t move anything on the left, but he’s got a mean right punch. Greg grins.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Take his right arm and pull him over to the other side of the bed. We’ll roll him on his side.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Greg grabs on to me, I bear hug him, and pull with all I’ve got. He’s still an armful and strong as hell. He bear hugs me. It’s the first time we’ve hugged in a long time. He’s down to his skin, ready for his bath. We’re now locked into each other as his caregiver conducts her business.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Hey you, you’re still hot!” I whisper in his ear, kissing his neck. He kisses back, but can’t get to my face, so the sounds of his kisses just fill the air. I laugh, and add some irony.<br />
“How many times do we have to do this in front of other people?”</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Greg laughs too. His caregiver cracks a smile, keeping her eyes discreetly on her towel as she washes. The room is just three people, completely comfortable being part of human compassion for each other. The harsh business of being in a struggling body just goes away. Greg knows I finally grabbed my moment with him, and he knows it will be the last time he hugs and loves anyone like this again. Not a bad way to complete one’s life. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I feel my moment on Friday and tell Greg I’m flying out.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Talk to me anytime. I’ll hear you, and I will see you.” I think of the line in Avatar and visualize Greg leaping out of his wheelchair and running his favorite trail up Big Cottonwood Canyon with his dog Joey, who died last year, and is waiting for him on Pandora. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I kiss him all over, hold his face, hang on to my emotions, smile, and walk out the door. We’ve said goodbye. It’s April 30<sup>th</sup>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I get another call from Tosh. It’s Thursday, May 13<sup>th</sup>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Annie, he’s gone. We were all in the room with him. My brother flew in too. When my Dad saw him, he took three last breaths, and then he was gone. He died Tuesday.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“I know.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I tell her I went to the same place I’ve been going to on Tuesdays where the owls are always there. This time the owl was in the tree next to my car.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“What time was that Annie?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“About 2:15, maybe 2:25 pm. It was closer than the rest I’ve heard.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Greg died at about 3:10 pm.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I tell her in Mountain Standard Time, that means Greg’s last breath was about five or ten minutes before I heard the owl.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“This time Tosh, it was strange. Instead of feeling sadness, I was almost peaceful. The owl was just . . . there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">She tells me Greg got into Harvard Medical School. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">They will harvest his brain and study it so they can save other lives. No one has seen someone live through all this for 3 years. He’s still a miracle they don’t understand. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I tell her I was hoping for something like that.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">I ask Tosh for details on a family gathering.<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Annie, his Mom died Wednesday, a day later. She just fell down and died.”</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I don’t know what to say.<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">"We're having our memorial for him and his Mom May 23rd. Will you come?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">"Yeah, of course I'll come."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I’m thinking about my decision to move into my place in Park City. It’s the only home I’ve got left. It’s agony thinking about leaving the Bay Area. I thought it would also give me some time with Greg before he made his choice, but inside me, I knew that wouldn’t happen. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Tosh, how’s your baby?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“I went to my doctor. He told me we’re all spiritual warriors. He thinks my Dad and his Mom are preparing my baby for me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Are you kidding? A doctor said that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">“Yeah Annie. He did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The rest of Greg will be cremated. His family, some friends, and I will spread his ashes all over Greg’s favorite place, San Francisco, and both our hearts will be left there. I will have moved to where Greg was and he will have moved to where I was. We’ll trade places. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">As I finish writing, KDFC in San Francisco is playing Antonin Dvorak’s “Going Home” from the Symphony of The New World. My tears are messing up my MacBook, so I stop writing. It’s 11:35 am. Pacific Standard Time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Greg pulled it off. He killed the tumor. The enemy is dead. <br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">And Greg lives on and on. . . </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-52841184275305706182010-03-26T15:41:00.000-07:002010-08-02T14:35:17.402-07:00Fit For Life. Chapter Three<div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
<o:p></o:p></b>Most people who know me often ask “Are you still riding your bike?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, sure, I went out yesterday and did the mountain. They patched the potholes so the descent was awesome!”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Aren’t you getting a little old for that?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">“For what? Potholes?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I still don’t understand these strange comments. They know I’ve always been an athlete, and I know I’ll always be an athlete. I don’t know any other way to be. Why don’t they ask me why I still don’t have a TV? Or is broccoli all I ever eat?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Cycling is a lifestyle for me. When I was invited on training rides with a bunch of guys that became pros in cycling, we were committed to training. No one showed up late. We were a tight social network.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, it was a direct hit to our cycling family. He had ridden with us a couple months earlier, so the news hit hard. Every week in our paceline, the question was always “What’s the news on Lance?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The cancer had spread throughout his body. Some said he would beat cancer and some said he wouldn’t. The French gave up on him by kicking him off their cycling team. During his treatments, Lance spent almost every day on a stationary bike, logging up to fifty miles. Then he got back on his bike and won the Tour de France seven consecutive years in a row.<br />
Why did Lance survive when others didn’t, regardless of age or treatment? Why did he survive, jump back on the bike, and become the cycling legend he is today? Was it his passion for challenge? Did his brain have anything to do with his recovery, or his life as an athlete? I think it did, and now science does too.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Greg. Another Miracle<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I have a close friend in Utah who is an athlete. I met Greg when I experimented with internet dating sites gaining popularity on the web. I tried it once, just for fun. When I saw Greg’s profile pic, something stopped me after dozens of “I don’t think so’s”. I sent him an email. He sent one back. Then I did something crazier than hitch-hiking Europe for a year by myself. I drove nine hours to Salt Lake City to meet him, and I didn’t know why. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Greg and I sat on the lawn of a shopping center parking lot for twelve straight hours talking. This guy had the winning combination of being an athlete, a brain connecting dots like a supercomputer, and a passion for challenge. It was like we had finally tracked each other down. We just picked up where we left off. You hear stories like this, and you always wonder how they play out in people’s lives.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Greg and I shared athletic adventures. We skied every steep chute Utah had to offer. He took me on his grueling four day Kokopelli mountain bike tour in Moab with a bunch of his friends and family. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">All athletes. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Greg is known all over the Salt Lake City area as an elite competitive mountain biker and skier, and he’s also been fighting a malignant tumor in his brain for three years. Greg’s surprise tumor grew until it left him on the floor, paralyzed on most of his left side. Amazingly, his brain function was spared. He was given the same dismal prognosis Lance was. He was told he had a three percent chance at survival and three weeks to live. He started aggressive radiation plus drugs three times a month for three months, infusions of drugs for six months, and another round for four months. Repeat. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Through it all, no one could challenge Greg’s fighting spirit. If anyone was foolish enough to try (including me), he was in your face demanding why you would give up on him (and even yourself). His tumor had stabilized, and he wasn’t kind to pessimists. He wasn’t reluctant either to describe his treatments and what they were like. “They take you this close to death and hope it kills the cancer first”. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Greg’s had more treatment rounds than his doctors have given to any patient. Every time, they took him close to death hoping his cancer would die first. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Through it all, Greg got on his stationary bike for as long as he could stand it. He was awarded miracle status by his medical community. And his tumor stabilized. Greg was ready to get his left side working, get back on the bike, and on to life.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Then late in 2009, Greg took another direct hit. He lost his balance, went down, and broke his hip. He had no muscle to protect and support his bones. And just a week before that, his MRI showed the outline of his brain tumor growing again, which probably affected his balance. He had another intensive round of treatments a couple months ago that required three days in the hospital. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now in a wheelchair, he’s starting to lose faith he’ll ride again, because he can’t get on his stationary bike. As an athlete he knows if he can’t get a workout that gets his heart rate up and builds muscle, his chances at recovery become slim. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">When I talked to Greg last week, I asked permission to write about him and use his name. He finally agreed. I’m not sure he wanted his investment clients to know what had happened to him. But now they all know what he’s fighting, and I’m surprised by their support. They have not abandoned him. They know he’s one of the smartest in the business, and they’ll take Greg’s brain any way they can get it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I asked Greg what he thought the most important factor was for his miraculous long-term survival. Why had he made it for three years when others didn’t, like Ted Kennedy and Robert Novak? I asked him why his numerous oncologists and radiologists remain amazed. Why did they give up on him so easily before? Why . . . <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">He didn’t even let me finish. He told me he had been an athlete for life, and that was at the top of his list, because he knew. I was not surprised, but I needed to hear it for myself.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Cancer is not a disease<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">David Agus is a medical doctor and professor of medicine at the University of Southern California. His studies in proteomics have changed how cancer is treated. Instead of the reductionist approach, a systems approach has become highly effective. Like a plant, changing the soil may not save the plant, but changing its environment will, if changed soon enough. If a seed is given a sustainable environment that’s maintained, it’s less vulnerable to insects throughout it’s life span. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">At his TED presentation, Dr. Agus stated the reductionist approach promoted by the National Cancer Institute is just “all wrong”. Cancer is not genetic, nor is treating a body part effective. He defines cancer as a cell no longer in control and regulated by it’s environment. He measures cancer dynamically as a system. His input is similar to diet, environment, stress, and physical fitness. His output is cancer and symptoms that may be hidden from detection, making target treatment very difficult. He targets all cells in the body as a systemic whole. He doesn’t shrink a cancer growth, he controls the body’s environment.<br />
I think Dr. Agus “all right”.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">One example of the body as an environment is a study he completed mapping global countries with the highest obesity rate. Interestingly, these countries also had the highest cancer rate, dramatically higher than a decade ago. Another recent web post by doctors in Barcelona claim their research and statistics indicate one-third of all breast cancer victims could have avoided this systemic malfunction with vigorous exercise and weight loss. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, Dr. Agus predicts rather than going to a breast or brain cancer clinic, you may go to an EGFR clinic (epidermal growth factor receptor). You can learn more about this by web searching EGFR, or watch Dr. Agus’ TED video.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">What if we controlled the environment of our bodies? Would we be more resistant to “cells gone wild” or other invaders?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The Top Ten<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">William Evan’s book “Biomarkers” defines ten metabolic functions of our bodies that promote disease resistance, longevity, and vitality. Based on his research, building muscle mass and vigorous sustained aerobic activity positively affects all ten. Yoga affects three, and jogging affects none of them. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I was really surprised by the jogging statistic, so now I need to read the book, which also offers recommendations about diet and motivation. Exercises are recommended, but “may appear a bit daunting for the over-50 group who may never before have participated in a regular exercise or fitness program”. This is not good news for “Boomers” concerned about affordable health care that have lived a sedentary life. They risk further debilitating effects of sarcopenia in old age, which is an overall weakening of the body in favor of fat at the expense of muscle.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Satchel Paige, the “ageless” baseball pitcher, views biomarkers as an indicator of how old you would be if “you didn’t know how old you was”, which he doesn’t. Many of you already know my opinion on “doing the numbers”. Buying into a date an obstetrician wrote down on a piece of paper when you popped out seems arbitrary when you think of all you can do to define your real age, doesn’t it?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s known athletes grow new neuron connections in their brain that sedentary humans do not. This reduces the chance of memory loss, and my friend Greg is no exception. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now I know why I drove nine hours to meet a stranger. Greg wasn’t a stranger at all. He was my next mentor.<b> <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve been asked to post updates on Greg’s progress. No science data yet, maybe tomorrow, but apparently a bunch of people offering up prayer works. Send yours his way through any power source you choose, including yourself. <o:p></o:p></div>You can also get out there on your bike today, and hit the gym while you’re at it. It’s a good way to pray.lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-34747756061474636022010-02-16T21:08:00.000-08:002010-02-21T23:22:32.814-08:00The Broccoli Wars<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I’ve got three regulars who want to eat off my usual plate of broccoli and spinach with extra garlic. This doesn’t include the occasional audience to my order that stares the greens down and just has to compliment my choice. The bartender is on to this, so he negotiates with the kitchen to serve me a bigger plate of greens to share. Two of my poachers earn their free veggies by talking to me instead of texting, and one gives me hot tips on software. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s nearly impossible to get veggies in a restaurant anymore, anywhere in the country. Why are veggies, fruit, and even flowers shipped here all the way from South America? Is it cheaper? Have we run out? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But wait. We have plenty. At local farmer’s markets last season, I was amazed when vendors told me they packed up all the kids, fruit, veggies, and drove four hours from the California Central Valley every week. Booths loaded with macramé plant hangers had mercifully expired to make room for a street full of food growers and customers hauling it all away. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Why are food growers driving so far? Is it possible they have enough customers to be worth it? A healthy salad in a good restaurant now comes in a midget version disguised as an art form, thoughtfully composed of a dozen green leaves surrounded by six lima beans and a shallot-reduction-basil-fusion-virgin olive oil balsamic-vinaigrette served on a 15-inch dinner plate. And for veggies, now it’s wax beans and potatoes. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">These new developments just take all the fun out of my dining experience. My suspicion is restaurants are fed up throwing away veggies. They cost more to serve too. All that washing and scraping and tossing and choppin’ broccoli takes a bite out of restaurant profits, only to have customers leave it on their plates. The remains are sentenced to the dumpster. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When an upscale restaurant featuring trendy fusion vegetarian cuisine opened, a friend took me there for dinner. I walked in excited. I was prepared to Power Graze. Instead, I got another art piece on an oversized dinner plate. Amazed at the fattened-up tab and still on empty, I raided the fridge when I got home. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I started walking into restaurants irritable before I even sat down. “Gimme those veggies” I demanded. “I know you’re hiding them back there”, not realizing if I got lucky I would also pay a premium for what lands in the dumpster most of the time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I decided to alter my strategy. I shopped hard and found a restaurant that served sides of veggies and a personal trainer tending the bar. Surely, I had found one of my tribe. I thought I was winning with my broccoli and spinach order until I got a serving of some kind of genetically engineered species so bitter I couldn’t eat it called “broccoli rabe”, which is mostly a cellulose stalk with tiny buds at the end.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“They usually mix those with olives, capers, and garlic”, he told me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“No kidding” I said, and asked if they had real broccoli with fat sweet verdant heads back there. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Yeah, but I have to leave the bar and negotiate with the kitchen. It’s a real pain”. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I assumed the Irritated Position. “This rabe stuff will turn me into a Cyborg! Who are they saving the Real Broccoli for?” He laughed, made a trip to the kitchen, and I got RB. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Don’t expect this every time you come in here. Maybe when it’s slow”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The next time I walked in, since Dana Carvey eats there too, I started singing his broccoli bit. This was good, the bartender cracked up. I refined my comedy routine some more. I told him I priced out bumper stickers and it wouldn’t cost much to print a pile and hand them out - </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Free The Vegetables” </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">After a few months of being an entertaining customer, I was scoring authentic veggies I could recognize. The kitchen knows me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“She’s out there again. Free The Broccoli.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I walked into the local Vitamin Shoppe today. John is there and he’s very smart about everything in his store. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Hey John, have you noticed you can’t even find red colored fruit or blue colored berries in cans to stockpile for the End of the World without all that bad stuff in it for pies?” </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Yeah, actually I’ve noticed that. We’ve got concentrated blueberry and pomegranate juices, about $15 a bottle. Lots of anti-oxidants and resveratrol.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“What? That much for juice concentrate? What’s going on?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Darn if I know.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wanted to finish this blog entry weeks ago, but something stopped me. When this happens, I know there’s more out there worth waiting for. I decided to take a break. A local restaurant makes a salad worth ordering and fills the big plate. I waited until 9 pm to get a seat at the busy bar. On one side, a woman checks out my monster designer salad several times as she tries to finish a slab of meat with mashed potatoes. On the other, a man of “a certain age” is hunched over and stabilizing himself on the counter with both elbows as he finishes his halibut. Left on his plate is a nice pile of organic greens, looking good. He folds his napkin. He’s done. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I can’t watch this. “You’re not eating your veggies?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“No, I’m full. You want them?” I tell him thanks, but I’ll pass. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Take them with you” I suggest. “They will keep you out of the doctor’s office. Works for me.” </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">He says nothing. Maybe I need to speak up, so I say it again.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“I heard you. I don’t want them”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The week after this, I was rewarded with a herd of incoming web posts piled into a couple days. Jamie Oliver decided to take a video cam to the streets like Morgan Spurlock in “Supersize Me”. He targeted Huntington, West Virginia, where half the population is considered obese. The video viralized on the web immediately. I found it on Youtube. Then Jamie was invited to the TED conference. Now his video has taken over Facebook.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I heard Dan Buettner on NPR in my car a day before Jamie, claiming longevity is only 10% genetics. Dang. I was living on empty hope. My grandmother lived to be 104. So now I’m paying attention. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dan identifies “Blue Zones” as locations where people live longest. In Sardinia, it’s mostly men. Their secret is a plant-based diet and their treatment of older people (who knew?). The special wine Grandmother makes has a positive effect on the grandkids too. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In Okinawa, it’s the women. Again, a plant based diet and undernourishment. They stop eating when full. They’re on the skinny side. They have no word for "retirement". <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the US the Blue Zone Award goes to Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. Their plant-based diet is from the Bible. Their social network is their live community. They do lots of nature walks. They move “naturally”, constantly motivated into daily activity. Their body is always in motion. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">All these Blue Zone people have something else in common. They share a common outlook on life. Prayer, veneration of ancestors, a sense of belonging to the right tribe, a faith-based community, and social networks. They surround themselves with the right people to hang out with. Friends are long-term adventures that are “the best thing you can do to add life to your years and years to your life” Dan comments. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My experience starting up and living in what is now labeled “green” communities verifies what Dan says. We were also committed to diversity. Members of vast age differences contributed variant views and skills, were well informed, and sources of boundless information. A passion for expression was considered a gift to the group, not a platform for debate or a smack-down opportunity. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In my view, as well as others like Hans Selye, tolerance for differences removes the acrimony of constant bickering over perceived truths. Medical science has proven this can elevate stress hormones and cause premature aging. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The next day, Extropist Examiner quoted a study walking barefoot activates your soles, sending signals to the brain to grow more neuron connections, which can prevent Alzheimer’s in older adults. Another post on Yahoo claims people who sit all day are prematurely killing themselves. Sitting is apparently leading to an explosion of non-ambulatory status in older adults. I believe it because I have to jump out of the way more often on a public sidewalk to avoid a battery operated wheelchair exceeding the speed limit. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What’s this surge in the news all about? And why is there no backlash over all this claiming discrimination? Could it be the health of Americans, regardless of age, is costing all of us a pile of money? Maybe its time to realize it’s up to each of us, with freedom so far to eat when and what we want, to eat our veggies. I cling to hope that soon I’ll see a picket line in front of a school by trim and athletic looking Mothers Against Disgusting Deprivation of veggies taking it to the next level. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If I sound opinionated, maybe that’s good. Veggies hurt a lot less than the alternative. And people are stealing them off my plate. </span></div>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-22823557306048782812010-01-19T10:53:00.000-08:002010-01-19T11:02:32.037-08:00Reform. Health-Care Style<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A seasoned and well-respected politician went on record recently describing our new century so far as The Biggest Loser. In his opinion, because people lost money, possessions, homes, jobs, and health insurance, it should be scrapped. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Losing any of this is a harsh reality. Losing all of it at once is traumatic. I know, because I did, including and entire family. But I’m still here, and my enthusiasm about what people are creating around me couldn’t be better. I hunt daily for exciting transformations I can jump into and be part of, realizing I haven’t lost my future. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What this politician seems to have apparently lost is his awareness of the historic revolution occurring in our brains. All the inventiveness in cosmology, medicine, health, music, mathematics, physics, biology, environmental science, genetics, business, communication, and social networks is hard to miss. Even more disconcerting is the realization those we voted into office could be so inattentive. For his pessimistic view, there are a dozen optimistic ones to replace it, but the grades lately on the State of the Union seem to be D’s and F’s. Dread, Fear, and now, Failure.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is one reason why I think many in our new century are so disenchanted and disconnected from their society and the political, governmental and corporate institutions they depended on for health of their country and their survival. Many were born in time to experience the Great Depression, first Global Wars, Ecology and Peace Movement of the ‘60’s, and now the Digital Technology Revolution of the 21<sup>st</sup> Century. Many could benefit from an upbeat report on our brain’s ability to change, expand, and improve our world in any way we choose. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A Body is a Terrible Thing to Waste<o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I view our national healthcare crisis a crisis of mental health. The perceived limitations of our body and brain and lack of awareness of the massive scientific accomplishments in the last ten years is a Silent Killer. It has resulted in a self-imposed alienation by a last century mindset that is distancing millions further from society and each other, the majority who will live much longer than they planned on. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Healthcare reform is galvanizing Washington right now, but what for and for whom? People want freedom from pain and disease, but as Deepak Chopra documented, cultures we want to emulate that are over 100 years old with lucid awareness and excellent health got there in ways most are unwilling to do. As long as there is on-demand affordable medical attention to fix the smallest of hurts, what’s the incentive? A video of a 102 year-old woman who never had a healthcare plan, carrying firewood up ten flights of stone stairs and then back down to carry up the great-great-great-grandkids, creates a shockwave of disbelief in many viewers. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Dolphin Club, swimming out of San Francisco to Alcatraz and back daily are a bunch of “oldsters”, made famous along with others in “Growing Old Is Not For Sissies”. One of my 70-something bicycle-racing friends, who got me into racing, is still racing. He just returned from his annual group tour of 12 days of 80 to 100 miles of 7500 vertical feet daily, riding the best mountain sections of the Tour de France route. When I called him to confirm my estimates weren’t overblown, he was offended and crunched more impressive numbers for me out of his head. He also confirmed the others were younger and didn’t have to wait. His secret is not diet or medical insurance, which he barely uses. He just never gets off the bike.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Lost Generation<o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the ‘60’s, where massive opposition to an older generation ruled, the majority who were disrupting Town Hall meetings on health care reform last year were of “a certain age”. “Boomers” preparing to “retire”, targeted all they had left - their impending mortality and key politicians and lawmakers voted into office on the Internet that are younger and healthier. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Where have these revolutionaries and visionaries been all this time since they fearlessly disrupted their university campuses vigorously enough to risk their mortality and get themselves shot decades ago? Why didn’t they follow through on their altruistic agendas rather than tune in, turn on, and drop out? Are we not cheering them on because the voting majority doesn’t even know their team existed? Why did it take an ecology movement so long to get moving? Does this affect our confidence in their ability to create change? It’s tougher still, when the memorable local news on our influential elders is a 911 response to a retirement community because residents are rioting over other residents pirating their parking spaces. Do we view this as socially relevant? Is this the legacy they plan on leaving us? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When I ask someone why they are “retiring”, which is my version of getting a good night’s sleep after a five hour bike ride, they tell me they want to “stop working”. When I ask what they plan to start, I don’t get much back other than play with the grandkids and get a grip on that landscaping and the lawn. When they ask me what I plan to do, my first thought is I have to check Wiki for the definition of “retire”, because now I’m confused. I don’t plan to stop anything.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Those “retired” and planning to “retire” seem completely disinterested in communing with a younger, politically powerful, brilliantly savvy information rich generation who just might have keys to the car. Their effective lobbyists are “youngsters” right under their nose, who just pulled of a stunning revival of their discarded ecology agenda.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Generation gaps are nothing new. Older people know too much to listen to younger people who know too little. This may have sounded valid in the last century but it doesn’t now. My parents thought this way, and the exceptions are few. Isn’t this getting, uh, old?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In my local bank is a sign “donate a laprobe to the elderly”. My comment to the teller was “I thought it said donate a laptop to the elderly, and I have an extra one”. She told me she was sorry, retirement facilities don’t accept laptops. Somewhere though, R&D money is surfacing for the development of robotic teddy bears to keep company with our elders until their brains wear out, at a time when Alzheimer’s disease is an epidemic. And science has proven an active brain dramatically reduces the frequency of this catastrophic end to life. Nuns live longer and smarter because they just hang out playing complicated card games and doing crossword puzzles for entertainment.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What if retirees pooled some money after they mow the lawn and provide Wifi to nursing homes? Would helping an elder learn how to use my donated laptop to discover the world and socially network with other nursing home residents be one way to contribute to health care reform?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Do It Yourself<o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Self-advocacy, thanks to our new electronic world and social networks, is the gift we have given ourselves in a new century. Even now, my chosen primary care physician of many years still has the same response after a five-minute conversation. “Well, you probably know more about this than I do. Let me know what you come up with and we’ll go from there”. In no way do I view him as a clueless professional. He’s been around and still does his own research. I view him as a collaborative partner, and he goes with it because he knows I take responsibility to zero in on myself first. He takes responsibility for ruling over the final diagnosis and follows through if more is involved. It’s a win-win. We both learn, and I save a lot of money.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I don’t know anyone in my network community that doesn’t surf the Internet for answers to their illness, injury, and fitness. The load on physicians, surgeons, and diagnosticians is so huge, there is no way we can expect them to be current on everything. The minute they graduate, research as memorialized in a phonebook-sized PDR bought fresh out of med school is obsolete. Primary care physicians have dropped off the radar to make room for specialists in a thousand fields of fresh expertise, resulting in a committee required to figure out what’s wrong with us. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s a scientific fact many with disease recover, sometimes miraculously, through self-advocacy. By taking charge, they rocket their immune system into high gear. Refusing to be victimized by disease and not handing all the controls over to others is how humans have survived against tremendous odds. If you visit the Lance Armstrong Foundation website, there’s a miraculous story daily to prove how effective self-advocacy can be. Lance was invited on our training ride just before his disease, and even then, he was self-advocating and fearless. It’s in his blood. When people challenge me about his purported blood “enhancement”, I tell them, all he’s got in him is fearless blood. I think that alone is the key to his survival and success. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">How do we patch all this? Maybe we don’t, whoever “we” are now. Too much agenda already. Live and let live. Like dinosaurs, adapt or face extinction. This is the world as we have known it, and many still don’t feel fine, so maybe it’s time for another approach. We’re smarter than dinosaurs. We’ve had some time to enhance our DNA. We’ve learned from lifetimes of experience. We’ve run out of excuses for just sitting this one out. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Brain That Changes Itself<o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If decades researching science on the brain and my own experience has enlightened me on anything, it’s that we can change our brain, which is like any other muscle. It needs regular strengthening or it atrophies. Being athletic also helps enormously with the blood flow up there. <o:p></o:p> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Contrary to previous reports, we don’t use part of our brain capacity, we use all of it. Instrumentation shows every millimeter of the brain lights up with activity. We can activate all of it just by choosing to do so. There appears to be no speed limit or cap on the bandwidth of our brain. IQ tests indicate we just keep getting smarter, faster. Brains of all ethnicities, culture, and age, regardless of genetics add 3 IQ points every ten years. Since World War II, statistics add 12 more every ten years for a total of 15. Adding another 6 for being Dutch totals 21. If you live in the US, add about ten more for the heritable influences of a technology revolution approaching the speed of light, and 30 sounds like a brain revolution in action. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">People want science to prove anything. We are addicted to the word. It dispels our uneasy feelings about belief, disbelief, and skepticism. It’s the new Comfort Food. “I was skeptical I existed until science proved it to me.“ If people want proof, now they have it in great supply, thanks to piles of data our brain has created through new forms of technology. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In “The Brain That Changes Itself”, Norman Doidge confirms changing how and what we think changes our brain and changes our lives. Our human vehicle is a miracle of science. We have a fully functioning R-complex, limbic system, pre-frontal cortex, and left and right hemispheric processors performing surgical distinction between calculative logic and full virtual perception, all with regenerative plasticity. We are a five dimensional, fully equipped cloud computing organism with renewable software capable of such synaptic orchestration and creative brilliance it will take another ten years for the Blue Brain Project to replicate all of it and potentially replace our brains. It’s making impressive progress, so if we’re slacking . . <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As David Wilcock comments “This is not a cosmic ‘light switch’ that you sit around waiting for – it is an elective process where you either reach higher and higher states of inspiration . . . or are further and further shaken to pieces if you cling to the riverbank in fear of who and what you are.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-91566724676938553392010-01-04T15:30:00.000-08:002010-01-06T19:12:47.420-08:00New Year’s Resolution - I won't be a Sofer<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">Yes, I know. On the top of your list is to get in shape this year. Again.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
There’s a fancy word for mental resolve that fizzles out – recidivism. Sounds a lot better than wimping out, doesn’t it?</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
"I’m not wimping out, I’m just recidivising my resolutions".</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Yeah! That ought to get them off you and send them packing to Wiki so you have time to strategize getting off the sofa and out of the fridge by the time you have your next conversation . .</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
What is it about the brain’s miraculous ability to make us wimp out on our New Year’s resolutions?</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"> A recent article by <span id="lw_1262647898_0">Jonah Lehrer</span>, an <span id="lw_1262647898_1">Oxford University</span> Rhodes Scholar, neuroscientist, and contributing editor to the <span id="lw_1262647898_2" style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer;">Wall Street Journal</span>, Wired, <span id="lw_1262647898_3">Scientific American</span>, and NPR’s Radio Lab, gave me a clue. Like me, Jonah is a fan of the brain. He considers resolutions exactly the wrong way to change our brain’s behavior. "Develop respect for our feebleness of self-control", he says. It’s normal for the brain to be stubborn.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
But here’s where it gets weirdly interesting. Jonah reports many experiments with willpower were identical to working a muscle. A bicep has limitations. Ask it to lift a load too heavy and the load drops to the floor. The same is true for the pre-frontal cortex, which, as I have written before, hasn’t developed in evolution like other parts of our brain. It hasn’t expanded enough to handle the load we expect it to carry. Experiments indicate after a long day at the office, most will eat and drink more after work. The "<span id="lw_1262647898_4" style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer;">cognitive load</span>" from an all day workout reduces self-control just like it reduces the strength of an overworked muscle.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
"Most of us consider lack of self-control a character issue" Jonah says, "But this research suggests that willpower itself is inherently limited, and that our January promises fail in large part because the brain wasn't built for success."</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
One experiment he describes seems very relevant to this post, as well to my own experience. A group was asked not to think of a <span id="lw_1262647898_5">white elephant</span> for five minutes and given another task to do with numbers. The control group didn’t have a white elephant to worry about forgetting. Next, both groups were asked to test a new brand of beer, after which they knew they would have to drive home. Sure enough, the <span id="lw_1262647898_6" style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer;">white elephant group</span> drank more.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Now here’s the irony for me. I was trying to lose a whopping 35 pounds on a five-foot frame after a year hitch-hiking in Europe. Those who picked me up insisted on buying me a meal before dropping me back off on the road.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"> Back in the US, it never failed. Go to lunch with some people from the office. I order a salad. If they’re a little on the heavy side, "is that all you’re going to order? You’ll starve, etc.". Now I have to forget the "white elephant" menu staring back at me. And you know the rest.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
After a year of this, I got smart. In my brain. I decided to lighten the load on my pre-frontal cortex. "Is that all you’re going to order . . . </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">"Uh, yeah. I had huevos rancheros for breakfast (or lunch, a snack, or both) and I’ve got a brick in my stomach".</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"> Bam. <span id="lw_1262647898_7">Silence</span> at the table. The dogs had backed off my pre-frontal cortex and the white elephant was gone. I trimmed back down to 100 pounds fast.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
The same worked with my cycling training. "You’re doing 100 miles today? Are you crazy? (not an athlete speaking) . . "Yeah, haven’t ridden in a month. My muscles are twitching, can’t sleep, got pulled over for speeding and if I don’t get this out of me I’ll take on another waitperson . . ." </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;">Silence. I roll out the door. I only did 50 yesterday. Today to make up for it, I do 100. Brains and muscles can do amazing things.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Jonah’s conclusion? Willpower requires real brain energy. Here are a few ways he thinks we weaken our brain muscle:</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Task overload – you decide to cut down on eating then do an 80 mile ride then pay the bills then do the laundry then make the dental appointment . . .</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Skipping brain snacks - brains need healthy fuel.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Sit and stand up straight - this discipline alone leads to more success with other brain disciplines according to Jonah.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Delay gratification - research by <span id="lw_1262647898_8" style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;">Walter Mischel</span> at <span id="lw_1262647898_9">Columbia University</span> and others has demonstrated that "People who are better at delaying gratification don't necessarily have more restraint. Instead, they seem to be better at finding ways to get tempting thoughts out of their minds." Not only that, high delayers get higher SAT scores "because they know that willpower is weak. They excel at controlling the spotlight of attention. When faced with candy, they stare at the carrots."</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Jonah’s final suggestion is the use of distraction:</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
"The lesson is that the <span id="lw_1262647898_10">prefrontal cortex</span> can be bulked up, and that practicing mental discipline in one area, such as posture, can also make it easier to resist <span id="lw_1262647898_11">Christmas cookies</span>. . . when a dangerous desire starts coming on, just remember: Gritting your teeth isn't the best approach, as even the strongest mental muscles quickly get tired. Instead, find a way to look at something else."</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 100%;"><br />
Writing is tough discipline. I’m angry today because I won’t get out and ride on a cold rainy day, pay the bills, go the hardware store . . . So, today I do something else I equally enjoy. I write. That's it for today. The next ride will be an explosion of pent-up energy and too much fun. White elephant gone.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br />
Your next refrigerator post? Stand and sit up straight . . .</span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-13113121591163428482009-12-26T15:27:00.000-08:002009-12-27T13:35:42.616-08:00AvatarMy laptop notes on the two recent conferences I attended in LA might be scary stuff for many people - artificial intelligence, immersive digital gaming, genetics and DNA manipulation, human enhancement technology, mind control, androids, robots, personal avatars . . .<br />Scary enough for me to attend, as mentioned in my previous blog entry. Another big conference buzz was the upcoming film “Avatar”.<br />So I went to see it when it opened.<br />I prepared to be subliminally programmed and blasted with more “Matrix” and “2012” conspiracy theory on mind control and The End of the World. I was sitting in the back row. Through it all, the number of people who had to take off their 3-D glasses, squirm out of their seat in a sold-out theater and sprint to the lobby was staggering. . . popcorn, the restroom, their texts . . . My view was constantly interrupted.<br />How do you explain this in Marin County, home of ILM (George Lucas) that created the digital imagery for this film? What was nervy to these people no other ILM production and story line seemed to deliver on an opening night? Most didn’t even wait for the credits, another big no-no for locals.<br />I checked out some movie reviews later. Several reviewers accused Avatar of being a re-purposed “Dancing With Wolves”.<br />Sure, the Na’vi on Pandora looked rather native, and the White-Guy-turned-treasonist hero could have been You-Know-Who, but to me, that just described a movie reviewer who had to get up for popcorn, the restroom, text . . .<br />Is that all they got out of it? That’s too benign, considering the behavior of the audience at the first public showing. Is it possible many reviewers and movie-goers are unaware of our amazing technological present and our even more amazing future? Is it time, after throwing away the TV to throw another one again and find out what's really happening?<br />The plot for this film is vanilla sci-fi and a good dose of operating reality so far on Planet Earth. There are giveaways like the "military industrial complex", conquering space, taking down alien civilizations, and like the hero in "Indiana Jones" grabbing The Big Goodie.<br />The simplicity of the White Guy's predicament is what allowed me to see everything else going on in this film. His spine, blasted to pieces in an unpopular war leaves him a paraplegic. The Military transports him to a rehab Mother Ship, but he’s now worthless as a fighting machine. They decide to use him as a disposable Avatar on planet Pandora to infiltrate the Na’vi and find their “unobtanium”. (the one funny morpheme in the film).<br />His brain is transported to this fantastical utopia Trekkie-style, and our hero has an “out-of-body” moment on Visit One. As his new Avatar-double, he discovers he’s not only super-human, he’s got his legs back.<br />They can’t control him. Knocking down the furniture and everything else, he escapes his orientation military camp in a state of euphoria, running his superhuman legs and heart out.<br />The film has a happy ending. He dumps his paralytic reality and chooses his Avatar reality (well, what would you do?). His Pandora Squeeze, who has been assigned to him as a guide by the clueless Na’vi, demonstrates in her spare time how to do just about everything fun, including mastery of a wildly fantastic horse and a spactacularly raptor-esque bird, reminiscent of the strategic creation in the animated "Ants".<br />Of course this is all sci-fi. Maybe. After these conferences, I’m not so sure.<br />Still searching for a clue, I opened my file on brain science a week later to write a piece on Avatar. I found a torn-out article from MensVogue I bought in an airport a few years ago written by D.T. Max, a Harvard graduate and book reviewer. The title “Wired for Victory. Can a bunch of electrodes and a computer screen help you swim faster?” got my attention.<br />Now I’m reading it again. This sounds like the White Guy/Avatar. Max mentions “the zone” and biofeedback performed on athletes like Katy. Connected to biofeedback, she is described by her evaluator as “looking at nothing and everything”, “emptying out her brain”, and “a suspension of doubt” that results in her optimal athletic performance.<br />Aha. The White Guy/Avatar.<br />Max, at the end of his article, mentions a Morgan Stanley manager who, after biofeedback had a tennis game performance “that soared”. And after biofeedback, Max, a swimmer, was in the pool on a lap swim when he felt “a familiar light joyousness” in his body. When the pain of his messed up shoulder came up, he envisioned “speeding waves of alpha” carrying him along. Enjoying his liberating mindlessness, “I felt I was no longer alone. A dolphin was leading me. My body began undulating like a brain wave. I followed my friend with pleasure. He was always ahead of me.”<br />Max was describing his instant “knowingness” how to swim like a dolphin. He forgot his shoulder, the pool, time . . .<br />“Every so often, I would hear a distinct “ding” in my brain. The positive audio reinforcement that rewards open concentration during neurofeedback. I got out of the water. The dolphin was gone. I looked at my watch. I had broken my previous best and my shoulder hurt like hell.”<br />Our White Guy hated returning to the Military Mothership planning its assault on Pandora. He needed a wheelchair. He hurt like hell. Only on Pandora could he best his human self every time.<br />I didn’t get at all this film was another “Dancing With Wolves”. I think the reviewers totally missed the point, and maybe half the audience.<br />The White Guy was in The Zone, and his brain transported him there. With a little help from science.lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-61120431003145798902009-12-25T20:31:00.000-08:002009-12-26T16:29:14.564-08:00Smacking down Santa, astrology, and mythI have been recently checking out the hundreds of asteroids discovered by cosmologists near 1997 who were apparently unconsciously naming them after more Greek mythological gods and goddesses, like the planets in our solar system. What could be the significance of this?<br />Participating in the third dimension involves the playing out of The Game (I love Florence Scovel Shinn's take on this) through mythology, legend, ritual, and storytelling. When we do this, we honor our ancestry by initiating the new ones (cultural respect).<br />I don't doubt realities like "Indigo children" and those born with a new wired brain. These incarnates are less inclined to participate in ritual and myth because they were born with different frequencies and resonance that allow them to remember instantaneously what The Game really is.<br />I do think however, if we are to own our responsibility to help others through this shift of awareness, we need, as a traditional saying recommends "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".<br />The I Ching infers this in the hexagram "The Wanderer". When we want to learn and influence, we cross borders. We explore with the intention to enlarge ourselves through empathy. We will be diminished however, if we are responded to as if we are an alien (even if we are!). In fact, there are those who believe “extraterrestrials” will not walk the planet with us until we stop with the alienating behavior toward aliens.<br />Many are wanderers now, disenfranchised from all kinds of indigenous cultures, family, lovers, careers, heritage, and shaken from the harshness of diaspora.<br />Few of us have a village of origin now that we remain in for long. Our survival requires us to be vigilant in our awareness of our current environment. We must learn the local language and customs if we are to be effective in our influence. We must differentiate between those who want to be our friend rather than our enemy. It is to everyone's advantage we are accepted by those who come to hear our message.<br />My view of astrology is one of validation. The original physicists and astronomers were called astrologers, and they did a darn good job of downloading some cosmic realities it has taken Hubble to validate centuries later. They also did a great job of developing myth as a tool for understanding and linking third dimensional reality to other realities.<br />Many people in this dimension will always need "science". They will always need "God". And they will always need ritual, myth, and a little help coloring inside the lines. Right now, they need Santa!<br />I think the more we maintain our sense of humor about The Game and all its oddities and amazement, the longer we will live successfully with each other, no matter what dimension or game we choose.<br />I choose to believe every dimension needs to laugh at itself for perceived weaknesses, guilt, fear, or whatever incompleteness is chosen. Free will is a choice, not a default, so give Santa half a chance!lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-21460499679205590882009-12-10T14:50:00.000-08:002009-12-26T16:32:00.744-08:00Sexuality, Part DeuxI attended a couple conferences this past weekend dedicated to the latest technology and developments in all things humanly enhancing. Genetics, robotics, mechanical surrogates, artificial intelligence, computer systems that replicate the human brain, biomimicry, longevity, dystopic science fiction, empathetic game development, N-dimensions . . .<br />I made a list of words to websearch from this huge table of goodies after I left. One out of four failed spell-check. This is how rapidly our language is changing to suit our desires.<br />From these conferences, I realize we now have numerous choices for sexual expression. Either enhancement through immersive media (a.k.a. “digital sex”) enhancement through human partnered frequency acceleration (a.k.a. “great sex”), celibacy (a.k.a. a challenge to auto-eroticism), or asexuality and old age (a.k.a. “I don’t care - anymore”). Because the biological imperative to replicate overpowers all other third dimensional synaptic processes, we can’t make sex go away, so we continue to invent new forms of entertaining ourselves. We just can’t find a cure.<br />To most of us, the proliferation of human sexual expression cannot be enhanced in currently perceived reality without consciousness rituals or chemicals. Either our brain chemicals or chemicals we ingest or inject. If chemical, we still have control of our free will - how often, with what, and with whom we enhance our sexual response, if admitted to or not. Fortunately, we have the professional race car industry and the aging population to thank for bringing that one out of the closet. The first wave of human enhancement.<br />We can also choose to immerse ourselves in real-time human interaction to maximize our innate capacity to trigger synapses in our brains. This however, involves a lot of discipline, practice, and awareness. Many of us know the extent the Japanese, Hindu, and other cultures ritualize sex to an impressive degree. When I was at Baktapur in Nepal, the temple friezes were littered with carved depictions of every imaginable sexual interaction humans could have with each other to reach a state of bliss. The Nepalese have added to the business of reproduction inventive forms of transcendent states of consciousness, a highly valued commodity.<br />Innovative virtual technologies offer us more choice. Not much practice involved here. Just an admission ticket or the expense of enhancement toys, surgical procedures, genetic re-mapping, virtual immersion, or embedded chips. Many of these enhancements can affect our free will however. We may turn ourselves over to be manipulated or altered so our limited human development of our senses are stimulated and enhanced. Then we just go along for the ride. Or so it seems.<br />What was interesting at these conferences however, was the still-present hushness about “digital sex”. It was mentioned maybe twice, and fast. Just a quickie. No formal presentations on the program. Even more interesting, the word “consciousness” was practically banned. Two conferees referred to it as the “C” word after a few others smacked it down. They may as well have tried to pull off the same thing with the “S” word.<br />Once paired with another human, sexual experience is either overt or covert. Chinese society is more direct about sex than Americans are. Their political controls of how humans interact with each other or the digital electronic media world are potent. Although the number of children born to a family is restricted, and the recent expose about the subjection of humans to electro-shock therapy to cure video game addiction was a shock, the Chinese culture covertly allows sexual behavior with another human as an enhancement to monogamy. It is not “penalized”.<br />I have always found the term “penalize” in our society oxymoronic. It implies our relationship with the aggressive part of passive-aggressive sex is a negative expression of human behavior and needs to be punished in some way.<br />The United States is one of the few nations with an expectation of monogamy. Humans however, can demand more input from their monogamous partner than is deliverable within the limits of human expression. This dilemma is rarely expressed openly in our society. It is tethered to endless forms of psychoanalytic, therapeutic, and religious devotion to maintain an enhancement-free experience. Tabloid news feeds on infractions of monogamy, and humans are the victims of the poison called Shame. Lack of discipline. Lack of acceptable performance. Lack of gender commitment. Lack of anything.<br />In my opinion, enhancement through immersive media is becoming the compromise we could make to maintain monogamous agreements with other humans and salvage our self-imposed shame. Sex is so contentious, so loaded, so complicated, and so messy to most humans, many of us are more than ready to opt out of the human experience for the virtual one. How are we to penalize humans for participating in or enhancing themselves for a virtual sexual experience?<br />“It’s not what you think Dear. I just spent Friday night at the FullDome Immersion Multiplex. Look at our kids. They live in that computer with their games night and day. No big deal.”<br />The Ultimate Safe Sex. No touchy-feely.<br />So, is this where we are? It’s easy to make sex a dirty word, but now we must add consciousness too? What’s next on the hush list in our brave new world?<br />We do like the term “chemistry” to describe that rare event with another human where some kind of bliss is experienced in sex. It's one acceptable option to a "natural" experience. But, chemistry can also make us complete idiots. Zombies. Even killers of other humans. We forget to pay the bills, and if sex isn’t consummated with our significant other, we stupidly leave crumbs all over the place so we will be, yep, you guessed it, penalized. Our life will never be the same when we are found out.<br />“Hi, my name is Shame, and this is my first meeting. I am a blissaholic.”<br />What I’m curious about regarding all this emerging technology in human enhancement of experience and body image is the pay-off. And, the potential sacrifice in our complex human arena with each other.<br />Your call.lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-43911042279454188082009-12-01T22:06:00.000-08:002009-12-01T22:09:52.373-08:00It's Not My Dog<span><span style="font-size:100%;">I’m descending on the bike from the top of Mt. Tamalpais north of San Francisco, and the November wind chill is to-the-bone. I break out my emergency stash of produce section plastic bags and roll them up each arm under my windbreaker for a vapor barrier. I have on my neoprene gloves and arm warmers and foot warmers and head hood with just my nose and eyes exposed. I have everything on, and still wondering why I’m the only one out here doing this in a frigid wind.<br />At the Depot book store in Mill Valley, I’m done with the descent and its warm and sunny with no wind. Customers are parked outside at tables in parkas with their lattes, soaking it up. Inside, I window-shop the desserts.<br />“Just give me that large slice of cherry pie on a napkin, no plate please”.<br />“To-go box?”<br />“Nope. It will be eaten as of, right now”.<br />I’m back outside. The brick pavers are warm. My pie is warm. I sit on the pavers. A dog that may be some kind of Border Shepard/Collie mix circles me. Not on a leash. Great. I’ve got irritating company. He stops with two feet between us and stares at me, then my pie. I’m ready to jump.<br />“Don’t even think about it”.<br />He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there looking at me like I am already boring him.<br />Fine. I keep eating. And he just watches me, then my pie. Me, the pie. Me, the pie . . . whatever. The minute I cave and give him a crumb, an owner will pounce and tell me not to feed human food to their dog off a leash.<br />I split off a piece of crust and hold it out in my hand. I don’t care. This is the most civilized dog I have ever met, and sure enough, he clamps down on it with the expertise of a famous brain surgeon. Nice try, but he won’t do that again now that he knows there’s butter in the crust.<br />Who trained this dog to have such amazing table manners? He doesn’t have any signs of dominance by an Alpha Human. I look around. No one is watching us.<br />“Sit.”<br />“Sit.”<br /><br />“Lay down.”<br />“Sit.”<br /><br />No action. Maybe he speaks French. I give him another crumb, then another. He’s so good at common courtesy, why stress him out? <br />Now I’m up to the second group of people passing by and checking out this delicate ritual.<br />“Is that your dog?”<br />“No.”<br />“You dog is so well behaved!”<br />“It’s not my dog.”<br />“Whose dog is it?”<br />“I don’t know.”<br />By the time a third guy asks me about my very civilized dog, I have been doing some thinking. What if I could behave like this in a meeting? Or waiting my turn to impress the speaker just down from the podium? Or at the checkout when they open another checkout line?<br />“So far he’s got all my crust. I was just thinking, why can’t I be like this? Just stand there. They all know what I want, but I’m not rushing them. I’ll out-wait them. What would I have to lose? So far this dog is scoring Big-Time.”<br />He laughs. “Yeah, interesting point.”<br /><br />The pie is gone. I show my admiration for his character. I let him lick the napkin clean. He parts the crumbs from the paper napkin like the aforementioned brain surgeon. I fold up the napkin, he backs up, and walks off. Game over. Just like that.<br />I’m a little stunned. He circles the plaza two more times in hang-out mode. I get back on my bike and roll out. There he is again at the end of the plaza, no owner in sight. Stopping to water a light pole, he then trots up the street.<br />He’s got tags. He’s got an owner. He looks taken care of. But he’s going slow. He’s an old dog.<br />But, this is no ordinary dog threatened by a dog catcher just screaming to jail anything off a leash in a county very tough on vagrants. He’s a long time local with no incidences. And knows how to score. It’s obvious. They leave him alone. Who wouldn’t? <br />This was a great day for a ride.<br />Why can’t people be like that, which includes me? Next time I’m in line for something or can’t get what I want . . . </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-46620977351125540512009-11-24T08:49:00.000-08:002010-01-06T19:55:14.969-08:00Take Your Brain to the GymThe Best Workout Ever Invented<br />
On a national website where I am featured, I posted a version of this blog post last month. Apparently, the inquiries about what I wrote surprised the website creator and myself. I didn’t realize so many were interested in the organ we understand the least – our brain.<br />
Recently, I've noticed most everyone I am aware of is confused with their view of reality right now, admitted to or not. Our return to the Age of the The Healthy Body is coming along nicely, but our ability to communicate with others seems to be in crisis. Almost every conversation I hear starts with a "sniffing" routine to establish familiar reference points like dogs on a walk . Handshakes are out, sniffs are in:<br />
"How OLD are you?"<br />
"Four and a half"<br />
"Thirteen next month"<br />
"Twenty-something"<br />
"A certain age"<br />
The following fifteen second Bashing Session of all those less old and more old than we are define the safe haven for the rest of the conversation. Why are we not moving past this strangeness? We have an all-out effort to move past racial, marital, gender, environmental, religious, and political bias. We're not doing well with some of these, but no one seems to be at all interested in moving past the massive walls we have built between us and others who had the unfortunate luck to be born at another time than we did.<br />
So, what’s going on, and why? Why don't we exercise our brains so we can have healthy conversations with each other?<br />
Many have asked me why I talk about the “new brain”. Most don’t understand why there may even be a “new brain”, and if so, is it an organ donation, new computer, or video game? Did something show up since Darwin when we weren’t looking?<br />
Why did I think this might be of interest, only to find out the interest appears to be huge?<br />
There are as many psychological, analytical, mythological, esoteric, mystical, religious, and spiritual interests out there as there are stars, galaxies, and asteroids in our cosmos. We've had plenty of time throughout civilizations to come up with amazing concepts about all of this.<br />
But, here we are in a new century with new cravings for understanding the physical human machine. DNA mapping and new information about how our brain (the driver of our machine) operates has become almost more fascinating than what we eat and where we live.<br />
I am one of those people that can’t get enough feedback about our brain. So, if I want to comment on something as gigantic as a three pound brain, maybe I should be prepared to defend myself.<br />
There is plenty of revolutionary new science that supports the concept we came into existence wired for what reality we experience. The “tabular rasa”, or blank page of a brain from birth doesn’t get much of an audience anymore. Even atheists and theologians are thin on explanations based on conjecture, but not much science. Astrophysicists, Biocosmologists, and even NASA scientists are acknowledging our solar system is being blasted with accelerated energy from the Cosmos, which is affecting our brains as well.<br />
In our new electronic age, our brain might also be described as an “operating system” with software we might choose to use. Version 1.1 may seem to work for some, but it doesn’t seem to be operating that well right now for others. Software updates are available, but those of us who haven’t downloaded them regularly are getting some interesting surprises in life.<br />
Where and from what/whom would these updates be coming from? Who really knows, and why analyze it when we could just download some of those updates? Scientific instrumentation has proven we use all of our brain, not just a portion as previously assumed. Every part of our brain will light up when stimulated.<br />
Consider the possibilities of this. If we stimulate parts of our brain by introducing new stimuli, what could we experience we haven’t yet? If this is possible, what is real or true to us now that might not be later after we stimulate the parts that are craving a little workout?<br />
<br />
It Already Exists<br />
Plenty of recognized authorities since the beginning of our existence believe information on everything already exists. Maybe everything is in our brain already. We are just “remembering” what we already “know”, and many of us are realizing these “updates” are critical to our survival because they trigger our remembering and “aha” moments. All we need to do is be receptive to the signal to get the message. No different than using a cell phone to get a signal from a tower. Its like missing out on the lottery because you have caller ID block. You don’t want to be bothered because you don’t approve of the messenger before you hear the message.<br />
Many have stated the gift of these times is total recall no matter what level of awareness we came in with. But now its fast-track time, and the Universe is accelerating. We may be getting overwhelmed by new information, and recent updates might be the tune-up our brain’s hard drive needs right now.<br />
We got comfortable knowing about the usual stuff – how much money in our bank account, names of our friends, status of our relationships, that trustworthy first-issue Mac, when to take out the garbage . . . But way down the list seems to be what we know about our brain. Part of knowing ourselves is also knowing our brain, how it evolved, and what it might be now and in the future.<br />
So, what is a “new brain” and what is an “old brain”? The "animal" back brain (old) is our limbic system and reptilian complex (stimulated by a good portion of the video game craze). It maintained the survival of all kinds of species that apparently resulted in human species that walk upright and have a very large forehead to accommodate a very large frontal lobe.<br />
The frontal lobe (new) blew onto the evolutionary stage in what may have been the "missing link" described by evolutionist Charles Darwin.<br />
Bam. A newly minted “brilliant human species”, very much over-domesticated and not all that good at survival.<br />
When our “animal” back brain was overwhelmed by this whopping frontal lobe, it became the Gatekeeper, controlling messages from the back with our personal jury verdicts and anyone else we decided had more smarts than we did, which dumbed down our ability to survive.<br />
Carl Sagan wrote about this in his book "The Dragons of Eden", and so did R. D. Laing in "The Politics of Experience". The film “King of Hearts” was a fascinating production about incarcerated humans with misunderstood brains who were freed after an earthquake shattered their prison. They had the opportunity to act on messages from the back part of their brain and transform an entire town and everyone in it with the front part. Because they were also gifted with the ability to actualize messages from the right and left hemispheres of their frontal lobe simultaneously, the world they created without a jury is still a utopian fantasy. Our best shot at this only lasts for a week out of each year in a hostile desert environment with no water far away from juries. The Burning Man Festival continues to thrive in the thousands who carry it all out there, build a utopian city, and leave without a trace in the dust.<br />
The frontal lobe has a right and left hemisphere, each with different “operating systems”. The left runs on logic and linear thinking software (do the math, balance your checkbook). The right runs on the perceptual and sensate present (Goodie! Sex! Cool art!), which is about as close to the back brain as we can get with our jury in place. Add the back brain to the frontal lobe with two hemispheres, and we have an operating system we are still discovering.<br />
Dan Pink’s bestseller "A Whole New Mind" gives us hope however. Unlike the linear processing of the left side, the right side is just what we need now to multi-dimensionally manage our new reality in our new century. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, whose brain stroke took her on a journey of her own right and left brain operating systems, describes it as a “stroke of insight”.<br />
If you want a brain journey you won’t forget, check out their videos on TED talks.<br />
Many do not consider the brain some new evolutionary development, but a repository of information that has always been there since the Earth cooled off (or we were place here by others). Those lucid dreams some may be having could just be rememberings of past lives, or according to some like scientist Craig Venter, embedded in our DNA.<br />
Many researchers think this accelerated cosmic energy is rewiring our brains, somewhat like a patching of frayed wires that carry bites through a ‘fat pipe” information highway, lost in translation when, like a clogged artery, the flow slows waaaay down.<br />
The more we focus on remembering, the more we patch our wiring and open the main artery to our awareness of what we already know, as well as parts of the brain we aren’t giving attention to.<br />
It doesn’t take science to notice young children seem to be getting smarter every minute one of them is born, but science is what it is taking to prove it. Evolution on steroids, one could call it.<br />
This is one reason why the Head Start Program was invented decades ago before children started “elementary” schooling or what was called “kindergarten”. IQ testing was thrown out. Aptitude testing was thrown in. Out. In. Out. In. We remain so confused about what our brain is we have lost most of our kids to video games, where they can use both sides of their front brain freely without our constant interruption on which side to use. And they are way ahead of us, unless we have been paying attention to our updates and downloading them so we can keep up with them and understand what they are trying to tell us.<br />
<br />
The New Century<br />
The technology revolution has created an out-of-control appetite for any electronic message. Our schedule is full of social networking like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Second Life, etc. And just as fast as they are invented, they go out of favor like restaurants.<br />
Backlash. Now the “people movement” has a mysterious urge for human vs. virtual company. We now want more enduring, results oriented, and meaningful experiences in life and with each other. And evolved human souls know this is where the route can take a sharp turn in favor of real-time social communities and networks in our favorite third dimension of the five senses and material stuff. Top-tier management in business with, as Dan Pink describes it “carrot and stick reward” has been proven to reduce productivity, not improve it. What delivers better results is self motivated, individual contribution to a mutually agreed upon goal. When this enhances the group experience, the creative and innovative pace surges.<br />
<br />
The Multiple Dimensional Now<br />
Do we have a choice or free will in what or how many awarenesses we choose to experience? I think we do, and science is improving on my opinion every 24 hours. Hang out in the third dimension or spend more time in the fourth, etc. where alternate realities can replace or keep company with the third. Or hang out in more than one. Similar to the movie “Back to the Future”.<br />
Got a headache yet? Analyze this - which is more complicated and time consuming for you? Your latest computer virus attack or your latest relationship? Your choice, since I do believe we have free will and free access to multiple dimensions (again, do your science homework). You think this sounds like a video game? You’re close. Want to stitch together this and the last century seamlessly? Download updates and take you brain to the gym.<br />
This split between a human brain reality and a virtual reality will become more polarized in the next few years, and by 2050 a new definition of "life" here on our little planet will be clearly and for some, harshly defined. The “Transhumanists” are already eager to transcend the density and appearance of their body, disease, brain limitations, dysfunctional relationships, and death, but they seem unclear what to do with the inconvenience of a human soul, it’s "imperfections", and Dang! Those feelings we stuff constantly.<br />
I think this dissonance among our five senses and how our brain synchronizes them is causing major chaos right now.<br />
Sure, chaos has been here since The Big Bang, but us humans seem to be raising the bar on winning and losing battles started out of chaos here on Earth.<br />
<br />
Ethics in the Future<br />
I don’t think this is about religion, politics, law, stem cell research, birth rights, gender rights, artificial intelligence rights (yeah, that exists too) - and so on. It’s about the struggle to comprehend the changes to our brain wiring that is occurring, and how to play nice with others that have different wiring.<br />
Right now, computer language code writers who don’t want consensus are battling with each other. Corporate wealth and market share is at stake. And within a year, android communication devices that use a universal code language that is on a free platform (think countries without borders, language, and currency differences) will grab that wealth.<br />
The rest of Life As We Know It may follow in the same footprint.<br />
I think this is how hungry we all are for ending chaos. We are worn out by insisting on our way of viewing and interpreting our world, choosing our friends, and running our countries.<br />
As a favorite lecturer of mine commented “You think you’re unhappy because your kids are dating a naturally conceived human that is a different color, religion, gender preference, etc.? Wait until they tell you they plan to marry a virtual or robotic Cyborg they created.”<br />
When she stated that, many in the audience audibly demonstrated their shock by gasping at even a tiny possibility of this. They thought the presenter had lost her brain.<br />
We will all need athletic, flexible, adaptable, attentive, and maybe even soul-based brains. Soon.lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-79819130590417921012009-10-22T12:33:00.000-07:002009-10-22T12:37:31.322-07:00Johan gets back in the zone<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is my personal story about managing my weight. It sounds all so simple now that I was in doubt if I should write it down, and then I decided to do it because it might help you if you are in similar circumstances. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I am a man, 49 years old and six feet tall. I live in Belgium. I became overweight starting from my late thirties on and since then weighed for a lot of the time more than 210 pounds. For more than 10 years I was overweight and aware of it. Now what I wish to share with you is that over the past 2 months I have lost 30 pounds, something that never happened before in those 10 years. I think I am on a program that will work for me to getting back at a normal weight altogether.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I am happy and I am enthusiastic to share my story with you!</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I found my personal zone in life after growing up and starting to live on my own, by learning and doing things and changing my world. I was walking, biking and skiing. I was successful in my job, married and built a house. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Then my wife and I had a family and I became even more successful in my job. Because of these happy circumstances I started to move less and eat more. I had no time anymore to go on long hikes, I spent a lot of time on the road and in the air, sitting down, and when I was at home we would often prepare festive meals and invite our friends – and sit down after the meal. I did not think anything wrong with my lifestyle even though I gained weight as a consequence. My friends and associates were also gaining weight – and still we were not what you would call fat. We noticed that many of our seniors were fat, but we didn’t think we were (yet).</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I can thank my personal awareness because I can now see that from then on I gradually left my zone. The process set in about ten years ago. I did not notice it. I had only a vague awareness that my horizon and potential in life became more and more limited. I kept gaining more weight and became fat to the point that I could not deny it anymore. People would say to me that I was fat and that I should do something about it. I received the message, but did not take action. People were talking to me, my body was talking to me, I heard it, and did not listen.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Why not? I was finding excuses. I was very busy and had absolutely no time to take breaks. I experienced setbacks in my career and personal challenges in changing from a young urban professional to a parent raising children. A potential health problem was way down on my list. About my looks I could not have cared less – I just bought bigger clothes.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So I did not change my lifestyle and I did not realize that I had a problem – my answer was to make things worse by working harder. I became even more successful in my job and with my family – the most success I ever had. And yes, I was starting to feel tired and feel the strain – but I thought that is what happens if you work hard. I saw the same happen to other people and found myself only repeating the experience of my parents´ generation. I started to look like my father at the same age. I found confirmation everywhere. I was no different and thought “such is life”.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, I was wrong. I finally got my wake-up call a little bit more than one year ago when I found myself falling asleep in the armchair on a regular basis (often in front of the television). I did go to see my doctor and I started to listen seriously to my wife. They both told me that something was very wrong. They did not tell me what to do. They made me look at myself and made it plain that I was not in a good condition, way out of my zone – that I was not healthy and that I had been on a slow downward trend for all these years. The doctor told me that if I continued on my path – it would end badly. This confirmed thoughts and feelings that I had myself.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Sure, I had achieved things by working hard. I was not tired from working hard. I was tired from being unhealthy. I can now see that I used my reserves and was not replenishing them. In reality I was not learning many new things, I was not recharging my batteries, and I was no longer changing my world. I was saying “No, I cannot” more often than “Yes, I can”.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This was not so clear to me one year ago as it is now. I reluctantly admitted that my wife and the doctor could have a point. This was a small and very important first step. I started with an action plan to lose weight, stuck with it – lost weight, became more able and active, and found out that it is not difficult at all to do the necessary things and make time for them. Once I started doing the right things, it did not take a long time to reverse the trend. Life is fun again. I feel happy now and back in my zone. Ready to change my world.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Did I suddenly change my life? No, that is the best part. I am still very busy and have no time for great hikes or go to the gym two times a week, but I plan to add this to my fun time as soon as possible. Once I became aware of what I needed to do I found it very easy to accommodate the necessary things in my lifestyle as it had become.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">There is another thing that is good. I am a person that tries to explain the world and life and likes to control it. A substantial part of my newfound happiness is that with problem and solution out in the open – I feel confident that I know what I am doing and where I am going. I saw the abyss, I know now where it is – and how to keep safely away from it.</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-54731234668482516442009-10-20T17:04:00.000-07:002009-10-20T18:24:16.633-07:00My advisor comments on August and SeptemberOne of my advisors has been commenting for some time that world events we are now experiencing are here to challenge us where we place a lot of symbolic value. Like compassion, integrity, and self-respect. Yeah, we've got this one down. Do it all the time. At the gas station, during our tax audit . . . <br />My advisor also reminds us to stay focused in The Light. <br />What?<br />Plenty of us have heard at least once others reference “The Light”. Ok. How many possible interpretations of light can we think of in five seconds? This may bring up a lot of images for you. Some smarmy, some smart. One of my favorites is “seeing in the dark” when the light goes out. That's my choice for my advisor's comment. Whatever it means to you, the times we are in are bringing fresh opportunities to practice en-light-ened exchanges. With ourselves as well as others. Whatever your goals in your daily life, the intensification of energy that is accelerating in the universe and directed to our solar system affects you. This is no longer the stuff of fringe, it’s cold, hard, science. <br />I look where I'm stepping and watch how I handle stressful situations now like my life depends on it. Fear. Doubt. Anger. Suspicion. Contempt. <br />Why has this become so painful for me to do? Fear? Doubt? Suspicion . . .<br />If your ability to handle stress seems more difficult every day like it is for me, you are experiencing this energy. Its not just you. Everyone is. Ask around.<br />Some are fortunate to be experiencing deep love at this time and seem beyond stress. I can't stand these people. I want them to be working it as hard as I am. Not fair. The quality of that love however, might be challenged, sooner than later. <br />Say your expectation of another to continue participating fully in your experience becomes less than your expectation, how will you relate to that person? What will your reaction be? If, as my advisor counsels, you don’t react, something falls away from the event. It disappears back into its “native nothingness” as Florence Scovel Shinn describes it.<br />What?<br />"Its not the experience, its how you act in the presence of the experience" my advisor continues like a broken record. These are smart words, until some smarmy event serves up strong emotion demanding to be released. Then, and only then, will you know if you can focus on “The Light” and stay in your Zone, whatever you choose that to be for you. <br />“Ok, I see the light. If I am true to myself and have enough respect for myself, I will view my emotions as a challenge to call upon some generous acts. That should get me zoned.”<br />What?<br />Contemplation like this is flat-out impossible. I just want to deck somebody. What kind of elevated therapeutic modality do I need to calm down and stay zoned? Maybe the kind of training that makes that hill easier to climb on the bike, every time. I get zoned by the sweetness of my gears changing smoothly and my cadence from rotating pedals singing that song I know so well. I hang a little more on the hill until my purported integrity can reinvent the emotions my self-absorbed emotions want to play out. I start seeing in the dark. Feeling around so I don't trip on something or knock somebody over. That way I know it will all still be there the next time I stumble through. <br />I think we can use this strategy with ourselves in many ways. If we know from experience we can move beyond whatever is coming "at us" by just making the decision to do it, people and furniture stick around for us. <br />Why is this such a pain to do? Why does it take such an epic effort? Does contempt feel better? To win? Must we assemble a courtroom and a jury to issue a judgment for us before we decide to just let it go?<br />My advisor added a quote from Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese mystic and poet, in her newsletter last month:<br />“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”<br /><br />What?lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-59848262147019768852009-08-10T18:51:00.000-07:002009-08-11T00:52:17.069-07:00Going to Paradise<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Its hot, so I turn around and decide to do a shorter bike ride by going around the loop next to the Bay, where the wind will cool me down. About two thirds done, I hear the familiar sound of experienced gear clicking behind me, and I know I have a biker on my back.<br />Competitive cyclists, especially bike racers, have tight social protocols. We don’t wave or get friendly with other cyclists. Just pass. Check out the lycra, recognize one of our own, and a snapped nod of the helmet gets one back. Done.<br />The guy behind me starts to pass.<br />“Hey, how’s your day going?”<br />“Fine”.<br />Not one of us. One of us doesn’t say anything when passing.<br />He’s in front now. He’s a big guy and has on a killer design racing jersey for a team in Tennessee. He’s got legs, so he has to be training.<br />“My day is going great now that I have a wheel!”<br />I jump on. Who am I kidding? I’m coming back after too long off, I’ve been working hard at it, but no way am I going to stay with him. Unless he just got here from Tennessee and doesn’t know Paradise Loop. I’ve got the tight turns and gear shifts down from hundreds of training rides and it’s my only chance. He looks back regularly to see if he’s dropped me yet, lets up a little, I am still a foot off his wheel, and we're still at a good pace. I guess this won’t be a hammerfest, so a conversation starts as we roll.<br />“No, I live in Mill Valley, not Tennessee. I raced with them until my accident.”<br />“Road race or criterium?”<br />“Neither. My and my buddy were sprinting, I went down, the pavement hit my forehead first and missed the helmet. It was bad for a while. My wife kept asking if I would live. That’s all she asked.”<br />“How did she cope with one kid and another on the way?”<br />“She was calm. Didn’t freak out, just kept asking if I would live. I’m getting my conditioning back though, but no more racing.”<br />“Yeah. I was lucky for the ten years I raced, so I quit while I was in one piece. So, did you have that Ah-ha moment people talk about after you recovered and realized you were still here?”<br />Whatever he said to me, I honestly don’t remember. I think his actions for the rest of our ride just overwhelmed whatever came out of his mouth.<br />Along the bike path section, its cluttered with joggers, dogs, kids, baby strollers, old people, other cyclists – he slows down the pace, which I have learned is a sign of higher intelligence. Training with hammerheads that just yelled everyone out of the way was the life I lived.<br />But this guy – he was strangely different. He actually had what seemed like a deep five second conversation with every human he passed.<br />“Hey little buddy, move to the right. Yeah, that’s good.<br />Coming through folks. How’s your day going?<br />Hang right there sweetie, we’re passing you on the left.”<br />It’s like the whole world was his kid or his relative. I wasn't prepared. Never had I ridden next to anyone like that who took competition seriously.<br />We split in Mill Valley. He went home to his still pregnant wife and his still successful software company and still alive and still on the bike.<br />I rode on without a thought, an emotion, an anything. I was just in awe as the awareness of my blindness to people now hammered itself into me.<br /></span></span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-64762240061972640932009-08-10T02:04:00.000-07:002009-08-12T02:16:49.989-07:00Hedge Fund Manager seeks jazz gig<span style="font-family:arial;">I’ve got another <span style="font-size:100%;">de</span>sign review committee assembled to evaluate my new mylar business card at the local feed zone. My reviewer is waiting for a friend to show up and drink the other half of his bottle of Merlot, and he’s more than late. Two more bar stools left, its Sunday night, still they are going fast. Another sits between us and gives his business card to my reviewer. He eats, talks about hedge funds, and leaves. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My reviewer hands me the guy’s card. It tops mine. On the front, an investment firm. On the back hand written “jazz combo for hire”. We smile, assured everyone is in this economic downturn together.<br />One conversation turns into another, and we end up comparing world travel notes. He’s a pilot of his own little jet and likes to fly solo. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Every pilot I know can’t resist their personal epic story of “had fun and lived to tell about it”. His was over Barrow, Alaska, and as usual, involved running out of gas. He escaped with some cool polar bear pics and his life.<br />I’ve got a story too, but his friend shows up and he’s gone.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It’s too late. My mind is racing thousands of feet up in the air. I don’t see polar bears, I see tiny spots of range cattle scattered around a dirt runway. We are bouncing sideways as we hit in a stunt plane.<br />Had fun and lived to tell about it.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My friend Sally was the daughter of a rancher in Northeast New Mexico. Middle of nowhere. We had launched a couple hot air balloons, got a view, and collected at the ranch house. Her father’s stepson is 16, and can’t let it go until we take a ride in his father’s stunt plane. Great. Loaned the keys to his stepson. I think this will be interesting, so I show some interest.<br />"Wow! Let's go for it! Like, now!" </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />The others take the bait and line up outside next to the dirt runway that doubles for the road to the ranch.<br />He taxies toward us in the World’s Smallest Plane. I re-evaluate my enthusiasm as he hits the brakes, stops on a dime, pelting us with gravel. My brother, a hang glider pilot and my rival sibling, is in the group. This is my chance to get even. Since even he looks a little edgy, I grab first place in line. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My pilot flings open the door and yells at me to get in over the noise of an engine that sounds like a lawn mower.<br />I don’t even have to jump. This thing is slightly larger than a remotely controlled hobby plane. Its made of cables and canvas with wheels about the size on a baby buggy. I look around inside and all I see is a value pack of toilet paper behind my seat.<br />Is this good or bad?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My pilot jumps in, and we’re off, everything shaking and squeaking as we kick up the runway dust. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This plane does not want to fly. The cables go taut like snapping rubber bands, canvas flapping in the wind. We leave the ground just in time to miss a dozen cattle that completely ignore us and are obviously familiar with this drill. The plane turns into a vertical projectile. Cattle and sagebrush turn into sky.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Yeeeehaw!”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is my pilot speaking.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hey, how you doin' back there?”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Fine!”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The plane heaves again to horizontal. I have one eye on the ground and the other on his arm bracing the window so it won’t collapse into the cockpit. Another vertical. Then a stall in mid-air. The engine cuts out to a sputter. Slipping back a little, then forward, we take a nosedive. Well, ok, this is it.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Heeeeere we go!" he yells.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Picking up speed, we are going down.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Hand me a roll of toilet paper!”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Oh joy, he’s also about to lose his lunch. Or worse.<br />I had not unwrapped toilet paper that fast in my entire life. I push it into his hand outstretched in my face with all five digits spread like a baseball mitt. Sliding back the window, he throws the roll out. I watch it unfurl like a corkscrew jet stream. Its very elegant. Not a bad last visual of life. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Then, the plane stalls a little, and miraculously goes into loops, tracking the toilet paper and chopping it into artistic bits.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Awwwwright!” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Its my pilot again. I guess he is still in control, and now on a roll.<br />Just when I think we’re having fun, the ground shows up. The cattle get bigger. The waiting fans and the ranch house get bigger.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“We’re gonna buzz ‘em!”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Well, ok.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I sense I am in for the Big Racking Move. Sure enough, what is feet from the dirt turns into a switch in direction that gives me an eternal appreciation for aviation technology. Wings flapping, windows sucking in and out, metal cable whining, we just miss the ranch house, loop, and come back parallel to the landing strip. All motion in reverse, we skid to a side stop, pelting the fans with more dirt and gravel. My pilot is pleased.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“How’d ya like it?”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Having an audience, I give nothing away.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“That was just, uh, awesome!”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My brother is next up and I don’t want to ruin it for him. He watched me eat dirt on hang glider landings several times with no pity, and now its his turn. One fan after another willingly goes up and comes down, now that I have broken in the trail. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That evening at the dinner table big enough to seat the next town, we all eat and calmly compare flight notes. My brother stops talking, stares at me with a mouthful, and lets out one of his signature laughs, head rolled back at the ceiling.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I have not disappointed him.</span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-45261802096780149072009-08-02T22:24:00.000-07:002009-08-10T02:41:26.454-07:00More quiet beans for dinner<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">My New Mexico blood never left me. Its the only excuse I have in Marin County for being a frequent diner at a Mexican restaurant.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I like the half hour drive north. Since I don’t commute to and from my office, I am obligated to make those gas prices worth something. And it clears my head.<br />This Mexican Restaurant is my favorite. They made the mistake of treating me like family the day I walked in, so now it feels a little like home.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the owners is a car collector. He bullies me regularly with the ultimate compliment he is buying my 2002 ALMS cherry red Audi TT when I sell it or else. So I park right in front, walk in . . . </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“no David, not selling”.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I checked this place out several years ago. There was a fountain in the front patio huge enough to be in Heaven.<br />I then walked over to a stainless steel pro BBQ grill that was loaded with oysters equally huge that reminded me of digging them up in Puget Sound during a daily sail. I was an instant regular customer when the other owner told me they were flown in from Seattle Fish twice a week.<br />The first few orders, after I emptied the shells, I would turn them over one by one and just look at them. It had been so long, but, no way was I going to walk out with any. That would put me right up there with the people who leave the Christmas lights up until June or load up the front yard with mollusk shards.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The bartender there is infamous. Not famous, infamous. He is the epic drink chef, remote TV operator, food server, order taker, substitute manager, dish busser, free entertainment, and waitress heckler.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">He doesn’t cry. He only laughs. I come in crying, leave laughing.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Tonight David asks me what's new. I tell him I finished my website, finally rented my place in Park City, and started a blog. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Really. What do you put in a blog?”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Stories”. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“About what?”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Rhinos”.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“?”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"I also wrote about a restaurant I went to, so maybe I will write about others.”</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Uh Oh.”</span></span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-25472171863526223242009-07-31T22:53:00.000-07:002009-12-26T16:34:38.014-08:00Is anything afraid of an elephant?I'm in Pasta Pomodoro for the best rare skirt steak on the planet. More intervals on the bike today, and my craving for iron continues to separate me from my veggie friends.<br />Emily is my waitperson, I am the last customer, and I am attacking the Tirimisu already out of the to-go box. We agree on the superior piece of meat, the work hours (I owned a restaurant on the Big Island in Hawaii), and somehow the small talk morphed into killer bees, then rhinos.<br />I think it started with altitude, which ironically is an image I selected for my blog. I tell her the boring moments on the Big Island I cured by shipping my skis over from the Mainland and skiing Mauna Kea at 14,000 feet for one day.<br />The next day at Hapuna Beach, we all get sick from what was surely a minor case of HAPE (see Wiki) which I tell Emily is possible at high altitude, which segs into my Annapurna III Expedition. I am recalling my day with a rhino in Nepal, after we climbed Annapurna.<br />As a cool-down, Tom, Michael, and I visited Tiger Tops, a national project dedicated to re-populating the dwindling tiger population after the British decimated it. We have a tour guide, and I describe to Emily the beginning of a casual walking tour to one of the observation towers for visitors to view some "wildlife". I am thinking this will be a totally boring day as a tourist, but maybe, just maybe we will see a tiger and it will be worth our time.<br />The first fragrance on the trail is a large pile of dung. Too large for a horse I am thinking, and it is swarming with flies. The flies are actually migrating killer bees feeding on elephant dung, which we will later be told just terrorized villages in northern India leaving dead people in the wake. Michael is at the front of our little expedition, and he starts sprinting, arms flying in all directions, with dozens of tiny insects pumping away with their thoraxes at his clothes, neck, and face. Slow motion sets in, the guide is yelling at us to jump into the river and throw our colored daypacks as far away from us as we can.<br />"Bees like color!" I hear. Now we are all sprinting, and I have torn the clasp out of my long hair and messed it all over my face and neck like a portable mosquito net. It's "every man for himself" and I hit the river first without my daypack.<br />"Ok, they took off, you can come out of the river now" our guide yells.<br />We gather for a body count. Tom pulls out his Swiss army knife and, like on the mountain, calmly performs his surgery, cutting off the still pumping venom sacs in our skins. Michael's lip is the size of Alaska, and his face is beginning to swell.<br />"We can walk this off on the way to the tiger observation tower" our guide states. So I guess he thinks we will live and have some more adventure left in us.<br />About a half hour later, a snort ahead that sounds like a 7.5 earth tremor sets off the alarm again.<br />"It's a rhino" our guide flatly states. "Take cover!".<br />He's got to be kidding. No, he's not. Here he comes, the most freakingly huge alligator skinned alien beast I have seen, even at the zoo. Again, "every man for himself". Guess we left the team spirit on Annapurna, as I face it with the rhino, the men out of sight.<br />I hang a right toward something that looks like a tree. It's pathetic, but I think it will hold me. I drop the colored pack bait again and climb to the top as it bends over and threatens to toss me off. This rhino has a good nose and lousy eyesight, because all he has to go by is my scent. He stops at the foot of the tiny sapling that is hosting me, snorts my pack with a 5.5 tremor and then the trunk of my treehouse. I'm a history piece for National Geographic I am thinking at this point, when I see Tom, Michael, and the guide over the savannah brush gently swaying like they are sailing gracefully through the terai.<br />The rhino turns, snorts another tremor, and makes a "fast walk" for it.<br />Now I know, rhinos are afraid of elephants, because at that moment the guys come into view on top of their limo service - an elephant driven by his trainer. I am subtle in my arm waving, but they see me.<br />"You can come down now, rhinos are afraid of elephants" the guide yells at me.<br />No kidding.<br />Emily's eyes are as big as the serving trays at this point and get bigger when I tell her that was just one day of our year long adventure tour.<br />"I could start in on the Iranian revolution we got trapped in, but if I do Emily you will never get out of here tonight".<br />"Dang Ann, you should start a blog!"<br />"Really? That's hilarious. I just started one today".<br />"Really? Where can I find it? Will you post some of your stories?"<br />"Yeah, ok. I'll start with killer bees and the rhinos".lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1535848059777420352.post-22797738275147263662009-07-31T14:03:00.000-07:002009-10-20T16:31:28.087-07:00Fit For Life<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b>What does it mean to be fit for life?<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:100%;" >Well, maybe activities that condition your body, or maybe your mind. Maybe the ability to adjust to surprises and keep your cool. It could mean anything to you.<br />I selected an image of a very high mountain for my blog. I climbed Annapurna III (Nepal) in a challenging environment. Its a good visual to describe how I make friends with surprise, and we had plenty of them on the expedition! Don't know about you, but surprises come at me every day, and I do everything I can to adjust to the arrival with challenging practice runs. How do I do it? Ski off into the trees along the ski patrol boundary rope. Descend on the bike into the turns at 35 mph with fresh spring potholes to jump. Buy real estate . . .<br />Life is now full of really interesting surprises, and the Hubbel telescope brings back the evidence of more time acceleration constantly. Anyone who isn't aware of this has found their "happy place". If you haven't found yours yet, I'm betting you have a lot of company. Adjustment to surprise is my goal every minute.<br />I wasn't built or born into into it like my brother. He's a boundary skier too. Hang gliders, anything that gets him off something with air. I credit him with an "aha" moment though. On one of his walls he placed a wood carved set of letters "adjust". He could have leveled it on the nail, but insisted hanging it at an an angle. The architect in me would level it. Next day, angled again. That's when I realized the only way for me to adjust is to choose "the edge". Some edges get me in the zone, some don't. Edges are useful. They clue me in to where my reaction to surprise needs a little refinement.<br />I was recently invited by a prominent website to post a story about myself. Uh-oh. If I did post,"what would the neighbors think"? But then, what would they think if someone told them I had said no to climbing a fabulously beautiful and dangerous mountain in a foreign country full of amazing humans and experiences?<br />All Bets Were Off with myself. I wrote it.<br />It's good timing for me to write anything related to a healthy lifestyle. We have a healthcare emergency in this country. Too many need medical attention for problems that could have been easily avoided by compensating for a life in a luxurious country with a little movement and excitement. For those who choose to maintain their health with a lifestyle change, its never too late. Ever!<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">My healthy lifestyle has four catagories - what I eat, breathe, think, challenge my body to do, and how much I do of each. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Of these, three can become addictions, so I practice “self-management”. </span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br />They didn’t name it “comfort food” accidentally. Food can easily replace intimacy with others and ourselves. It can derail what psychologists call individuation. Food can become the “bubble wrap” that mimics the protection we received as infants and children. Breathing is not on my addiction list. I can’t overdo breathing. Cyclists and swimmers have the largest hearts. That's plenty of breathing to cycle that blood at rapid speed and clean it up!</span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <br />Living in my head is too easy for me. As a dyslexic, I use the right and left sides of my brain at the same time, using more of my brain than people who use either the left or the right. I have a 3D program running all the time. Its my personal video game. But, there's a problem with all this fun. It blocks the transition from Thinking to Doing. <br />What I have discovered is athletics overrides the left side of my brain and I get in pure intuitive mode. I take it as it comes, and that's it. My brain starts firing all synapses without any analysis at all. For me, a miracle. I love Jill Bolte Taylor's story about her brain "stroke of insight". Her description of it is exactly what I experience. <br />When I was asked by a website to contribute to a Healthy Lifestyle section for people who want to do athletic activities when they don't have the motivation, I agreed. There are however, limits to what you do. </span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> Challenging the body too far triggers a massive stress reaction that short circuits the immune system’s response and creates a longer recovery. The body starts feeding on it’s own muscle.<br />Feeling superhuman can lead to our demise. We all know people who get a personal trainer. It’s all good until the trainer isn’t there. They gradually lose their resolve. The self-loathing kicks in and the cycle returns to nowhere.<br />What didn’t happen? "Individuation" creates self-management.</span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> I relate to M. Scott Peck's comment in one of his interviews decades ago. When the interviewer asked him how does one know when they are done with therapy, Peck replied "when you know you are your own best therapist". That's individuation to me. <br />Another close friend, Robert Fulghum, a master at one-liners, reacted to one of my left brain episodes several months ago "Just know the difference between giving up and letting go." Not what I wanted to hear at all. Dang. More "work" to do, not realizing letting go didn't require any work. I really thought I was more evolved. <br />My focus with my readers is challenging the body within reason, feeding it with good stuff, and reminding the mind how to know the difference between giving up and letting go. These have been major challenges in my own life and continue to be.</span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> It's never over even when I think its over. There's more. And more . . . <br />What's the payoff here? Why even try? Why suffer? Why . . .<br />I can't tell you what it will do for you, but if you want a challenge, you can choose guidelines for self-management in your life. You can learn to depend on yourself and trust your intuition rather than on others to do it for you. </span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> And you can take your friends with you to keep you company.</span><o:p style="font-family: arial;"></o:p></span> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span>lovingthezonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05010870033169337128noreply@blogger.com0