Flint and Steel

Flint is a rather plain-looking rock. Steel is a cold, dense metal.

Try hitting the steel against the flint and see what happens.

The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
– Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean, Dir. (1962)

Brain Your Pain. Mind Your Pain.

I woke up this morning with a headache; about a ’4′ on the pain scale. I thought, Ooh, I have a headache. I felt afraid that it would get worse. The headache got worse. Then I stopped thinking about it, and my headache got better.

Pain does not just happen, we have to perceive it. In modern pain management clinics, it is well recognized that our usual thought patterns and emotions affect how much we feel our pain. Biochemistry can affect the perception of pain, for example, the release of adrenalin in an emergency can effectively mask the perception of pain. When the emergency is over and the adrenalin gets resorbed, then the pain returns.

This morning, my brain registered pain from sinus pressure. I brained my pain. When I put my preconception of pain into thought, words, and emotion to my pain, then my pain felt worse; I felt my pain more acutely. In that way, I minded my pain. Minding my pain did not increase the pressure that was causing the pain in my sinuses, but the pain increased. When I let go of my assumptions about the pain, that did not lower the barometric pressure that caused the differential that registed pain in my head, but I did not feel the pain any more. My mind cannot change my circumstances. Neither can my brain. In fact, my brain cannot alter the fact that pain reports are coming in from my nerves. Only my mind can choose the amount and type of attention to pay to my brain when it is receiving pain signals. My mind can modify how I perceive my circumstances.

Okay, so let’s not get all bionic about this. I’m not trying to say that creating your ideal world involves ignoring your pain. Quite the contrary; let’s always start by paying attention to pain. When you brain pain, your first step should be to mind your pain. But how you mind it makes all the difference. Let’s look at how your mind and your brain work together for your survival.

The purpose of pain is to signal your body that something is wrong. Of course, the range of problems that can cause pain is pretty broad. Is it a mosquito bite, or have you just been hit by a bullet? It’s a survival skill to be very quick about sorting out the genuine dangers from the minor invonceniences. Mosquito? Firearm? Sure, it seems simple, but the process is a complex blend of raw nerve signals and biochemistry, in negotiations with your thoughts and emotions. A mosquito bite can infect you with a crippling disease. But most of them don’t. And what about people who get shot without knowing it? Some report later that it felt like a bee sting.

If your central nervous system is relatively healthy, then you brain the pain; it registers in your brain. Your nerves have no judgement about pain; they’re just reporters, faithfully sending the story to your brain. It might be an urgent story – a high-intensity nerves impulse – or a low-level signal for minor pain. Your brain can usually identify the origin of the pain in your body. After that, your pain story gets more complicated at the hands of the editor: your expectations and emotions. The way you experience pain takes shape after your brain has received pain signals.

Mind your pain in a healthy way. Start by paying attention to it. Your attention may be captured easily to identify the source of the pain, judge the intensity of the pain, and try to place the pain in the context of the moment. Ow! A mosquito. Oh, yeah, It’s summer, and I’m in the forest. Quick and easy. But in other circumstances, interpreting your pain may not be so simple. Ow! What was that? It felt like a mosquito, but this is my basement, and it’s winter. Once you create an explanation, then you have a choice to ignore the pain or to take action. Your choice could save you the trouble of worrying about nothing, or it could save your life.

In a life-threatening situation, you will mind your pain very differently. Your attention must assay a torrent of information, some of it insignificant, some crucial to your suvival, and some facts that might contradict others. In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, a man found himself trapped in total darkness in the ruins of a building. He was injured, but not pinned down. Using his pain as a springboard for rigorous, analytical thought, he remembered that he had a digital camera. Acting contrary to most assumptions about such a dire situation, he started taking pictures in that pitch-black room. He methodically made a sequence of shots 360° around himself. As each picture showed up on the camera’s display, he was able to identify a way out and crawl to safety. He minded his pain in a way that incited unorthodox thoughts and actions that saved his life.

I disagree with Lawrence of Arabia. The trick is minding that it hurts. Keep your brain and nervous system healthy so you can brain your pain. Keep your mind and emotions healthy so you can mind your pain in the ways that make it work for you. No, Lawrence; the real trick is minding your pain in a healthy way: neither exaggerating minor pain, nor failing to act for survival when the pain signals are urgent.

A true story.

Billy Was in a Coma

Billy was in a coma. Billy was an artist and a writer leading a tenuous way of life. That Camel-straight voice coming from his 5-ft, 2-inch frame and those darting, manic eyes had a way of getting everyone’s attention. About 2 o’clock in the morning, Billy was coming home from a good number of hours in active pursuit of his muses. He was riding an old motor scooter, stopping for a red light in the unforgiving summer humidity. Billy was not the kind of guy who used his rear-view mirrors, so he had no idea what hit him from behind. To the drunk driver, Billy must have felt like a bug on the windshield. Then Billy was in a coma.

Mama came right away. She had just the two boys: Billy and Danny. Their father had passed away when the kids were 10 and 12 years old. She couldn’t reach Danny for a couple of days. He lived in California. His girlfriend said that she wasn’t sure; he might have gone to Reno.

Billy’s mother would not leave his hospital room through the first few days and nights. His condition was unchanging; desperate. She prayed while she took a detailed inventory of her younger son’s life. Damn, I wish those boys got along better. she repeated to herself. Danny used to torment Billy into a frenzy. Every day there would be some kind of bloodshed, mostly Billy’s blood. The climax incident between the two boys found Billy punching his fist right through a plate glass window. Danny wheezed out his spasmodic laughter on the other side. After that, Mama was able to attain an uneasy brand of peace. You boys will put me underground., she declared whenever she saw them together. But her two sons never wanted to have much to do with each other from then on. Danny left home. Billy turned inward.

It was getting near lunch on the fifth day when Danny burst through the door of his brother’s hospital room. Hi Mama. What did that idiot do now? She welled up and tucked her trembling chin into the folds of scarf. Not a word to Danny. Danny reared back and gave the fully-adjustable, $14,000 bed a karate kick that knocked Billy’s IV bag onto the floor. Billy was in a coma.

Danny picked up precisely where they had left off. You stupid motherfucker, Billy! You made me come all this way, and you won’t even talk to me. I always told Mom and Dad that you were just a steaming turd. He jumped up on Billy bed and straddled him just around the ribcage. You’re a worthless asshole. Look at you lying there! Danny made a trampoline. That’s it. I’m pulling the plug. It’s about time we were done with you, Billy.

Danny performed his amateur wrestling body slam directly on Billy’s solar plexus. Mom couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She howled, Danny, stop it! You boys will put me underground!, moaning as she teetered backward two steps. Danny initiated a series of viscous bitch-slaps across his little brother’s face and neck. Glowing hand prints bloomed across Billy’s pallid skin. Danny was piloting his rant to a stall up at that hoarse, howling, foaming altitude.

Billy’s eyes popped open. An eerie, wet rattle reverberated down his tracheotomy tube. Danny froze. His chin began to jump and dimple. Mom withered to her knees. A nurse barreled through the door and dodged around her to see what was happening. Billy’s eyes glared, mired in his limp face. They fluttered. He went under again.

Now it’s three years since the accident. Billy walks with a limp and a cane, but he walks. Billy talks with a profound slur, but he talks. Billy loses track of things around him, but he gets through his day. Billy is alive, and Billy is not in a coma.

Your brain directs the life in your body, but your body let’s your brain know that you are alive in the world from moment to moment. If your body is deprived of sensory stimulus for an extended period of time, then it will die. But first your central nervous system – brain and spinal column – will sink into a coma. Sensory stimulus is what keeps you conscious; what keeps you alive in a sequence of moments. In a coma, your brain can deliver a generalized aliveness to your organs, but with no sense of the variations in stimulus that provide a sense of the moment. That’s the reason for the rapidity of sleep: there is no sensory stimulus in moment-by-moment sequences.

Danny came to jump-start Billy’s nervous system. Danny’s antics applied high voltage to Billy’s proprioceptive system, awakening Billy’s brain to the fact that his body was still alive in the world. Then Billy’s brain knew that there was a sequence of moments in which to be alive.

Reasons Happen for a Thing

For years, I tried to believe that things happen for a reason. I performed some uncomfortable mental contortions in an attempt to fit that idea into my cranium. Didn’t work; I still don’t get it. The term “for a reason” means that there is an answer to the question “Why?” So to complete the statement “Things happen for a reason… ” I had to say “… but nobody will ever know the reason.” For what reason does genocide happen? For what reason did that plane crash? For what reason will an avalanche fill her belly with that little mountain village? I give up. Turns out that our cognition is miraculous in taking us through the pleasures and perils of life. 

Things happen. We sense the things that are happening. That’s cognition. But then comes our metacognition. It’s all over the map. Yes, things do happen. Life is not messy; chocolate is messy. Life is perilous. And we want to know why. When the largest Tsunami in human history hit Alaska, there were three boats in its path. One sank. The other two rode the crest of that 1,700-foot wave and the occupants survived. Our inner beings want to ride the crest of the bad stuff that happens, so we ask “why”. Just the act of searching for a reason gives us a feeling of rising above the struggles; it drives us toward refinement of our mental suvival skills. It’s very useful. There is hardly ever a clear answer, but we try to make survival more of a certainty by looking for reasons. 

Reasons happen for a thing. Reasons and things happen almost simultaneously, but your brain begins to create the reasons within a very small fraction of a second after an occurrence that requires your attention. If you are using your senses to recognize the true nature of the world around you, then attention happens. Attention requires the use of three parts of your brain: the sensory, the emotional, and the action centers. It’s called the Triangular Circuit of Attention. Right alongside all this raw perception and attention, your left hemisphere chimes in as the “spin doctor”, in the words of psychologist Steven Pinker of Harvard University. That’s when the reasons happen, and they play a leading role in your survival. The more dangerous, confusing, or bizarre the occurrence, the faster your brain will kick into action searching for an explanation. New York University’s Joseph LeDoux (LeDoux Lab) has performed research that reveals the brain functions that arise as we cause reasons to happen for a thing. Author Laurence Gonzales (Deep Survival, Everyday Survival), writing in National Geographic Adventure, surveys the work of Pinker and LeDoux. Um, yes… he is my brother. 

I remain open-minded. An explanation of how things can happen for a reason would hold my interest. I believe in God. But I think that the power of God is revealed in the patterns of our universe that, by their very precision, strike us as being largely random. In light of all the science that illustrates how reasons happen, I’m feeling pretty good about this little survival mechanism that’s been given to us. We live in a world of change, but we try to establish comfortable patterns. It’s in our nature to try to make the rough places plain. Peace is not inherent in nature, but we strive to create peace in our minds. Still, there is a looming question: Can I create peace in a healthy mind that recognizes all of the realities that my senses report? 

As your “spin doctor” comes up with reasons, allow it to lead you toward a deeper understanding of your own responses to what happens, without judgement. Steven Pinker also calls the left side of the brain a “baloney generator”. Well, it’s up to you to determine whether your left hemisphere is going to generate baloney, or to provide you with an incisive frame of thought as you happen to your own life.

The Physical Scale of Life

When I was 21 years old, I drove my BMW R60 touring motorcycle from Chicago to Vancouver Island. I did not sleep or eat indoors for two months. My world was, simply, The World. Many aspects of my being were transformed in ways that are still emerging to this day.

One hot summer day, I stopped for a rest in a northern arboreal forest. Even under the dense shade of the white pines, the air was throbbing with heat. I took off my shirt and sat down on the needle-cushioned forest floor to meditate and do some simple yoga postures. When it was time to emerge from my meditation, I became aware that my body was covered with mosquitoes: back, neck, legs, feet, arms, and face. With a sharp exhale and a wave of my arms, I stood up. The mosquitoes swarmed away. Somehow, my brain would not let me worry about it. As I emerged into the sunlight, I checked for mosquito bites, but there were none. Not one. And mosquito bites usually cook up some lusty, hot, red welts on my skin. Where was my being?

It is immediately apparent that you have being in your body. Your body is alive, giving signals all the time about its being. It moves. It has color. It is warm. It has senses. It communicates. You have awareness in your body. You have awareness in your mind. You have awareness of other bodies. And you have awareness in many other ways that you can’t easily explain; in ways that involve senses other than visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile. Where is your being?

Experiments have shown that a person in an anechoic chamber – a special room that keeps all sound from echoing; a perfectly quiet, isolated room – can hear primarily the low sound of his breathing, his heart beating and the whine of electrical current coursing through his nervous system. He might also hear other body sounds. He has a keen, detailed awareness of his own tissues and cells as they collaborate to maintain the sequence of life and death in his body complex. He has full awareness in his tissues and microscopic cells. Where is his being?

Where is life? There are limits to our five senses. We can sense the world. We can sense being in our bodies and our minds. We can sense being in our tissues and our cells. But where is life? Is it on all of these levels? Does the life inside all of us reach down to the molecular, atom, or sub-atomic scales? On the scale of matter, where does life occur?

The human body is living because of a complex relationship between chemical reactions (the molecular scale) and the flow of electrons (the atomic scale). The eyes, for example, can generate a measurable amount of electrical current from a single photon. That’s one photon! The structure and chemistry of the retina amplify that minute amount of current, making it possible for the body to live in a world of light and vision. And the current from the transduction of those photons bubbles up to the macro levels of the body structure in the storage of chemicals that help the brain function, the production of hormones like Vitamin D, and many processes that give the body life and movement and pleasure. The human body is teeming with such living interactions that take place on a sub-microscopic scale.

In exploring the limits of my senses, I cannot block an awareness of my life in molecules, atoms, electrons, and the entire family of sub-atomic particles that elude so many modes of study. Quantum physics would have our bodies actually living in a state that oscillates among the 11 dimensions of Membrane Theory. But do I live there? If my body and the bodies of living things around me have that same, underlying complex of life, then my meditations may have altered the chemistry in my body, spoiling the meal for those mosquitoes. That’s where my being was.

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The 2010 Human Body is time-tested by GOD. In response to almost four million years of field testing and evaluation, GOD offers you a Human Body for 2010 that features all the latest improvements in functionality, efficiency, and stylish pleasure. It’s sexy! It’s fast! It’s available now!

Let’s look at the ground-breaking, on-board computer. Through thousands of generations, GOD’s careful research and development have brought you the world’s most efficient and powerful computer: The Human Brain™. While monitoring and regulating every on-board system, The Human Brain has plenty of computing power to guide you on your journey – in Manual Mode or Cruise Control – at any speed, along virtually any path that you choose. And the first 18 years of upgrades are provided at no extra charge. Further, optional upgrades and specially designed additives can boost your Human Brain to its optimal performance!

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Antonio and Thomas Meet

Kids with Down Syndrome are said to be “so affectionate and loving”. Being the mother of one, I think it’s not exactly so. It’s not that they are affectionate and angelically loving just as a characteristic of their condition. They have mental retardation, which means that their minds do not develop in the way our minds typically do. That implies that they do not have all the inhibitions that we do.

Typically, a child who starts socializing in kindergarten learns what’s polite and what’s not; what to do and what not to do. You kiss the people your Mum tells you to. You stay away from strangers. Kids with Down Syndrome are not born with that learning ability, so they act according to what they feel, regardless of whether it is socially acceptable or not. I could tell many funny anecdotes about that, but the one that comes to mind happened on a plane when I was flying with my son from Buenos Aires to New York. Tommy was three years old then. I stood up to take him to the toilet. There was a woman some rows behind. She saw that I was picking up a child, and put on the face that says, “Oh how nice, here comes a little child.” When we went past her, she saw his Down Syndrome face, and was shocked. But to cover that shock she uttered, “Ohhhhh, they’re soooo affectionate!” At that exact moment, Tommy slapped her face. My “normal” socialized mind made me say, “No, Tommy, you don’t do that.” However, I secretly wanted to congratulate him. He had understood what this woman was feeling, and he acted accordingly. It was his response to her stupidity.

As you see, instead of acting rationally, he acts with his heart. Now, what’s normal in that situation; following your mind, or following your heart? Where is “normality” written down? Sometimes I have an image of Tommy and people like him looking at us and saying, “Poor little creatures. They suffer from an overdose of mental analysis, and in doing so, they’re missing the basic and wonderful things on Earth” I think that all people with disabilities are different. Oh, yes, they definitely are. But different in what sense?

Let me explain. To me, they are different in the sense that they’ve dealt with tragedy at least once in their lives, and they not only carried on but also overcame daily challenges that are unimaginable to us “normals”. I think that all those experiences give them a completely different point of view of life. Everyday chores that we take for granted, like making coffee or using the toilet, can be a real challenge for these people. Not to mention social acceptance, financial trouble and so on.

So that’s what makes them special. I don’t use the word “special” the way it is usually used by people without disabilities. Some say, “a person with different abilities” instead of “disabled”. However you call it, they live with tremendous challenges! The fact of facing these tribulations every single day provides a kind of maturity and consciousness that we “normals” don’t have. I think we have a lot to learn from “special people”, which they are! Their hearts vibrate at a different rate. I myself learn a lot from my son and my friends Vivian and Ann, who suffered from back injuries and are in wheelchairs. And I humbly thank them for that.

If only we normal people could open up to diversity and be ready to take what others have to offer, the world could become a more peaceful place in which to live.

Monica Chooses Her Son

I once heard Ingrid Bergman say,

“If I had my life to live over again and I had the memory of what I had passed, then I would avoid certain mistakes. But if I didn’t have the memory I would do exactly the same because I’m happy with my life and I see no reason why I shouldn’t live it over again.”

I guess not many people can say that. What’s the secret of being happy with our lives? I think it lies in choosing; in being aware of what choices we make. Many times, when facing a decision, we let ourselves be influenced by outside voices: The must’s and should’s – what is socially correct – what our parents or partners or children are expecting from us. We don’t realize that we’re leaving ourselves behind. We’re not being honest with ourselves. It’s as if we don’t trust our inner knowledge.

How many times have you acted upon a feeling that came from your gut? Unfortunately, we’re not taught to look inside. On the contrary, we are encouraged to focus outside, on other people’s thoughts and considerations. And that’s often how we try to make our choices: based on opinions, likes, and dislikes that do not belong to us. In fact, we might barely know ourselves, so how can we see what we really want? Then we feel disappointed, injured, lost and of course we blame everybody else. We forget that the choice was made by ourselves. Nobody is pointing a gun at us. We have free choice. Maybe you’re thinking that in some cases you are not free to choose. Let me give you an example from my own life experience.

My baby who has Down Syndrome was 4 months old. I had a lot of family problems, and I was really feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for the baby on my own. I missed my job, my friends, my freedom. I felt like a victim. One day, a friend of mine told me: “Well, it’s only a matter of choosing.” I defended myself. “No”, I said. “I have a disabled kid and I can’t choose. I can’t send him back, right?”. He retorted, “You’re right. All I’m saying is that perhaps you can choose to put him in an Institution and work hard in order to pay for all his needs.” I was speechless. He was right! I had a choice; nobody was forcing me to do anything. I was obviously choosing to be close to my baby, but I became aware that I was not a victim. I was choosing.

It is my experience that if I choose carefully and consciously, I never regret what I have done. Precisely because I chose it, I thought about it, I dealt with it, and I chose what I considered was the best. It’s true that maybe later I found out that I had made a mistake. But that’s fine. It was just that: I made a mistake because I didn’t know. No guilt, no blame, no resentment. Just human nature!

If we can acknowledge the choices we make, we can get closer to Bergman’s statement. Choose consciously, from your heart, and be responsible for that. It’ll help you build self-confidence and peace of mind.

Journey to Health

Aah-a-choo!! •••  Microbes that cause disease are part of your world. You are exposed to germs every day. Sometimes you may not even feel it. Your body is dealing with harmful microbes all the time. Dealing with harmful microbes means that your body summons the front line of troops (phagocytes and macrophages) to obliterate the attackers. If the front line is overwhelmed, then your body sends a call back to the lymphatic system for reinforcements (killer t-cells) that have a better chance of wiping out threatening germs.

Ooh, I’ve got the Creeping Crud! •••  So if you’re exposed to a germ that’s going around, and you just feel a little tired or have slightly sore glands in your neck, then you’re fighting the disease. Most of the time, your body will triumph. It’s amazing, really!

The Curve of Morbidity

Morbidity (disease) happens on a curve. If that bug persists, then you get sick in stages. The first part of the curve is fairly flat. Then it begins to arc downward. That’s the shoulder of the curve of morbidity. Most of the time, we live perched on the shoulder of the curve. Fight off germs without even knowing it; maybe feel a little under the weather. No problem. Then the common, seasonal illnesses come around: a cold, or the seasonal flu. Your health may drop over the arc of that shoulder, and you’re laid up for a few days. Your body pulls out the big guns. After a brief struggle, you’re back up on the meaty part of the shoulder.

Uh-oh! It might be worse than I thought! •••  If you get hit with an exceptionally challenging disease, then you have moved past the shoulder of the curve. What is the steepness of the morbidity curve after that? Well, it’s determined by your ability to fall off the shoulder and make your way back up (recover); the strength of your immune system.  People recover from serious illness all the time, but our culture allows it to remain a frightening unknown. The unknown can be conquered. The more you learn about your body, the more accurate “map” you will have for that unknown territory. Much of what happens in that region of severe morbidity is influenced by how you live your everyday life up on the shoulder.

Good nutrition, appropriate exercise, mental and social engagement, and moderate indulgences will not prevent struggles with ordinary diseases. Sometimes you are perched high up on the comfortable part of the shoulder; sometimes you slip down and have to climb back up to perfect health.  In itself, the quality of your meandering up and down the shoulder of the curve – successfully recovering from acute, minor morbidity – will give you notable advantages if a serious illness pushes you completely off the shoulder. The front line of your defenses will be more at-the-ready; your reinforcements will be better trained. Your immune system will be at its best.

I’m feeling better already! •••  So take care of yourself. Be well. And develop a genuine hunger for knowledge about your body. Even if you never experience episodes of serious morbidity, you will be healthier. If you do slip off the shoulder of the curve of morbidity, you need an “Educated Body”. You’ll do better if you understand what is out there on that part of the curve. Your ability to recover and heal will be greater if you are not taken by surprise.

To Laugh is to Forget

Find that laugh. Find the laugh that makes you lose control. Find that laugh, and you’ll find a little more healing. It’s the kind of healing that we all need. It makes us forget our troubles. Even the most serious troubles.

Even in the throes of war, people need to laugh; and forget.

When you laugh – really laugh – you send a flood of signals to the parts of your brain that are in charge of higher levels of thought. At the same time, laughter suppresses the parts of your brain that are responsible for those “fight or flight” sensations: worry and panic. Laughter kidnaps you from your problems. And, as an extra gift, laughter boosts your immune system and strengthens your central nervous system against shock.

So find that laugh. If you can’t find laughter by yourself, then find the people who will bring it to you and make you laugh. You will forget and heal in the richness of laughing, forgetting, healing companionship.

- Duh De Ching