Monthly Archives: December 2014

Wolves

by in Boundary Behavior, Existentialism, Hmmm..., Identity, Risk, Science | 10 Comments

It takes self-discipline to follow through with those larger tasks that return only a delayed sense of gratification, and I think that’s a learned ability. And in that regard, it was probably a good thing that my formative years were spent in a conscientious home environment. But a compelling sense of curiosity combined with an ability to hyper-focus on tasks have also helped me to keep moving forward throughout my life, though perhaps in fits and starts.

Regardless, my attention doesn’t easily span the necessary duration of most forms of passive presentation… TV, movies, theater — or lectures, conferences, and ceremonies. I’m a doer as opposed to a scholar. And in that regard, I’ve always had to employ some strategies to make it through the tedious parts.

During my undergraduate years of college, my favorite study spot wasn’t any of the usual student lounges. Instead, I preferred the game room in the student center, an obnoxiously loud environment. Powered by a small bucket of strong coffee, I would situate myself at a corner table and proceed to concentrate on the memorization of some sequence or system while the external world faded into silence.

The focus usually lasted for about an hour before my surroundings would begin to leak back into awareness, signaling that the neurotransmitters needed a recharge. And that was where the game room came into the picture. Sometimes, whole days would pass like that, oscillating back and forth in heaving waves of intense focus punctuated by utter distraction. It may seem inefficient, but it’s always worked for me.

When I mentioned this to a psychologist friend of mine, she commented that I was describing “ADD,” or Attention Deficit Disorder. And she also remarked that ADD is at least in part genetic, apparently associated with a gene called “DRD4-7R.” Don’t ask me what any of this means, other than that the gene is repeated seven-times. But the gist of our conversation was that it’s a naturally occurring genetic characteristic that probably served our hunter-gatherer ancestors in their quests for food and survival.

DRD4, apparently moderates dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain important to learning and reward (pleasure). And according to my friend (and some articles if since read), people with the “7R” variant generally need more stimulation to feel dopamine’s pleasurable effect.

Perhaps predictably, studies show that the DRD4-7R gene correlates with risk-taking behaviors, exploration, habituation (becoming quickly bored with things), desire for novelty and adventure, sex, and drugs (and rock-n-roll?). And it’s also closely associated with attention deficits and hyperactivity. People with 7R just need a bit more of a jolt to get the pleasure center firing.

So there it is — perhaps I’m just a natural hunter-gatherer, built for exploring an unknown forest, focused intently upon my prey as it approaches, and then…  Except, I’ve never been much for killing things myself, and I usually get my food at one of the local markets. And then there’s that whole “civility” thing demanded by societies in general.

Natural selection evidently long ago resolved that problem for what now amounts to some eighty-percent of the world’s human population, with the “4R” variation of the DRD4 gene. With fewer repeats, DRD4-4R has less of a mediation effect on dopamine, allowing it to be more easily felt. And that’s probably a good thing for the settler who needs to stay in pretty much the same place to tend the farm, or to herd the cattle — or to work in an office, or to write a book.

The advantage of an adaptation is relative to environment, so it would seem there’s something intrinsically well-adjusted about a civilized person being satisfied, and in fact pleased, by the result Featured imageof a place in civilization. It’s like the descendants of some long-extinct species of wolf who lost enough of their instinctive wildness to benefit from a new social opportunity… perhaps first with a group of hunter-gatherers.

But a hunter-gatherer in a settler environment needs a great deal of self-discipline. Most risk-taking behaviors are by definition illegal in civil societies, making it difficult for a hunter-gatherer to get that dopamine feeling without also getting into trouble of some sort or another. Like wolves among humans, settlers don’t have much use for distracted non-conformists.  So nowadays the 7R’s have to satisfy their instincts in the wilderness, or listening to loud music, or riding motorcycles…at least in public.

Past that, they’re confined to lurking in the shadows, skirting the poorly lit edges of civilization while their socially better-adapted brothers and sisters rest well-fed and content next to the campfires. Eventually, they’ll wander off — it’s in their genes. But sometimes, hunger calls even the wolf from the forest.

The Apparitions of Art

by in Japan | 3 Comments

Toshogu_ForestIn awe of the forest above the Nikkō Tōshōgū shrine.

As it was easier to defend from enemies, real or imagined, the Edo (Tokyo) lords and samurai made their homes upon the high grounds known as the “Yamanote” (山の手), or Mountain Way.  Farmers, merchants, artisans, and especially those of the pleasure districts were left to the “Shitamachi,” (下町), the Below Town. These were the domains of natural disasters, flooding, tsunamis, disease… and of “yūkai,” or ghosts emerged from the shadows.

Japanese ghosts aren’t simply the stuff of legends or fearful dreams. Their domains within the Japanese cultural consciousness range from forces-of-nature and animals to humans, and even to human-made artifacts. This comes as an unsurprising extension to the Japanese concept of “kami,” nature-spirits who can inhabit places and objects, that are central to the Shinto belief system.  Thus, a world sensed only through intuition is confirmed by the sacred traditions of an entire culture.

According to Shinto, kami make themselves known by the feelings they impart upon those who come into their proximity. Their influence is primarily psychic, conveying anything from a sense of strength or shelter, to foreboding or outright fear. As a signal to those mere mortals who may unknowingly encounter places where these spirits reside, Shinto priests will leave various markers; zig-zags of rice-paper, rice-straw ropes, articles of clothing, or painted signs might be placed both as cautionary indicators and as offerings.  Regardless, an encounter may be unexpected.

I’m not a particularly superstitious individual.  And despite some admittedly surreal experiences, my skeptical nature precludes much in the way of beliefs to that which I can’t verify objectively.  However, I have been told that I believe in kami because I believe in what I feel. And I’ll grant that anyone who has stood at the top of a high mountain, lost herself in a grove of Redwoods, touched the edge of the sea in darkness, or looked up at the forest above the Nikkō Tōshōgū shrine has probably felt what a Shinto priest would deem as the presence of a “kami-sama,” a powerful nature spirit. And in that way, I have happened upon them many times.  But it was in the city of Osaka where I would experience an unexpected, and moving encounter.

The Namba Parks tower is a pleasantly organic office building that rises from a shopping mall formed like a series of curved, hanging gardens. I had walked into the first floor of the tower, and like a country girl, gazed up into the atrium — and there she was…  The spirit of an artwork stood watching over me from a second floor railing. She emerged from a seemingly random collection of aluminum numbers placed as if blowing across a wall, and I was entranced by the apparition.  More than simply a feeling, I could actually see her form within the shadows, and I will never forget the experience.

I don’t claim to know much about either music or art — but I know when there is a spirit present in a work. These are the ghosts of consciousness in the things that we create. I would find out many years later that the New York based artist, Kumi Yamashita, had created the artwork in the Namba Parks Tower, and that it is called, “City View.” Yamashita Kumi-sama (山下工美), whose name literally translates as “Below the Mountain Crafter of Beauty,” has created many artworks possessed of spirits emergent from apparent chaos, and it makes me wonder if she can perhaps sense something in the workings of the universe. Indeed, our own awareness is the emergence of a spirit from nature’s seeming random chance, looking out from the things we call ourselves.  So perhaps the Shinto priests are right and there are ghosts within the shadows, and that includes our own.