Reptilian Brain

I love Fridays. George and I get to do whatever we want until we pick up Kiki at 2. We usually start the day at the gym. I do the 8:30 yoga class. Yoga is offered throughout the week, but the instructor on Friday is a certifiable wunderfrau; determined to get us all in a good state of mind regardless of how well we twist up into a pretzel. The first twenty minutes are spent simply breathing. And she doesnt shy away from doing crazy shit, like Pranayama. She is also quite funny, for someone who radiates calmness. She has great little one liners, like how she reminded us to not flex our butts during cobra. She said, "Keep your anus relaxed."
Everyone laughed of course, because "Your anus" sounds like "Uranus."
And, even though she plays flute and drum music throughout our practice, she puts her unique spin on things, playing Leon Russell during savasana.

My gym is owned by a megachurch, and because of this there are bizarre systems in place. Like we're not allowed to chant during yoga. I'd say the Friday instructor, whose likely noticed her class has the greatest attendance of any, gives herself a bit of leeway, and will throw in an occasional chant masked as a collective drawn out dragon's breath.
She also doesn't refrain from throwing the word God around. Its nice, during this time, to hear a new age woman say God, without there being the negative connotation, that she's a republican with an agenda.

Last week I read a profile on Daniel Dennett, and it was clear the author wanted to demonstrate Dennett is not suffering from his atheism. His portrait of Dennett exuberantly living life to the fullest was a tad overboard, I'd say. The article was interesting when comparing Dennett to his nemesis, David Chalmers.
The author of the piece, Joshua Rothman, claimed to have been team-Chalmers, but after his mother suffered from a stroke, and became a robotic, not fully conscious human, he abandoned Chalmers, and swayed toward Dennett, whose belief that our consciousness or feeling of consciousness is a byproduct of our biology, and can't be studied in the same way as, say an organ, because its non-tangible and because it can't be studied in quantifiable units, the lack of data leads to meaningless theories.

I think Rothman failed to notice it is modern science that kept his mother alive, it's what kept her physically present, but mentally absent, not God. The science, that leads people to believe manipulates God's power, is whats made his mother's existence drag out. So had his mother died from her stroke, and never entered this phase of existing like an animal of a lesser brain, then he'd have stayed loyal to Chalmer's. It's not the lack of God though that made his mother a zombie, rather its the rise of science. And this discussion is not at all to advocate the decline of science, but rather how the decline of God's presence gives science a greater authority.

Speaking of lesser brains, I just finished reading Collateral Damage, a what-not-to-do-to-your-kids-during-divorce book, not to be confused with the Schwarzenegger film. There is a chapter explaining the need to practice control when engaged in arguments, the author draws a picture of the layered human brain. Too often people resort to their deepest layer, their reptilian brain, when in an argument, and this leads them to be irrational and reckless, which is understandable but should be avoided whenever there are young eyes looking upon the scene. Instead the Neocortex is what we should use when trying to have productive discussions, and remain composed rather than swept up in "fight or flight." Were all just two layers away from cave people.

I read the kids this fun book called, "If You Decide To Go To the Moon," a great story with the same illustrator from one of my favorite children's books, "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate The Wash." The book talks a lot about space, the moon, earth's uniqueness, and I think does a good job of demonstrating perspective for little minds.
It throws out some astronomy vocabulary, and defines a comet as a chunk of ice. I thought about Halley's Comet, and wondered when it's due to pass earth. I found out it passes earth every 75 years, and returns July 28, 2061. Its existence has been documented since 240 B.C.
The last part reminded me of a scene in the movie, The Truman Show. When Truman is in his car, looking in his rear view mirror. His wife, Laura Linney, sees whats going on with him. At this point in the movie he is cracking, and she's starting to crack too, trying to keep up the ruse. He shows her in the mirror, first the lady on a red bike, then a man with flowers, and then the dented beetle. He explains they just go around, and around, and around. He sings after shouting, "Theres that dented beetle!"
He's learned his world is calculable. After discovering this from watching the rearview mirror, Truman starts his statement to her with, "I predict..."

In my introduction to probability, we discuss conditional probability. This is where you make a prediction under certain conditions, we call these conditions "givens." So the date attached to Halley's return is based on certain conditions being fulfilled, mainly, that it is not thrown off its orbit. But the documented 30 times Halley's Comet has passed earth, provides pretty strong evidence there is nothing threatening its orbit. Really there are conditions set to everything, except for maybe that one thing everyone is striving for.

So imagine watching Halley's Comet orbit, passing earth 30 times, adding up to 2,210 years, and how its predicted to pass again, and again, and again. Forever.

The kids and I have been listening to Taylor Swift's 1989 the last couple weeks. It's a very good album, and if you've made it to 2017 without giving it a listen, I highly recommend it. There are some lyrics though that force me to turn around and give my kids a lesson. During 'Wildest Dreams' she says, "Nothing lasts forever."
Then I turned to the kids and said, "Thats actually not true."
During "Blank Space," Taylor sings, "Boys only want love if it's torture." While still keeping my eyes on the road, I turned around and said to them, I think its a good time to talk about how poetry often uses nonliteral statements.
During 'Bad Blood' Kiki asked, "She lives with ghosts?" It was the perfect example for me to explain idioms.
"No, she doesnt live with ghosts. It's a way for her to explain holding on to to the past."
Kiki didn't really understand because she said, "Right!! She must really like spooky stories!"
"Yeah, thats it!" I laughed.

We had been alternating between Swift's 1989 and the Moana soundtrack, and I decided to mix it up with Ryan Adams 1989. Straight away, when he started on 'Welcome to New York,' Kiki's ears perked up, she recognized the words. Before I could even tell her, "Yes, this is Ryan Adams take on Taylor's jams," she asked, "Does he sing 'Shake it off?'"
"Oh yes he does!!"
After that, we listened to 'Wildest Dreams' and she thought it was brilliant how he swapped out all the male pronouns for female. She makes me laugh.

It took her quite some time to enjoy watching Moana because the daemon Te Ka is terrifying. After she put the pieces together that Te Fiti is Te Ka whose heart has been stolen, she was much more likely to endure the scene where Te Ka crawls toward Moana.
George doesn't get scared like Kiki. She told us she wouldn't see Beauty and the Beast because the beast was too scary, so George and I went after yoga. During the wolves scence he got a bit anxious, but his reaction is always very peculiar. He never closes his eyes, but rather, he puts his hands over his ears.

I took him to watch Kubo and the Two Strings, even though reviews said for mature children only, implying three might be a tad young. George's favorite word is fart-butt (the hyphen makes it one word) so his maturity is just about right for his age. I got nervous when the floating witch sisters came in, but George just covered his ears and watched, took on the scary stuff like a champ.
The most shocking part of the movie was when the credits rolled, and Matthew McConeghey's name came up for the beetle rather than George Clooney. I would have bet my computer on that beetle being Clooney. In fact, Im still having a hard time believing it isn't.

I really love Moana, and the soundtrack. Unlike Frozen, which is an assault on our times, Moana's story is substantive and helpful for kids who have had a relative die. Moana's grandma is the village weirdo, and gives her guidance even after she passes away. It's good to see this on TV, I think it's helpful for children to understand the reliance on their past. I've had dreams where my grandmother comes to talk to me, and those dreams have a significant impact on my present life.

Last week, I dreamed I was running on a straight path with high green hedges on both sides. From what I read, this dream is very, very good, and it shows I'm on the right path. I did come across one obstacle. He was a shaman looking man with pink long hair and a matching pink beard. He wore an enormous velvet coat. When I saw him on the path I was nervous of him. He seemed wayward and threatening. I passed him though, by looking at my feet, and continuing to run. Im not sure what his presence represents. Maybe its from all the homeless people I see in my city. Sacramento, and my suburb, have an enormous homeless population. I understand its mental illness, and an utter lack of resources, that leads people to this state, but I feel unsafe around them. It could be because I sense some are violent, or maybe its because I sense how fragile sanity is. We are just a couple bad decisions away from destitution.

I was happy to have been running in my dream because lately I've been less than motivated. A couple months ago I could have laced up and gone on a spur of the moment ten mile jog, but I've been struggling to get to three miles. I thought it was an issue with my state of mind, but after running six miles yesterday morning I realized, it has more to do with food consumption. Yesterday morning we made pancakes, and I ate the remaining mountain after George poured out 1/3 of our $9 syrup on his plate. I sopped up every remaining drop so it wouldn't be wasted, then had never ending energy on my run. You can have a Michael Phelps workout, given you eat a Michael Phelps breakfast.

The gym is always filled with the usual suspects. Ive been going to this place for over a year, and have done a good job of making only one friend who I have stop-and-chats with. But of course there are obligatory nods and smiles to people I see more often than my parents.
This Friday, a usual smiled at me, and said hi. I see him there all the time. This time though, he seemed more interested after saying hi, like he wanted to chat. While I returned his greeting, I had a moment of panic, "Oh Jeez! This guy wants to fuck me!"
Not even considering this thought was the work of my reptilian brain, I got mad at myself for thinking this. "Alicia, its not normal to jump to this conclusion after someone says hi to you!" Like most instances where I chastise myself, I quickly moved on, and I thought about how he is pretty hot and drives a nice Audi, but it's weird how he always works out in cargo shorts with a Batman seatbelt-buckle belt.

There is a new person at the gym. A little kid whose been coming with her dad. She is maybe 8? I can't really tell, but she's amusing, nonetheless. The first time I saw her she carried along a giant stuffed unicorn to all the workout equipment. By the time she balanced that thing on the machine, then set up her iPad to watch her show, she'd do maybe five minutes on the machine, constantly looking to her dad who had to help adjust her headphones, or the settings. She moved around, doing this on about four different machines. Those 5 minutes to her would feel like 20 to me, so rotating through four machines, was pretty darn impressive.

Its refreshing to find the unusual, and see our world as incalculable. We can count on Halley's comet coming, Friday yoga class, being moved by music, and even your anus being exactly where its supposed to be, but there's not a sure way to calculate when the reptilian brain will start firing out thoughts, or when a Michael Phelps breakfast finds its way to you, and most definitely no way to predict Clooney swapped out for McConaughey. The best take away from Dennett's profile piece is to live a great life because regardless of one's belief on afterlife, consciousness, or eternity, we all remember, you are dust and to dust you will return. It's known, deep in our brain. A given.