Clareified

The last two weeks has been quite the crazy whirlwind. My mom was pretty sick and was scheduled for surgery Monday, but she responded to meds well and that’s been put off – which is good because I did shake my fist at ever entering a hospital again and once I shake my fist, I shake it but good. I, of course, decided the best way to deal with said stresses was to shove as many candy bars in my mouth as possible at one time. Luckily that number was only two. At the one time. But today’s outing to Chinatown to pick out bridesmaid’s dresses has been exactly the behavior correcting tool that I needed. Back to gym on Monday. And no more eating till November. All of which, I only mention to explain the lackluster blogging of late. Karol implored me to blog about something she’d care to read about and since domesticated Karol is evidently still violent, I thought I would oblige.
Click below if you would care to read about something I think Karol would care to read about. It’s long, poorly written, even worsely edited and not all that interesting. In a nutshell, it is Karol herself. Oops, forgot, she’s still violent.

Her boyfriend recommended that she read this book call Stumbling on Happiness when they were away on vacation, she thought it was the best thing since sliced bread and has been harping about it ever since. So, I decided to give it a try.

Now, while I thought there were some interesting aspects to the book, I do not think that anyone else should necessarily waste their time and money buying or reading the book, so I will give you a quick synopsis now.
The author is very funny and should someone put a gun to your head and insist that you choose a neuroscience for dummies tome on human behavior, I would suggest you choose this one. It’s a relatively painless read, though he can get a bit sciency at times and I became a lawyer for a reason. (One of those reasons being I know how to make up words in a pinch. I’m pinchy.)
So here’s his thesis: Whatever you think will make you happy, really won’t, mostly because you’re happy right now. Unless you’re not. But even if you’re not, you actually could be. Get it? No? Okay…hold on, let me explain.
We all have a brain. What we don’t realize is that our brain is taking care of us in a million different ways. While we’re reading, our brain will naturally fill in words or ideas for us, so that we can process what we’re reading faster. When truly horrible things happen to us, our brain figures out what the silver lining is and focuses on that. Left at the altar? Well, good that lousy no good bum wasn’t good enough for us anyway. Crippled in a horseback riding accident? All the better, now I take my time and smell the roses. (He cites an interesting fact that seeing people would pay more to not be blind than the blind would pay to get sight.) And the biggest trick of the brain is its attempt to figure out the future: to wit: how would we feel if a) we took that new job or b) got married to that guy or c) got a tattoo. Unfortunately, the brain can’t really see the future – unless you are using Dionne Warwick’s brain or madame Cleo’s (Love her!) So, the brain does the best it can with what it’s given…i.e. your right now. So, if right now you’re super happy with your guy or totally think disco sucks, then your brain imagines that your future marriage to that guy will be a happy one or tells you “go on girlfriend, get that Disco Sucks tattoo!” Of course, ten years later when you’re filing for divorce or undergoing twelve painful tattoo removal sessions, because dude, Donna Summer kicks ass, you’ll be all “what the hell was I thinking when I got that Disco Sucks tattoo? I was such an idiot then.” Of course, no one ever makes the natural progression to…’hmmm or am I an idiot now?’ Because, well, your brain would explode and create a big mess. Well, no, it’s because all the brain has is the present. And at present your marriage sucks and you want out, so you imagine that a divorce is the thing that would make you happy. In the end, he suggests that the only way to escape the problem of being trapped in our own reality is to ask other people who are have made the decisions we are contemplating and see how happy it made them. Think support groups, but for every aspect of your life.
Okay, so now that we’re all on the same page, I can talk a bit about my thoughts.
See those nice, protecting you brains he goes on and on about? Yeah, I don’t have one of those. I have one of those other kinds of brains. The ones that even when you’re laughing and having a grand old time manages to see things. What was that look when I mentioned our joint vacation? Was that a pause before he said yes? What did that pause mean? My brain sees the bad about a mile away and then, when the bad comes and other normal brains try to be all comforting, my brain says “Ha! I told you so. You really are a very stupid girl Dawn Summers. Very very stupid. Want to watch Beaches, again?” (Of course, sometimes I do wonder if it’s like that moment in the Matrix when he breaks the vase and wonders if he would have done it, if he didn’t know he was going to do it. Do you bring the bad because you see it coming? But of course, that’s nonsense. You see it coming because it’s coming.)
And once it comes: the firing , the breakup, the pad thai with nuts, my brain doesn’t do that silver lining thing. My brain is very much…wow, this sucks, this hurts, this will kill us.
I remember one time Karol and I were in Atlantic City and maybe we both lost, or I lost and she was even or something – but I had lost and lost a lot – I was so miserable and pissed off about it that when I got back to my car, I put on my playlist of miserable, pissed off songs. (It’s called “depressed” and upon seeing that once, Alceste was all “is that what the playlist calls itself because those songs are so bad?” I’ll have you know James Blunt was nominated for a Grammy.)
Anyway, Karol was all appalled and she was like why don’t you play something fun and upbeat. Why do you want to keep being depressed? And without missing a beat, I answered “because that’s how I learn.”
I don’t have a touchy feely brain that loves me. I have a renegade brain from the wrong side of the tracks. There is a big no self deluding sign hammered into my front lobe. If I get left at the altar, mine will be the brain that says – remember that pause? I told you he was just not that into you.
I would never be tricked into thinking a job or a tattoo would make me happy just because that’s what present-day Dawn wants. In fact, present-day Dawn really really wanted a tattoo just a couple of months ago, but Dawn’s brain was all “Really? You think we need more proof that we’re a complete loser? Really?”
My brain is a bitch.
Of course, the upside of my brain —which now that I think about it, is just an internalized version of my mother — is that while I may not experience the euphoric highs of the lucky nice brain people, I also don’t suffer the crippling shattered dreams type despair.
I seem to know that we will find another job or, more specifically, find a way to make money. We will meet other people and by golly, we leave this restaurant and go to another one because I know if I send it back all they’re going to do is scrape off the nuts and bring back this same plate.
I often notice that when my friends are talking about their great relationships or their terrible breakups or how much they love their job or how miserable they are in their job, I never quite believe them. Or, more specifically, never quite believe the degree of what their feeling. Over the past ten years or so, I’ve learned to fake the empathy – but there’s always a part of me that wants to say “oh come on, now – just six month ago you were singing a completely different tune.” Or “dude, I know you, in a year, you’ll be prattling on about moving to Cairo to train monkeys.” Or “Stop kidding, yourself. You won’t be happy no matter what, because you enjoy the drama of misery. But that makes you happy, so maybe I’m wrong.” Essentially, I struggle not to tell others what my brain tells me all the time. Except about the monkeys thing. If I go to Cairo it’ll be to kill monkeys. Or jellyfish. And then I’d go to Australia, so you can see how that’s just not something my brain would tell me to do at all.
But perhaps this is all a grand trick my brain plays on me so that my hopes are never too high or my disappoints never too low. I’ve self deluded myself into thinking I’m laid back and fancy free, while the rest of you poor saps are in for a great shocking fall or wallowing too much in self pity.
Hmmm.
Maybe my brain does love me after all.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.