What's Normal?

Adam Gopnik writes today about social norms, partly in response to recent criticism that the poor are stuck because they don’t follow certain social, moral norms:

One way to get poor people to act like rich people is to give them more money. Prosperous societies have fewer social problems than poor ones, and when poor societies become more prosperous they generally become more placid.

Being Young; Being Old

The New Yorker has printed an article adapted from a speech given by Andrew Solomon at the Whiting Writer’s Awards.  It was directed at young writers, but it has much to say to all of us.  There are many lines worth quoting.  I have selected only a few.

While all old people have been young, no young people have been old, and this troubling fact engenders the frustration of all parents and elders, which is that while you can describe your experience you cannot confer it.

[T] here are many obvious differences between middle age and youth, between having lived more and done more and being newly energized and fresh to the race. But the greatest difference is patience. Youth is notoriously impatient, even though there is no need for impatience early on, when people have the time to be patient. In middle age, the wisdom of patience seems more straightforward, but there aren’t so many days left. But Rilke is correct that we must all write as though eternity lay before us. Enjoy the flexibility that span of eternity offers. The discourse between the young and the nostalgic retains some of its inherent poetry in the form of a longing intimacy. The freshness of younger people awakens memories in older ones—because though you, young writers, are yourselves at the brink of your own future, you evoke the past for those who came before you.

…As you ripen, you’ll notice that time is the weirdest thing in the world, that these surprises are relentless, and that getting older is not a stroll but an ambush.

My Stroke of Insight

 

It might have been a couple of years ago that I first saw the video above where brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor describes the experience of watching herself having a stroke.  It was interesting, but I watched it as an entertaining story and not as an experience that had something to teach me.  Then, recently, a friend loaned me Taylor’s book, and I became intrigued by what her experience had to teach about the brain.  According to Taylor, the stroke started with bleeding in the left hemisphere of her brain causing her to lose skills of cognition.  However, from the right hemisphere, she reports

…I met a growing sense of peace.  In place of that constant chatter that had attached me to the details of my life, I felt enfolded by a blanket of tranquil euphoria. How fortunate I was that the portion of my brain that registered fear, my amygdala, had not reacted with alarm to these unusual circumstance and shifted me into a state of panic.  As the language centers in my left hemisphere grew increasingly silent and I became detached rom the memories of my life, I was comforted by an expanding sense of grace.  In this void of higher cognition and details pertaining to my normal life, my consciousness soared into an all-knowingness, a “being at one” with the universe, if you will. In a compelling sort of way, it felt like the good road home and I liked it.

She makes the above point in the video.  However, in the book, 

she talks about the advantages of this state of oneness and the task of integrating the cognitive left hemisphere skills with the different skills of the right without losing the sense of oneness.  In reading this, I saw different ways to deal with some of the troublesome parts of the left hemisphere, especially judgmentalness toward self and others. 

Sometimes this book reminded me of a typical self-help book espousing the virtues of positive thinking, and I was uncomfortable with that.  However, most of the time, the book reminded me of what I try to accomplish through meditation, a feeling of unity and oneness while at the same time retaining the cognitive skills needed to do the work in the world that needs to be done. I found it hopeful and helpful.