a word of caution to those with lesser amounts of dopamine

In general, there isn’t much in this world that can get me down – many of you have heard me explain this fortuitous fact in biological terms (as I tend to explain everything) as probably having an unusually high amount of dopamine circulating through my system. I’m that girl who skips down hallways when no one is watching and who feels exhilaration at the slightest provocation.

Knowing this about myself, I thought that not going home for the holidays this year was going to be, if not a piece of cake, but at least, not the end of the world. I had an experiment I really wanted to start and finish ASAP and so I decided to make the sacrifice of missing out on Christmas in the hopes of getting another paper soon. Big mistake.

I have NEVER not gone home for the holidays and Christmas has always been special in my family. I soon realized that nothing in the world could make me not feel family-lonely during the most family oriented period of the year.

It didn’t matter that I got my experiment done smoothly, spent any time I could spare with friends, and baked dozens of cookies.

I still found myself tearing up to heart-warming stories on CBC radio and This American Life Podcasts, smiling creepily at random happy looking families on the street, and consuming dozens of cookies.

On the plus side, I spent some of my time volunteering at a soup kitchen and that was probably the nicest thing I have done in a long time. Also, any non-personally consumed cookies were distributed heartily among friends.

So in short, while I have no doubts that everyone will survive a family-free Christmas, my recommendation would be to avoid it if at all possible.

even grandpa didn’t need meat

Those of you who know me know that my favourite news source is the BBC. They provide, in my opinion, the most balanced view of current events of all the other popular news sources out there.

This morning I stumbled upon one more reason to love the BBC – there is apparently a BBC Ethical Man (how this escaped my attention is beyond me, or an indication of the fact that I am not the world’s most observant person)! The focus of this year’s ethical dilemma is, no surprise, climate change.

As part of the ethical challenge, him and his family spent a year trying to cut their carbon emissions and in today’s article he writes about how cutting out meat from our diets is something many of us believe that we should do but never get around to actually doing. See link to his article below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/12/think_before_you_carve.html

He points out several important issues in support of becoming vegetarian (or at the minimum substantially cutting down on the amount of meat in your diet), not least of which is the global food crisis. I’m not sure whether the average person is aware, but the global food crisis stems not from an inability on the earth’s part to grow enough food to feed the global population, but rather from the fact that so much of the food that is produced is not actually consumed by humans but are used to fatten up the animals that we feed on.

As a recent vegetarian convert (but one who has debated the issue for years), I myself wonder why something that should be relatively simple (as long as we are still eating something we won’t starve) is something that so many people have a moral/ethical dilemma with?

Of course, I understand that meat can be delicious, but really so are vegetables and fruits. And plain laziness is just not a good excuse. So what else is stopping us?

On my own part, I guess I thought that switching from an omnivore to a herbivore was against human nature, but really when I think about it, humans, just like every other animal are constantly evolving so just because our ancestors survived on one strategy doesn’t mean that that is the currently most fit strategy. In fact, if remaining omnivorous leads to climate change and the ultimate demise of the planet, then this is actually an evolutionary dead-end!

For others, it might be a cultural thing. But again, cultural shifts are both natural and expected. Furthermore, if all of us reduced our meat intake, then we could still retain those special holidays for feasting on special meat fare.

It’s funny because I’ve found that many people seem concerned for my health when I tell them that I have recently gone vegetarian. Frankly, as long as you are conscious of what foods you need to replace the protein and other nutrients normally found in meat its perfectly fine. In fact, I really haven’t found it to be so difficult at all!

on curiosity

This years winner of the Holberg Prize (established to increase awareness of the value of academic scholarship) – Ian Hacking – a Professor of Philosophy at U of T – wrote a very interesting article entitled Curious about Curiosity.

As humans, we are all innately curious but where does that curiosity stem from? In essence why does it serve only to perpetuate itself such that the discovery of one thing leads to questions about something else?

He sites an excerpt from a children’s book called Me! by William Saroyan – the premise being that in the beginning there was only one word “me”, and people went around saying “me me me” and nothing else until they discovered “you” and because there was now two, there could be more, and the people started finding out more.

Hacking then goes on to argue that we had to find out how to find out – in other words the emergence and expansion of curiosity has had the single biggest impact on the planet than anything else we have ever done! I concur.

In this day and age of exponential information growth the problem to me now seems to be how we manage this knowledge so that we continue to channel positivity from our curiosity.

A discouraging example would be the recent exposure of “suspect” emails about climate change from the University of East Anglia. While this likely stemmed from someone’s simple curiosity it has led to a Pandora’s Box like explosion of a media frenzy and has led some less informed members of the general public/political circle to doubt the FACT of global warming. Just because information is novel does not mean that it should automatically override years of well formulated facts.

In other words it is easy to be curious but what is not easily resolved is how we make use of the knowledge we garner from our curiosity. This is where I think it is important to have what Hacking’s terms “curiosity about curiosity itself”. In order to tackle this issue we must have a basic understanding of two things:

1)the cultural and sociological tools developed over time to use to assist in our discovery of ourselves and the world/phenomena around us

2) the nature of our curiosity, for good or for evil, for the individual or for the people?

Only then will we be able to perpetuate curiosity in a noble light.

See below for a copy of the original article by Ian Hacking:

P.S. I tried to find a copy of Me! on the internet but failed – I really would like to read the whole thing

something big…

This song summarizes my sentiments at the moment.

I think I might have a problem currently with wanting to do too many completely different things at once  but I can’t help it – I am who I say I am and tomorrow someone else entirely – props to anyone who knows which book that quote is from.

Here is some more trivia,this time from a song:

“I wish I had two paths to follow, I’d write the ending without any sorrow”.

Anyways, I realize that this is starting to sound a bit depressing but really I am quite cheerful =). Because busy me = cheerful me and judging from the amount of scribble in my agenda, and the number of minutes I’ve spent idle, cheerfulness levels are actually at an all time high!?!

talent is universal, opportunity is not

I first started reading Nicholas Kristof’s column due to his stance on education as the frontier to opportunity – a view that I strongly believe in. Sadly, I have passed the eligible age of being able to apply for the Win a Trip with Nicholas Kristof contest.

Nicholas’ latest Op-Ed column tells the story of a Zimbabwean women who recently earned her PhD degree after triumphing against poverty, an abusive husband (who she nonetheless nursed in his final days of battling AIDS), and almost no early education. Oh, and she also brought up 5 children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/opinion/15kristof.html?_r=1

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the statement “talent is universal, opportunity is not” at first – only because the definition of talent, and my personal view of it, has always been something possessed by relatively few people. But of course, I often forget that talent is multifaceted and therefore, everyone is talented in their own unique aspects. But I digress.

Why is it that it is so universally admirable to see someone triumph over adversity? And why, when we know that it is never impossible to achieve the “impossible”, do so many of us still choose not to triumph – especially those at the opposite end of the spectrum, who possess both talent and opportunity but who choose not to employ either? Is it because we “couldn’t care less” or is it because it is the easy way out?

I cannot fathom an answer to this one yet – but it strikes me that it is because fortitude is not an innate quality. So then, how can we go about cultivating fortitude? More importantly, is it possible to learn to face things with fortitude without having been placed in a difficult position in the first place? Which reminds me of the fact that i’ve always hated the saying “at least you’ll come out of it stronger” because it implicitly states that in order for anyone to achieve something positive, we must have the negative.

Anyways, I have thought about this for a long time and am still trapped within a labyrinth of confusion.

On a lighter note, I also still have not figured out what I am talented at yet – although I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be weight-lifting.