A Dog to Think About

As he came down the stairs to get his glasses, he saw his dog in the shadows; a wagging tail emerging from a lighted background, she came forward and revealed herself. An instant awareness; a sense of calmness. Seeing his dog like that, coming out from the nothingness of his prior conceptions.

He instantly feels her sense of need. Looking up at him; her face shows a earnestness, as if to say "I need your help". And I can't help but notice it; I want to notice. I feel in me the same thing I see in her: a basic neediness. My own neediness; the vulnerability I feel is intrinsic to the human condition.

Ugliness; Aging; Death. They produce feelings in us; existential, commonly held; metaphorically luminous. We react to the world in categories: good and bad, and we move from there. So we all face it; we all embody within us a dueling dichotomy; "this" facing "that"; and we categorize, cause the categorizing feels soothing.

But then the personality forms around false mental constructions; categories is mindless; and we do it only because the pull to 'be only good' causes us to deny the bad; weakness; shame; empathy; woman; homosexuals; animals; the earth; disabled. And the lure from here is aggressive domination; living in fear; of threat - of others who compete. And the possibility of love and sacrifice for the other is crippled.

Odd though, since the other is ourselves. When we become aware of ourselves, are we not an "other" to our observing awareness? And doesn't this represent an ontological "distance" from the contents of experience? It's from here that we should act; from here, that if were wise, we recognize our fundamental and mysterious essence: effectivity

The age of old argument between nature and nurture has been boiled down to this: life is formed by impinging circumstances: mothers diet and state of health; her environmental context while pregnant; foods she eats and her general stress levels; birth; early life relational patterns - etc - and all of this becomes hardwired in our human brain as built connections between specific neuronal systems; protein production; molecular receptor variation between neurons etc - all this represents the subjective experience of the person, influenced from without, one can almost say that the entire process is determined by environment.

But then at around maturity (20-30) the human brains prefrontal cortex reaches full maturity; connections between cortical and subcortical areas is increased - which is felt consciously as a deeper self awareness; an ability to pay attention and show interest in the workings of your own mind; in greater maturity, a the cortices can even come to control lower brain stem regions; interact directly, through a subtle human awareness, basic homeostatic energy regulatory functions: the source of our body's metabolic allocation. Here. At this point. The human mind can switch 'on' or 'off'. It can choose to generate a level of metabolic function that essentially 'ignores' existing molecular and neuronal networks that support a baseline cognitive-emotional function (say, dissociation), and 'switch' the system, all at once, to a different cognitive-emotional dynamic.

Free will turns things on or off. It's a switchboard of the 'system' that is our internal reality. The information we take from 'without' and encode within our brains as a particular homeostatic psychosociobiological way of being. How we seem; how we feel. Impressed in the various brain regions; orbitofrontal cortex (attentional processes) with few connections between itself and the insula (for emotional regulation), the brainstem (for dopamine, acetylcholine; the brain area where excitatory neurotransmitters are synthesized). The system should run its course. That's what determinism says. That's what the selfish gene theory says.

Yet, here I am, quite ably, and quite consciously, orienting my mind to a perspective, again and again, knowing and thinking at every moment that I am 'changing my brain' - disusing cacostatic receptors and building up homeostatic receptors.

What is this wave, the mysterious force, which directs the brains activities? It's not merely the inertia of motivational systems and environmental cue interactions; although this exists and we exist through these systems, something more is there; something above and directing attention - whenever it brings to mind its ability to do so. To recognize ability is to encompass it in some important ontological way. And we do it. The argument cannot go beyond that brute fact.

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I pick up her bowl, go to the fridge, and the entire time i am happy I can help her. She is needy. I am needy. I feel the strain of existence. I do not know - in certainty, what it all means; whether this is it. I am needy of support and comfort. I am needy of the existence of love.

Seeing it in her: need, I am compelled by a mysterious force, as if uniting my need with her need, and filling it with love; with compassion; with the heart: in the center of my body, in the center of my physiological being.

There is a cosmic dialectical symmetry of opposites in the world. Were each individual body's; Yet were filled with the same subjective experience of being 'singular'. We know each other physically; but inside each of us is uniquely in our own world. We wake from our own dreamscapes; we wake up into the world and to the reality of our existence, every morning.

When I leave the presence of my dog, she goes on existing separate and away; doing something else away from me, she in her own world. I - feeling so separate and fundamentally "by myself", am yet corralled by an immaterial net of spiritual connection. It's perfect, in theory, and as an idea. There is nothing remotely implausible about reality being just as this: but yet another clash of opposites; the finiteness and partiality of human attentional processes; and yet amidst this is this unbelievable, magical reality; completely at one; manifesting at different levels; and at different levels different qualities of reality are presented; the lived realities; the facts of good and the facts of evil. The relationships between ourselves and the relationships with all "others". How will we define that? How will that be?

The physical and material, mysterious chemical manifestation of an evolutionary process that has brought the universe from explosiveness from a singularity to widening multiplicity; from order to greater disorder. Yet the order of life builds itself from the disorder about us. Defying the 2nd thermodynamic law, it somehow begins, and its beginning and growth it defies - defies - the meaning of existing, pushing forward, taking up more of reality, from the simple cell which absorbs nutrients from "without", man, the most evolved, must learn to find it's sustenance in contemplating the 'without'; the illusory disconnect of physical distinctions; the dialectical quality - the evisceration of this or that, into both, and in this way; and with this principle as appropriate in this context.

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I stand above her as she laps her water up to her mouth. I watch her from up above, both figuratively and literally, I think about how she does it; how much she must love me; how synchronized our beings feel; a change in my tone and speech will shift her being into one of threat and fear. If I move again, push my system into one of vital connection, of love, kindness, compassion and playfulness, she'll move with me; excited to return to the safety of my loving gaze.

To be safe for her, to be a home for her, psychologically and literally. So that when she sees me she sees a good world; a good human being (however that is 'understood' by her). I am, in a sense, acting out my own need for a God, for a holder, for her. Dog - God. Coincidence or not, metaphor for a relational dialectic  or not. I find my relationship with her, and with all others, to be very meaningful

Reviews

[AprilRN1210]

our relationships and connections are so much deeper than just the level of "love" and respect.. I like how you delve into the basic scientific, psychological, biological, and philosophical aspects of the interactions/reactions that happen from second to second from before birth.. how it shapes us into "us" and how it wires the circuits to think and behave a certain way.. you always seem to satisfy the hunger for more in me with your writing.. I always walk away feeling like I learned something or got to see a deeper part of you.. you know I am such a fan of your writing.. thank you for sharing with me.. another awesome piece..

[Mike Defreitas]

And this is precisely why I love sharing my writing with you! You're so attentive! So open to the other persons mind as you read what they write.

I am, as you can tell, intensely interested in this area of reality. And the real exciting this for me is how it's a rather recent phenomena; nothing in prior human history matches up with the depth of insight that contemporary mankind has gained of itself. From interpersonal and relational psychonanaylsis - as well as object relations theory - we learn that our 'inner world' is built from our relationships with the outer world; it's precisely this 'dialectic' of self with object that seems to function within the human unconscious/brain. From the early relational experiences, our 'intrapsychic' structure influences our attentional processes: we now 'seek' things - unconsciously - according to what is deemed "good" by our brains: relationships that have been historically 'good' for us. For the pathological and 'insecurely attached' person; this could mean paying attention to guys who act in a way that was historically felt to be 'meaningful' to you; that is, an abusive father will cause a girl to seek an abusive boyfriend; a social reclusive relationally traumatized will only pay attention to those things which he has found some adaptive 'wellbeing' in i.e. avoiding people and enjoying exclusive activities. The friends we choose? Again, unconsciously, our relational unconscious' guide us to what we will 'like'; not necessarily what is good for us.

Epigenetics has revealed that much of what we call "nature vs. nurture" is really the combined influence of both; relational environmental experiences will cause the brain to develop in a predictable way; negligence will cause a child to 'damper' down his emotions; the upper brain, mid brain and reptilian brain (brain stem nuclei) will now favor an 'attractor state' that is lower interest in environment; which means, in translation brain stem areas will not provide the glucose for subcortical (emotional) and cortical (attentional) processes. Thus, the insecurely attached person will have little interest in socializing, completely lost to the fact that his neurobiology had been sabotaged by early life brain development: 75% of which occurs post-natally; all the neurons are there, but the axonal connections do not yet exist; development is the "elaboration" of a social-attuned brain. Particular molecular and interneuronal connections are 'established' in this period. Since 'happiness' and a 'secure attachment' is the result of an attuned early life relationship with the mother, a person who developed along this pathway will have an altogether different molecular 'connectivity' within their brain them someone else; the lowest regions communicate with the upper regions on the right side; the oribtofrontal cortex - where attentional processes are situated - richly enervate and communicate with the amygadal and ultimately the entire brain stem, affording the 'thinker' the ability to 'regulate' their emotional responsiveness; to get out of negative states more easily than people who've had traumatic upbringings. It is their brain, and the relationsips they had with signicant others, that determined this neurobiological foundation.

That, for me, is utterly incredible.

This has always been the case. The argument "nature or nurture" is OVER. It's both; and it's not genetic either; but epigenetic: methylation markers that turn genes 'on' or off, amongst other epigenetic forces that shape how we think and feel.

I cannot but be amazed by this all. Humanity has come a far way - to a point where we now known that relationship experiences 'imprint' information into our neurons; and even affects how our genes will come to express themselves! We discovered this by working with rats; and determining what effects mother-pup relationships create in the pups brain. What was what I mentioned earlier; the presence of 'epigenetic' forces that determined how the genes - and thus, the cellular processes - functioned. Trauma is learned; not something that is just 'given'. Although variation in suspectibility exists; its transgenerational focus is no longer genes (or not solely; jay belsky at UCLA does research in gene alleles for different neurochemicals in influencing how personality) but the stuff that attaches to genes and affects their expression.

This basically means, the future is in our hands. The simple 'nature vs. nurture' dichotomy is bunk. If we want a better world, we must learn to think differently so that we can enculaturate future generations differently. And with a differetn education comes a different neurobiology; and thus a different culture.

Its a slooowwwww process, no doubt, but were heading closer to a world far better than the one we have today; that is, unless we truly do destroy our planets biosphere and condemn our species to extinction.