Blog Dis

In the beginning, your brain could barely string together two vowels or consonants, much less a complete sentence with verbs, nouns and predicates. In the beginning, your brain was at its formative stage, during which the gentle guidance of loving parents had taken the time to teach you right from wrong. The amygdala is the part of your brain that controls emotions like rage, lust, and joy and all the other super intense feelings that propel us to behave in a sometimes unpredictable fashion. For a baby― not yet fully developed physically, much less emotionally― is the prime example of a brain in its infant stage; hence why babies respond to stimuli with aggressive reactions like crying, throwing temper tantrums, spitting out food and yelling nonsense.

Then everything changes as you grow from baby to snot-nosed brat, followed by the unruly and all-knowing pre-teen, to be upgraded to the impossibly stupid teenager and eventually, assuming at this point your parents haven't disowned their offspring, you reach the fabulously wonderful stage of adulthood. At this point, all should be peachy-keen because by now your brain has grown to its full capacity, to be able to differentiate between the moral pitfalls of good and bad. Indeed, adulthood has its pluses and minuses; the pluses being able to walk into a store and fill your cart with as many booze bottles as your pocketbook can handle or engaging in adult behaviour like seeking out a squeeze to launch an 'adult-like' relationship based on a conciliatory attitude toward each other. But adulthood is not all smiles and glowing moonlight. The elements of adulthood are unforgiving, to my mind, because you can't go back in time to declare, "I wanna be a baby again, do everything differently...". On the contrary, you have to accept that being an adult means you must approach life's challenges and opportunities with precision, taking responsibility for your decisions, taking the reins to control your life to pursue your dreams, while taking care not to step on the toes of others and their dreams.

It all sounds so simple, doesn't it? It should be simple. In fact, however, and as we all know, it's anything but simple. The world of adulthood is rife with poor behaviour, whereby adults with a malformed amygdala can make your life a living hell. I keep this foremost in my mind: adults are efficient at stacking up lies like cordwood, especially in the business world, where deceit and backstabbing are often more quickly rewarded than honesty. Adults are duplicitous, and cunning, conniving, and selfish. The corporate environment attracts corporate sociopaths and narcissists. I need to also remind myself, at this point, that adults have a plentitude of good traits too.

Babies are loved because of their vulnerability and they represent the need for parents to nurture and protect. And then we become adults and suddenly our need to nurture is replaced with the need to murder: ideals and dreams, eco-systems and political beliefs, to name a few. You'd think the brain would self-destruct if it went off course and took down with it everyone in its path. Not so. In the insane mind of a serial killer, the base emotions promulgated in the amygdala react according to how it was designed in the first place — to please itself, to ensure its survival. Try teaching that reality to a baby before they become an adult. I've argued before with some friends that babies are not born evil. Babies are merely taught from the outset to believe what they believe, which is dependent upon whether their parents as teachers had embraced adult-like beliefs that are rooted in morality and equality.

The ol' argument of nature vs nurture has been disproven by top psychologists insofar that this myth is neither one nor the other, but a combination thereof. This means that if your environment was nurturing growing up, and depending on how your amygdala developed, whereby your brain doesn't worry about the consequences of your actions, as most of us do, you'll grow into a fine adult, who might pursue a high-risk career like deep-sea rescue, or fire fighting, etc., where the absence of worry works in your favour. And that means if your environment growing up as a child was anything but nurturing, and your amygdala, which is responsible for fear, had developed without excessive worry your life path will deviate towards more violence, carrying out acts of violence without concern for any consequences.

This life, at times, feels scary. That's why some adults find it soothing to immerse themselves in the world of fantasy, to ease the pain of being an adult who copes with the unpredictable range of different adults. I ask myself if all the above rings true, then why as children are we in such a rush to become adults? When I was 18 years old, I resented being called a kid until one of my parents was quick to point out that when I'd get older, I'd relish being called a kid. [How true!]. My paternal grandmother, on the other hand, and when asked about the stupidity of some adults, well past the stage of mid-life, would matter-of-factly state, "To be sure, that idiot is still finding themselves."

Behave like an adult but don't be an idiot-adult and surely, don't behave like a violent adult.

I let my coat drop to the ground. I spread out my arms wide and once more I was flying like an eagle, catching hot air, engaging in an activity what an ornithologist would call thermal soaring. I felt empowered, and at ease, tipping my arms and body to change directions and speed. That is perhaps the best kind of reckless flying, in dreams, in the realm of the subconscious, which apparently, and according to my dream interpretations book, is trying to tell me that I really want to escape, that I need to escape or whatever it is that my sleeping brain wants to avoid.


Read More

The reddest red ribbon was tightly wrapped around the box, placed with delicate care next to the man, houseless, who was bundled up in a sleeping bag, on the pavement, of an apartment building in the downtown city centre, where the vent blasted out a steady supply of heat. I walked past the man and noticed the box because it stuck out like a sore thumb. My first thought was obvious, Santa has come calling before December 25 and I was impressed with his timeliness. Our temps dropped dramatically last evening and it surely feels like a crisp -18 Celsius (that's 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit). For some, the bounty of Christmas is a daily affair, what with their cars and food and clothes and palatial homes. For the less fortunate, however, Christmas came and went years past and no one gives a flying hoot.


Read More

Quality of character is highly desired amongst the population of singles, and applicable too to those entering into a relationship. However, defining the ideal quality of character is what I call an intangible, something that can't readily be perceived by the act of touching, looking, or tasting. I think most could agree with that statement. I've observed one distinct difference: women look for the intangible in men, whereas men look for the tangible in women — physical beauty that comes with a welcoming smile and a willing spirit. We women are often regarded by men as complicated, whether this quality of character is indoctrinated into us or we're born with it is a statement that forever remains open to argument.


Read More

The thing with depression is... well... it's very depressing. I'm repeating this glib statement with a grain of trepidation because I don't want to give more power to the matter of depression than is absolutely necessary. Many have fallen into depression's vice grip. But that is precisely the expression my mom used when I was a kid, "The thing with depression is that it's very depressing." Her take is a smarty-pants dismissive to diffuse a serious situation, a state of mind that some endure daily. As an author, I fall prey to depressive moods, after the completion of a novel. Once the first draft is in the can, and before handing off to an editor, a wave of depression comes over me that I believe occurs because my brain is no longer getting a dopamine hit from the act of creating.


Read More

For when we love, we open our innermost selves and reveal our hearts, let those around us into that heartland of secrecy and change the landscape of our life. For when we love, we are more than just ourselves because our love escapes the confines of mind and body and is given elsewhere, to a person, an animal, a project, an activity or a sense of well being. Yet, love ultimately becomes loss. It is the inevitability of love to transform from bliss into a state of loss, either through death, separation, indifference or despair. The loss is the sting at the end of the scorpion's tail, reminding you that love has its price (like everything).


Read More

My sweet niece, when she was all of six years old, would often switch up one word for another far more comical, which gave me no end of delight. Whenever she became sick, she would declare over the phone, "Auntie Patti, I'm dick," to which I'd reply, "Oh my! I'm so sorry my darling that you're not feeling well." She would then reinforce her reaction to her state of health, "I don't like being dick." Indeed, who does? My niece, like all kids, was very dick at times going to school and only someone who is dick can attest to the awfulness of being dick, which is how I felt for most of November, very dick.


Read More

Would you allow a surgeon to cut you open to insert silicone breast implants, sew you up, all for the sake of having bigger boobs? The industry term is called augmentation. The reality is image brainwashing — women who feel they will be better loved or more beautiful if their bodies were only more perfect. As far as plastic surgery is concerned, 92% of all cosmetic procedures carried out in the U.S. are being done on women. Men seem to know better or are more grounded in their perception of their bodies and henceforth have greater self-esteem.


Read More