"Altered Carbon" and the Clash of Emotion and Reason

Source: Amazon

Have you ever read a novel set in a vastly different world, only to find that the characters are a lot like us?

I just finished reading Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. It is a cyberpunk murder mystery set far in the future, in a universe where people can digitally move their minds into different bodies. For interstellar travel, they have a way to instantly transmit their minds into new bodies on other planets.

The main character is Takeshi Kovacs (the "cs" is pronounced like a "ch). Kovacs is a former Envoy, a kind of supersoldier/spy trained to fight in any body. He also has an almost perfect memory, as well as the ability to set aside emotions and think rationally whenever he chooses to. 

How are real-world humans anything like Kovacs? He is an extreme case of the struggle between reason and emotion that goes on inside us all. Kovacs was abused as a child, abused in his military training, and forced to commit atrocities in war while his friends died painfully all around him. At heart, he is a traumatized person who wants to make the world a better place so that others will not suffer as he has. Balancing his desire for a better world is his rigid conditioning, which periodically trickles through him like cold water, turning him into a highly intelligent investigative killing machine.

Most of us here in the real world have been through less trauma. We are able to use logic, but we don't turn into human machines. We do, however, sometimes have to choose between our feelings and our logic. Like Kovacs, we can't always follow our hearts.

Kovacs often thinks back to something his commanding officer once said: “In the Envoy Corps, you take what is offered. And that must sometimes be enough.” For Kovacs, this means that he follows his heart when he can, leading to everything from steamy sex scenes to bids for revenge to acts of kindness.

In our own lives, we should also follow our hearts. I don't recommend having a fight to the death in the name of vengeance, but the world could certainly use more acts of kindness, not to mention more steamy sex scenes.

Tuesday TED Talk: The Happy Secret to Better Work

This week's TED talk is Shawn Achor's The Happy Secret to Better Work. It is a fast-paced talk with a sense of humor. It also teaches some valuable lessons.

Background

I first came across this TED talk about a year ago. It has stuck with me since then, helping me remember to find the positive in my everyday life. I hope you will find it as useful as I have.

Achor starts the talk with a funny story from his childhood. I won't spoil it here, but the takeaway is that thinking of something that makes you happy can take your mind off of pain. He goes on to explain that our culture is often too focused on the negative.

Next, Achor describes his experiences studying positive psychology. His use of anecdotes and humor is very engaging. Even if the video had ended halfway through the talk, I would have come away feeling entertained.

Your Brain at Positive

Achor observes that our culture has a tendency to "push happiness over the cognitive horizon." We say we will be happy when we get good grades. When we get good grades, we say we will be happy when we get into a good school. Then, the goal becomes getting a good job. Then, it's getting a better job. We say we will be happy once we achieve success, but we keep moving the goal post.

What we are missing is something called the happiness advantage. Achor explains it this way: "your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed." We have the order reversed. You don't become successful first, then become happy. You learn to be happy, and then you can achieve success.

Being happy now is easier said than done, especially if you are poor or have health problems like I do. Achor offers some solutions. Practices like meditation, random acts of kindness and journaling about positive experiences can help. Don't push happiness over the horizon, and you will get there sooner.

Meditation, Depression and Happiness

I took a tae kwon do class in kindergarten, back before my parents even knew I had muscular dystrophy. Needless to say, I never progressed very far in martial arts. It was a great learning experience for me, however.

I started to learn the difference between left and right. By imitating the row of kids facing my row, I was able to punch with my left hand. I couldn't do a roundhouse kick, but I could at least use the correct leg when I tried.

My Bad Meditation Experience

That tae kwon do class was also my first experience with meditation. At the beginning of class, we were told to sit cross-legged and close our eyes for five minutes. We had to try not to think of anything during that time.

I hated those five minutes. They seemed to take forever. I could never manage to stay still for that long, so I always got scolded. At the end of the school year, I hoped I would never have to meditate again.

It wasn't until college that I attempted to make meditation a part of my daily life. I learned about Zen Buddhism in a Religious Studies class, and I wanted to try zen meditation for myself. I joined a zen meditation student group, and I began to meditate on my own as well.

I tried very hard to get something out of meditating. It was restful, but it never improved my mood. It even seemed to make me depressed. Before long, I gave up the practice. It wasn't until a few years later that I discovered what the problem had been.

How I Came Back to Meditation

I became very depressed after college. Although I had a vague goal of being a therapist, I was bored. I was taking classes to get into graduate school, but mostly I just regretted not having started sooner. I thought about my limited life expectancy with muscular dystrophy, and it seemed pointless to try to do anything.
When I started to have suicidal thoughts, I got help. I went to a therapist and got on antidepressants. In the process, I learned what had been making it so hard for me to meditate.

In college, I had avoided depressing thoughts by keeping busy. When I stopped to meditate, I felt depressed because that was my underlying state of mind. Meditation wasn't making me depressed; it was making me aware of how depressed I already was.

In the past few months, I have finally started taking meditation seriously again. I do it for at least ten minutes almost every day. It makes me happier and more relaxed. Meditation wasn't enough to stop my clinical depression, but now that I am better, meditation helps me stay that way.

If you aren't making progress in your meditation practice, there may be something wrong. Are you too stressed, angry or depressed to concentrate? If you have this problem consistently, get help! Don't try to face it alone. You need a support system of friends or family, and in some cases you may need therapy or medication. When you meditate, you get to know yourself better. If you see a problem when you look inside your mind, don't ignore that feeling. You might be trying to tell yourself something.

Being the Happiest Person in the World

When I was in high school, I took singing lessons from a man named Jason. He came to my house once a week for a one-hour session. He was a fiddle player, but he thought of himself as a teacher of musical thinking.

Musical Thinking and Mindfulness

What he meant by "musical thinking" was this: a philosophy about life and music that allows a musician to play or sing well while staying relaxed. Jason's concept of musical thinking was my first introduction to the practice of mindfulness. "Always think," he would say, "and when you think, first, think about relaxing."

Before I went away to college, Jason told me a story about himself. "When I was younger," he said, "I wanted to be the best violinist in the world." Over time, however, he met many violinists who were better than he would ever be.

The realization that he could not be the best violinist in the world was hard for him. Then, he had an idea: instead of trying to be the best violinist in the world, he would make it his goal to be the happiest person in the world. Because happiness is impossible to quantify precisely, he could never know for sure how happy he was in comparison to other people. Comparing himself to others was no longer a factor. Instead, he was free to concentrate on his own happiness.

Lessons that Stand the Test of Time

When I studied music theory and singing in college, I began to question the value of my lessons with Jason. Why had I spent so much time learning to sing the words of a song as if I were telling a story? Why hadn't I worked on improving my ability to sing from written music? Wasn't Jason's idea of musical thinking just a waste of time?

In various singing groups, I was taught that some of the techniques I had learned from Jason were frivolous at best. Growling to improve my ability to sing low notes? Associating colors with solfeggio syllables? These things, I was told, were not worth doing.

Years later, music is no longer so important to me. I only read music when I am helping my five-year-old daughter play the recorder. I can't sing very well because I need a ventilator to help me breathe. Music theory and advanced singing techniques simply don't have a place in my life anymore.

Mindfulness, however, is a skill that I still use every day. I still work to stop comparing myself to others. I try to be, if not the happiest person in the world, then the happiest person I can be. In the end, what I learned from Jason is more important to me than any other musical training I ever received.