Serenity Through Sweat

Tactics

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This is one of my favorite (and incidentally my wife’s least favorite) time of the year. It’s tour season.

The Tour de France that is. The grand daddy of classic bike races that spans 21 days of self inflicted punishment across the natural beauty of the French countryside.

There is a special place in my heart for endurance athletes, fellow sadists, doing objectively silly things solely in the name of glory. Who really needs to ride that many miles in the name of personal aggrandizement?

But within any challenge or any game there are tactics. And the best tacticians can adjust in real time as it becomes necessary and suits them.

I’m enjoying a store picked single barrel bourbon from Lexington that I picked up on a layover a few weeks ago. There is an undeniable similarity between the bourbon and the the tour replay I’m watching. The smooth pedal strokes of the professional cyclists dancing up the Col du Galibier, (The highest pass in the TDF), match the smooth amber liquid. Yet, there is a subtle burning that lingers in the background. The natural beauty passing through the French Alps . The confluence of nature from the corn, rye, barley, and charred oak. The internal struggle as the lactic acid accumulation begins to burn. The ethanol’s pungent reminder that beauty is not without it’s cost

As I’m watching this stage on my short La Guardia layover, I’m reminded of game nights with my brother and my father. I come from a family that plays a lot of cards. Euchre, hearts, and pinochle, and board games like risk, monopoly, and anything else where variable strategies and adjusting tactics are rewarded.

The ability to start with a a tactical plan, and adjust those tactics based on real world scenarios is a skill I admire In the professional bike riders. It is also a skill I sought to develop in those family game nights. It is an aspect I look for when buying new games. (Which I do frequently, much to my wife’s chagrin)

A strategy is the plan of action, where you want to go. Tactics describe a procedure or set of maneuvers engaged in to achieve an end, an aim, or a goal. tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there.

In the middle of a battle, bike race, or board game or card game as it were, your strategy doesn’t change, your tactics do.

The Tour de France is broken up into 21 stages. The overall leader based on cumulative time wears the yellow jersey. Within each stage are sprint points and mountain climbs. There is also a competition for the best cumulative time for those riders under 23. Plus each stage is its own race. There is a level of prestige reserved for professional cyclists who win a stage on the tour de France, even if the don’t finish the whole tour.

This leads to the necessity of variable tactics. There are races within races going on. In order to maintain your strategic goals, your tactics might have to change based on how any one of those individual races with the tour is unfolding on a particular day.

You might be trying to protect your lead in the King of the Mountains competition, and end up having to battle the Yellow jersey competitors to do so. The sprint point might be in-between two large climbs, or at the end of a stage. Your path to an individual stage win might risk the attention of the overall competitors chasing you down to keep their overall rankings intact.

The point is, these athletes are able to adjust in real time. Roll with the punches. Start off with one tactical plan, and have the awareness, despite days of self inflicted suffering, to adjust those tactics as necessary.

We talk a lot on this platform about tools. Having the right tool for the job. Tools that I want to equip my boys with. Being able to adjust tactics as a game, competition, (or life for that matter) unfolds, is certainly one of them.

It is one of the many skills I am happy my parents passed on to me, largely through games. It is one of the many reasons I love the Tour. As my toddlers melt down when their “plan” for bedtime routine doesn’t match up with reality, I realize we have a little more work to do towards variable tactics, and serenity.

Knoxville River run and treadmills in LaGuardia

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Trade-Off

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to revisit communication, specifically the trade-offs we make in expressing ourselves.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research about language and communication lately. The more I read the more fascinated I am. The more I read, the more I realize I don’t know. Not only do I not know, but really none of us do.

Our primary means of expression, the mechanics of language that come innately to us as children, are largely a mystery. This, despite the fact that it is fundamental to our existence as humans. The ability to reason, plan, and communicate via language.

I stumbled across the following article in Neuroscience, which described an experiment in language production.

The experiment tested a group of healthy participants, and a group suffering from primary progressive aphasia (PPA). You may recognize that condition, as it was in headlines recently that it is affecting actor Bruce Willis’s career.

The experiment first devised a frequency based method for characterizing syntactic complexity of naturally produced utterances. It then used that method to test the hypothesis that “patients who have difficulty producing complex syntax might choose semantically richer words to make their meaning clear, whereas patients with lexicosemantic deficits may choose more complex syntax”

The participants were asked to describe a picture of a family at a picnic. This is a common assessment used in diagnosing PPA. “Healthy individuals can shift between the use of complex syntactic or complex lexical items, perhaps depending on what is more accessible in the moment or what might facilitate comprehension.”

“The results showed that if a sentence is syntactically complex, it likely incorporates simple words. On the other hand, if a sentence contains more complex words—such as words that are not commonly used—its syntax is more likely to be simple.”

This hypothesis was tested against both the test group (those with PPA) as well as a healthy control group. The results showed a significant correlation (n=79 and n=99) respectively) “suggesting that it may be a general property of the process by which humans turn thoughts into speech.”

There are some “semantically rich” words in there that are really more for neuroscientists and language nerds, so let’s unpack a little bit.

There are two elements of this experiment that struck me as profound. First, any general property by which humans turn thoughts into speech is a significant property. One worth some time to digest. The second, reminded me of teaching, coaching, and parenting.

Teaching and parenting have a great deal of overlap. One of the greatest points of overlap is effective communication. Specifically communication that must be effective over a broad range of topics, ages, and levels of understanding.

Even if you are only teaching one subject, to one grade level, the variety in language comprehension among students can be staggering. As a parent, your effective communication must now span a lifetime, and an endless myriad of topics.

The best teachers, coaches, and parents, are able to effectively communicate their message in a way that is understandable by their ever changing audience. This means seemlesly transitioning between complex syntax and complex lexicon depending on what is more suitable for comprehension.

While this may seem intuitive, and some are certainly more gifted in this areas than others, it is a talent that we admire in the orators and authors we idolize.

Transition between complex syntax and complex lexicon, is a skill that can be developed. It is even fun to do, and has been effectively monetized. Whether they realized their contribution or not, the game developers exploding kittens, capitalized on this very concept with their game poetry for neanderthals.

I bought the game for my wife and I and we played recently during one of our date days. Similar to charades, one person or team will draw a card with a complex lexical term (caveman definition: big word) and then must get their team to guess the word describing it using only one syllable words. If the person uses a word with more than one syllable in their description, they are bopped on the head with the inflatable “NO” caveman club. Must talk like cave man, or else get hit in head.

The rounds are timed and the object is to describe and guess as many big words as possible while speaking like a caveman (simplistic, monosyllabic, but syntactically complex).

As we saw from the experiment, there is an inverse relationship between the complexity of the words used and the syntax. These differing language construction pathways have differing neural pathways. The game forces you to use both interchangeably in rapid succession. Plus you get to hit people with an inflatable club when they screw up.

Being flexible in the way you communicate, being able to engage different neural networks and neural pathways, and finding the best path (semantically or syntactically) to get your point across, is a fascinating phenomenon to study, and one that likely leads to serenity.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Boys

Boys will be boys as the saying goes. This is something that has been at the back of my mind for a long time. Something I have been, and probably still am, unable to effectively articulate. But, the right combination of calorie deficit, morning cardio, bourbon, and this CNN article led me to a state where I wanted to write about it.

I was so hopeful clicking on the article. After all this is something that has been on my mind well before I became a father to two beautiful boys.

I remember standing up in an auditorium my freshman year in college. Arguing with my professor Infront of 50 or 60 strangers that men were capable of being caregivers. Capable of being single caregiver’s at that. That attitudes to the contrary were equally detrimental to the expectations placed on women and men alike.

We agreed to disagree.

My wife and I had a similar argument after a Florence and the machine concert. When Florence took the time in between songs to disparage toxic masculinity I shook my head in disgust. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. My point to my wife, (and to Florence if she is so Inclined to read) and my contention here, if men shouldn’t have a voice in women’s issues, where does Florence get off talking about toxic masculinity?

I digress.

This article had some aspects that were reassuring. “If you come at anyone with a list of everything they do wrong, they are going to get defensive and angry.”

But the article titled “talking to boys about being a boy” took a wrong turn around Albuquerque and turned into “Tell your boys they are not bad simply because they are male. Tell them they can be a part of the movement towards gender equality, and it isn’t just something for girls to talk about it,”

El Duderino and Speedy have no concept of male being “bad” or “toxic”, but they are very aware that they are little boys. Why would my conversation with them about masculinity have to start out with an assertion and proof of a concept that is inherently flawed?

The article had it’s merits. Chief amongst them the admission of the author regarding conversations with her young sons “We never once spoke directly about masculinity or dug into what it means to be a boy or a man.
A big reason for this failure was inadequate vocabulary.”

The article then touts responsibilities and expectations placed on boys, mostly centered around gender equality and inclusivity. These are admirable things and deserve their own discussion. Neither are exclusive to boys. Neither have anything to do with being a boy. One could argue they are the responsibility of a good citizen of the universe, regardless of gender.

I think my biggest problem with the article, (after a nights reflection, I was a little heated when I read it last night) is the title. Call the article “talking to young men about inclusion and equality” and I’m on board. When you call it “talking to boys about being a boy” and then spend very little time or effort to developing that inadequate vocabulary, we are gonna butt heads.

“Aspirational masculinity”, the term coined by Don McPherson, is referenced in the article to help combat the inadequate vocabulary. “a way to engage with men in “a positive and deliberate examination of male identity and the relationships and behaviors of and between men,”

This sounds good. And without having heard McPherson speak I’m sure he has a lot of wonderful things to say on the topic. For the purpose of the CNN article I found it vague and underwhelming. The vocabulary is still very much lacking.

This is one of the questions I have talked about regularly on the blog. One I struggle with and one I am passionate about. When Speedy or El Duderino ask me what it means to be a man I’m not sure how that conversation will go.

While the necessary vocabulary is still lacking I assure you my response will not include “toxic”. There is a necessary time and place in the world for almost every trait that falls under the umbrella of “toxic masculinity”. Aggression, competitiveness, self reliance, and emotional repression. All of these can be beneficial tools.

We’ve previously discussed tools and words on the blog. Having the right one for the job is important. Having improper or inadequate tools makes the task at hand harder. It seems to me that the most well developed boys will have the biggest tool boxes. (Not just a clever ploy to get my wife to sign off on me buying more tools) That includes those tools that some would call toxic, so long as they are used only for the appropriate job.

Talking to boys about being boys, becomes a conversation about expanding the toolbox. What tools are available and when to use them. The fact that not everyone’s toolbox will be the same. That individual skill and precision with a given tool will vary from person to person.

Somehow (for the third or fourth time on the blog) I’m reminded of the toolbox my father gave me as Christmas gift when I was too young to appreciate it. I still have that toolbox. Along with a physical/mental/emotional toolbox that has been crafted and curated by both of my parents and so many other wonderful mentors, coaches, and friends. Full of the tools that I hope to pass on to my boys.

Run. Layover miles in Burlington and Lexington

Most of this was written a week ago and sometimes life gets in the way of this pet project of mine. Still it seems this is as fitting a Father’s Day post as any. Happy Father’s day to all the dad’s out there helping the next generation of boys be the best boys they can be.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

One fish two fish?

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. We have spent quite a few of the recent posts talking about the importance of words. How they change and shape our lives. Sometimes these stories take amusing and unexpected turns.

I’m a sucker for a good dad joke. My favorite dad jokes have some form of double entendre. While the typical association of double entendre is something bawdy or an innuendo, it can also just be a double meaning with one being literal and one being ironic.

When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar.

Who doesn’t love a good dad joke? I found this article the other day that reminded me of this dad joke but turned out to be a whole lot more than I bargained for. When is a bee not a bee? When it’s a fish.

If you have the time, click on the article because it will make more sense. The headline I saw read “California court rules bees are now fish”. While a Floridian calling California crazy is a pot and kettle situation, this was still a little out there. However when I clicked on the headline it took me to the article linked above which provides the requisite details.

In order to use existing environmental protection laws to protect bees, a group of California judges ruled that bees are included under the California Endangered Species Act. The act does not protect the bees but rather protects “native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant.”

The law further defines “fish” as “a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals.” The judges noted that many of the protected classes under “fish” are not in fact fish, and that the terrestrial invertebrate bees would qualify under the protections extended to invertebrates.

It should be noted that a previous judge decided that “invertebrates” being under the subset of “fish” applied only to marine invertebrates and therefore bees were not protected.

There is a lot to unpack here. Bees being protected seems like a good thing to do. Maybe writing the correct language into the law is a better strategy than interpreting “fish” all willy nilly. California is still a little crazy (I know pot and kettle)

Just like our discussion on “sanitation” words are important. Definitions are important. The way that we intend our words to be taken can have a significant real world impact on our lives. (Or the lives of terrestrial invertebrates, as it were)

What is also important is a willingness to interpret those words and intentions based on a desired goal. Saving bees is certainly a noble and worthwhile pursuit. The classical question arises, do the ends justify the means?

If bees can be fish (albeit a little bit of an oversimplification) what other language and protections can be reinterpreted? If a new end is deemed to be a noble and worthwhile enough pursuit, the reinterpretation of something more close to home could easily be justified. Something that has more impact on our everyday lives than classification of terrestrial invertebrates.

Words mean what we intend them to mean, not what we decide later on that they mean in order to justify a new position. This is literally the foundation that our civilization is based on.

Without communication, without meaning, and without intention, there can be no civilization. And, there can certainly be no serenity.

A lot of miles and elevation while learning a new airplane

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Chronic

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I’m finishing up training on my new aircraft and trying to squeeze in some research work I came across the concept of synchronic vs. diachronic language. It is an important distinction, and one that I wanted to share.

Last week we talked about philology. The study of language and words as they change through time. Philology has a focus on determination of intent. What did the chosen words mean at the particular time of use, and what did the author or orator intend to communicate?

Philologist are concerned more with validation and interpretation of documents and texts. Etymologists focus on the origin and development of words, which brings us to today’s focus.

Diachronic: of or concerned with phenomena, such as linguistic features, as they change through time.

Synchronic: of or concerned with phenomena, such as linguistic features, or of events of a particular time, without reference to their historical context.

Linguists have figured out (at least in an academic sense since I don’t actually know any linguists) that a word’s meaning and communication intent change over time. The same word does not have the same meaning as time flows and cultures shift.

Studying how words change through time (diachronic) is interesting. It reveals a lot about the people using those words. How their communication needs shift with new technology, cultural norms, and ideas. How those words need to evolve or be created to meet those needs.

The study of words under a synchronic frame is a much harder task if you take the definition at face value. Like taking a Polaroid picture but ignoring how everything got into place. It is studying in a time bubble.

We would never examine a person this way. If someone makes a decision or initiates some sort of action. That action is not examined in a bubble, but rather in the context of the person’s history. How were they raised? What kind of transformative experiences have they had? What kind of learning, friends, hobbies, are they engaged in? What type of people do they associate with?

The action can only be viewed effectively through these many lenses. There are so many events and factors that lead up to every decision. To ignore them and view decisions in a vacuum seems at best a disservice, and at worst an intentional misrepresentation.

But with words we have a unique ability to take a snapshot in time. Specifically with regard to communication intent. When words can have multiple meanings across multiple contexts, the communication intention is what matters in a synchronic sense.

Synchronic and diachronic language both have their place in understanding, and they are united by empathy.

“I’m not sure if that move is legal, but I also can’t count that high, so let’s call it a draw” (Speedy, probably*)

You might not agree with someone’s word choice. You may even find a particular word choice incorrect or offensive. However, without knowing the author/speaker’s diachronic and synchronic understanding of the word in question, their communication intention, you have an incomplete set of data to assess.

Empathy and exploration of their intention, finding out how they have chosen words in the past, and what they intended they’re words to convey in the vacuum of a particular communication exchange, while challenging and time consuming. Will ultimately lead to more understanding and serenity.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Philology

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As part of my language and communication project I have been doing a lot of reading. Most of it overly academic, and written solely for the academic community. Every once in a while though, a gem will shine through that affects all of us in a profound way.

I didn’t know what philology was until I was introduced to the word while reading John Marco Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Marco was a scholar who helped translate the Dead Sea Scrolls, and compare them to original source languages, (think Sumerian, Aramaic and Hebrew).

This was very interesting stuff in my mind, but I understand it is a niche audience. But shooting down the federal mask mandate, that might have some mass appeal. Coincidentally, also a task based in language and philology.

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle is the Florida district court judge whose summary judgment declared that the Federal Mask Mandate exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority. To understand why this is pertinent to our discussion of language, a little background information on both the history and timeline of these regulations as well as the legal system are important. (my mother and my wife have often told me I should have been a lawyer, turns out I’m more interested in arguing linguistics, which is more annoying and less lucrative)

The CDC relied heavily on the Public Health Services Act (PHSA) of 1944 as the statutory basis for their authorization to issue mandates to help manage the Covid pandemic. In Mizelle’s decision, she relies in part on the plain language and context of the PHSA to determine if the CDC’s action where in line with the intention of the original act.

While you and I as everyday non legal types might not be familiar with this process, you have probably heard some political pundit or politician say something like “this is what the founding father’s intended”. Same idea here. What did the authors of the PHSA intend with the act? What powers were granted or restrictions placed? And, more importantly for our purposes, what language was used, in what context, and what was it’s meaning at the time of writing?

When examining the plain language and context of the PHSA, the court found that the relevant portions authorized regulations to prevent the spread of diseases for specific limited circumstances: (1) individuals traveling from foreign countries into the States; and (2) for the purposes of “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction. . . and other measures”.

The court referenced the Corpus Linguistics database to verify the meaning of ‘sanitation’ in 1944, and determined it’s primary use was ‘to make things clean’ rather than ‘maintain a level of cleanliness’. The court concluded that “wearing a mask neither sanitizes the people wearing the mask or the conveyance”. There are other procedural and legal issues that are at play, but again they are beyond the scope of this language focused discussion.

Philology is the study of literary texts and of written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. So when Allegro is studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and validating the original Sumerian and its intention before it was translated into Hebrew or Aramaic, he is engaged in a philological task. Judge Mizelle, when referencing the Corpus Linguistic database for the context and meaning of sanitation in 1944, is engaged in a philological task. One that has a tremendous impact on my day to day life in airports.

As I have said often on this platform, and will continue to repeat, words are important. The intention with which they were spoken or written is important. The study and exploration to determine that meaning is a noble and worthwhile pursuit. A pursuit which has an effect on our everyday life via our legal system disproportionately more significant than I think most of us understand.

When analyzing laws and regulations like the PHSA, a single word can change the context, meaning, and intention of a whole section, having major implications. The same is often true for anyone who works in business contracts, or (as this work is sometimes focused) in aviation.

Aviation is heavily regulated and standardized, and most of our processes and procedures need to be approved by the governing body the Federal Aviation Administration or FAA. The FAA, being a federal government agency, is governed by, you guessed it, laws. The Code of Federal Regulations or CFR, is the codifcation of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government. Because the FAA is tasked with governing the aviation industry, the rules it makes become federal law. This is why you hear that it is a federal crime to tamper with lavatory smoke detectors every time you get on an airplane. It also means that a company manual, specifying a company procedure, that has to be approved by a federal regulating (read law making) body, is going to require a specificity of language akin to a federal law or a business contract.

Full blown summer mode in the sunshine state

Words like “may”, “must”, and “shall”, can be easily slipped into the middle of a lengthy and convoluted sentence, in the middle of lengthy and convoluted manual, but they represent, not just a company procedure, but a Federal mandate for how to operate an airplane. So when the captain tells me to select the required flap setting for our takeoff and I reply “flap handle one” instead of “flap lever one”, I am not operating my airplane in accordance with our company, and thus federal, requirements.

While that may seem a bit anal and pedantic, (it definitely is) “flap lever___” is in quotations, and thus is a required call out. There are areas where (as Austin has said) “a certain laxness in procedure is permitted, otherwise no university business would ever get done!”, and where a strict adherence to procedure, no matter how anal or obnoxious, is required.

I am reminded of this important distinction as the instructor smacks my shoulder for the fourth time today for referring to the flap lever as a flap handle, or the thrust levers as the throttles. Learning a new airplane is fun, and I have spent an inordinate amount of time proclaiming the importance of words and meaning. Still even a linguistics nerd like me is more than a little frustrated by the minutiae that we can get hung up on. I can appreciate the origin and necessity, and despise the outcome and how it impacts my life for the next month in training all at the same time.

Language literally creates, shapes, and defines our world. Searching for the original intent and meaning of language then, seems like a natural step toward serenity. One I’m excited to be taking and happy to share with you.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

New relationship

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I mentioned last week that I was training on a new aircraft. This week I want to reflect on that process.

Training on a new aircraft is always an exciting and nerve wracking experience. It is very similar to starting to date someone new. There is an excitement attached to the newness. There is anxiety of the unknown. There is a hope of good things to come in the future together.

My happy little corner in the hotel room for the month

Just like a real relationship you show up with your past baggage. After all, you are getting out of a long term serious relationship with your last airplane. You learned what she liked and what she didn’t like. You learned her strengths and her weaknesses. The areas where you had to help her along, and the areas where she had your back, even when you had screwed something up.

You have to learn all of those things all over again. You have to get to know each other. You have to learn how she reacts to your inputs. What can you do to make her happy, and what you can avoid doing that will make her cranky?

In some cases it is like learning to speak a different language. Talking to your new airplane the way you talked to your old airplane is like calling her the wrong name. Nobody ends up happy, and the reaction is going to be undesirable at best.

On this Mother’s Day Sunday, I count myself very blessed to have strong women in my life. Women who set an example for my boys and I to follow on how to interact with the fairer sex.

Despite my interest in communication, and my academic endeavors into language and theory, this is still an area where I need all the help I can get.

The mother’s in my life have always been there with a firm but kind reminder. My mother was always reminding me, “It’s not just what you say but how you say it.” My wife is a miracle worker with my boys and I, making sure we are communicating with each other in a clear and respectful manner.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what the cornerstone of a new relationship is? Learning how to communicate with each other effectively. Falling into the patterns of familiarity where you know the right questions to ask, and the right answers to give. Where you know what is expected of you and your partner (or airplane as it were) knows what is expected/asked of them.

Regardless of the airplane you are flying, monitoring the flight path and ensuring the safety of flight is largely an exercise in those two questions. What have I asked the airplane to do, and what is it doing?

Have I actually asked it to do what I think I asked it to do? Is it doing what I think it should be doing? If it isn’t doing what I want, why not? Did I not ask the right questions or provide the right inputs?

These are questions I am asking myself on a daily basis here in training, with regards to the new airplane. How much of a better communicator could I be if I took the same approach with my wife and kids? Double checking my inputs before executing. Wouldn’t life be easier if you could try out your words in a temporary flight plan page to see how they look first?

Zwift sweat sessions maintaining my sanity and serenity while training

Training on a new aircraft necessarily takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. Maybe after this new relationship is established, it will help bring some lessons learned and serenity to my existing ones.

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Neoteny

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I made my way up to Atlanta to start training on a new aircraft yesterday. That will probably be a topic for next week. Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to study for that new aircraft on top of my already extensive list of hobbies, projects, and those pesky adult responsibilities like working and being a husband and father. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy, as they say. Which is why I’m thinking about neoteny.

I was introduced to the concept by author Edward Slingeland, in his latest work Drunk how we sipped danced and stumbled our way to civilization.

The book provides a very well thought out and compelling argument supporting the careful use of alcohol in adults. Things like creativity, lateral thinking, team building and trust are some of the positive outcomes that are enhanced with responsible alcohol consumption. These are not just anecdotes, but we’ll documented peer reviewed scientific findings.

The book covers the dangers and pitfalls of alcohol as well, and makes the case for moderate use with appropriate set and setting.

One of the things I found fascinating, was how alcohol effects the adult mind mechanistically. Especially the analogies that Slingeland provided. Alcohol effectively down-regulates the prefrontal cortex (PFC). An area of the brain Slingeland refers to as the playground monitor.

The PFC is responsible for all of the pesky adult things like keeping you focused, task managing, self regulation, and daily routines. It is also the part of your brain that develops later in life (late adolescence).

This is the reason I can focus on putting on my shoes to take my kids to the playground, while El Duderino and Speedy want to play pirate, even though ten seconds ago the were asking me to take them. Their PFCs are not fully developed. Their task management, social cognition, and focus (or lack of all three) is the normal state of operation for their brain. The playground monitor doesn’t yet exist.

There are advantages however, to having no playground monitor. Children score significantly better than adults on lateral thinking tasks like a (remote associate test). You are given three seemingly unrelated words and asked to come up with a fourth that is related to the first three. Here is an example Fox, Man, Peep. (answer at the end of the post).

Adults are able to close that gap in lateral thinking ability with their progeny by temporarily taking their PFCs offline. This has been done in scientific studies with cranial magnets, and with carefully administered doses of alcohol.

In other words, making your brain revert closer to it’s childhood state increase lateral thinking ability, reduces inhibitions, and provides an escape from the all that adult regulating going on in the PFC. Sounds like exactly what I was aiming to do at my college dive bar karaoke night.

This reversion to a more childlike state of mind can be very advantageous, especially when coupled with other similarly reverted individuals with similar goals. Slingeland references the types of synergy that is produced at industry conferences when creative individuals gather together with adequate social lubricant.

SerenityThroughSweat, with some friends tagging along

What I also found interesting, was that this reversion to a more child like state of mind, is not the only aspect of humans where retaining child like features has been evolutionarily selected for. Neoteny, (biologically speaking) is the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood.

I’m not sure knocking my play ground monitor of a pre frontal cortex out with a few craft beers is exactly what biologists had in mind with Neoteny, but Slingeland sure makes a good case for it.

Ironically (or maybe less ironic and more appropriate) the last line of my marriage vows read “I can’t promise to grow up, but I promise to grow old with you” retention of juvenile traits into adulthood runs deep in my gene pool.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Just walking in Memphis, on my last trip before changing airplanes

The answer to the remote associate test was “hole” (foxhole, manhole, peephole)

Prediction

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I spent the past week traveling with my family and then recovering from a stomach bug and it got me thinking about predictions.

One of the things that sets humans apart from the rest of the animals in this planet is our ability to aggregate, analyze, and utilize data in a forward looking manner. This is easy to take for granted in modern days when constant data access is only as far away as our pockets. Our primal ancestors required a much more conscious approach.

It gets cold for part of the year and there is no food, better stockpile. I get sick after eating from that plant, better tell the rest of the tribe. I got better after drinking tea from those leaves, I’ll do it next time I don’t feel good.

Still for all of our data driven decisions, we are terrible predictors of outcome. Especially when it comes to discomfort. We are inclined to think that the status quo will remain intact, despite what are often glaring signs to the contrary.

On the flight back to Orlando El Duderino was playing with the tray table after we had gotten the “tray tables stowed and seatbacks in the upright and locked position” schpeel. I told him to stop playing with it, and he obliged until after we had landed.

To his credit I told him we couldn’t play with because we were landing. Once we had landed, this edict no longer applied. Despite my frustration, I’m impressed with his reasoning and precise interpretation of language. Words are important as I often say, but I digress.

When it was our turn to exit the plane he was still playing with the tray table only now he got his pinky good and pinched in it. Getting it out meant pinching it even more before the table would release.

I carried a screaming 45lb toddler through the aisle and up the jet bridge and tried to calm him down in the terminal. When I told him I knew it hurt but it would feel better soon his response was, “it’s never going to feel better”.

He is 4 and lacks the kind of life experience and emotional maturity to appreciate healing, pain, recovery, and perception in general. At the same time I think about my own feelings that often mirror his.

Ultra Runner Zach Bitter answered listener questions on the episode of the Human Performance Outliers podcast I was catching up on last week. One of the questions was about perception of effort and discomfort throughout an ultra or other endurance event.

I’ll paraphrase his answer as something like “Perceived effort/discomfort in an endurance race does not follow a linear progression. This may seem counter intuitive, but it is essential to both understand and actively remind oneself thought training and race day.”

If you hit a rough spot at mile 14 in a marathon, it doesn’t mean that every mile after it will get progressively worse. Understanding this intellectually is one thing. Being able to recall it and apply it on race day, with all of the hormones, emotions, and self inflicted suffering, is quite another.

Looking at a workout plan with a number of sprints or a large mountain can be intimidating. Reminding yourself that this feeling is a temporary stressor. One designed to promote growth. After the fourth sprint rep or half way up the climb, can be more challenging than the physical exertion itself.

This is one of the primary goals of mindfulness. Being present in the moment and assessing it without projecting it into the future. Your legs and lungs may well be burning, but that is not their fate forever.

I think Ray Liota said in best in the movie Blow, “Sometimes you’re flush, and sometimes your bust. When your up it’s never as good as it seems, and when you’re down you never think you’ll be up again. But, life goes on.”

El Duderino’s finger is fine. My legs and lungs have already moved on from the workout an hour ago, much less any of the thousands of miles before that one. Our prediction of effort and discomfort may be sorely lacking. But, life goes on, and serenity can still be found.

A shorter workout week with home renovation and travel

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Paradox

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week saw less progress on my communication project than I would have otherwise liked, but life has a habit of getting in the way.

Still I managed to read another chapter out of the Oxford Handbook on the History of Linguistics and found this interesting gem.

“The history of sound symbolism is the history of the attempt to resolve this fundamental paradox: on the one hand, if sound determines meaning, we should know what a word means just by hearing it; on the other hand, the distribution of phonemes across semantic domains is not arbitrary.”

Said another way, if sounds are the only determinate of meaning, we would have one universal language. This is clearly not the case, but as some of the examples below show, there are some commonalities among phonetic sound and semantic meaning that appear more than coincidental.

“In this way objects that evoke similar impressions are assigned words with predominately the same sounds such as waft, wind, wisp, wobble and wish, wherein all the wavering, uneasy motion, presenting an obscure flurry to the senses, is expressed by the w, hardened from the already inherently dull and hollow u.”

“We need not limit ourselves to pairs, but may look for larger patterns. One tempting example is the cross-patterning of /gl/ ‘phenomena of light’ and /fl/ ‘phenomena of movement’ with (1) /itr/ ‘intermittent’, (2) /ow/ ‘steady’ and (3) /ur/ ‘intense’: glitter↔flitter, glow↔flow, glare↔flare […] as for the terminal ‘morphemes’ in the above words, we find (1) evidenced also in titter, jitter, litter, iterate; (2) in slow, grow and tow and (3) in blare, stare and tear.”

The commonality of the phonetic sounds to their meaning across multiple words is a compelling argument for sound having a significant affect on meaning. A strong case for more than words as pure abstraction to identify an agreed upon referent.

Interestingly, a lot of the study of sound symbolism examines artists and poets. Those among us gifted with a sense of the perfect word for the perfect situation. Instances where an author’s word choice invokes the desired emotion. Paints the intended picture.

The more information I consume on the topic, or off topic for that matter, the more awed I am for the complexity of language that goes for the most part unexamined and underappreciated.

It also leaves me humbled for the distinct gifts of poetry and prose that clearly delineate the artists from the aspiring.

While working my way through the handbook, I had read three previous chapters on phonetics and struggled to place their value within the context of both my own project and language at large. Sure I see my boys struggle with certain sounds, but they are 2 and 4. Barring any sort of abnormality, they will develop a suitable phonetic acumen and likely think little of it.

But reading just a few paragraphs on sound symbolism completely changed my perspective on phonetics. It has inspired me to pay more attention to their impact especially on my own word choice.

The sound symbolism paradox is quite interesting and worth exploring. It is also a testament to how quickly you can change your mind and appreciate something that you brushed by before. All that is required is a little curiosity, a closer look, and some serenity.

Montreal running across St Helens island and ile Notre Dame

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.