Adaptation and new baselines

Ok, so this is my first attempt at explaining why we do too many things. I'm sure my ideas will develop and evolve as I continually gather information - but believe me, this is an issue that's close to my heart and I want to get it right.

So we as humans adapt to things. That's what we do. We experience, learn, and incorporate what we've learned and then experience-learn-incorporate some more. Each phase of adaptation results in the establishment of a new baseline from which we continue to adapt when presented with new stimuli (incidentally, this is roughly how Bayesian inference, which is a statistical/probabilistic machine learning process, works).

From http://pactiss.org/2011/11/02/bayesian-inference-homo-bayesianis/. Probably more funny to total and absolute nerds. 

What does that mean for us overextended overachievers? Each time we take on a new activity or job, initially we're so jazzed by the new experience and so motivated by learning (which is our favorite. Seriously, your brain and by extension, you, love to learn and can't get enough of that tasty tasty dopamine release that comes with it) that we can forget everything else - sleep, food, sex, pooping, what have you. Once we've adapted to that new activity and it's become a part of our lives and our new baseline for functionality, it continues to be rewarding because there's still the possibility of learning more minute and high-level aspects of the activity, and we remember that gigantic dopaminergic response we got from first experience and initial learning. So we've learned that new activities are rewarding, which leads us to seek them out once we reach the easy-functioning adapted phase in the previous.

So, roughly, my answer to why we take on so damn much: your brain. Your stupid, amazing, awful, vital brain.

Artists and Technicians

*DISCLAIMER: This post is not intended to offend or piss off or make fun of, but merely to point out some inconsistencies in logic. Also, while I use the terms artist and technician as a dichotomous comparison, I don't mean it in any way as a commentary on technical skill - that's not actually being discussed. This is more about personal goals from involvement in respective creative fields.*

It seems that everyone wants to be an artist these days. Whether your medium is photography, dance, shrubberies, or sandwiches (seriously, the high schoolers that work at Subway are aaaaaaartists), your goal is to be An Artist and to embody that completely in all the things you do.

I have a couple issues with this. First, where is your threshold for defining yourself as an artist? Who decides what that is? An Artist is a binary term: you are either artist or not artist. So someone who is immune to their own scrutiny (or anyone else's) can make dolls out of dried-out orange peels, call it steampunk, post them on Etsy, and consider themselves in company with Vincent Van Gogh and John Lennon. That's...weird.

Second, where does that leave the technicians? There are people in the creative world who are fantastic at executing the work of others faithfully and to perfection. I'll use dance as an example. Most dancers perform the choreography of others rather than generating their own. Your average (non-principal, I guess, although that's up for discussion as well) ballerina in the Kirov, your average American Tribal Style bellydancer, your average Chinese dancer are tasked with faithfully executing the movements with very little of their own interpretation thrown in. To force or ask these technicians to be Artists would be both entirely too much pressure and a slight to the things they actually do well.

So my point is this: we can't ALL be artists, for the same reason that we can't all arbitrarily decide that we're rocket scientists, marine biologists, and physicists. In a field without a formal vetting process and no real qualifications to speak of, the lack of definition in naming convention can destroy the field (e.g., I can't hear the term now without rolling my eyes and retching a little bit and instead prefer to use the word to describe myself when I take a magnificent poo). The implication that we could and should all be artists is an insult to the skills of actual artists, technicians, practitioners, hobbyists, and the rest of the people that make the creative world go 'round.

"I can do it! I can have it all!"

Tina Fey in 30 Rock, from avclub.com

(Scene described here because I can't find a clip of it and it'll probably get taken down anyways). There's a scene in 30 Rock where Tina Fey's character is stopped at airport security because she has a sandwich. When presented with the choice of leaving it behind so she can go through, she decides to stand there and eat it in the most pitiful way I've ever seen anyone do anything, and yells "I can do it! I can have it all!" through a mouthful of sandwich.

I've recently appropriated this phrase, and I plan to use it as the epitaph on my tombstone when I die because it describes my life perfectly. A friend recently asked me how I was able to teach a workshop, throw a party, attend a grueling practice, work my 10-6 (and beyond) job with a 2 hour daily commute, teach two classes, and then go take workshops and perform twice at a bellydance festival three hours away within a week's space. I shrugged and said I had no idea.

The sad thing is, I'm hardly a rarity in this community and the area in which I live. The DC area and the bellydance community are replete with ridiculous overacheivers like myself, and although I can't begin to understand the reason why we take on so damn much, I have witnessed the effects: The Freaking Plague. We all operate at the absolute edge of our health and immune function as a norm, where the tiniest thing, be it a change in the wind or sick friend or meeting a friend's new cat or the addition of just one more article to write, can launch us headlong into sickness. What follows is an epidemiological nightmare. You can usually chart the spread of disease over social media:

Person A: I have [event] coming up! I'm so stressed but so excited!
Person B: I will be attending/helping out/giving you a plethora of hugs! I'm excited too!
Person A: [Event] is over! I can relax and stop firebombing my fatigued and depleted immune system which has been kept afloat by stress hormones all this time!
Person B: Hooray!
Person A: I'm sick.
Person B: I'm sick.
Person We Didn't Already Know was connected to Person B: I'm sick.
Large Crowd: We're sick!

Ok, so that played out like a Monty Python sketch (get on with it), but you get the picture. For the sake our individual health and that of our society, we need to start applying the gastric bypass band to our lives, and just learn to say "No thanks, I'm full." If not, we'll end up needing witty epitaphs much sooner than we expect.



Ok, that last bit was overly dramatic. I was just trying to tie it all together. I'll just go eat a sandwich instead.

Doing what you like and not just what you're good at

I've always been someone who does a lot of things. In elementary school, I played piano, played clarinet, figure skated, did gymnastics, took ballet, took tae kwon do, performed traditional Chinese dance, and attended Chinese school. Then I broke my ankle (funny story - I broke it in gymnastics as I stepped off a high mat AFTER doing crazy stuff on the balance beam). In middle and high school, I dropped all the dance and added volleyball, softball, basketball, choir, theatre, and Girl Scouts to the preexisting piano, clarinet, and Chinese school. Then came college, where I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And it was AMAZING. I'd never given myself a break before, and I'll tell you, that first year was a textbook example of a post-stress slide into sloth. That year I discovered Napster, classic videogame emulators, The Sims, Saturday Night Live reruns in the middle of the day on Comedy Central, sleeping past noon, MTV, and eating ice cream for all meals. I didn't give a second thought to my grades or my body, and as a result, ended up withdrawing from many of my classes after I failed them (known as "Freshman Rule" in my school) and gained about 30 pounds. After that first year, I picked it up, took 16-18 credits each semester, and ended up majoring in psychology with minors in biology (which was only a minor because I refused to take the second semester of organic chemistry) and creative writing, volunteered at the sleep clinic, and worked as a research assistant in my school's biopsychology lab. Following graduation, I picked up where I left off - started playing volleyball and softball again, and got back into dance by regularly taking hip hop, flamenco, and oriental and tribal bellydance, and started performing, all the while working in a law firm, followed by a stint in a bookshop and working in a gym, then becoming a tutor, and then working in non-profit.

And then...something happened. I started to think about how much I was just coasting through my life and how absolutely none of it was making me happy.  I hated my job, my new boss, some of my coworkers, couldn't deal with the drama of being on a volleyball team with a bunch of frustrated women, was totally bored by slow-pitch softball, and met some personalities in dance that I just couldn't stand to be around. It was at that point where I realized how much time and energy I'd invested into doing what I was good at, but not doing what I liked. In fact, I had never thought to even assess whether I liked anything I did. I just did them. So I thought back to how happy I'd been in college after I had normalized into a class-attending, good-grade-receiving, research-doing, and-yet-still-enjoying-television-and-videogames-and-an-occasional-round-of-Star-Wars-Monopoly-that-goes-on-for-6-hours student. And I decided to take a "sabbatical", much to my parents' chagrin. During this time, I thought a lot about what I liked. I liked teaching. I liked dance. And surprisingly, I still liked science! After generally eschewing the stuff following graduation and opting instead for the more "marketable" literary route and basically falling on my ass, I realized that I'd been going about it the wrong way. I should have held out for something science-related, which I would have known if I'd just bothered to touch base with myself.

But why did I spend so much time doing all those things I didn't like that much? My very shameful answer is "other people". In some ways, this makes sense; you get involved in activities when your friends do, or at the behest of your parents, or for "extracurriculars". My involvement in many of these activities had to do with having some level of initial interest perhaps based entirely on the fact that I love novelty and learning, excelling because I learn fast, and being encouraged to continue by teammates, friends, or parents. And obviously, that novelty wears off, and the opinion of others is never enough to sustain interest. After 25+ years of coasting on the respect and opinion of others, I'm finally starting to learn how decide what *I* want to do. Maybe they should call it the "selfish and I like it" 30s. Although that doesn't rhyme.

Politics and the Dancing Body exhibit

One of my favorite things in the world is the intersection between art and science/society. This exhibition looks to be a fascinating example of that idea. If I get a chance to go I will surely post my thoughts here. Sigh, I love living in DC.

http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/politics-and-dance/Pages/default.aspx

From the Library of Congress site: "Through the medium of dance, twentieth-century American choreographers created dances that reflected the diverse spectrum of cultural expression. In addition to works that celebrated America’s traditional music, folk and immigrant practices, and Native American rituals, choreographers were not afraid to craft political dances that protested injustices or advocated reform. Politics and the Dancing Body explores how American choreographers between World War I through the Cold War realized this vision, using dance to celebrate American culture, to voice social protest, and to raise social consciousness.  The exhibition also examines how the U.S. government employed dance as a vehicle for cultural diplomacy and to counter anti-American sentiment. Featuring materials drawn mostly from the rich dance, music, theater, and design collections of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, Politics and the Dancing Body demonstrates how dance was integral to the twentieth-century American cultural and political landscape."

What you can/can't do with a doctorate*

My surname is a homophone of "who", so I've been saying for years now that I'd love to get a doctorate so I can finally fulfill my destiny as Doctor Who. Combine that with a long line of pushy doctorate-having family members and my "inherent sciency-ness" and it probably seems pretty clear where I'm headed. Of course, there are several factors standing in my way, one of which is this: many people with doctorates piss me off.  Please direct your attention to this wonderful infographic:

By Matt Might - the rest of the infographic is here http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/#

Having never gone for my PhD, I might not have believed it, if I hadn't encountered SO VERY MANY examples in my life. I seem to be surrounded by people who think that, for example, having PhDs in statistics and math precludes them from ever needing to see a therapist because "I have a PhD too, so they can't tell me anything I don't know", or their PhD in music makes them a calculus expert, or their PhD in engineering instantly makes them able to drive a boat, or their PhD in philosophy makes them fantastic at building IKEA furniture (but while we're on the topic, that degree might incidentally qualify them to be an extra in an existentialist Ingmar Bergman flick...if he were still alive and making movies). Now, I know that PhDs and Superman complexes won't always go hand in hand, but the relationship makes so much sense that I wonder how rare it is. Every single person with a doctorate went through A LOT to get that degree, and likely went through even more to put that degree to work (*cough* postdoc! *cough*) and in a fair world that kind of hard work would be appropriately rewarded. More often than not, that's not the case. Many individuals with doctorates struggle to find work because they're overqualified for most jobs if they don't want to remain in academia, and once they do find work, they'll often do the same work as someone with a lower-level degree and make less money. So it absolutely follows that they'd seek "small victories" elsewhere. Your average disgruntled doctorate-haver-turned-overqualified-office-grunt might attempt to dominate the kitchen, the checkout line at the grocery store, the roads, fields they know nothing about, etc., just to feel like their hard work has gotten them somewhere. And I get it. I really do. And I know you're not all like that. Just don't expect me to be queuing up at the provost's office anytime soon to join you.

*(note: this is in no way intended to be a knock at higher education or anyone with a higher degree - I have a master's degree and really do want my PhD so I can finally work as a scientist, which has been my lifelong dream - I might just need to be a little stronger and wiser and richer and happier with my entire life before I go back to school.)

Self-identity when you love what you do

I have a problem. I love what I do so much, I can't help but describe myself as my profession. When first meeting someone, I typically end up introducing myself by saying "I'm Eugenia, I'm a researcher and/or bellydancer." And it doesn't just stop with me - one of the first things I like to find out about someone is what they do, and I even nicknamed my boyfriend "Chef" (guess what he does). Now, before you judge me for being shallow, I want to state that I believe vocational choices do reflect some aspect of personality or interests, and like any good former psychology student, I usually like to start off with a "profile" of this stranger I'm meeting because I generally dislike unpredictability, and assume that others do too.  I'd also like to think that it's a product of being a DC denizen (and in fact, rare DC native), in a place where everyone is married to their job. And, I really really really love what I do. That really can't be overstated.

However, that doesn't explain how much I'm willing to let what I do "speak" for my identity upon first meeting someone new.  A more likely explanation is my own insecurity, and that manifests in three ways: 1) I'm generally a very private person, and am the most inclined to reveal the least personal aspects of myself upon first meeting, 2) I'm not sure I'm actually GOOD at any of these things that I do, and I want to "prime" my audience by shooting first, and 3) sometimes I just want other people to think I'm cool for being a person with versatile skills. Whatever the reason that I do it, I've learned that I have to de-condition myself and understand that this is dangerous thinking; if I'm what I do, what if that goes away? What if my company goes bust and I get in an accident and become a quadriplegic? What if everything?

From here on out, I vow to view myself as "person who does a thing" rather than "thing itself". I think I should start introducing myself thusly: "I'm Eugenia, I love Doctor Who and candy and spazz out sometimes when I think something is going to fall off the table and shatter and I might be slightly allergic to cats. Oh, and also I do a thing." Because that's better, right?