"or things even shakespeare didn't know."
at 18 i maintained to a friend our loves and hates, desires and disappointments, all due to the substances running around in our bodies. little did i know, this a major intuitive insight. had i followed up i might be shaking the hand of the king of sweden and accepting the nobel prize.
for better or worse, it has worked out otherwise and i've had more fun. yet research these days keeps re-confirming what i sensed way back then. of course, this shouldn't seem like much of a mystery. i know alcohol can turn me into a schmo, satisfied with his life. caffeine winds me up, then wears me down. all of of us know these experiences inside out.
and much is the talk about endorphins induced by ridiculously high rates of exercise. and as scrouge said, 'our bad dreams come from an undigested bit of potato.' still, i don't think the truth of all this has sunk in. we attribute passion to anything but testosterone and estrogen cause they go by the innocent-sounding name of hormones. this keep us from realizing hormones on the level with heroine and lsd, and much longer lasting.
i've begun reading the female brain by louanne brizendine. where was this book when i needed it at 18? not that i would have read or understood it, but somewhere along the way it would have crossed my path. in a family psychology class i wrote a paper maintaining men and women fundamentally the same, fool that i was. what i meant was both could do anything in the field of life. however, as for the physical insides, i didn't perceive the incredible differences in development, reactions to emotion, and so on, caused by differing hormonal injections.
louanne's just come out with the male brain, and i have it on order. we're much more at the mercy of chemicals than we ever knew. no wonder stress changes the composition of our chemistry for the worse, and meditation reverses the effects for the better. no, i don't expect teenagers to run out and buy these tomes. but at one point or other, they contain things all of us need to know.
new pics: www.pbase.com/wwp/site8 and www.pbase.com/wwp/pawns
