August 13, 2018--The Nature of Human Nature

In the never-ending effort to understand what it means to be human is there a "nature" that is hard-baked into all of us that helps define our distinctive "humanness"? Assuming there is a distinctiveness. 

Are we human (separate from all other animals, including from the Great Apes to whom we are close relatives) because, as it used to be felt, we (Homo habilis) uniquely have the ability to make and use tools? Subsequently, we have learned that a number of other animals also make tools) or because we are self-aware (some other mammals appear to be as well) or because we alone were made in God's image (you're on your own with this one).

Raging still is the debate as to what constitutes that aspect of humanness that is largely the result of our capacity to respond to and develop because of our ability to be shaped by the effects of nurture and culture.

In this then, how much is nurture and how much nature? Some who study these matters claim it might be as much as 50-50.

Darwin obviously had much to say about this. Though he was skeptical about what we today refer to as "cultural evolution"--he would say we and all other species pass along to progeny such things as eye color and various instincts--among thousand of other adaptions the in-born mammalian ability to suckle. 

On the other hand, in contrast to the social evolutionists, he claims we do not genetically pass along our propensity to be, say, self-sacrificing. In fact, doesn't our propensity to be self-sacrificing go against the notion that our development over millennia contradicts the basic Darwinian insight that our nature is the result of adapting to numerous mutations that were selected because they contributed to our ability to survive? His survival of the fittest.

But if in this regard, since there is considerable evidence that self-sacrifice, including a willingness or even instinct to give up one's life for the sake of the survival of other humans, is there, as some researchers claim, a "benevolence" gene?

While we are at it, is there a universal "God" gene? Or if you prefer, a "belief" gene? If there has never been an example of any human society without its own origin story, it's own larger belief system isn't this propensity to believe a part of what it means to be human? If so, is this, again, culturally or genetically imprinted? 

And then, what about art? Is is more a pleasure than an instinct? A debate about this also rages.

If this latter debate interests you, as I recently did, pick up and read neuroscientist Anjan Chatterjee's The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved Beauty and Enjoy Art.

Though he comes down on the side that claims the appeal of what human's consider beauty is not instinctive, not hard-wired in our DNA, he comes close to making that case.

No more persuasive to the genetic side of the argument, though, are the early human artifacts he cites that archeologists have been unearthing during the past two centuries, including some hundreds of thousands of years old.

Here is a sampling--

First, from as many as 30,000 years ago, from the Paleolithic Period, the Old Stone Age, are the Venus figures, mother goddesses, that most now consider part of a fertility cult. The best known is the 4.4 inch Venus Of Willendorf, named for the village in Lower Austria where it was found. It now resides in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. 

Thirty-five years ago I made a pilgrimage to see it in an obscure corner of the museum. Being alone with it, spending an hour in its presence fired a lifetime interest in evolution and human nature.

From the Golan Heights, found at the Berekhat Ram dig in the early 1980s, is another seeming Venus figure. Just 1.4 inches, it appears to be a "pebble" that was shaped and incised by an early human (Homo erectus). It is again a fertility figure or mother goddess. It is on view in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum. Some considerate it to be the oldest existing work of human art.

Then there is the much older, 400,000 year-old Tan-Tan figure that was discovered in Morocco in 1999. As many claim it was shaped by an archaic human hand as others who say it was formed by natural, geological processes such as erosion. Take a look and come to your own concusion. 

It would not surprise me if it turned out to be another Venus figure as I come down on the side of those who contend there is an aesthetic gene. 

There is too much "art" in the world, found among all peoples in all places across too many millennia for there not to be. The usual Darwinian resistance to this view is not sufficiently persuasive for me to agree it is a simple pleasure without sufficient human survival adaptive purposes. Among so many, I would not want to live in an artless world. Thus, the extraordinary proliferation of art alone suggests it is adaptive enough!

July 30, 2018--The Willing Suspension of Disbelief

I continue struggle to understand more fully why so many Americans believe Donald Trump when so much of what he says is blatantly false. What causes them to suspend the ability to think clearly and instead simply believe.

One explanation put forth by some is that there is a belief gene, a wired human propensity to believe bold narratives and follow without questioning charismatic leaders and non-verifiable doctrines. This would be one reason all peoples through all of history appear to have powerful belief systems that they eagerly follow.

For early humans, some claim, this was essential to survival. Hominoids on their own would be easy prey in a survival-of-the-fittest environment so to increase their chances to thrive it was important for them to band together into hunting and gathering groups. And to coordinate their defenses against those other animals who saw them as potential sources of protein. 

In these kind of tribal realities, to assure working together rather than struggling on their own, various forms of coordinated activity were beneficial. Important to that was the ability to identify and follow capable leaders. To subsume aspects of oneself for the sake of our species living on. 

Tribes not only required strong leaders but also willing followers. Hierarchies emerged as a result and it was helpful if individuals found ways to fit comfortably within them. In contemporary terms this meant the willingness to "sacrifice" aspects of one's individuality and freedom of action. All presumably for the greater good.

It helped if proto-leaders were charismatic, shamanistic, and thus could appeal to the emerging consciousness of the human spirit and that proto-followers, over evolutional-time, would develop the capacity to feel secure when submitting to leaders' origin narratives, promulgated codes of behavior, and ultimately to tribal belief systems.

All aspects of this that added to the likelihood of survival and propagation, over millennia, likely led to natural selection with these survival adaptions entering the human gene pool.

To survive our distant ancestors needed to learn to believe.

Another way of thinking about how this works when most effective is from an insight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As a poet and aesthetic philosopher, in 1817 he of course was thinking about the force of artistic narrative--how we willingly suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment.

He suggested that if a writer could infuse "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, readers would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

There also is a potential dark side--"cognitive estrangement" can take advantage of a person's ignorance to promote the suspension of disbelief.

Either way, at the level of literature or in regard to human social behavior (including the propensity to believe things that are not based on truth or evidence) these capacities are pervasive and powerful. 

To bring this to today we can see the same mechanisms occurring in our politics; and though we no longer need to believe to survive, we may be seeing these residual instincts still operating. And if cognitive estrangement is in play, there are forces at work to manipulate and control our thinking and behavior.

May 30, 2017--A Word About Intelligent Design

There is a hot debate underway among progressives and others who do not in any way support Donald Trump about how to relate, if at all, to those who voted for and are sticking by President Trump.

The fact that I have difficulty referring to him as "President," is indicative of how complicated this situation is. About as complicated as how Republicans in the main had difficulty thinking about Barack Obama as "President" and opposed him aggressively, seeking from Inauguration Day to bring him down.

So Democrats and Republicans share that.

I have been arguing here for some time that, while opposing most of Trump's initiatives, progressives need to reach out to the most independent-minded of Trump supporters in an attempt to convince them that we understand their frustration and anger and make the case to them that traditional Democrats share many of their concerns and would like to welcome them back to our enlarged tent. Even including abortion opponents and Second Amendment defenders.

Others argue that we shouldn't waste our time reaching out to them. They are so unredeemable from a progressive perspective that we should not engage with them.

Yesterday, guest-blogger Sharon made that case forcefully--

If I have given up trying to reason with and understand people I already know who perhaps have spent too many years being brainwashed by Fox News, trolls and "news" outlets even further right, I have even less interest engaging strangers who want people to be free not to have health care.  I hold in special contempt those who encourage conspiracy theories that spur the lunatic fringe to shoot up pizza parlors, etc.

I respect this, understand, but disagree. I feel we have to do the opposite--no matter how difficult or infuriating, we need to seek opportunities to talk about our differences to see if there is any possibility of finding some common ground. 

In that spirit, Rona and I have been talking about how to have these difficult dialogues. Unlike our life in New York City where, politically, pretty much everyone we know has nothing but contempt for Trump and his supporters, we are fortunate up in Maine to know people with a wide range of views, including some who are eager to talk across the divide.

Thus, we have been searching for issues, topics around which to organize potential discussions. We even made a list. The first few topics are not good places to begin since about them there is little or no possibility for compromise. For example, abortion. If to opponents it is murder and for supporters it's a woman's right, there is not much to talk about. There is nothing to negotiate.

Here are some of the topics--

Abortion
The Second Amendment
Immigration
Healthcare
Same-sex marriage
Prayer in school
Taxes
The deficit
Government regulations
Iran
Russia
Climate change
Contraception
Food stamps
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
Evolution/Intelligent Design

We have had considerable success talking about SSI. A number of conservative friends expressed vehement opposition to it, claiming that almost everyone receiving benefits is perpetrating a fraud, lying about their circumstances, and thus should be denied ongoing assistance  To complexify matters and to see if there might be some room for give, I looked up who actually receives SSI benefits and found that 33 percent of the 8 million are children or elderly and 15 percent more are significantly disabled and incapable of working. When discussing these recipients in turn, all on the far right agreed it was important to continue to help these people. To many of them it was the Christian way.

I then said, "So we agree about nearly 50 percent. That's progress, and of course it's OK to disagree about the rest."

With this in mind, Rona suggested that maybe we should move on to talk about Evolution. Many who are deeply conservative and often evangelicals who believe the Bible is the literal truth do not want to see it taught in public schools. They either call for its outright ban or, at a minimum, that it be taught alongside the theory of Intelligent Design (ID).

"Where's the give with this?" I asked, quite skeptical.

"There is overwhelming scientific evidence to support Evolution," Rona said, "But, hear me out, no valid scientific evidence that discredits Intelligent Design."

"What?"

"That's right. Tell me how you know, how we know that there was not some force of nature, or something more divine that guided the evolutionary process? Therefore, why not concede that it's worth putting this out for discussion? Doesn't a good education include teaching the history of controversies? Like Evolution and ID?" 

"Interesting point. Maybe this is like same-sex marriage. Twenty years ago only a small minority favored it but in more recent years it received overwhelming support, so much so that the Supreme Court stretched to find it to be constitutional."

"Bottom line," Rona said, "As difficult as it is and how unpleasant it can be, if we want to have a more inclusive and civil country, we need to not give up on having these kinds of conversations."

"I agree," I said, "But I do understand why others might come to a different conclusion."

"I'll predict that we could also have productive conversations about climate change and . . ."

I cut her off, "Let's take this one step at a time. I'm already feeling exhausted."

April 6, 2017--Human Mutations

I have been thinking recently about my hand.

My right hand since it has developed a tremor. My doctors, particularly my neurologist is attempting to figure out its cause and to suggest ways both natural and medicinal to calm it.

I tell him I have come to like it. It to me is a sign of animal vitality, a kind of second heart that trembles rather than beats.

He tells me I'm crazy.

I tell him I have another doctor for that. And tiny crumbs of klonopin.

We both laugh. I need to laugh.

But the thinking about my hand has me thinking about human evolution. What a wondrous thing the human hand. How did it evolve from a fish's fin to become, over 600 million years, this most wonderful of appendages?

Slowly and, considering its complexity and anatomical differences from our aquatic ancestor, it required at least millions of steps, imperceptible mutations. Some led our proto-hand down some not helpful branches to so-called "bad mutations" that the struggle for survival between the fit and less fit were resolved in bloody ways.

How many modifications were needed to bring us, it, to this remarkable point? How many countless rolls of genetic dice?

And, as I ponder my trembling fingers, I wonder what else still might be occurring. Is Nature's job completed or are there still more surprises awaiting? Some of which might turn out to be beneficial?

Perhaps a sixth finger? Would we have use for that? Would one more digit make us less vulnerable, additionally able to survive? Perhaps a second thumb? Sprouting next to the pinky that also would be opposing and in tandem with our current thumb make us more powerful and adaptable?


Do geneticists have their eyes on mutational developments underway about which we should be concerned . . . or hopeful?

Surely we cannot be at the end of the evolutionary road.

And so with my fluttering hand I did some research. And found there are mutations occurring that we could well do without--the gene called Titin, for example, that can trigger heart failure--as well as others that hold the promise of progress.

For example, Apolipo-protein AI-Milano. Surely you've heard of this.

In case not, here is the detail from Adam Lee's "Four Beneficial Evolutionary Mutations Underway Now"--

Heart disease is one scourge of industrial countries. It's the legacy of an evolutionary past which programmed us to crave energy-dense fats, once a rare and valuable source of calories, now a source of clogged arteries. But there is evidence that evolution has the potential to deal with it. 

All humans have a gene for a protein called Apolipo-protein AI, which is part of the system that transports cholesterol through the bloodstream. Apo-AI is one of the HDLs, already known to be beneficial because they remove cholesterol from artery walls. But a small community in Italy is known to have a mutant version of the protein, named Apolipo-protein AI-Milano, or Apo-AIM for short. 

Apo-AIM is even more effective than Apo-AI at removing cholesterol from cells and dissolving arterial plaques, and additionally functions as an antioxidant, preventing some of the damage from inflammation that normally occurs in arteriosclerosis. People with the App-AIM gene have significantly lower levels of risk than the general population for heart attacks and stroke, and pharmaceutical companies are looking into marketing an artificial version of the protein as a cardio-protective drug. 

There are also drugs in the pipeline based on a different mutation, in a gene called PCSK9, which has a similar effect. People with this mutation have as much as an 88% lower risk of heart disease.

I know that with my hand nothing beneficial is going on that, in evolutionary terms, is "adaptive." But my doctor is happy that I am dealing with it so well. Or about which I am, in my more familiar mode, in denial.

October 24, 2014--Midcoast: Just Talk

After a complicated breakfast with Jim, during which a nuanced and balanced conversation about affirmative action and same-sex relationships descended into indiscriminate Obama bashing (Jim whispered conspiratorially as we were leaving, after I confessed disappointment in Barack Obama's presidency, "Don't you agree that he's working to bring down America?") over anniversary dinner later in the evening with other friends, we got to talking about how in small towns such as this one, where people depend upon, even need each other to get through life's perils, we generally find ways to disagree and often those with whom we have the sharpest disputes are the very ones we call on when things are most urgent; and, if we are honest about that and, more important about ourselves, we discover that our differences almost always amount to just words.

They amount to just words because, in truth, most of us are not actively or directly engaged in working to bring about social or political change (no matter its ideological direction or content) and are not that active in fraternal or civic organizations. Rather we talk. Talk passionately about things we believe in while remaining relatively unengaged.

Is this too cynical a view?

In some ways yes. In other cases maybe not. Like so much here this too can be complicated.

It is not cynical when it comes to holding accountable many of my fellow liberals (me as well) who are especially adept at the talking while this cynical view is unfair for many of those of more conservative persuasion who tend to be more actively and directly involved in the life of the community.

They are more likely to be volunteer firemen or, as a member of the EMS squad, are the ones likely to come in the middle of a stormy night to race us to the local ER. Or active on the Town Board. Or lead discussions about why source separation of trash is important--not necessary as liberals would have it to preserve the environment but because the Town can make money selling recyclables and thereby lower taxes.

About that, Rona wondered out loud if our environmentalist-minded friend, Peggy (to pick on her), back in New York City recycles as much or as assiduously as Jim in Bristol, Maine.

"No way," I said, agitated by my awareness of Peggy's hypocrisy as well as mine.

Jim, who is 81, is active on the local school board even though his youngest is in her thirties. "I have grandchildren, you know," he shrugs as if that explains it all.

And though he's not so sure about including a lot about climate change in Earth Science or referring too much to Evolution in Biology, he's out there in the middle of winter determined not to miss even one meeting while I talk, talk, talk about how we can't ignore the lessons of science, not only if we want to try to repair our planet but also to prepare our youngsters to be competitive in the global world of the 21st century. And though the signboard by the school I drive by at least twice a day says "All Are Welcome" to board meetings I haven't made it to one yet though every year I intend to make them all.

When I confess this to him, to help alleviate my guilt, he reminds me that I was an educator for more than 40 years and I do write and publish my views on schooling. That I've "paid my dues," and--

"But," I say before he can finish making excuses for me, "Yes, but still . . . I know. . . Maybe next . . .

He smiles to let me off the hook but . . .

Bottom line--a lot of things seem to work better here because at the most fundamental level we all know it is our relating and caring for each other that counts more than the talk, which in spite of various forms of inflation, is still cheap.

August 6, 2014--The Nature of Human Nature

"I know the answer," Rona said, "But still it upsets me when I think about how peaceful mornings are here--how there is nothing but the sun over the bay and the sounds of the tide rushing--while in so many other parts of the world the day begins with terror and violence. Like, right now, in the Middle East, Gaza, and Israel. I know, I know . . ." she trailed off.

"More evidence of how life is unfair and how fortunate and blessed we are," I offered, "And not just us. At the risk of sounding like a chauvinist pollyanna, no matter one's circumstances in America, things are so much better for virtually everyone."

"It's not only about unfairness. If it were, at least theoretically, something could be done about it. To bring about more fairness and peace. But . . ." she drifted off again not knowing what to make of this or how to reconcile her place on the fortunate side of things.

"So what else is involved that clearly has you upset?" I asked, thinking it would be better to try to talk about this than find a way to change the subject.

"Why all the violence? So much of it seeming to be for its own sake. And often brutally excessive. Way beyond what is required to protect oneself, one's family, or even one's nation."

"I have a theory."

"I hope it has a happy ending because I'm feeling terrible about the world's current circumstances."

"I'm not sure about that. It's too soon to know how things will turn out."

"Tell me anyway."

"It's about human evolution."

"Oh that, but, please, go on."

"Humans, homo sapiens, emerged about 200,000 years ago. In geological and biological terms, not very long ago. And for about the next 193,000 years we lived tribally, nomadically widely dispersed across Africa, what is now the Middle East, and also into today's Asia and Europe. We were mainly hunters and gatherers and men--and I mean men--needed to be able to protect themselves from dangerous beasts and other tribes who threatened their territory. It was raw, 'red-in-tooth-and-claw' survival of the fittest. A dangerous time that rewarded the most successfully aggressive and violent."

"I know all this," she was impatient with me, "So according to you what happened next?"

"It wasn't until about 7,000 years ago that the first city was established, when humans learned how to grow and cultivate crops and raise domestic animals so they they could gather in one place and no longer need to live as nomads."

"Ironically, the first cities, true, were in the same region where today there is so much warfare and violence."

"Yes," I said, "Arguably the first was Uruk in Babylonia, present-day Iraq, along the Euphrates. Between 5,000 and 3,000 BC up to 80,000 peopled lived there but, in evolutionary terms, these first city dwellers were very much like their hunter-gather ancestors. Just as aggressive, just as potentially violent."

"I sense where you're going with this."

"That was only 7,000 years ago. A very brief moment in time in the history of life. Living in settled communities and cities soon did not require the same human capacity and propensity for aggression and violence that our distant ancestors needed for survival.

"And, here's the heart of the problem," I continued my little lecture,"over the next seven millennia, until today, social evolution outpaced biological evolution so that while current homo sapiens are still biologically very much like our more ancient relatives, the way we live has changed dramatically. And making it worse, military technology has also evolved at a very rapid pace, far outstripping our basic self-protection needs. This make things infinitely more dangerous."

"By your theory, then, we no longer need to be so violent. We have culture and law and religions and governments and codes of behavior that would allow us to live more peacefully if we weren't still so bound and driven by our early-human DNA. And don't some researchers say that man, humans, have what they loosely call the 'benevolence gene'?"

"Exactly. But that propensity for generosity and even self-sacrifice is still overwhelmed by the aggressive ones that were so necessary long ago."

"So, in your view, what's going to happen?"

"I hope there will be enough change in our biological makeup over the next hundred years so we don't, while waiting for that, destroy the human race."

"Are you optimistic?" Rona asked.

"Look as those clouds," I said. "What a beautiful and peaceful place this is. Aren't we fortunate."

Rona knew that I wanted to change the subject. And let me.

February 26, 2014--Success

For some reason many people I know, of all ages, though mainly ones solidly middle-aged, have been talking about success--theirs--or lack thereof.

I've been thinking about it too and doing some reading, though, as a pretty-much retired person, in my case it is a retrospective look-back and conversation with myself.

Here's a little of what I've come up with. Some of it upsetting.

Since pretty much every society from global civilizations to isolated indigenous tribes, during all of recorded history, are organized in some sort of social hierarchy, success here, there, and everywhere, ancient and current, is linked to however distinctions are made within those tiered social structures.

Some value money and possessions more than others; some value wisdom more than youth and ambition; some reward spiritual vision more than physical prowess; while others select among those with the most of this kind of prowess when seeking, anointing, or following leaders.

Though what is valued varies this widely, and in even more ways, again in all instances and through all time, ultimately we find societies hierarchically structured with people in one way or another well aware of where they stand, where they are comparatively positioned, who is above them and, just as important, below.

Cultural anthropologists, especially those of an evolutionary bent, see the ways in which people are arranged in a society essential to survival and the very fact of universal hierarchies suggests that hierarchy itself is adaptive--essential to species survival. In other words, we have a better chance of surviving, thriving if we are arranged in social groups with clear distinctions among members. It makes us more formidable.

In most of the West it is thought, or necessary for our national narrative, that these social distinctions are not immutable (we do not, for example, believe in a caste system or see it to be "natural") and therefore there are opportunities for social mobility. Up and, alas, down. This, it is claimed, is in effect natural, based on natural social and cultural laws, perhaps socially constructed ones, but still having the force of "law."

Equally important in societies such as ours where there is the belief that the ultimate place one finds oneself in the social order is based more on merit than inheritance (though much economic theory sees heritability as a powerful predictor of one's ultimate status), in order for there to be social stability, people who do not achieve as much as they strive for, or feel qualified for, must come away reasonably reconciled to how well things turned out for them.

Here's where it gets complicated--the process of reconciliation.

If we live in a meritocracy and one does not "succeed," what is the explanation we tell ourselves when we wind up frustrated, with less than we hoped for, or felt we deserved? How do we reconcile ourselves to how things turned out for us when we are disappointed?

In conversations I have been having, I am finding a matrix of reconciliation behavior that troubles me.

Many tell me that they are less successful than they had hoped and (here's the disturbing part) are not doing as well as their talents, intelligence, hard work, ambition should in fairness have yielded. I am hearing a great deal about how unfair the process itself is--that if one did not go to the right schools, get the right advice, did not have the right parents, were not the right gender, ethnicity, age then things were rigged against them.

Further, even among people who I do know are not belief-driven, people who pride themselves, justifiably, in their ability to be rational and clear-thinking, I am hearing what sounds like a belief in destiny. I don't know what else to call it.

That, in a sense, things are not unfair or rigged but in many ways are predetermined. For some this takes a DNA path--geniuses are cited as examples to make the larger case. It is felt that DNA, not one's particular life circumstances, talents, efforts is destiny.

I see these merging explanations to be part of a reconciliation system in which one comes, often unhappily, to accept one's "lot in life" without having to take responsibility for one's ultimate "fate."

Things are either rigged or destined, the story goes, and since no matter what I do, no matter how worthy I am, there is no real chance that my ambitions can be realized or talents recognized. So, ultimately, why even try since these things are beyond my control and, here's the rub, responsibility.

February 11, 2014--Again Mommy, Again

Some years ago I listened in as my New Jersey sister-in-law read a story to her four-year-old daughter.

What struck me was not so much the story--I think a weasel was prominently featured--but the rapt attention my niece paid to it. Also, though she could not as yet read, she appeared to be mouthing all the words. Clearly she had heard the story before. Certainly, many times to be able to lip-sink it so seamlessly.

And then at the end, I was fascinated to hear her say, "Again, mommy, again." At which time her mother without a shrug or sigh, read it again. And again. And then again. By which time my niece was fighting to fend off sleep.

That contributed to my lifelong interest in stories. Not just my loving to listen to them, or telling them, or attempting to write them, but by the seemingly universal interest all peoples have in stories. More fundamentally, appear to need them. Perhaps particularly those they have heard before like my niece, many, many times.

Can you name one society, one culture, one tribe--pre-historic, ancient, or contemporary--that does not depend upon stories? Not just for pleasure, not just for tribal or communal bonding, but perhaps even for survival.

Because if stories are so ubiquitous in evolutionary terms they must be "adaptive," which means they are needed for species survival. Equally as important as food, language, music, belief systems (which all have stories at their heart), rituals, mores, and social arrangements.

If true, all humans have, actually must have the same propensity, the same, may I say, biological need for stories as my four-year-old New Jersey niece.

Some claim that we shape our sense of personhood by the stories we tell and exhibit about ourselves. We shape into stories experiences for the purpose of sculpting a Self. There is no Self possible, it is thought, if one does not do this. There is no reality about ourselves except that which we create in this story-generating way.

Since post-modernists assert that reality is socially constructed--and not discoverable in any absolute way and then passed along as Truth--to me a persuasive contention--this fits the notion that we each socially construct who we are. Stories are the warp and weft of that life-long effort.

My earliest experience with this transformative, self-building process--beyond the stories my mother must have read to me that I was too young to recall--were the accounts of adventures my Cousin Chuck pursued as much for the stories he made of them as the adventures themselves.

There was one time when he and I camped overnight in a state park in the Catskills. I was a cub scout and knew about making fires and pitching a tent. He knew about neither. In fact, he was the least out-of-doors-oriented person I knew. To him, the out-of-doors was the neighborhood schoolyard. But he insisted on going camping.

So my father drive us to the site, said his goodbyes, wished us well, and said he'd be back for us in the morning.

I pitched a tent by myself, having sent Chuck out to gather firewood. He asked if he could have my cub scout knife in case he needed to defend himself.

I told him there were no bears for at least 20 miles but to indulge him and to get him out of the way so I could pitch the tent without his interference, I gave him the knife.

He returned after 15 minutes with a few twigs and branches. Barely enough for me to heat up the baked beans and grill the hot dogs my mother had packed for us.

As only beans and frankfurters cooked and eaten in the woods can taste, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner, scattered the embers, slid into our sleeping bags, and proceeded to sleep like proverbial logs.

My father arrived right on time and found us packed and ready to go.

On the way home, during that 45 minutes, Chuck, in response to my father asking how we did, told a story, created a story worthy of James Fenimore Cooper. How the evening began with his struggle to subdue a grizzly bear that had penetrated out campsite and attempted to steal our food and how, after driving the bear back into the woods, we were attacked by swarms of bats and later lay awake all night listening to the howls of a nearby wolf, Chuck ever on-guard, protecting me, his younger cousin, with his 12-inch Bolo knife.

And then when we got back to the house the family was renting, my Dad had him tell the story over and over again to assorted cousins and aunts and uncles who had gathered for the weekend.

By the fifth telling, every one of which I listened to and savored, the one bear had become three, the lone wolf had become a pack, and his knife had grown to 14 inches.

This story lives on in family lore though Chuck prematurely departed this life. It not only reflects the self Chuck constructed but also has helped define our larger family. In the alchemic possibilities of America (also largely created through a national narrative more fiction than fact), we transformed ourselves from shtetl Jews into full-blooded Americans. Eager to take on whatever came our way. To become who we wanted to be. To become how we defined ourselves largely through our shape-shifting stories.

This all reminds me of Woody Allen's joke at the end of Annie Hall--

A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, "Hey doc, my bother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken!" 

Then the doc says, "Why don't you turn him in?" 

Then the guy says, "I would, but we need the eggs."

Indeed, we need the eggs.

September 26, 2013--Behind the Times

A friend from England is in the area. Siting with her yesterday morning on the top step of the house where she is staying, looking out into the sun over Muscongus Bay toward Monhegan Island, she said, "This is the only place in the world where I sleep well."

"Why is that? I ask because that's also true for me; and though I have my own thoughts about this, I'm curious why this is such a restful place for you."

Not taking her eyes off the waves lapping the granite ledge, she said, "Some of it has to do with the sound of the water. You know those sleep machines that play an endless stream of natural sounds as a way to free one's mind and help one sleep? There are birds sounds, whale songs, sounds of the wind and forest, and of the tranquil ocean. The ocean being the most listened to to induce a peaceful night. So right out my door here, without the bother of one of those machines, which to me seem so artificial, I find a natural form of calm."

"Maybe it's because our remote ancestors came from the ocean."

"You mean how the sea is the-mother-of-us-all sort of thing?"

"Well, we did descend from fish. There is overwhelming evolutionary evidence about that."

"I thought you Americans don't believe in evolution." She was tweaking me. "But, I know that's true and it may have something to do with being instinctively connected to the eternal that is so conducive to peaceful rest."

"There's something else," I said, "that works for me beside the ocean and air and sky."

"What's that?"

"The isolation. I should say, how I here feel isolated enough."

"That's a curious concept--isolated enough." She glanced at me then turned again to face the water and the horizon.

I said, "We don't live deep in the woods or isolated from neighbors. In fact, I like having neighbors. Even the occasional pesky ones. I am from the city, after all, and too much tranquility and quiet can make me anxious. I need a little more than just nature."

"I understand that. I'm from London though now I live mainly in Brighton. So I as well need a little human activity."

"For me the little part resonates since I like some action as long as it's just that--little."

"I also like being a bit out-of-step," she ruminated. I looked at her curiously and she said, "I'll give you an example."

"That would help."

"That recent tragedy in Kenya."

"The barbaric killings at the mall?"

"That's it. It happened while I was here but somewhat out of the reach of the news. When I'm here I do not take the paper or watch much TV. Almost none at all. And so news of that slaughter took some time to filter to me. As if I were living, as they say these days, off the grid. Rather, half-off the grid."

"This is true to me too, but because of my blog I do need to keep up with the so-called news."

"Sorry, but I forgot about that. What's it called again?"

"Behind the (New York) Times, with the New York part in parentheses."

"I remember that. How you're wanting to have it both ways--you tend to write about things reported in the New York Times that provoke you and also you are signally that you personally are a bit behind the times.  Having a little fun at your own expense. Saying you're perhaps obsolete, no? Behind the times?"

"Exactly."

"So here especially, in a similar way, I too am behind. The mall murders, the debate about Iran and what to do in Syria, your debt ceiling crisis, all of these impinge upon my awareness but in a less immediate and worrisome way that when I'm in New York or London or even my sleepy Brighton."

"You're speaking about what I meant by isolated enough. Not that isolated so that if there were a real crisis that affected me or us directly it would be possible to know minute-by-minute what would be important, even essential to know to avoid a conflagration--a big Sandy-like hurricane--or to be able to mobilize one's thoughts and actions as a citizen because of a major terrorist attack, God forbid, directly on the U.S."

"Isn't this also a stage in life thing?"

"Say more."

"We are after all getting a bit older," not me, I gestured, "and at these latter stages one tends to want to be involved in more generative things. Which by definition means less engagement in the here and now, no matter how vital all of that might have been a few years ago. But now is considerably less compelling."

"I suppose there is some truth to that, though remaining vital is still important to me."

"You feel vital enough to me, if that's any consolation." She smiled wistfully, still gazing toward Monhegan 15 miles off shore.

"But I do need more rest than in the past and that again is where we began--with sleeping."

"You are about to have a birthday, aren't you?"

"Next Wednesday."

"It's a significant one isn't it?"

"At this point they all are."

"But, as I recall, this one is a real number."

"Yes, real. As real as it gets."