Another Visit to the Calendar: February

I have a Latin calendar - from the Middle Ages - on my bulletin board dotted by quotes from Virgil. It has caused me to wonder about various names and three years ago, I posted about TGIF - how Friday got its name. I have also mused about how the months got their names. Most are pretty clear, but my birth month of February remained a mystery.

Like Friday, the name February turns out to also have been female-centric. The Latin word februa translates as "means of purification." Februa were goat skin thongs used during Lupcalia, a Roman festival that took place in a grotto called the Lupercal. Goats were sacrificed to the Roman gods named Lupercus and Faunus where the priest were dressed in goatskins. Then the priests took the blood from the sacrifice, dipped thongs of goat skin in the blood and ran around hitting women with the thongs - supposedly assuring easy fertility and delivery.

I guess I understand why none of my elementary teachers discussed the origins of February.

Associative Powers: Generating an Environment

While I was working on my Latin translation of Spinoza's Ethics this morning, I found myself paying extra attention to getting the right phrasing and suddenly I was transported from Los Angeles to the Carolina Coffee Shop in Chapel Hill, NC. I wondered, "what is going on here?"

We have all had the urge to go to a certain place to work on a specific topic. For me, the study of Latin and Greek is associated with the Harry Potteresque nature of my boarding high school. The atmosphere was adequately still (or boring to most) to allow me to wander around in my head until I found the right word or phrase. 

When I went to UNC for college, I found a few places that created the same atmosphere - the Rare Books Room of the library and the Carolina Coffee Shop. It was irritating that I was unable to find more places on and around campus and caused some negative feelings towards the school - unnecessarily as it turns out.

In my morning study, I discovered that my mind will simply supply the atmosphere if I will settle down into my task - a process that evokes Spinoza's emphasis of the associative powers of the imagination in Book 3 of the Ethics.

Connection Between Trauma and Autoimmune Disorders

The Washington Post has run a fascinating article that confirms an intuition that Bessel VanderKolk articulates in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. His idea was that trauma, especially unprocessed trauma, is the root cause of the vast majority of autoimmune disorders. Since that time, I had come to perceive the relationship as well but found myself reluctant to articulate it because it often implied issues where people preferred to not see them.

Here's the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/01/schizophrenia-autoimmune-lupus-psychiatry/

The article describes a woman who had a healthy life pattern until some private life trauma occurred in college (presumably familial or sexual given the preference for privacy). Following this event, she went into a catatonic state where the mental health professionals determined that she was schizophrenic and sent her off to a mental health facility. For the next 20 years, she was basically unresponsive until a doctor wanted to get to the root of why her condition had not changed. They did a deep dive and discovered that her immune system was in overdrive and seemed to be causing her condition. They followed up with a six month cocktail of steroids and immunosuppressants and - bam! - she awakened back to her self. The article presents another example with a 10 year awakening.

From my view, it appears that when trauma occurs - which is daily for all of us - there are some traumas which are so overwhelming that they are not processed. These memories and feelings are set into their own allocated mental/physical space. This process consumes energy and this segregation is held until the person has adequate internal or external resources to process. (I have earlier posted about tribal rituals that allowed post-battle warriors to be reprocessed into community and within themselves.) If these events are not processed, the energies are allocated to such an extent that some people reach a frozen state - part of the fight, flight, freeze, or f*** system. The immune system seems to play a role in helping with the frozen state.

This pattern is potentially treatable as a cocktail of drugs allows for the ability to then process the trauma event which is triggering to immune system response. As a good friend of mine says, "the body talks, meditation heals." Unprocessed trauma takes a huge toll and medicine allows a healing space for doing the work of processing the meaning of a trauma.

Cause of Autism? Daycare generated ENT issues?

One of the major mysteries of my adult life has been the emergence and acceleration of cases of autism. When I first heard about autism, I asked why I had never heard of it and was told that it had always existed but we simply did not identify the defining characteristics as part of something called autism. But then autism truly started to rapidly show up and then within our family. My question was always, "what causes this and why is it accelerating?"

My theoretical answers had always been in the sphere of something new - typically around the increased consumption of sugary beverages or television screens. But a recent study published in BMJ Open suggests that preschoolers with common ear, nose, and throat (ENT) issues may be at risk of autism or high levels of autism traits. The research, which tracked over 10,000 children from birth, suggests that early identification and treatment of ENT conditions may identify and alter the development of autism.

By coincidence, I had dinner with an ENT doctor a couple of days after the publication of this article. He stated that he was not surprised by this possibility. He derided the slack approach of pediatricians who say "the child will grow out of it." In a beautifully Spinozist conceptualization, he stated, "No, the child will not grow out of it; instead the child will grow into something else." He stated that by plugging up the ability for a child to clearly hear during an important developmental period, it was likely that  brain development was altered.

On a related issue, I was amazed when the most important prayer of Judaism - the Shema - was focused on hearing rather than seeing. The rabbis assured me that while seeing was connected to insights and understanding, hearing was the basis of emotional connection. I think the Western world has consistently underestimated the impact of hearing - until Covid showed us what happens when the elderly are unable to be with one another, to hear one another. In addition, studies of the deaf have showed correlation with depression.

My takeaway was that the increase of autism is related to the increase of ENT problems that are germinated (pun intended) by daycare programs. After Covid, I found that almost every cold and flu I had historically had could be traced back to either air travel or daycare exposure. Daycare programs seem to be petri dishes for germ development. Perhaps more rigorous attention to that plus increased concern by pediatricians could reverse the continuing increase of autism.

Greek Art - The Power of Beauty and Physical Hiding Interiority

For years I have reflected on the linear beauty of ancient Greek sculpture accompanied by a complete lack of interiority in these sculptures. I wondered how such masterful artists could capture the marvels of the human physique but not simple facial mannerisms. But in my morning meditation I think I discovered something here.

Two times during my prep school years, I attained a level that I could only describe as bliss. The first was in my fifth form (junior year), I came early to the school year so that I could participate in football preparation. I had a rare single room and had recently purchased a stereo system. After I came back from football practice, I would turn on music and finish my summer reading list on the Italian renaissance. The second was at the end of my sixth form (senior year) when I simply quit doing any homework except for the reading of poetry in my Humanities class. The only real break was to go to track practice.

As I recall these periods, the bliss is the same - it felt civilized and composed. I did not feel the struggles with identity or goals or love. Instead, I marveled at what my be termed, oddly, a clean space. In my meditation, I realized that these were periods in which I had no sense of interiority and yet, at the same time, did not attempt to escape interiority. Instead, I had found a placement that put me at some harmony with my environment.

Given the importance of my interior space, I think that these periods may have borne witness to something the Greeks found - in the presence of physical engagement and artistic endeavor is a space that generates no struggle for the mind. The reason that these sculptures do not convey interiority is not a mistake. Instead, these artists were conveying that such a place exists for those fortunate enough to find it by participating in appropriately or humanistic-ally in art and sport.

 

High Importance of Nasal Breathing

Of course breathing is all important - we do it between 12,000 and 25,000 times per day and we don't live long if we quit this activity. But after reading numerous works (especially James Nestor's Breath book), I have taken away a new sense of the importance of nasal breathing. 

When I was younger, I would regularly have some sinus issues and breathe through my mouth. Generally, it was not a good look - inviting me to be included in the "mouth breather" group. But even at home, I couldn't relax into breathing through my mouth. When I did so, my father would chastise me and I bitterly resented it. It was so difficult to breathe through my nose but he forced the issue - fortunately as it turns out. 

Researchers have discovered dramatic systemic differences when we breathe through our noses as opposed to breathing through our mouths. One study found that people tend to inhale just before a cognitive task — and that doing so tends to improve performance. But they have found that it is only breathing through the nose that has these effects; breathing through the mouth does not.

Another study found it can affect people’s performance on tasks involving emotion and memory. In an experiment researchers monitored subjects’ respiration and asked them to identify the emotion expressed by people in a set of photos developed by psychologists to test emotion recognition. Subjects were quicker to identify fearful faces when the photo appeared as they were taking a breath compared to during exhalation. In a different test, subjects more accurately remembered whether they’d seen a photo previously when it was presented as they inhaled. Again, the effects were strongest when subjects breathed through the nose.

I was fortunate that later as an adult I worked with a doctor who discovered that repeated cases of sinus affection had created scarring that made nasal breathing really difficult and prescribed a daily regimen of spraying with saline solution to keep nasal passages open. So even when it's difficult and I'm tempted to breathe through my mouth, I focus on relaxing, reassuring myself that I'm getting adequate oxygen and keeping my big, fat mouth shut!

Limits to Entitlement? Or Ignorance of Capitalism?

The improvements in quality of food, shelter and clothing, the ease of production and the support of healthcare experienced over the prior four generations has been astonishing. Consistent with these improvements has been a general move towards a charitable attitude towards those less fortunate. So when I heard peers in my generation complain about the "entitled" attitude of the upcoming generation, I dismissed it as typical ideation of "the good ole days" at work.

But a recent discussion about Portland has caused me to reflect that there may be limits to entitlement. I have had quite a few anecdotes concerning the lawlessness of Portland and even know long-term Portlanders who are moving away. Portland is a lovely town which I had always viewed as safe and welcoming to all people and things artisanal. If this change is real (and I believe it is), what has caused the change?

It appears that the stay-at-home mandate of Covid has played a role in Portland's shift. As people stayed home and were allowed to do whatever they wanted, a natural thought occurred to many - "do we really need to work if the US Government could just print out money?" I fielded this narrative frequently as I explained the pitfalls of AOC's money theories. In fact, the inflationary impact of that approach is manifesting itself right now.

Our rising standards of living are driven by improvements in productivity. The dividends of these increases in productivity are more free time and more disposable income. In fact, the purchase of Portland's artisanal products are the result of the much (by Portlanders) derided improvements in mass production. Walmart is not the dream of Portlandia, but its productivity drivers do most of the heavy lifting to provide working people access to the dream. 

This blindspot of connecting productivity with increased standards of living came into focus during the pandemic because people were blinded to how productivity via the internet was the means by which we navigated the pandemic. Instead, people simply attributed it to government largess.  As discontent with capitalistic productivity simmered, it seemed to manifest itself with antagonism towards the police force. 

The police recognize that criminal elements will always have a negative attitude towards them. However, given the hazards of their work, part of their reward and willingness to undertake those hazards is the general respect from the population. When the population at large views the police negatively, the attitude of the police naturally moves to the passive aggressive - "well, let's see how it works for you."

It is likely that an unintended consequence of the Fed's tightening is to remind the population that the solution for an increased standard of living does not lie in the credit creating machinery of the government. Rather, securing the value of the dollar creates a mechanism to measure and drive increases in productivity.

Fundamental Errors: The Case of Obesity, Part 2

In a prior post, http://scottsrandombits.blogspot.com/2021/09/fundamental-errors-case-of-obesity.html, I posited that "obesity" or the process of excess fat accumulating is a function of the body's expression, in other words, likely a genetic function, rather than a defect in character or knowledge. In my opinion, no one likes to accumulate excess fat and shaming is not a solution.

I also commented that my weight does not seem to vary much, whether I exercise or not or whether I diet or not. Recent research from China seems to shed light on this issue. In a study published in a journal called Cell Metabolism, the authors focused on "healthy underweight" BMI (18.5 or lower). Expectations were that this group would be a high exercise, high food intake and good diet group. Instead they found lower food intake and lower activity levels, but accompanied by a resting rate that was "running hotter" - basically a high resting metabolism driven by elevated thyroid hormones.

This research confirms my basic experience. I'm fairly close to the "healthy underweight" BMI group. I have maintained this category regardless of exercise or eating. Further, I have seen that I eat less food, consume more cookies and sit around all day in meetings or research. I would think that my body would reflect these patterns and it doesn't. The answer is, I believe, in this concept of "running hotter." 

I have consistently struggled with issues around "running hotter" - including lighter sleep, higher anxiety and feedback from an aryuvedic-style doctor who claimed that my the back of my throat looked "like a jungle, when it should look like a forest." He told me to give up caffeine. But, weirdly enough for someone "running hot," caffeine (particularly in the Italian espresso form) is my compulsion - not a good one for increasing sleep and reducing anxiety. This research illumined the compulsive aspect of caffeine - the high intake of caffeine levels compensate for my body's tendency to be at a lower activity level relative to others, i.e., when my activity picks up, my sense of shame drops down.