Loss

I had a great little blog post all planned out.  I've recently finished this fantastic little book called Proust was a Neuroscientist.  One of the chapters talked about Virginia Woolf.  I've honestly only read a single story by her in high school so I don't remember much.  What I wanted to cover was a discussion about her search for the mind and how all these disparate elements can make up a single person.

A great read.

All of her novels seem to focus on this idea.  And to end my post, I was going to tell how her depression became so crippling that she filled her coat pockets with rocks and walked into the river to drown.  I thought it would make for an interesting little story and then I'd move on to a new topic.  I didn't think I would suddenly be hit by a tragedy of my own.

I lost a very dear friend last week.  It took several calls from various people before I could actually believe he was gone.  He was always my closest nerd friend and my gut reaction was to believe he was actually in a parallel dimension (something akin to fringe which he introduced my family to).  Tragedies are supposed to happen to people who you don't know.  It's supposed to happen to someone else.  Maybe on the news you hear of a death and you think, that's so sad.  But it's never, ever supposed to effect you.

Well I've cried till my eyes are beyond red and puffy.  And I've felt like my chest is going to collapse.  The aftermath has sent me seeking solace in others who knew him.  And we all knew him in a different way.  In each person I discover a new aspect of his personality.  Something that didn't shine as brightly when he was with me but was there all the same.

To some, he was a loving older brother.  Others saw him as a shy, yet smart student.  Others knew him as a hard worker at salt lick or an intense gamer who would pull all-nighters on w.o.w. (world of warcraft) or something of the sort.

I never thought...

To me, he was a constant presence in my life.  A rock I could always call on.  Whenever I saw a reference to star trek, he was the first one I'd text.  If I ever wanted to go see a really goofy action movie, we immediately started planning a date.  Without him, I would never have gotten into Doctor Who or Fringe.  I wouldn't have always had someone who would hang out on a wednesday night- just because we could.

I miss him so incredibly much.  The bad parts of life are supposed to happen to other people.  They're supposed to be stories of people like Virginia Woolf.  But I guess life happens to us all the same.  We suffer and grow and never forget those we lost.  He will never, ever leave my heart.

Sometimes I'm Spock

Psychologists and neuroscientists alike are always trying to come up with theories to explain how we experience the world.  And one of our key components is emotion.  Perhaps you're a fan of the Cannon-Bard theory.  It's the typical idea that "I see a bear, process it as a threat, and then my heart rate begins to pick up."

The Dripping Springs Color Guard my senior year of
high school.  What a fantastic family!

I like to think of the time when I first heard that my high school band won State Championships.  I was standing with my fellow drum majors and color guard lieutenant when they finally gave the score and the big trophy to Dripping Springs Tiger Band.  My brain went something like, we won.  We Won. WE WON! And eventually I felt myself begin to bounce on the balls of my feet with glee.  As my brain bathed in dopamine, I jumped and screamed with my bandmates as they stormed the field in jubilation.

But to be honest, the Cannon-Bard theory doesn't really do it for me.  Maybe I'm part vulcan as my family seems to believe.  (I did have very pointy ears as a child....)  But most of my emotion comes after the fact.

Let's take the generic instance (which could apply to many people) of my interactions with a boy.  We hang out, become close friends, and then I start to notice something.  Every time I'm near this boy, I feel a flush in my cheeks.  My heart, just barely noticeable, begins to pump a bit faster.  I started to notice I would cross my legs the same way as him and lean in whenever we were seated across the table.

Taken altogether, I could see that I liked him.  But it took my own physiological reactions to realize it.  I had to physically feel before my emotions would catch up.  This embodies the James-Lange theory.  In other words, we perceive a stimulus, our body starts to physically react, and then our mind interprets those changes as specific emotions.  I tend to see this almost as a Spock hypothesis.  We have to interpret our own emotions to really see what's going on.  Just like the fictional character from Star Trek, I can't always decipher others' reactions, more or less my own.  I wonder if I bleed green? (*Vulcans have copper-based blood so they bleed green)

Live Long and Prosper

But back to the real science.  Current research says the truth is somewhere between these two theories.  It's a mixture, depending on the situation, types of emotions evoked, and other things.  But until I learn anything definitive, I'm sticking with the belief that I'm a relative of Spock.