The Happiness That is Love

Dear readers, single and wed alike,

Valentine's Day has recently passed, and so the topic of love has been much fashionable in the news and popular media of late. I retrospected on the state of wedlock and my felicitous meeting with the man that was to become my better half, and determined it worth our collective time to share my budding thoughts with you.

In the moment of our union in the presence of God and many witnesses, it seemed to me that we instantly became one. I never felt a moment of dissonance or timidity in his presence, and felt the bond of friendship and companionship that truly God Himself has ordained for the coupled man and woman. Love was, as they say, in the air, since we met through the flight school which we both attended. We were married in the spring of 2009 and it has not been yet a full year of wedlock for us. Embittered and disillusioned couples are quick to inform us that love does not last, but I do not give their dry words merit. New wine should not be poured into old skins; I have seen the deepness of love, intertwined with the love of God, grow only stronger with time. It is this pure and holy love of selflessness that I pursue, not a fleeting and self-satisfying passion.

Mr. H is indeed all I could have asked for in a husband. He is patient, which is a requisite counterweight to my impatience and headstrong manner. He is slow to anger and always forgiving, and in reciprocation I am learning to be myself more forbearing and less aggrieved.

Several days before Valentine’s Day, I lost my wedding ring. This was in my eyes a tragedy – not only was the ring valuable in monetary terms but it had a special sentimental value. Mr. H had chosen it for me, a quality increasing its significance in my eyes. It was a token of his love, but Mr. H wisely reminded me that it was just that – a token – and that in life things get lost. The true gift is the love that the ring represents!

The one place where we cannot yet reconcile our differences is a small matter of what pilots call OAT – Outside Air Temperature. He is always an oven, and I am always a refrigerator, so drives are punctuated by the continual rolling of windows up and down, and the heater blasting on and shutting off.

But this is minor in the grand scheme, and it is Mr. H’s precaution to anticipate and fill my every need that brings the warm glow of appreciation and love to my heart; he thoughtfully prepares me food when he knows I will be coming home hungry, cleans the house when I am busy with work and school, turns his movie down when he sees me take out my phone to make a call, buys me small gifts out of the blue.

I am continually learning new things about this man I call Mine. Most recently, I happily informed him that in order to keep our tub clean, I had put a scrub brush in there so that we can scrub the walls after a shower if it looks dirty. He looked surprised and said he was already scrubbing it after showers. I looked in the shower and saw only the bottles of soap and my body-scrub brush. The innocent look on his face told me what he had been using!

My lover is mine, and I am his; Happy Valentine’s Day. Did I mention that I found my ring today?

Lovingly,


Mrs H
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A story about memory

Dear educated and interested readers,

Once upon a time, there was a man who suffered from anterograde amnesia, which is a serious condition where, following some sort of insult to the brain (via trauma or surgery), a person is unable to form long-term memories.
This man walked into a doctor's office and reached out to shake hands with the doctor - to his painful surprise, the doctor had a tack in his hand, which sharply pricked the patient's palm! The next day, this patient walked into the same office, and (having no memory, due to his amnesia) averred he had never met the doctor before. However, when the doctor reached out to shake his hand, the patient inexplicably answered, "I don't know why, but I am afraid to shake your hand!"

Now, let me tell you a story from my life that illustrates this same peculiar phenomena, and then I will explain to you why it takes place.

My friend Esther and I were riding our bikes on the interurban trail near where we live, and she told me (in more or less these words), "I'm always afraid I'll fall when we take the corners, because once when I was little I took a sharp corner up into a driveway. I fell and chipped my tooth, and my mouth was bleeding and I was all scratched up. Ever since then, I've been afraid I'll fall on the corners!"

Now for the explanation: As you probably know, there are several types of memory. There is declarative memory (for instance, facts), and procedural memory, which is made up of emotional and muscle memory. An example of muscle memory might be being able to tie your shoe, or type on the computer keyboard - you cannot exactly describe this to somebody, but your hands can do it seemingly "automatically" - that is to say, without the help of your declarative memory.
Emotional memory is also like this - we have emotional responses and reactions to things that we may not even be able to explain! These emotional memories seem to be stored in a structure in the brain called the amygdala (illustrated in the photo at right).

In Esther's case, she experienced intense fear and pain when her bike turned on the corner. Her brain associated the fear and pain with the action she was taking - turning on the corner - and now whenever she takes that action her amygdala sets off the alarms, warning her brain of what might happen again. This may seem very logical to us, but remember the man in the beginning of the story - he had no conscious, declarative memory of the event, but he was still, for some reason, afraid!

When I told this to Esther, she started laughing and told me another story. This story will nicely illustrate the phenomenon described in the beginning of this article.

"When I was little, I was at my friend Grace's house," she told me, "and I was pushing her on the tire swing. I pushed her too far, and she smacked her head into the tree! Of course, she went crying into the house, and I felt so bad. The other day Grace was at our house, and I asked her if she remembered the incident. She started laughing - and told me that she didn't remember me pushing her into the tree at all, but whenever she got onto the tire swing she was afraid, for some unexplainable reason, that she would hit the tree!"

You may actually know more than you know! With love and fond memories,


Mrs H
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Neurophilosophy

Dear fellow ponderers on this mortal coil,

Join me for a moment in the world of contemplation and thought, where the material slows to a halt and the mental consumes our focus.

Our class was assigned to consider some ethical complications of neuroprosthetics, a very possible future technology in which we can enhance or recreate cognitive and sensory processes in humans. You could, for instance, have neurosurgery in order to be a math whiz, or to have an incredible memory for every fact or number you encounter, or to be able to perceive sounds from miles away, etc. This brings up a number of moral dilemmas,as you can imagine. The following question was posited by our teacher.

Research Assignment for Biopsychology Class: Question # 4. Would you become “less” human with all of these prosthetics?

Perhaps the knowledge of one with a neuroprosthetic would be valued and yet not admired as much as the naturally acquired abilities of an unmodified human or a savant. While intrinsically speaking the knowledge or ability would be the same in both, its artificiality in the former may to some degree taint its beauty or metphorically cheapen it, similar to a manufactured ruby which is physically and molecularly identical to a natural one, and yet cheaper and less valuable by virtue of its unnatural fabrication.

To know if a person would become less human by means of the use of neuroprosthetics, scientists must first grapple with the complexity of what makes us distinctively human. Since scientists have worked tirelessly to erase any distinction between humans and other mammals, can we then not pointedly ask them how anybody or anything could become less human?

Thoughtfully yours,


Mrs H
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Initiating

Dear members of the press and others:

Part of the brain that is involved in initiating activities is the Basal Ganglia, a structure at the base of the forebrain involved in motor learning, muscle memory, skills, and habits (such as typing without consciously deciding where to put your fingers for each letter). When you decide (in the Prefrontal Cortex) that you want to initiate a certain action, such as standing up, then your brain goes into sequencing mode. This is a simplistic model, but essentially signals are sent from the prefrontal cortex and the primary motor cortex (a structure that controls your muscles) to the Basal Ganglia.

Myriad things are happening in your brain at the moment you make the rational decision to stand up. As your brain rapidly sends the signals via a variety of pathways to the alpha-motor neurons of your skeletal muscles, another area of your brain is pumping Dopamine up to the Basal Ganglia. This Dopamine is vital for initiating and repeating activities. It reassures the Basal Ganglia that the movement is good, it is correct, and it should continue. For instance, when you strike a chord on a piano and it turns out awful, the Dopamine flow is reduced (but never completely stopped). When you strike it correctly, the Dopamine flows rapidly again, and you feel good.

When Dopamine flow is chronically reduced by means of a disorder, you end up with a condition such as Parkinson's Disease, where it is very difficult for a person to initiate an activity. Although they consciously may want to, it may be near impossible for them to get started. (Once they get started they can carry out the activity just fine if they know it well, but if they try to initiate stopping the activity, they may not be able to and hence might run into a wall, keep rocking their chair, etc.)

This morning, I laid in bed for an hour after my alarm went off, dozing and reawakening with the horrible guilt of knowing that I should be getting up to swim. I eventually got so frustrated that I hauled myself out of bed and shuffled off to the YMCA, where I had a satisfying, invigorating morning swim. But it seemed as though just getting that momentum, getting that initiation to occur, was near impossible. My brain was hampered with indecision as it weighed the almost equal balances of staying in a warm bed to sleep, against getting up and swimming and refreshing myself.

The brain weighs decisions in terms of the power of various inputs synapsing upon the neurons - how much weight I place on an input is up to me. Are the inputs of staying warm, comfy, and resting more important to me? Or is getting up, starting my day, eating oatmeal, and swimming more important? I need to rationally and logically place more and more weight on the side of getting up to go swim, and downplay the attractions of staying in bed, as that conviction will make it easier for my brain to tend towards the desired activity. I need to cognitively reinforce myself as I go to the YMCA, swim, and relax afterward - consciously think about how good it felt, how refreshed I was, how motivated I was, how enjoyable it was.

I need to make the decision process simpler so that the initiation process will follow more easily, with solid conviction to back it up. Flow Dopamine, flow!

Energetically,


Mrs H
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The Circus Isn't the Only Place You Find Jugglers ... or is it?

Dearest compatriots,

I hardly know where to begin! No philosophy here today ... just clearing my brain from the cobwebs of exams.

My husband is home, which is wonderful - it is so good to have the man back in the house. He spent his first day home chugging through a long to-do list to get himself caught back up on everything from union dues to cleaning the mail bin in the office. This was wonderful! He even cleaned out underneath our kitchen sink (zealous boy), bringing in a bin to rearrange the recycle-trash-plastic bags that reside down there.

I am excited to announce that in his absence, my brother, sister, his parents, and I assembled some amazing shelving for all our canned goods. I really could not be happier ... I had to go look at them at least twenty times after they were assembled just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I can finally access a jar of pickles without lifting thirteen forty-pound boxes! Many thanks to all who contributed to this effort, which was a surprise for Mr. H!

It seems like my plate is full right now, but happily full. I am extremely cautious about adding things to my schedule, even just visits or dinners, much less regular activities. I am currently engaged in school (daily), choir (1 - 2 times weekly), church (weekly), and housekeeping and being a wife. That is all I feel I should be trying to shuffle right now; it is just enough to keep me busy, with the occasional evening arriving with nothing to do (how wonderful!) so that I can let off the pressure for a while.

I know that if I were to add much else, although it would definitely be feasible, I might go a little crazy!

For now, things are holding steady. Steady as she goes!

Yours till errands do us temporarily part,


Mrs H
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Two Weeks Can Seem Quite Long

Dear readership,

On Saturday evening after a full day of packing and housecleaning, Mr. H and Joe (his brother) decided it would be best if Mr. H were to ride with Joe and Kristina in the U-Haul to help them move into their new house in New Mexico. Mr. H packed up a duffel bag that night, and on Sunday morning we got up at 4 and headed over to Joe & Kristina's house in Bothell. We finished stuffing things into the U-Haul, vacuumed the living room carpet one last time, hitched the Jeep to the back of the truck, and they took off.

And then, Mrs. H was left all alone!

I grew up with seven other siblings, and lived at home until Mr. H whisked me away to be married; so I have essentially never lived on my own! Even if I was housesitting for a friend, I usually had a sister with me and if no sister, a few dogs and cats.

The first evening was very long, and very quiet. I would have gone to an evening service at church to get out and about, but I had to complete a homework assignment. When I left to go to the bookstore for a while, I intentionally left a light on in the living room so that I wouldn't have to return to a darkened house!

It took me quite some time (about an hour) to fall asleep the first night of Mr. H's absence. I slept very lightly and woke up many times to check my phone and see if there were any messages from him, as he was driving straight through the night with his brother.

Despite the lack of sleep, by 4AM I didn't even feel tired and I was off to the swim class at the YMCA. My coach understood the strangeness of aloneness as her husband is currently working in Flagstaff, Arizona. "Come swim any morning if you get lonely," she said, "and I'll be here! But it's the evenings that are the hardest." As long as I keep busy, it doesn't seem too lonely.

The mornings seem even stranger than the evenings, I think; Mr. H is not in the bathroom brushing his teeth, or pulling me out of bed, and I am not packing a lunch or making Pop-Tarts for his breakfast. On Tuesday, I kept hitting the snooze button on my alarm like a morphine drip, and got out of bed a full 45 minutes later than normal.

I can't help but think of my girls with husbands in the military (Kira, Kimberly, Allison!). I am impressed with how they deal with their husbands' absences, especially in the case of Kira, who has little ones to watch. You girls are my heroes!

I have a suspicion the menfolk don't always miss us as much, because they are in strange foreign surroundings with new tasks and even dangers to keep their minds occupied. To be at home repeating the rituals of normal life with a blank spot left by your spouse can be, I think, the lonelier of the two.

But Mr. H will be home by the 12th, and in the meantime, he is helping his brother and sister in a much-needed way; and that brings great joy to both of us!

With love,


Mrs H
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