Psych-Out

Balancing by mexxik (1)

How many times do we lament, “I need balance in my life”? Balance so we can get to the gym, or practice yoga. Balance to quiet the naggings of work, play, love, obligation — that yearned for state of equilibrium where our footing seems secure.

Balance is static. Predictable. Sustained. Like weights on a scale. But, weights are dead weight. Inert. Unless an outside force pushes, they will remain in that balance, indefinitely. To weights on a scale, life doesn’t happen.

Life is not inert. Life is a flux of continuous motion. In life, there is no balance, only balancing.

“The dog needs her walk. The deadline is due. I haven’t been to the gym. When’s my daughter’s soccer game? Sex. What’s that?” If these forces aren’t bad enough, in our brain there is the firing of several billion neurons with their several trillion synapses. At any given moment, several hundred thousand brain circuits are bound to be lit up. Forget the boss, or the sudden deadline — it only takes one of those circuits to trigger a thought, a fear, or a desire that can, in itself, knock us off center. The tightrope sways. The threat of falling is dizzying. Only then do we become conscious of our footing.

Balance is a snapshot in time. A split second where by chance, or by effort, we hit that moment where nothing moves. Imagine a busy urban street. Pedestrians, cars, delivery trucks, sidewalk preachers, honking horns, an ambulance racing through traffic. Snap a photograph. We freeze the frame. Voila. Balance! Look away from the frame, the scene has shifted. Balance, like that moment, slips from our grasp. If we are fortunate to find it again, to take another snapshot, inevitably balance will have a different composition.

Our struggle for balance is cousin to a struggle for order. Unwavering. Predictable. Time is harmonized. Energy is held in reserve. Chores done. Deadlines met. Exercise accomplished. We set schedules, make lists, buy closet organizers, tap elaborate technological gadgets. Still, the tightrope sways underfoot.

Nathanael West wrote, “Man has a tropism for order. Keys in one pocket, change in another. Mandolins are tuned G D A E. The physical world has a tropism for disorder, entropy. Man against Nature…the battle of the centuries. Keys yearn to mix with change. Mandolins strive to get out of tune. Every order has within it the germ of destruction.” (2)

The word “balance” is a noun – a state of being, an object that is and will always be. “Balancing” is a present participle — an active present verb tense, current in time, stepping mindfully, and forever seeking itself.

“Balancing” anticipates that inevitably the wind blows, fear grips, obligation calls, people demand, muscles twitch, and desire tweaks. The best we can do is stay conscious of our footing. Continue to separate our keys from our change. I may not find balance, but I can always keep balancing. Karl Wallenda, of the famous Flying Wallenda’s, once said, “Being on a tightrope is living, everything else is waiting.”

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(1) The photo “Balancing” is by mexxik whose work can be found at photoshoptalent.

(2) West, Nathanael. Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locusts. New York: New Directions, 1962.

You gaze into his or her eyes. Your breathing deepens. Your pupils dilate. Your ribcage can’t hold back the drumming of your heart. You lean close. His or her breath warms your lips. You’ve crossed the threshold. There’s no turning back. Reason slides into retreat. What’s left but to surrender. Casanova proclaimed, “I don’t conquer, I submit.”

What’s in a kiss? The thinnest layers of skin. Moreover, the lips, together with the tongue, enjoy more sensory neurons per square centimeter than anywhere else on the body. Those neurons trigger an intoxicating cocktail of densely packed sensation. To the brain, sensation is information – texture, temperature, taste, smell. Who is this man? Who is this woman?

If you were to scan the brains of two lovers gazing into each other’s eyes you’d find a flurry of neuronal firing in the right ventral tegmental area and the right caudate nucleus. These areas are central to the brain’s reward centers — the same centers jacked up by cocaine. Add a kiss? Love is the drug, indeed.

Love is the Drug, Roxy Music

Evolutionary psychologist Gordon G. Gallup has theorized that kissing conveys subconscious information about a prospective mate’s genetic compatibility. (1) This information passes beneath our awareness through the tactile (touch) and olfactory (smell) sensory systems. Now here’s where evolutionary theorists often step onto thin ice, even ones who should know better. And here’s where throughout human history bazillions of the love struck have fallen into heartbreak’s abyss. Genetic compatibility doesn’t insure a great partner any more than does great kissing.

Genes don’t “care” whether that man or woman you’re smooching will be that hall-of- fame mate or not. Genes are out to replicate themselves. The information gathered doesn’t have to be accurate, just good enough to get that job done. Our choices are always a gamble. Chance always lurks about life’s table. Our senses help us sort the odds. If his kiss is soft, wet, and passionate, maybe it shows he’s invested enough to stick around. Maybe. If her mouth melts and she slides her tongue against yours, maybe she’ll be yours. Maybe. We have to base our guesses on something. What’s closer to the scan of our senses than a kiss?

It may be, instead, that the information our brain tracks in those devouring lips helps us weed out the genetic misfits. It’s a more efficient evolutionarily strategy to let us in on what to avoid, than to show us what we are going for. Bad smell, disgusting taste, rough and nervously tight lips. (Evolutionarily, a high probability sign of poor health, weak temperament, and unfavorable genes.) It may be hard to be certain if he or she is that forever mate with great genes, but we certainly will tingle with delight over that good kisser, and shove ourselves off from the bad. For better and worse, for richer and poorer, and sometimes even in spite of all reason, most of us find ourselves playing the odds in favor of that pair of luscious, tasty, simmering lips.

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(1) Walter, Chip. “Affairs of the Lips,” Scientific American Mind Vol. 19, No. 1 (2008): 24-29.