EIEIO

If you recognized the title of this note as the nonsense phrase in the song Old MacDonald had a farm, you win. Your prize is you get to read my blog. OK, I'm kidding. You can read my blog even if you didn't win. 

You may choose not to read my blog even if you did win. To help you decide, here is the thesis: want is a recurring existential threat in the human story. If you don't want to know about that, stop here.

Since you are still reading, I`m going to make it easy for you. I will use EIEIO to help you remember the main ideas. The EIE part stands for Enough Is Enough. The next "I" stands for "I've got this" meaning I can control my appetite. The "O" stands for "Or it's Over" because life without limits can't last.

Enough
Is
Enough.  
I've got this
Or It's Over. 

That was a bit complicated, wasn't it. It doesn`t get easier. This is another jump off point for those wishing ro avoid the incomprehensible. Maybe catch you next time.

You are still reading! If you like complexity, you should examine the biochemistry controlling hunger. Hunger is initiated by a hormone called ghrelin. Satiety is controlled by another hormone called leptin. Leptin acts on cell receptors in the arcuate and ventromedial nuclei, as well as other parts of the hypothalamus and dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area, consequently mediating feeding. (Wikipedia.) Could someone please explain that to me? Anyway, add some serotonin and dopamine and who knows what else, and what have you got? You have a system that regulates appetite ... unless something messes it up, like a box of chocolates. 

I speak from experience; a box of chocolates is what I get for my birthday, that and hugs. All I want now is more birthdays sprinkled through the year, maybe one a week. Even more would be nice, but we mustn't be greedy. EIEIO.

Successful higher life forms, like people, have built-in limits on appetite. Faulty appetite control leads to something like death-by-chocolate making people into food for mushrooms. Fortunately, we humans have the neocortex, which provides conscious control over appetite when leptin lets us down. Other life forms like mushrooms don't have that. If you watch mushrooms eating what they eat (expired people or you-know-what from the farm), they are insatiable; they just keep growing, scatter their spores all over in case there is more of what they eat elsewhere, and disappear when it's gone. People, on the other hand, use the neocortex to control appetite so they get to stay around and see the grandkids grow up. To tell the truth, they may sneak the odd chocolate when nobody's watching. Waste not.

Want not is more difficult. Want is a recurring existential threat in the human story. (I warned you about this.) Limitations are no fun. People practice having fun, get really good at it, and come to expect it. We feel deprived if we get what we need but don't get what we want. Then we want more and more. Finally we blame the government, which accomplishes nothing, because the government is addicted to growth, just like mushrooms. Enough Is Enough would mean the economy is broken. The government's mandate is to make us want more and more until we use it all up and it's over. The cure for unrestrained collective wanting is for individuals to snip themselves out of the mycelium (mushroom colony), pay attention to what we are doing, and use the neocortex to take control so we live long enough to watch the grandkids grow up. EIEIO. 

The government should get a neocortex.

I know what I'm talking about. I am in control. I weigh the same as I did twenty years ago, in spite of the chocolate. That would be 375 pounds. No, just kidding. It's closer to 376. Still kidding. Really it's 180 pounds which feels closer to 376 after lunch when I finish off the chocolate. Twenty years ago, 40 pounds out of 180 was muscle I got working on the farm. Since then it has turned into 40 pounds of something else. But I've got this. EIEIO.

Want is a recurring existential threat in the human story. I already said that, didn't I. Here it is, recurring, just like I said. Allow me to illustrate.

At the beginning of the story, before anyone was taking notes, imagine Adam and Eve living in a garden, easy pickings. Ghrelin and leptin keep them fed and fit. One problem, they are forbidden to eat fruit from two specific trees. They can eat all the rest, which is more than they need. But those two trees, hmmm, must be special. "Want some?" says the serpent (a metaphor for the reptilian brain beneath the neocortex, which is activated by ghrelin and restrained by leptin). This question starts a food fight, which ghrelin wins when the leptin receptors get overwhelmed. And that's why Adam and Eve end up doing detox on the farm. EIEIO. 

Don't blame Eve. If I had been her, and one of those trees in the garden produced chocolates, my inner reptile would have been swimming in ghrelin. While I write this, I envision the chocolate shelf at the grocery store. Did you know they now sell chocolate bars that are a foot wide and four feet long? I exaggerate, but I can't help myself. I'll just try a bite. Maybe another. Nothing bad happens, so just one more. Before you know it, chocolate is all I want. We'll skip the broccoli isle. This goes on until the leptin receptors are exhausted. Then off to the farm for the cure. There we whistle while we work instead of shopping 'till we drop. And while we work and whistle, we are ignoring the primitive reptilian brain that wants what it wants when it wants it. EIEIO.

Want is a recurring existential threat in the human story. (Got the idea yet?) Forward 150,000 years, give or take. Chocolate is still in fashion, but now we really, really want cheaper fuel for SUVs and pickup trucks, preferably both in case the truck is away picking up the kids from school and we can hop in the SUV to go to the mailbox around the corner. The kids shouldn't have to walk when it's too cold or too hot, and besides, they have such heavy books to carry for homework. Poor kids. 

Remember when we were kids, before kilometers, when we walked ten miles to school and eleven miles back home in every kind of  weather, with snowshoes, uphill both ways, carrying the sum of human knowledge in a huge zippered binder? 

I don't remember that either, but kids these days are unaware that they have enough. Our only hope is to teach them EIEIO before it's over.

Want is a recurring existential threat in the human story. (One more time.) Since Adam and Eve, the want rot has spread from the gut to the amygdala. Ghrelin and leptin are still at it. Pass the chocolates, please. But now dopamine is in control while we shop online where you can want anything from anywhere. How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm?  

Enough
Is
Enough.  
I've got this
Or It's Over. 

********************

P.S.

I Haven't been to the farm rehab since 2003. But now we have the Internet where you can find anything you want and want anything you find. I watched a Ted Talk that claimed you could recover from chronic want by rewarding the amygdala with success taking baby steps. Like this: I will not eat chocolate before breakfast. I can do that. EIEIO, feels so good. Next step: I will not eat chocolate before 10:00 AM. Yeah, I've got this. EIEIO. And so on. If I plan it right, I will make it to step 99 before it's over. Step 99: I will donate 10% of my income to rewilding a cocoa plantation. Obviously I won't start at #99. Baby steps.

With regard to energy use, here's where we are on the way to net zero carbon emissions.

Baby step 8: We now have an air-source heat pump at our house, good to -10° C outside and programmed to keep us comfy using a fraction of the energy of the old gas furnace. Honey for the amygdala gathered by the neocortex. EIEIO.