In two minds

We live in two minds
with opposing forces
A part of and apart from natural landscapes
Striving for resolution
In trying to make up our minds
we give the impression of wanting both ways
Perpetuating a state of being in two minds
by deliberating over the negative consequences of one or both actions
Divisions from demands of life and work drive us to seek oblivion in sleep
In the day,
Language gives us fading order
Managing incongruencies
For sake of sociality, we pretend there is less ambiguity in our words.
Is there a pure experience which doesn’t need language?
Which neither objectifies nor animates?
Why do we still entrust culture to give us more order than nature
when it is such binaries that lead to disengagement
and to missing a raw communal experience,
free from preconceived notions and frames,
not bound to any measured distance between us.

Based on a lecture by M. Jackson and ensuing discussion “Unhinged Signs, Cracked Walls and the Rage for Order”, Dept. of Anthropology, Princeton.

Behavioral synchrony in adult animals – does it reduce stress?

I first became interested in behavioral synchrony when studying red colobus monkeys. I hypothesized that innovative behavior would be less likely to occur the more synchronized the activity of individuals in groups was, that is, if nearest neighbors’ activities were synchronized. I viewed innovation as opposite of synchronization, attributing behavioral synchrony to less intelligent mammals – as imitation and copying are often viewed. The more behaviorally flexible a species, the more innovation is expected, and therefore, less synchronization – right? Well, I’ve recently began to re-think this after conversations with a friend, a well-being psychologist. He described the benefits he gets from going dancing – not just from physical contact with the opposite sex – but the synchronized nature of the activity. When we practice yoga in a class, synchronizing our poses is emphasized. We move together. We also value synchronization when looking at others – at a stage of ballerinas for instance – the more talented the dancers, the more perfect their synchrony, their perfectly timed coordination of movement. Is there a health benefit, a reduction in stress, that we experience following an hour or so of synchronized movement or behavior (relative to asynchronized movement)? Does this tap into some fundamental need we have to be in sync with our neighbors, our conspecifics, our group members? Is the western world’s emphasis on autonomy so strong that we must seek synchronization in organized classes of dance or yoga amidst the insular chaos of our daily lives? What exactly do we get out of being in synchrony with other people? Non-human primate groups must move together to capitalize on the benefits of social grouping in the first place - it is to an individuals’ advantage to feed when others feed, to rest when others rest. Behavioral synchrony appears to be consistent with optimal foraging theory. Does behavioral synchrony necessarily exclude innovative behavior or make it less likely?

Ndundulu

There is a forest with a dark spirit
Which throws at you unforeseen challenges
Mudslides along paths which make you clamber desperately
One step forward two steps back
Then rewards you with glimpses of bar-tailed trogons and their bright red bellies
But for every reward there are more dares
At night, your tent turns black with army ants as the camp cook throws cinders at them from the fire
encircling you and tent with kerosene – will I burn here?
Black flies awaken you. They lay their slick white eggs upon your tent.
You are determined to persevere stiff-backed
To see that strange high-headed monkey that hid from scientists until this century
You battle the mud, suspending fury at the sight of a tall pink orchid
And cross fast-flowing rivers marveling at the red fruits of muria mbega and the glow of epiphytic impatiens 20 metres above your head
Then something stirs ever so faintly at your feet, you could have crushed it
The tiny eye-ringed duiker baby now lies still in the ferns
Before you can go further the sky opens and a wall of rain falls unremittingly
There is nowhere to hide
With camp shelters full of water, we crowd around the cook and fire taking comfort in sips of spiced, warming tea
But then our stomachs churn from swigs of rivers' runoff
This is no place for humans and our frailty
A blast of thunder explodes and deafens us
The forest spirit laughs
After ten days we have seen not much more than shadows
of the cautious kipunji
And I entrust their custody to this unforgiving place
May it never welcome humans more than it did us
Humbly, we abscond in the rain