Over the past few years, I have been on a side quest. My mission? To understand what has driven us humans to desiccate our planet and wreak havoc on each other. Just asking for a friend. What has driven us to kill off the most species since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? Are the drivers innate to human nature? Are we kind when its visible but lack conscience when we can’t see the big-picture repercussions of our actions? Are there healthier cultures that have been able to avoid mass destruction? Wouldn't it be nice to really know WHY?
On this side quest to understand these questions, I’ve been reading a thicc book called “The Master and His Emissary." This 400+ page master work cites a different brain science study in nearly every paragraph. The end notes alone are like 100 pages. This thing is a beast, and was published by Yale. The author, British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, is a heavy hitter. The core topic? Our brains (and the brains of nearly all birds and mammals) are divided in two halves, an begrudgingly co-operate in fascinating ways. The book dispels outdated pop-sci misunderstandings and takes a strong stance:
The structure of the brain has led the LEFT brain to dominate the RIGHT brain in Western societies. But this left brain dominance is culture-specific, not all humans are ruled by the left-brain. McGilchist suggests that this overly “left brain thinking” underlies a lot of the downfall of Western Civilization.
Exactly the kind of hot take I’m in search of on this side quest! Let’s gooooo.
I’d like to share some of the key differences between the two sides. In reading the book, I found myself reflecting on the functions and patterns he outlined. In my meditation, I’ve been playing around with how to tap into my right brain more, and investigating whether meditation may just be a matter of handing the keys to the rightful Master, the right brain.
Left Brain: The Emissary
Right Brain: The Master
You’d obviously have to read the book to learn more about these distinctions, but let’s draw a bit of a through line between them. The left brain deals in Ideas, Concepts and Abstractions- not “the actual thing itself.” The left brain scans the street and sees “motorcycle” and logs it kindof like the Terminator.
But the right brain? It can study the detailed patterns of mud on the tire of the motorcycle, and paint an incredible reproduction of each unique curve of that wheel onto a canvas. But the right brains can also hold that wheel in the broader context of the sidewalk, the misty evening, and the smell of trash wafting by, giving our subjective experience of life a connected, rich, multi-faceted tapestry of qualia.
So this is the part that you need to recognize in the age of AI:
Our computer systems are HYPER left brained.
Computers deal in symbols that attempt to DESCRIBE something here in actual reality. Computers are extensions of language, and language uses names to categorize unique things into generic buckets like “motorcycle” and “car.” And what AI's (large language models) do is puts all these patterns together in a big map (ie words, sentences, etc) and relate them to each other like a detective with strings and photos on a cork board. So although it IS an attempt to create a broader, holistic map of all the parts together, it is only ever dealing with words ABOUT something, not THE REAL THING itself!
Look at something nearby you. Conjure the single word that describes it. Now consider how much detail is lost between your full experience of that thing and the single word that encodes it.
So AI is perhaps three layers removed from the true ground of existence.
1) Actual thing 2) Human perceives and describes it with language 3) AI reads language and makes patterns from pure abstraction.
But you? You are only one to two layers removed from reality! The great masters even suggest that it IS possible to be zero layers removed from root reality, and this is called DIRECT KNOWLEDGE and it is an aspect of enlightenment (so says Buddhism).
So that is why AI can physically never replace you. You have the potential of having a more direct experience of the truth, and AI is only ever and always dealing with approximation of names. AI remembers names, but you know the actual person.
I’m sitting at a sturdy picnic table as I type this. Names and initials are chiseled into it, and a layer of thick brown paint covers all but the most recent inscriptions.
I’m here taking a week’s vacation. The trip was launched with minimal planning- I just needed some time off after a 4 month marathon of planning a wedding, cancelling it, breaking up and moving. The nearby Sierras seemed like a good place to to limp across the finish line. I already had all the necessary gear. What my lack of foresight failed to grasp is that I would once again be throwing myself in to the expanse of the desert with no choice but to reckon with the forces of loneliness. Here I was again, facing my conscience with none of the welcome distractions of city life.
These solo trips always start as dreams of freedom: “I’m off to explore the American West with four wheels and a tent!” Invariably, usually on the second night, I realize what I haven gotten myself into. All the sinking feelings of the past few years rise to the surface. All the heartache, all the bad decisions, all the things that didn’t go my way. The beast I’ve managed to fend off back home finally boomerangs back and find me.
Yesterday, that beast slayed me while I was hiking back down from an alpine lake.
The elements, the weight, the exertion, and the hunger. They all amplify emotions on the trail. Although uncomfortable, it is helpful. With the volume turned up, it helps me hear the message. With hours of discomfort and nowhere to hide, and my usual slight-of-hand techniques gone, I am left with no other choice but the feel my goddamn feelings.
The beast mocked me, “How sad. Forty-one years old, and you’re taking your vacation all by yourself. No partner, no girlfriend, no wife or kids. No one to remember the vista above that turquoise lake. Just you. Forever twenty-one. Getting the freedom and quiet you always wanted, only to realize the price is paid in sadness.”
I had been resisting too long. Years of not wanting to look down the deep dark hole. I had to admit the pit sadness was right here in my chest. The same loneliness had been there on all of these trips. That empty feeling was what had me jump, grasping for the shore, hoping for something, or someone, to hold onto.
I stopped on the trail, and leaned my hip-belt on my trekking poles. I allowed my face to scrunch up, almost pretending to cry. It felt so foreign, like I was self-consciously singing karaoke but yearned to let it rip. It seemed indulgent to feel sorry for myself. But it made the tears come, so I fanned the flames of despondent self-loathing. “What if I’m really fucked? Maybe I really fucked up. What if I really fucked my life up? Ohhhh fuck what if it never happens for me?”
I could only go there for a few moments. It was a fairly busy trail, and I didn’t want anyone to be burdened with a hot mess in their way. The muscle memory of composing myself set itself in motion, my face and heart became stoic, and I marched on.
I stopped again a few minutes later and let the beast lash into me again. The twisting and squinting came easier this time. I felt noticeably better immediately afterward. Hmm. Wow. Really? So is THIS what people mean when they say you’ve got to feel your feelings? Out here in these beautiful mountains miserable all by myself? Sounds like a great vacation.
I had been avoiding facing and feeling all this, and now I could see it wasn’t going to swallow me whole. I had engaged in so much bad behavior in attempts to distract my attention from landing on this pain. I’ve tasted the rainbow of hangovers that ensue from these distractions enough to know the truth. They do not work. The pot is not filled with gold. It is filled with unpaid receipts soggy with tears and bleeding their toxic ink onto balled up tissue paper, sticky with dried up discarded human DNA.
Anyway, this is all to say, the pit was deep, and I knew it. There was more to face, more cheeky bastards to punch me in the face before I would have escape velocity. I kept walking and enjoyed the partial relief. I could start to see another way. I could see that letting it touch me would not engulf me in terminal depression. Oh, contraire, dear friend. It would relieve me of the burden.
The late afternoon sun demanded respect as the trees gave way to a broad, open, shade-less valley. There were still another thousand vertical feet to descend. I had run out of water half an hour prior. I knew the creek was close by, and I had a water pump if needed, so I kept trudging on. The ever-so-faint and familiar feeling of the feathers of heat exhaustion tickled my neck.
I got back down under the canopy of the cool creek bed. I was on the home stretch. I passed the cabins that I would have wanted to bring her back to, but never would.
I got back to the car, and then back to camp. I could feel my body was in a very subtle state of emergency after the long hike. I immediately got my stove out to boil water. I made instant mashed potatoes, and folded some cheese in for a slash of protein. I drank the carbs in and cracked a cold three dollar mocktail from the cooler, and then another. I was actually taking decent care of myself. My mind was blank. I rinsed off in the frigid stream, and felt reset.
Then, after all these basics were completed, I laid down naked in my tent. The padding was comfortable. For a moment at least, it was time to stare at the ceiling. And then my chest clenched in on itself. The sadness smacked me in the face, harder this time. It was personal this time. With the sound of the creek to muddle my crying from anyone in earshot, I let it hit me. I let the pain touch me. I let the horrible feelings have their day in court.
After the third or fourth wave of despondency, I sat up deliberately and pulled my meditation cushion over. This is the practice, after all. It is about dealing with what comes up, honestly. It is about allowing and investigating what’s ACTUALLY there, not how I want it to be. And this, too, is grist for the mill.
I set my timer and started to chant. I wept the chants out dramatically like a child having a meltdown at the grocery store. Snot and tears flowed into a concoction of misery, an excrement that was finally coming out to be seen. After the chants were done, I sat, raw but calmer. I sat firm, resolved to acknowledge what was there and not try to change it, skip it, kill it, or avoid it. I would recognize, acknowledge, investigate. I could do all of this. I knew how to soldier through those. But could I find care for myself? Could I give kindness to myself? Could I hold myself in a way that I’ve so often yearned for another to hold me? That was what had been eluding me. How to Handle Myself. How to Hold Myself in Times of Trouble. I had been so focused on Doing it Right and Figuring it Out that I had been really hard on myself along the way. With every challenge and bump in the road, I focused on improving my performance, and getting better, and fixing myself, or fixing others, or fixing my circumstances. But I hadn’t been letting myself breathe. I hadn’t been allowing the beautiful acrimonious sadness of life to shave my balls with the vulnerable blade of truth.
This story does not end, and it surely does not end with some insightful resolution. I cried in the woods all by myself, ok? But the truth of life is we keep moving forward, feeling kinda shitty, but find a crumpled piece of the map in our pocket that we had forgotten about. We unfurl it, flatten it out on the table, find the scotch tape, and add it back onto the map.
I forgot to bring a book on this weeklong trip to the mountains. Perhaps I subconsciously wanted to face some shit. Or maybe I was just rushed in leaving the house. But either way, after 4 days of camping alone, I was running out of decent food. I also needed to charge the battery, having also failed to bring my solar panels. It was time for a trip into town.
Please don't ask why this image is so crappy.
I whizzed up the 395 to the next town up: Bishop, California. New ground. I had never been to this stretch of California before. The Eastern Sierras. (Coincidentally, the shape of the itinerary did somewhat resemble the move of a bishop on the chessboard. But I digress.) The speed limit dropped to 45 and I disengaged cruise control and coasted to the first stoplight. Like so many other rural towns, the less-than-interstate highway turns into the main drag in Bishop, so I drove gingerly enough to read the shop signs and see what was on offer. Full-service massage parlor- wow, I wonder what that means. Superbloom Cafe, noted. Oh, now that’s unexpected- a bookstore!
My primary motive for the trip to town was actually to get cash to pay the camping fee at the US Forest Service campground that only took Federal Reserve Notes slipped into envelopes that were subsequently slipped into a dropbox that was checked by an attendant who came by in an offroad golf cart once a day. But I saw the outdoor store first. I didn’t even really need anything at the outdoor store, but in these country mountain towns, it’s like stopping into an embassy in foreign land. I remembered that my stove was fucked up- blowing all the propane out the mini pressure release nostrils and freezing the manifold. It meant that I could only use my backpacking stove, which couldn't simmer, so my cooking had been limited to adding boiling water to ____. After a few minutes of waiting for the shopkeeper to notice me near the counter, I flagged him down. I asked if he carried the part, and he did not, but still obliged a chat about what could be wrong. No, I did not need a bag, sir.
One hundred and forty-eight dollars poorer, and two lamps and one coupler valve richer, I walked out carrying my meager winnings by hand and under armpit. The heat gave me second and third thoughts about my brief fantasy of moving to this gorgeous town. This town that was more than a days drive away from the inflationary economics of San Francisco. This town that had a vacation bible camp and a full service massage parlor. This town with a heat that will drive a man to smoke a cigarette just to make the air seem cold.
But I wouldn’t buy a pack today. I stopped for a cappuccino instead. After taking the first sip of non-instant coffee in a few days, I apologetically asked for the bathroom key. The barista had to explain the directions twice, and when I finally made the second left on my right, I checked to see if anyone was watching me bring my coffee in the bathroom with me. Entering a public bathroom with an open container is objectively degenerate behavior, which I noted to myself under my breath as I used my elbow to lock the door, “Probably a fuckin health code violation in more liberal counties than this.”
After disabusing the toilet of its dignity, I looked up and noticed a large framed poster of The Dude on the wall. Sometimes there’s a man. I wouldn’t say a hero, because …. what’s a hero? But he’s The Dude, of his time and place. After paying my respects, I grabbed my two-sips-deep-and-still-hot cappuccino, returned the bathroom key unnoticed and slinked off like a coyote who had just stolen a bit of meat.
Now 20 pounds lighter, I set off to find the bookstore on foot, backtracking past the outdoor store and the coffee shop, hoping no locals would notice my wildly inefficient route-finding. The bookstore’s selection was erratic and oblong, with three rows of mystery and three rows of everything else. I found the two shelves of Classic Literature and figured I couldn’t go wrong reading something from the Penguin Classics in black, white and orange. I ossilated between Mark Twain and Tony Morrison. I had never read either. Actually wait, didn’t I read some Tony Morrison in high school. That settled it, I would pop my Twain cherry.
Anyway, as I was saying, I forgot to bring a book on this trip. After I came back from town, I sat down by the creek and starting “Roughing It”. Twain and his brother were just setting out on a weeks-long trip out west via stagecoach, and he made a remark that slapped me in the face:
“We jumped onto the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we bowled away and left “the States” behind us. It was superb summer morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a freshness and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation from all sorts of cares and responsibilities, that almost made us feel that the years we had spend in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving, had been wasted and thrown away.” (P. 54)
I know this feeling all too well. The truth of it haunts me on Wednesday nights. It’s nearly everyone’s dream to escape the rat race at some point, and I applaud the rare few who have the courage to actually make the leap. But why have we built a world from which we yearn to escape? It may seem naive to say, but what if we could update our society to be less of a rat race in the first place? Who really wants to win first place in the rat race? What the actual fuck are we doing all this for? If society is making people miserable, why are we all continuing to go along with it? Could we create our own micro-societies that are actually designed to serve our needs, our dreams and our desires?
(And sorry, I know it didn’t seem like I was going to get on a stump, but I tricked you, fair and square. You’re almost done with the damn article, so just hear me out.)
The cynical concept of “the real world” is NOT the default state of nature. The wilderness is more “real” and has existed for literally 8 billion times as long as the human-contrived world-within a world called the human city. “The real world” is a social fiction that exists because enough people believe it to be true. When enough people inhabit that worldview, their behaviors align to it and together they perpetuate things being shaped in that image. If I could bastardized the Clinton-era phase, I would shout from the rooftops, “It’s the WORLDVIEW stupid!” The fiction of “the real world” points to a worldview run amok.
We could spend a book defining the values and qualities of “the real world” of western post-modernity, or scientific materialism but I will spare you the intellectual masterbation. You know what I mean. SO, let's run the logic.
WHEREAS, The cynical idea of “the real world” is the worldview-induced juggernaut that is resulting in wonton consumerism.
WHEREAS, physical over-consumption of resources is causing the suicidal destruction of our basic life-support systems.
WHEREAS, This worldview and operating system has been created by humans, and is perpetuated by humans.
WHEREAS, we are these humans.
THEREFORE, the doctor reccommends we stop participating in a death cult.
"I’m sold!" You say! How much does it cost? Where do I sign? What are the next steps? Well, fellow traveler, the taste of the bitter medicine only costs one year of eyerolls from your Aunt Genevieve in Connecticut and a 6 month adjustment period where you learn to source your wellbeing internally rather than from endless external products, services, experiences, people, flights of fancy and get-rich-quick courses.
But in all seriousness, this is all that I have really and truly learned for myself in forty-one years: to seek happiness and satisfaction from external sources NEVER WORKS (be it a romantic partner, worldly success, notoriety, or a hallucinogenic drug). Furthermore, the pursuit-of-happiness-from-a-box only teases me with the bait of a brief pleasure, and leaves a hangover that starts the cycle over again the next day.
What I have learned, and continue to remind myself, is that if I stay quiet, and don’t move my body long enough, and I allow whatever shitty or enticing feelings to come and go, that after an unreasonable amount of time, an amount of time that weeds out the weekend warriors, but is not so long as to be unattainable, after a weeks worth of stumbling and boredom and pain and frustration, there is a joy to be discovered. There is a peace, a stillness, a satisfaction that was always already there, that feels like home, feels like childhood returning to my bones.
And that direct-to-consumer, self-to-table, hyperlocal joy is the closest thing I have found to something capable of ending humanity’s 200-year fool’s errand. Deliver us, dear lord Baby Jesus, from Hedonia to Eudamonia. Amen.
