Procrastination Chemistry
Dean
NIH has released a study showing a chemical cause for procrastination in primates.
While I am generally a believer that more knowledge is a good thing, and running away from knowledge a bad thing, I can't help but wonder just how fundamentally changed the human species might be by learning such things. Not that anything earth-shattering in humans is around the corner on something like this, but I'm imagining a day when we can one day get our brains tuned to make us whatever we want to be: gay, straight, energetic, phlegmetic, work-driven, cheerful, sexually passive or aggressive--all just a few tweaks of the chemistry and we'll get you fine-tuned the way you (or society) wants.
The question of what our concept of "self" really means looms ever larger.
How long will it be before employees get doctors notes stating that they suffer from a chemical imbalance that forces them to turn in reports late? Hey, they're taking pills for it, so if you expect reports ON TIME in a BUSINESS SETTING, you are clearly AN INTOLERANT MONSTER.
I would get a job and work, but I'm genetically predisposed to procrastination. It's my brain's fault. It's society's fault. I'm over- or under-medicated.
It is the fault of anyone and anything but me!
Remember when nobody had clinically diagnosed ADD, and all those kids we just called "hyperactive" went on to lead productive lives?
I believe that when I am a great man, it is because I overcome the cards that fate/God has played me. When I am weak, it is because I don't take a stand for what is right. When I fail, at least I tried.
I refuse to be a victim, even of my own brain chems, even if they are a great and perfectly legitimate excuse. My father was an alcoholic, and I could be very easily and I'd have a really great and legitimate excuse (abuse, genetic predisposition, stress - and I can go on and on) for it. I have chosen to this point not to rest on great and legitimate excuses. Instead, I continue to strive (and yes, sometimes fail) to be the man I CAN be, DESPITE the excuses, instead of the man that nobody can blame me for being.
I note, Dean, that you do the same.
Anyway, you get the idea. Too few bananas or none at all, and my little monkey's world degenerates or collapses in front of my eyes. That's not healthy for any primate. Including me.
So realization of the possibility of all that keeps me cranking away at the computer, at an age when most of the other primates have retired into one corner or another of their respective cages, or some place in their tree-top habitats, to watch the world go by.
Procrastination kills.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
If we DO make our own decisions, then that means there is an outside force that causes the reactions.
Is thought the cause or the effect? If the latter, nothing you do matters because you cannot do anything different. Every thought just happens like the domino that falls when pushed.
So does it matter if we determine what self is? Depends on your view of free will I guess.
If I wasn't so tired, this post might actually make sense.
Hard work often pays off in the long run, but laziness always pays off now."
There's a reason people used to call me Scarlett- as in, "Tomorrow is another day."
I'm imagining a day when we can one day get our brains tuned to make us whatever we want to be: gay, straight, energetic, phlegmetic, work-driven, cheerful, sexually passive or aggressive?all just a few tweaks of the chemistry and we'll get you fine-tuned the way you (or society) wants.
Sounds to me like C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.