January 29, 2006

• Book Review (incomplete)

  The climatic influence runs deep…
  at the deepest level of the subconscious mind
  of all those descended from Ice Age people,
  there swirls the genetic memory of an unending snowstorm.

  Loren Eisley

  ItzaRoos asked what I think of the book, The
  Hibernation Response, Why You Feel Fat, Miserable, and Depressed from
  October through March — and How You Can Cheer up through those Dark
  Days of Winter by Peter Whybrow, M.D., and Robert Bahr.

  So far, I am enjoying it.  I find it massively validating. 
  If there will be any reassurance or new helpful information in there
  for me, I have yet to find it.  I’ve only had it a couple of days,
  and the library allows me four weeks before I need to return it, so I’m
  in no hurry to finish it.  I read it in little bursts when I’m
  feeling most alert and able to absorb data.  For bedtime reading
  now, I have The Da Vinci Code.  I had been curious about all the
  hoopla surrounding it, and Greyfox found a copy somewhere recently so
  I’m getting a chance to find out what that’s all about.

  The
  trouble with humans is that they carry on in winter with “business as
  usual.”  If snow covers their driveway, they remove the
  snow.  If ice threatens their car, they cover it with a
  blanket.  If there is a life-threatening blizzard, they get a snow
  plow to take them to the beauty shop.  I say humans are not
  physically or mentally prepared for winters.
  
  
  
  …ordinary people become
  irritable.  Having a stranger say, “Have a good day,” is grounds
  for assault.  What do they know about you?  What is
  good?  What is day?  If you wanted advice from them, you’d
  ask for it.
  

  Erma Bombeck
  
  
  

  It is
  this time of year that I being to think seriously about suicide. 
  My interest in the matter is not practical; I never reach for the
  bread-knife or the poison bottle.  But I begin to understand what
  it is that people see in suicide and why they do it.  They have
  seen too many Februaries; they have lugged too many cans of ashes; they
  have shivered on too many bus stops.
  

  “Samuel Marchbanks”
  
  (Robertson Davies)
  

  This morning, I explained to Greyfox
  that I’m experiencing the inevitable trade-offs from taking daily walks
  out to the cul de sac to catch some rays whenever the sun appears from
  behind the clouds.  There is no direct sunlight here in our yard
  or in the road out front.  The sun at this time of year never
  rises above the treetops to the southward from here.  To get
  direct sunlight, I have to walk a block or so to the corner, turn and
  slog through the unplowed snow at least  halfway out to the
  turnaround at the end of that road, about another block.  Then, I
  emerge from the shade of the woods and the sun’s rays can reach me.

  Of necessity, I must walk slowly and take breathers a few times. 
  The colder the air, the more rest I need to be able to move through it
  and draw it into my lungs.  I don’t think about that aspect of the
  walk while I’m out there.  I stay focused on the sunlight, the
  “light at the end of the walk.”  Once I am past the shadowing line
  of trees and into the sun, I soak it in and look all around at the way
  it glistens off the ice and snow.  I listen for birds and look for
  the movement of wildlife or their tracks in the snow.  I enjoy
  those walks for the relief they provide from the gloom and clutter of
  indoors.  In my most upbeat moods, I feel that the pleasure and
  health benefits outweigh the effort of going and the inevitable
  stiffness, incoordination and muscular discomfort that set in after I
  get back home.  I am not always so upbeat, though.

  Expressing some of this to Greyfox, who understands M.E. and the
  effects of chronic fatigue syndrome, I asked which is worse, suicidal
  depression or physical disability exacerbated through efforts to
  relieve the depression.  We don’t even discuss anti-depressant
  drugs, having experienced what they have done to our lives and still do
  to the lives of people we know.  Coming through for me in a way I
  never expect but always enjoy on the rare occasions that he does, he
  reminded me to think positive.  I’ll give that a shot, I guess.

  “We
  are, despite all our great technological advances, still very much a
  simple biological phenomenon.  Despite our grandiose ideas and our
  lofty self-conceits, we are still humble animals, and subject to all
  the basic laws of animal behavior…

  “Optimism is expressed by some who feel that since we have evolved a
  high level of intelligence and a strong inventive urge, we shall be
  able to twist any situation to our advantage; …that our intelligence
  can dominate all our basic biological urges.  I submit that this
  is rubbish.  Our raw animal nature will never permit it.”
  

  Desmond Morris
  
  (in The Naked Ape)

  
  

  Peter
  Wybrow is a scientist, expert in neurochemistry and
  endocrinology.  Robert Bahr is apparently a ghostwriter, a
  published author as well as an experienced hibernator.  Whybrow,
  in good scientific form, presents reams of raw and sometimes
  contradictory data.  In early chapters, he recommends light
  therapy that would be cost-prohibitive for me to undertake even if it
  were not impossible here without a massive moving of furniture and
  setting of alarm clocks, etc.  The alarm clocks alone would be
  sufficient to turn me off, but that routine might be just what would be
  needed for someone else whose SAD is more intractible than mine and
  whose pockets are deeper and whose rooms are larger

  I’m still reading the book, enjoying what he writes about the
  biochemistry of depression and hibernation.  As I had guessed long
  ago, too much melatonin is the culprit in SAD.  I am wondering if,
  further along, he will get into the role of serotonin and some of my
  other neurochemical nemeses, and if he will deal with the autumnal
  migratory urge I feel every year.  Published in 1988, the book is,
  of course, eighteen years out of date.  I would be willing to bet
  that more complete, accurate, and relevant information could be found
  online with a well-devised search.  Even so, I think this was
  worth the effort I made in requesting it from the public library and
  having Greyfox pick it up on his way up the valley.  The
  quotations alone would make it worth reading.

  Indeed,
  for more than 2,000 years physicians believed that… depression was
  caused by cold and was most prevalent in the autumn.
  

  Thomas A. Wehr, M.D.
  

  
  
  Individuals may need a sense of the
  oscillations within, the rising and falling of energy, undulations of
  attention, mood, weight, activity, sexuality and productiveness. 
  Because the clocks and calendars of social activity are designed for
  economic efficiency or convenience, an individual may have to learn to
  detect his own cycles, and become aware of scheduling to protect his
  health.
  

  Gay Gaer Luce

  My
  son Doug has always had such a sense of his own idiosyncratic rhythms,
  and I have done my best to allow him to dance to the beat of his own
  drummer.  Now I need to pay more attention to mine.

  VOLCANO UPDATE: 
  
  
  
  This image, a ten-minute exposure, was captured on January 17th by Dennis Anderson.
  
  
  
  FROM Alaska Volcano Observatory –

  2006-01-29 11:36:10
  The
  volcano continues to emit ash. The level of seismicity remains high. At
  11:18 AST (20:18 UTC) a considerably stronger explosion occurred and
  lasted approximately 4 minutes. The NWS reports the height of the ash
  cloud at 25,000 ft at 11:21 AST (20:21 UTC) based on radar data.

  Gōng xǐ fā cái!
  Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu.
  say hay boke-mahn he pah du say oh
  Chúc Mừng Nǎm
  Mới,  Cung Chúc Tân Niên, or Cung Chúc Tân Xuân, etc.
  If you missed my Lunar New Year post… well, don’t.

  

  • 4:22 pm
  • 8 Comments