I’ve been interested in mind-body interaction for awhile and recently spent a bit of time getting “blog smart” (rather than actually smart) on some of the biochemicals in our bodies.  If you are ever in the mood for a round of procrastinating Internet research, it’s a worthwhile and really fascinating topic.

I got interested in the topic after a series of moments where I found myself noticing myself experiencing emotions that were clearly biochemical in nature – euphoria after drinking caffeine in the morning, mildly adrenaline high during routine presentations, irritation after the reason for the anger had dissipated.  Ten years ago, I would have conflated the experienced emotion with some subconsciously crafted story that was somewhat coherent with the data to serve as the rationale.  Today, in contrast, I sometimes find watch myself experiencing these emotions from a distance.  After noticing this, and also reading literature on how trust and infatuation have a chemical basis, I asked myself the question:  Are all emotions chemical in nature?

A few examples:

• Exercise and laughter release endorphins (Source 1 | 2)
  
• Eating raises blood sugar while the chewing releases endorphins (Source 1 | 2)
• Caffeine and alcohol release endorphins (Source 1 | 2)
• Social isolation produces cortisol (Source)
• Social interactions release oxytocin, reducing cortisol (Source)
• Music can also reduce cortisol levels (Source)
• Falling in love has a chemical basis, a cocktail of dopamine, vasopressin and oxytocin (Source)

I don’t mean to oversimplify emotions, and reduce us to our simple chemistry.  I don’t discount the power of free will and our ability to be our own deus ex machina.  I believe the interaction must be deeply complex, beyond our ability to predict or fully understand, and chemicals are only messengers and mediators.  But emotions have such a dramatic effect on our life’s experience, and there are myriad self-help books that instruct us to address these emotions directly when we have limited direct control over the biochemical drivers.  I have to wonder: Are we going about it all wrong?  

Some observations:

• Our physiological emotions are  mediated by chemicals
  
• A whole slew of things influence our biochemistry 
  
• We have limited direct control over this ecosystem
• How we think and how we act are our main levers
• One significant category of action is introducing and interfacing with external elements, notably other people 
• A complicating factor to be aware of is the extent to which our thoughts and behavior are swayed by chemicals, emotions, and other variables largely outside of our control

Perhaps the best way to manage our emotional state is obliquely.
 

We were debating getting my mom an iPad 2 or an iPad 3 for Mother's Day, and we settled on the iPad 2 because we heard the new iPad had wifi issues (Google "iPad 3 wifi problems" to get 173 million results).

Some suggested that the real issues with the new IPad were related to a "death grip" not unlike the issues experienced when the iPhone 4 was released.  I'm probably a year behind on this, but I was curious as to whether there was an analogous effect with the iPad 2.  The answer:  Yes, though to a lesser degree.  Curious.

I love my iPad.  She and I are best friends now.  But I’ll admit it took us a little while – we both have our idiosyncrasies, quirks that take some getting used to.  But we got through that awkward dating phase, and are now firmly ensconced in each other’s life.

But sometimes I look at her, and I have to wonder, what makes her so great.  She’s awfully pretty but I’ve never really cared for these things.  Just ask my sisters – they’ll tell you that my type is “not hot”.  And I write, or type, quite a bit in my day-to-day, and it’s not uncommon for me to pull up Excel and spin some quick-and-dirty pivot tables on the fly.  The iPad, she’s terrible at both long-form writing and data analysis.  And its compatibility with my workflow tools (e.g. Microsoft Office, PC software) is limited, whatever opinion you might have of those tools.  In truth, my laptop is in many ways a better long-term relationship fit.  Both are screens but my laptop also has the extra benefit of a keyboard… so, it’s net better, right?  And yet I keep getting lured back to my seductive iPad.

People will say it’s the apps.  And it’s true, there are apps that are either better designed for the iPad or only available on that platform.  But I only use a handful of apps on a regular basis and, in many cases, the functionality of the website is more robust than the app. 

And so I come to the inevitable conclusion that the main appeal of the iPad, for me, is in the “instant-on.” 

Over the years, I’ve complained infrequently but vociferously to friends, “I don’t understand why, with all the technological advances we’ve made, someone can’t just make a laptop that never crashes and turns on instantly.”  And it turns out that Apple, in tackling some very sophisticated design challenges and creating an astounding ecosystem of software and hardware, also managed to solve some very basic mainstream needs that are not at all novel but have never been solved for the mass audience.  (Almost) never crashes.  Turns (everything) on instantly.

Those basic mainstream needs have become increasingly cogent.  Time is becoming the scarce commodity. People have busier schedules, attention is at a premium, and time is currency.  Assuming that we need a computing device and the substitute is a laptop, an investment in an iPad pays us back in our own time in myriad ways:  (1) Not having to pull out the device from a laptop bag and sit down to use it; (2) Not having to flip open a laptop lid; (3) Not having to wait to boot up; (4) Reducing “search” for  regularly used applications and websites; and (5) Near instant access to those same applications and websites.  When I say "instant-on", I mean all these things, from the ease of finding the icon to pressing it and finding immediate responsiveness to the actual turning on of the hardware itself.

But in my head, I have to wonder why these problems couldn’t be solved for the laptop form factor.  I mean, there are laptops with touchscreens. The main substantive difference between the two form factors is the addition (or subtraction) of a keyboard, right?  A pantheon of Apple fanboys just gasped at the blasphemy, I know.  But you have to understand that I drive a Honda Civic, I fly Southwest, and consider virtually every luxury brand to be fundamentally  over-priced for my needs.  Gorilla glass and Liquidmetal don't make a substantive difference in my everyday experience.

And if the only substantive difference is the keyboard, is there any reason why instant-on  couldn’t  be solved for the laptop?  I think the answer is that it will be.  It’s only a matter of time before the laptop and tablet (and maybe even phone) converge in the mass market, and people will own exactly one workflow device and laugh about the crazy olden days when we carried all these separate devices.  The average <insert new hybrid device name here> will look not that dissimilar from the tablet today, with a beautifully integrated keyboard that converts as needed, and with the full analytical power and compatibility of a (sharp inhale) PC laptop.  Windows 8 will undoubtedly be a player in the  delivery of this vision. Every credible professional will have one.  That’ll also be the day that we have an answer to the question, “When will corporations buy tablets for all their employees (i.e. not just the salesforce)?”  The answer:  When they can’t help it.

I can’t wait.

I’ve been thinking a lot about honour.  It’s an old-fashioned word for a centuries-old concept:  “high respect” “great esteem” “the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”.

No one really uses the word anymore outside of the movies.  It’s relative in an age of truth, soft in an era of science, principle in a society that values outcomes.  The sound of it evokes a dated Don Quixote-esque naiveté, and perhaps an over-caring about how others perceive you. 

But I wonder…  is there something here that we’ve lost over time? 

Honour is a quality attached to one’s identity – the heroes of these movies always speak of it in very personal terms, “my honour” or sometimes, “the honour of my family.”  Identity is this funny thing that is co-created by the pantheon of:  the qualities that are fundamental to you; how the “phenotype” or exhibited surfacing of those qualities are perceived by others - particularly how that surfacing makes you different from most; how others interact with you as a result; and the stories we tell ourselves about this social mini-ecosystem we’re immersed in all the time. 

Identity drives us in ways that we don’t fully realize, and we craft stories to rationalize behavior that is fundamentally about who we are and how we see ourselves.   The “Stereotype Trap” is one facet of the power of identity.  In a study where black and white mini-golfers are primed with the context of the test, black mini-golfers scored four strokes better when told it was a test of natural ability, while white mini-golfers scored four strokes better when told it was a test of strategic savvy.  Asian-American females do better on math tests when reminded of their “Asian-ness” and worse when reminded of their “female-ness.”  Identity matters.  It changes outcomes.

But those same studies remind us what a volatile and constantly fluctuating thing is identity.  Just like the flux of the chemical composition of our bodies (and partly because of them), our identities are in constant search for homeostasis, to find places where the story of our self is coherent.  It’s not always easy when we are constantly bombarded with new information that we have to absorb.

Honour, when attached to one’s identity, is a particularly unforgiving accessory.  It’s easier to worm your way out of the question, “Is this the right thing to do?” versus “Is this the honourable thing to do?”  The story it tells you about yourself is not tolerant of fault – like trust, it’s a long-run investment that can be ravaged in a moment’s folly.  But also like trust, it’s a particularly valuable asset today because of the very scarcity of its nature in an increasingly uncertain world. 

With our growing body of knowledge about neuroscience, addiction, and the relationship between mind and body, we have the opportunity to do a bit of rewiring.  If we know our own weaknesses – our physical desires, our proneness to procrastination, our body’s chemistry and emotionality – then we can also circumvent them.  Like the smoker, Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling, who gathered his children together in 1980 and said, “You should never have respect for your father again if you see me smoke,” we can put constraints on ourselves to make us do what we actually want to do but can’t seem to manage with more freedom.  Honour, or seeing ourselves as someone with honour and absorbing it into our identity, is an old-fashioned mechanism to do an incredibly modern thing – hack our selves.

Schelling, by the way, never smoked again.