image from here.
I think about my parents. Every time we go for a hike in the mountains back home my dad has his GPS or phone—I can’t remember which—recording our trail, how many calories burnt, the speed at which we moved, and the length of our breaks. I always feel slightly annoyed with this habit, and I think my mother does too. The question in my head is this: why do you need to know? and, Can’t you simply enjoy it as is?
I’ve been wondering what this is, and whether it’s got to do with classical and romantic mindsets as outlined by Robert M. Pirsig in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The classical mind splits things up, quantifies them, study each grain of sand. On the contrary, you have the romantics, who love the Big Picture: why study each step you took when your breath is taken away at the top of the mountain? What’s the reason for counting calories when you can enjoy the dish itself?
I don’t necessarily agree with Pirsig anymore, although there was a long time when it dictated everything I did; the world’s changed too much, and I think scientists (particularly physicists) have been let off the hook. Discussing left- and right brain separations doesn’t seem to make much sense today, and integrated interdisciplinary learning is on the rise, thankfully. The question seems to be: how can we be happy and lead high-quality lives?
images from here.
At a brunch last spring I ended up talking to a young woman about behavioral psychology. She worked in marketing, something I have a lot of prejudices about, but we ended up discussing ways to change people’s behavior for the better. She explained an app to me that allows friends to give each other to do-lists with items such as “Sleep at least 8 hours tonight” and “Remember to eat a fruit,” making a sort of check-system with someone you care about.
Quantified Selfers, as outlined in this article, gather concrete, numerical data about their habits, diets, patterns of movement and even feelings. Looking back, they have knowledge about how for example hours of sleep affect their concentration and efficiency, or the way different medicines work. Naturally, there have always been people like this, but as it’s now become so much easier to track any kind of information about yourself the movement has become huge.
As I tipped into my twenties I noticed that I need extremely rigid schedules to function. Going to sleep after 9:30 PM makes me extremely anxious, and I still try to get up every day at 5:30. I meditate for 40 minutes and then exercise for 45 if I don’t have class in the morning. My breakfast is always the same with only minor variations in quantity. I bike to school at 7 AM and check my e-mails. After school I train aikido for 2-3 hours, go home and go to sleep. Naturally, I take breaks. There’s a social component where I’m forced to break this precious rhythm, and I always have to force myself to follow through with the commitments I make to people. I know it’s good for me, I know I won’t be particularly happy or healthy if I spend all of my time alone.
But what about my feelings? And what about love and commitments? And what’s going to happen to my treasured schedule if I ever meet someone I want to live with?
from here.
Something I often wonder is whether this schedule is determined by things I read and learn are good for me, or if I naturally fall into it because I am a control-freak. Meditation increases the amount of gray matter in the brain. An active commute is healthier than a passive one. People who wake up early are generally healthier than people who sleep late into the day. These could all be variations of headlines on the New York Times health blog, and I know that they’re ways of manipulating data and statistics, but my firm belief in it is engrained. I don’t even make an effort anymore: my body won’t let me sleep much past 6 AM anyways even if I’ve been out late the night before. I’m just following my natural rhythm and the common sense of my body… or so I like to think.
This is why I find the Quantified Self-movement so fascinating. Rather than relying on headlines and fading trends you can fine tune your habits to optimize yourself. I am so attracted to this idea, but I also know that it isn’t good for me. Because the second thing I discovered when I turned twenty was that there’s an easy slip for me from rigidness to compulsion accompanied by large doses of guilt when I don’t accomplish what I’ve ambitiously set out for myself.
picture (and recipe!) from here.
I'm now doing a project exploring my own food habits, because it’s one of the things I think about most, but like to think about least. When I was younger I was close to having an eating disorder, and I’m always afraid of going there again. I’m curious if it’ll help or only be harmful to record everything I eat for five days, and how I’ll feel when I translate that into body movements, with each limbs representing a type of food. If I realize I eat grains and carbs ALL the time, will I eat differently?
I want to be better, all the time. We all want to be. I just wonder when and if we let ourselves go.