comfortably numb

i just watched this TED Talk by a woman named brene brown on the subject of vulnerability. my favorite point she made was that we americans are currently the most in debt, obese, addicted, and medicated group of adults in history. i’m not condemning our modern lives - there are a lot of unprecedentedly good things about living the USA in 2011 - but on the whole i believe this observation is true and i really like her theory as to why. 

the reason for all the debt and drugs, brown says, is that we as a culture work really hard at squashing our own sense of vulnerability. she defines vulnerability as a willingness to bear discomfort - physical, emotional, or otherwise, a willingness to invest in someone or something even if there are no guarantees, and an acceptance of your own imperfections.

brown argues that vulnerability is fundamental. it’s the basis for connection to others, and for living life wholeheartedly. but vulnerability manifests itself in us as daily fears and anxieties around things like initiating sex, getting fired, confronting someone, getting bad news from a doctor, losing weight, gaining weight, being smart enough or good enough or stable enough, being wrong. 

so in response, our culture numbs vulnerability, or at least tries. we use things like beer, cocaine, marijuana, fast food deep-fried whatever, sugar, shopping, pills prescribed or stolen, certain brands of religion, gambling. i would actually add a few - including work, tv, facebook voyeurism, and the endless mountains of contentless content the internet provides. this leads, brown says, to a vicious cycle of feeling miserable and hungover and devoid of purpose and meaning, and therefore more uncomfortable and more in need of feeling numb. never mind that joy and wonder and curiosity get numbed away too. 

also never mind that brown’s theory is another articulation of a basic premise of buddhist/yoga philosophy. i think the indian philosopher osho said it best - “the root of all neuroses is the avoidance of the self.” for more on this check out osho or eckhart tolle on youtube.

brown ends by exhorting everyone to embrace our imperfections and consider ourselves worthy of love and be honest about our mistakes and “practice gratitude and joy in moments of terror.” and here i get critical because here i think she leaves us hanging on sort of cheesy generalities. 

to weather the internal storms of vulnerability we all experience in the presence of an endless list of external stresses, i think it helps to have some tools. by tools i mean actual concrete real things you can do in place of over-eating, smoking pot, boozing, spending hours pointlessly on the internet, working all the time, or buying stuff you don’t need. probably none of us does all of these things and doing any one of them here and there is fine, but when they become the regular outlet they wear you out as much as stress does.

so how to go beyond the abstraction of “practicing love and joy”?

for me, it’s a sweaty hour and half yoga class at kula in williamsburg or strala near nyu. for my friend carolina it’s cooking with her friends. for my friend molly it’s a walk - like the 6 mile loop around central park. for other friends it’s painting or writing or music or even reading the magazine they subscribe to and never actually read. i listen to TED talks and radiolab online when i’m bored and i usually end up inspired and smiling. there’s whatever sport you don’t need a whole team lined up to play, whether it’s yoga or rock climbing or biking or running or crossfit. there’s also meditation, which comes in a lot of varieties and is probably the most powerful thing i’ve found, if you can commit to slowly building up the kind of concentration it requires, which definitely took me a while but has been worth it. 

it’s whatever is there all the time, free, and feels really good to you without being destructive. it’s what gets you up and energized. it’s usually stuff that makes you feel the opposite of numb. 

i think finding at least one healthy, non-destructive, easily accessible thing - a thing that you know, no matter what you’re freaking out about or how out of it you are, will make you feel at least better if not totally amazing 99% of the time - is the one most important thing you can do for your health in your lifetime. that thing can change. that thing can be five things. but finding at least one will save you - maybe not make your life perfect - but for sure you won’t need to be numb. 

if you have other examples of things that get you there - please send them my way!