2. Forebrain on Fire
Dearest Family and Friends,
Why am I here?
I am not asking an existential question about the meaning of human existence. We are all curious about whether our lives have a transcendent purpose — fulfilling a divine plan or achieving some sort of enlightened state. That would be useful information to know. If, for example, I knew with absolute certainty that my life had no purpose or meaning, I might stop flossing my teeth. But my opening question was not meant to be considered on a rarefied existential plane. It was more prosaic:
Why am I here? In the kitchen? At this moment?
There must have been a reason I entered this room, but I can’t remember what it was.
Physics does not provide me with a satisfactory answer. Sure, I am a collection of particles governed by the laws of nature. A slightly overweight American male contains about seven billion-billion-billion (7 x 1027) atoms. But the likelihood that all of my atoms would spontaneously vibrate their way down the hallway into the kitchen is vanishingly small, even after accounting for the fact that most of them are tied up in larger molecules and travel together. No, something brought me here.
Perhaps I should think about the question statistically. Mindless eating is what I most often do when I am in the kitchen — at least 90% of the time — and Aristotle tells us that we are what we repeatedly do. I am a mindless kitchen-eater. But what I will end up doing here in the kitchen isn’t the reason I entered the room in the first place. At least I don’t think so. Why am I here?
As most readers already know, my confusion is a sign of a failing forebrain. My “executive” mental functions — planning and working memory — become less reliable as I grow older. It’s a common problem — no big deal, unless I want to participate meaningfully in society, which is optional for people my age. In my health club there is a man about 10 years older than me who stands in front of his locker muttering “what am I doing?” every 5 seconds or so while he gets dressed. I know what he is doing: He is flogging his forebrain, trying to keep himself on task. If his incantation stops, he is apt to sit down on a bench half-dressed, pull out his phone, and lose himself in the Washington Post for half an hour.
Life with spotty executive functioning is a tad weird. Without a reliable internal narrative to bind my moments together, am I really the same person from one instant to the next? After my head emerges from the kitchen refrigerator, yesterday’s leftover salmon still on my lips, my body will contain more than the 7 x 1027 atoms that poked their way into the refrigerator in the first place. Am I still the same person, even though there is now more of me? When, exactly, does the salmon slipping down my esophagus become “me” and no longer food in my gastrointestinal tract? I suspect the semantic transformation takes place somewhere in my small intestine, but I am not sure.
I am not sure of much, these days. It’s a bit of an embarrassment.
When Paul becomes sufficiently embarrassed — when he feels shame or guilt or inadequacy — he puts himself in the third person, to provide a little distance and perspective. It’s a time-out of sorts. He is doing this now. “Poor little Paul,” muses the disembodied third-person narrator who has inexplicably wormed his way into this blog. “Paul’s mind is failing. He can’t remember why he entered the kitchen. He will never get his little essay off the ground. He’s 619 words into it — more than half way through — and he hasn’t even started.”
Why am I here? I mean still here in this narrative? It’s time to get going, time to move on. Any moment now Marcia will come into the kitchen looking for the leftover salmon and see my hapless fish-eating grin and the incriminating flakes clinging to my beard. I should have remembered to bring a fork with me on my trip inside the refrigerator. Another cognitive failure.
* * * * *
It rained last night, which is a good thing. The last time it rained was back in July, and then only a sprinkle. Summer rain in Berkeley is a rarity. During that rain people went outside with their phones and took movies to share with their friends of raindrops striking wet pavement. With no precipitation since July, the hillside grass yellows and tree leaves droop. Only the succulents seem content.
A week ago we had a dangerous Diablo wind, a reversal of the moist west-to-east breeze that cools San Francisco and Berkeley during the summer. The Diablo (“devil”) wind results from a combination of high inland air pressure and low pressure off the coast. The wind whips westward over the coastal range mountaintops at speeds of 50 mph or more. As the currents drop down the hillside and sink to sea level the air compresses, warms 15-20 °F, and its relative humidity tumbles, desiccating vegetation as it blows by. The combination of a stiff wind and parched plants creates an extreme fire hazard. Even without any reported fire, Berkeley issued evacuation recommendations last week for the elderly and families with small children who lived up in the hills.
After the winds died down we took our 4-year-old grandson Jonah to the Oakland Zoo for a “special day” with his grandparents. I was running after Jonah when Marcia spotted smoke in the hills about a mile to the north. A hasty internet search revealed it to be a 3-alarm fire with 40 firefighters on the scene. (The “1-alarm” to “5-alarm” rating system for fires is not well standardized, but roughly corresponds to the complexity of the fire and the number of engine companies and other fire-fighting units that need to be deployed. A 3-alarm fire requires about 12 fire engines and some specialized equipment, such as ladder companies in a city or trench diggers for a hillside fire.) Even from a mile away, we could see eucalyptus trees being engulfed by flames dancing high into the air. Jonah was overjoyed by the sound of fire trucks racing to the scene.
We had taken a gondola up to the top of the zoo to see the wolves, bears, and mountain lions during their feeding time. Thirty minutes after we spotted the fire, the internet reported that it had grown to a 5-alarm blaze and 50 additional firefighters were being dispatched. Jonah was ecstatic — more fire trucks! Helicopters appeared overhead and began dropping fire retardant on the flames. I thought about what we would do when the zoo shut down the gondola as a safety precaution, stranding us on the mountainside. Were we to become collateral casualties, sacrificed to save the giraffes and lemurs down below? And where would I hide when the advancing fire burned down the nets separating us from the mountain lions? Soon I would be covered in soot, standing in front of my grandson while unconvincingly repeating “nice kitty, nice kitty” to a 150-pound cat that had missed its supper.
An adult male mountain lion contains approximately 5 x 1027 atoms. Exactly when, after he consumes me, do I cease to be “me” and instead become more mountain lion?
More anon,
Paul
P.S. — I have posted this and my previous entries on the web, for those of you new to my mailing list and wanting to catch up:
California Daze (2022-3)
Under Construction (2023-4)
Golden State (2024)
