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neural pathways and the decrease of novelty

first of all, this is by no means meant to be a scientific or research-oriented blog but rather an attempt to give voice [or pen] to a thought i had recently. i am sure there are scientific studies that could quantify this thought and draw conclusions to the positive or negative but that is not the purpose of this entry. graduate school, for me, has ended. sometimes a person just needs to think out loud and that is precisely what i am going to do here.

where to start?

over the past few years, i have become increasingly aware of my inability to show or feel either emotional or cognitive responses in a variety of contexts. moreover, when responses are elicited, they do not seem to be at the same level or intensity as they appear to be for others, or for me in past occurrences. for example; i am not easily amused [especially to the point of laughing out loud], i am not impressed by much [be it talent, money, material possessions, art or the like], i seem to have bouts of passion that are single-focused to the exclusion of almost everything else in my environment, and i simply cannot enjoy myself or have as much fun as i see others having or have had myself, in the past.

am i depressed? no [and this has been clinically verified]. am i just a boring person? i really don’t think so [this has not been a lifelong characteristic]. am i perhaps, just getting older and thus less likely to respond to life with the intensity i once did? i rather doubt it given that so many seniors seem to be able to get even more pleasure or intensity of experience out of even the simplest of things.

case in point. i will and can list most, if not all, of the situations that have elicited a strong or more appropriately, significantly measurable  [be it positive or negative] response from me over the past  (4) years: the birth of my youngest son, the almost-kidnapping of my youngest daughter [ but that’s a story for another blog], the turbulent relationship i had with a friend, coming really close to picking up and moving across the country, a weekend in albuquerque with my biological father, seeing italy with my oldest son and daughter [and now daughter-in-law [ who could not be moved by venice, rome and the beautiful cinque terrre?], my son going to and returning from iraq, my daughter’s diabetes diagnosis, i am sure i have left out a few things but these are foremost in my mind and therefore probably the strongest. hurricane ike, which recently came through houston causing horrible damage to both galveston and 29 area counties did elicit a sort of quiet awe, but not the excitement or panic i would have imagined and had sort of looked forward to.

what i am thinking [short of ptsd which could be a possibility] is that perhaps we, as a people and nation, are exposed to so much, so soon, that hardly anything is a novelty anymore, hence, new neural pathways do not form, the ones we already possess are just strengthened. i would posit that is is the creation of these new pathways by totally nouveau stimuli that elicit reactions, at least in me, to the point to where they are significant. for example, you may never have been to paris, but how many times do we see it pictured in books, on television, and in movies? the point being… you have seen it. sure, it’s different when you go and actually walk the streets of paris, but it is my belief that the experience will be muted at least slightly from prior exposure. reading my personal lists above, i find one thing in common. nothing prepared me for any of these things, they were surprises that i had not encountered before, and in several of the cases, could not even imagine myself imagining, if that makes sense. i was never a history or a geography buff so i was so amazed at the places i visited in italy. venice and rome were spectacular, but one place produced a response of feeling and cognition in me so strong i cannot put words to it. cinque terre. and when i think about it, it was the one place i had not only never heard of, but had little if any exposure to photographs, information or the like. i didn’t know what to expect. a new neural pathway was formed.

sure, i might be wrong about all of this. i may just be demonstrating increasingly asperger’scharacteristics, i may be responding to prior stresses in my life with a sort of ptsd reaction, or i might just have a very high threshold for response. but, i know one thing. the less i know about something, the more i react to it and with greater intensity that appears proportional to the exposure and likelihood of the event in my life.

just a simple thought turned blog.