We are all different. While we may share 99.5 percent of our genetics, that extra 0.5 percent matters. This week, I was back at physical therapy for my endlessly troublesome knee, when my wise PT told me that, for some people, heat works; for some, cold; for some, ibuprofen; for others, it is Tylenol — they just don’t know until they try it. This sort of unknown variation in how any of us may respond to something is why I shy away from declarative statements like: it must be the lectins, or gluten, or go paleo, or eat purple potatoes. Similarly, one thing that troubles me about myself is when I find my thinking falling into group generalizations like: they are part of X group therefore Y is true. Although sometimes this is true, being reflexive about it is when I really don’t like myself. It is small, weak, and lazy thinking. I try to kindly tell myself I can do better.
We as humans have remarkable abilities for pattern recognition; it reduces the daily decision load if most of our days are on autopilot. Imagine if every time you opened your door it was an entirely new experience — total overload. To reduce our decision fatigue, we systematize: same toothpaste, same route to the gym, sleeping on the same side of the bed. It economizes our grey matter for things that really matter; which is a very good life strategy, saving your brain fuel for what is really important. Where this breaks down is, although we may look similar, we are different — which any doctor will tell you is the massive challenge of modern medicine. It also causes us to see pattern and exception in ways that are not always useful: the great fail of pop-wellness culture is that it emphasizes correlation over causation.
With age, we have accumulated vast life experience; our hard drive of interactions and experiences are the raw material of wisdom. There is a downside, though: we can easily default to assuming that, having seen something in the past, it is now true in an entirely different person and circumstance. The late, great Daniel Kahneman wrote about the difference between fast and slow thinking — fast being critical to our day-to-day navigation, and slow being where we pause and have time to evaluate a situation in all its novelty. Fast thinking says cold therapy works on all sore knees; slow thinking says: maybe for some people, but not all. Fast thinking is easy; it is reflexively satisfying. Slow pattern-breaking thinking is a bothersome muddle. For us, having had tremendous life experience, we can review history, read faces, and bring great wisdom to a discussion, but we need to remain flexible, wearing this wisdom as a loose garment, not an iron corset. Life is wonderfully complex, and we face challenges at all ages. The more often we can discern the commonalities and the exceptions, the more enjoyable and frictionless it can become. No one said this age thing was easy, but we can do this.
Onward and upward,
David
