Ideas on Meditation, Part 1

A little over a year ago, I read a book which, I can now say, changed my life.  It was called The Antidote, by Oliver Burkeman, to which he cheerfully added the tagline, 'Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking'.  

It is a funny, thoughtful, and irreverent look at various ways people have tried to be happy through the centuries.  He shares amusing observations on everyone from the stoics in Roman times to the Mexican celebration of the 'Day of the Dead' in our own.  Although it wasn't a book on meditation, what I found captivating, and changed my life, was his description of meditation.

I had tried meditation and couldn't get it. I was too busy. Or, as I’d heard things like washing dishes could be meditative, perhaps I was already doing it. Mr Burkeman helped me to realise I had just fundamentally misunderstood it.

Since reading his book, I've meditated for about 250 hours in the last year and recently completed a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Whilst no expert, I understand it more than I did and, most saliently, I understand it very differently than I did.  In this post, I’m going to share some of the ideas I enjoyed in The Antidote a year ago, which helped me begin this journey.

Firstly, Mr Burkeman invites us to consider that we might have two types of mental energy. There’s a ‘thinking’ layer, used to solve problems, formulate sentences, remember the past and project into the future, and then a deeper layer or what he calls our ‘conscious' layer.  

The thinking layer is usually dominant - it's the voice we hear in our heads - and its constantly trying to ‘fix’ things.  That's its job.  Clearly, this is often good, as many things need fixing, but not everything.  In fact, most things can't be fixed, but that doesn't stop the voice from trying.  Often, it directs us to try to control outcomes, for instance, when none of us can, or makes us into the hero or victim of our past, when neither are true. So this voice, while useful, has limitations. And it's biggest limitation is that because it is an evolutionary problem-solving mechanism, it has to focus on problems. 

This was a massive a-ha moment for me. The very nature of our minds, what makes us homo sapiens, is this problem-solving ability.  It's what's allowed us to rise from apes.  Thinking is problem-solving. The jammy bit is how 'thinking' talks to us.  Our thinking voice presents its solutions as the 'big fix' to our lives.  'As soon as 'x' happens, all will be well', I've heard my mind say this countless times.  By its core purpose, the thinking mind will find problems, invent problems, when none are available - creating drama and sabotaging the harmony already there. So its the constant striving or "clinging to a particular version of a happy life, while fighting to eliminate all possibility of an unhappy one", that is the cause of unhappiness, not its solution.  

The other layer Mr Burkeman calls our 'consciousness' - the wellspring of our being.  It's the part of ourselves that would be the same even if we'd been raised by apes in the jungle, like Tarzan.  It lacks any of the artifice of our particular culture, language or environment. Its the life force inside of us, beyond our ego, our personalities, and the particular events of our lives. It's hard to define, because it can be a part of any moment of any of our lives, but there are a few times we are more likely to experience it: when we happen along a majestic sunset, when we're running and feel that effortless second wind, or just about any time life surprises us so much we stop thinking about our connection to it and just experience it. This layer is the source of contentment, joy and peaceful harmony with life. 

In short, he explains, if we're going to be happy, we have to work out how to fix stuff AND how to harmonise with life. Both layers are important.  The problem is one can't access the conscious layer by thinking.  In fact, one has to let go of the compulsion to fix stuff to access it.  This make consciousness both paradoxical and non-linear.  Its just different. If you think you've thought about it well enough to understand conciousness intellectually, you haven't got it.  It has to be felt.

The purpose of meditation is to create a gateway for convening with this conscious layer, to introduce us to an intelligence that is more in our bodies than our minds.

The challenge of meditation is that the thinking layer is like a spoilt child. It doesn't want to play along. So when we sit to meditate we soon get frustrated that we can't quiet our thinking. The thinking layer yells, stop this!

A relief is to learn that we are experiencing what every single person who has ever learned to meditate has experienced. And as we'll see in Part 2, the struggle is endemic. For this post, let's just note that finding access to that conscious layer is not a thinking process. Being conscious requires a different approach, which starts with realising that 'thinking' is part of our being, not our being.  We have to get over this hurdle (only, in this case, getting over the hurdle requires us to let go of a need to hurdle).  If we are going to develop the awareness that will bring the joy and harmony to our lives that we crave, we must persist (only, in this case, persisting means stopping our craving to fix our lives and its perceived / manufactured problems).

Yes, it all gets paradoxical, like some sort of ancient riddle, which is why so many people bail at this stage.  But don't stop; we're getting to the good stuff.

Before we do, just two observations by Mr Burkeman on why so many of us actively avoid meditation - these hit the nail on the head for me. 

The first is that we're afraid that if we get good at accepting our world, we won't be able to change (i.e., improve) our world. This doesn't follow, says Mr Burkeman. In fact, the opposite. The more we are connected to both layers, the more we realise which things can not be changed, the less energy we waste attempting to change things we can't. So the energy we spend changing our world is more effective. Even better, as we're not trying to fix as many things, we start to genuinely enjoy things that previously bugged us, because we accept them. More happiness in our lives? Check. Able to change more by trying to change less? Check. By being more conscious, we help the thinking layer do its job better. 

Here we get to add a dash of irony in all of this. Most of us get this argument at an intellectual level, i.e., at the thinking layer. However, as the ego is just problem-solving when considering this dilemma, it can both accept it intellectually, and in the VERY NEXT THOUGHT, observe something it can't fix, come up with a strategy to fix it, and convince us we'll be happy when this is done. We know one thing but do another. The ego is just crap at letting go. It's like asking a pack of hungry lions to choose meat not to eat. This is why the intellect can't solve the 'happy' question.  Fundamentally, its job is to problem solve, and its hard to be happy when we're focused on a problem.

The other concern people have about meditation is this talk of ‘getting rid of their ego’. We fundamentally like who we are, mostly, we like what we like, mostly, and we don't want to become some bland version of ourselves. This is a misunderstanding. Nobody is suggesting this, and for good reason - we can't get rid of the thinking layer of the brain. Its impossible. What we can do, he says, is to become aware of it, to hear its voice, to know when its speaking, and to observe its influence.

Meditation is the practice of listening to the ego, not erasing it, by giving waking dominance to the conscious layer.  Its method is to use a variety of techniques which strengthen certain parts of our mind, so that when we’re not meditating, we don’t react.  We learn to respond.

Finally, we come to the most fascinating part of all this (at least to me). Because while reading this you have to use the thinking part of your brain, neither this blog nor anything else written can ever truly explain meditation. It's a Catch-22. You have to learn enough about it to get motivated to do it, but that knowledge is useless once you start doing it.  Consciousness has to be experienced, like a sunset. It has to be wrangled out of our senses, our experience of the world.  One might say that meditation is the process of training our mind to find a beautiful sunset in the most mundane moments of our lives, and it's that training which keeps us at peace in the volatile, difficult moments of our lives.  

But that's not quite it, either, because being conscious is not always peaceful!

See what I mean?  This is why meditation is so fascinating - it’s impossible to sum up in a sound bite.  And why there’s all these cloud and sky, or pond and ripple analogies. To be conscious, it’s something each person has to experience for themselves. 

Fortunately, there are a few ideas I've learned that are helping me, that I will share in the next post.

For now, let me just share this. I'm sleeping well. I hadn't slept really well in about 15 years. Most people I know would love to sleep better.  For no other reason than this, I wish I'd learned about this stuff sooner.

Poetry Slam Time.

I recently attended a couple of poetry events in London. I didn't know what to expect, and was thoroughly impressed with the range and talent. This one teenage girl memorised a poem that was as raw, complex and powerful as any I can ever remember; another older man shared pristine verses of carefully chosen lines with the precision of a ballerina. It was an evening of unexpectedly rapturous joy (for my fellow Londoners, it's at http://poetrysociety.org.uk/poetry-cafe/).

So I decided to join the fun. 

The only context one really needs for this poem is that it was written for a room full of 50 other poets, and I was able to read it aloud (which meant I could verbally help along a couple of the rhymes).

Once upon a curious time,

A man sat down to pen a rhyme,

There was no political protest,

Burning deep inside his breast,

No comical commentary,

No axe he longed to bury. 

Nor even an impassioned cause,

No broken heart, no menopause. 

No this chap was simply curious,

Of developments quite spurious. 

For when he first wrote poetry,

He sat down with paper and ink,

Thus many lines would get scratched,

As odd ideas within him hatched,

And if he wanted one that rhymed,

A lyric just perfectly timed,

The whole long day it might require,

To write the thing of his desire,

For finding the words in his brain,

That perfectly fit each refrain,

Was kinda tough, was kinda hard,

(ok maybe not for the Bard)

But for merely mortal beings,

Poems could be challenging things. 

So he came up with strategies,

To help his vocabulary,

Certain rules he learned and knew,

Recipes for his writing stew,

Like which words held no hope for rhymes,

One could rack his brain for all time,

And come up with no solution,

Regardless of his elocution,

For words like fifth, eighth or amongst,

Have no match declared ... some monks (..!..),

Rouged, sculpts, whilst and unbeknownst,

Joined the ranks of ... painful jokes,

(Despite its repute, the word orange

Works with the Welsh hill of Blorenge,

Still it’s pretty hard to work that hill,

Into stories other than Jack and Jill.)

So coming up with ways to expand,

The words his mind could quickly scan,

Became the thinking filter through which,

Each experience must enrich. 

So into this concocting mood,

Did he first write after a brew,

Of beer then wine then whiskey

The rhymes just getting more frisky,

So he would sit in shady places,

Pubs and other drinking spaces,

Find all sorts of inspiration,

From the joys of lubrication. 

The words they came cascading through

On a dancing fairies avenue,

With the perfect-ly metered rhymes,

of a wordsmith, in his prime.

In the teeming years of youth,

he had found the fountain of truth!

(Now perhaps it should be confessed,

the poems nearly all expressed,

That overly eager anxious hue,

Of booty call poetry - so ingenue.  

He also noticed there seemed to be,

A window where the alcohol teased,

A flow of words with melody,

More than one drink, but less than three.

And frankly if we’re getting picky,

some of the rhymes could get sticky,

Unless you are really forgiving,

Shapely doesn’t rhyme with sucking.)

But moving on the point thus far,

drinking expanded his repertoire,

of cleverly coined terms and phrases,

that he had hoped might amaze us.

A score of years has passed since then,

which brings us back to this po-em.

A great crime has befallen poetry,

that should concern this community.

Were Shelley or Blake alive today,

Or Whitman or Frost they'd surely convey.

Their shock / horror, and general dismay,

At this case of lyrical foul play.

The prosecution begins its case,

its first witness, the human race.

All of you here, are now on the stand,

the court must ask you heed its demand,

place your smartphone in your right hand, 

then raise it slowly on this command.

Let the record show that all confessed,

without either shame or distress.

What is the crime, I hear you ask?

Oh, you wear such an innocent mask.

Fellow poets and writers, friends perhaps,

You’ve been found guilty of using apps.

Apps on your phones, that cheat your mind,

and make any word so easy to find,

Thesaurus dot com, is a mafia boss,

leading an underworld of language loss,

And the great serial killing designer,

Murdering our brains is Rhymer.

After the trail of these criminals,

Shakespeare’s work looks... minimal! 

And since poets no longer require,

Alcohol as a word supplier,

This court can think of nothing tougher,
Than sentence you all to writing sober. 

Going to Prison

When I was 19 years old, I experienced one of those mystical situations where the universe seems to conspire, with conflating events, to test who you are.  Three things happened in curious succession.

First, I had this summer job where I'd saved what was a ton of money for a 19 year old in 1990 - $5,000. 

Next, I was dating a gorgeous girl I was crazy about. She'd done pretty well at this summer job, too, so we both had some money.  We impulsively agreed to bunk off college for the semester and spend a few months travelling around Europe together.  With the money we had saved we'd be living large... you know, eating at places called restaurants, that sort of thing. It would be a romantic escapade. We bought the plane tickets and started planning.

Third, I got arrested.

I was driving home after a night out drinking with friends when I realised I wasn't in a fit state to drive. So I pulled over to sleep it off. Unfortunately, when I passed out I left the car running.  A policemen noticed my car, and in America that still counts as a DUI. He takes me to jail and charges me - the crux of this story is the court date.  

If the court date is set for when I'm in Europe, no problem. Just show my plane tickets and I can reschedule when I'm back in the country. If it's before we leave, we have to hope it's at least two weeks before we leave.

Here's why. The penalty for DUI is either a $5000 fine or 14 days in prison. If I pay the $5k, I have no travel money. If I accepted the prison time, and the court date is less than two weeks, then I could still be in prison when the flight departs. 

Of course, fate intervenes and the court date is set for just 10 days before the flight is scheduled to depart. What to do.

There was only one hope. The prosecutor tells me if I plead guilty, and go to prison, I'd usually serve less than half the sentence for good behaviour.  So I could, in theory, just plead guilty, go to prison voluntarily, even though I had the exact amount of money in the bank needed to pay the fine.

As it's my only chance of making it to Europe with this girl, I say yes.  Send me to prison.

At the time I agreed it, I hadn't given one thought to the prison itself - Atlanta Fulton County Penitentiary. It is located in the centre of Atlanta, which has its fair share of rough criminals. But I didn't think about that. I just thought about being good, doing my time and getting to Europe with my girl. Besides, they're not gonna but some college kid on a DUI charge in prison with hardened criminals, are they?

Then I arrived at Atlanta Fulton County Penitentiary. Remember those amazing, beautiful shots of Shawshank prison, the textured stone, the grand architecture? AFCP is nothing like that. It's a huge geometric lump of cheap, dirty cement, with almost no windows - just an angular entrance which has a dark door at the heart of the angle, like you walk in its backside.

I start wondering, what have I done. They take your stuff, hose you down, strip search you, and give you a prison outfit.  

I stopped thinking about my girlfriend.

They took me to cell block H which was triangular, with 30 cells over two floors for 60 men, smaller than I expected.  Two sides of the triangle housed the cells.  The third was a large wall which would have had windows had the architect not been Franz Kafka.

Looking around the room, I see 58 African-American men staring at me, and a cold chill comes over for me. For this first time, I'm scared. I'd be lying if I didn't admit the racial card was part of that fear, but only part. These guys looked rough, and they're all just watching me walk into the room. Time slows down. I'm 19 and it was an intimidating situation.

So I walk over to the one other white guy in the room. Both then and now, I thought it was weak of me; why was I so magnetically drawn to this one other white guy, what made me think he would be any more supportive than any other man there. But I was just afraid, looking for something familiar.

The other familiar thing I saw, in a stack of other board games, was a chess board. Lamely, I ask the white dude if he plays chess. He doesn't. However, another man chirps out, helpfully, "hey man, ole LeRoy is the chess master in H Block..."

So before I could say a word, I'm sitting across LeRoy who is 5'10 and 300 pounds, with a chess board between us.

There's no game on the television, nothing else to do. And so it begins: all the other 58 inmates surround us in circular fashion, and start murmuring between themselves. A sense of suspense begins to build.

LeRoy grabs a black and white pawn, holds one in each hand, and asks me to choose.  I choose white. For the chess geeks out there, I start with e4, and he responds c5 - a Sicilian Defence. Interesting. Over the next few moves I realise LeRoy can play.

But he and I are the only people who can. They knew nothing about chess, but they knew who they supported. When each of us moved, everyone reacted loudly with enthusiastic cheer's or damning boo's. Just imagine. I move, and nearly sixty men "Booooo" in unison.  LeRoy moves, and they celebrate wildly. Repeat. No matter how good or bad the move, the same reaction. 

My heart is still beating through my skin. But I look at LeRoy, and LeRoy can tell I'm not giving him the game. I'm playing to win. His eyes, just slightly, smile at me. Leroy and I share some sort of bond, a mutual respect, and the situation becomes a surreal manifestation of transcendent beauty. I'm playing this really good chess match, in prison, in front of a screaming audience. Completely surreal experience.

My fear subsides. Looking at LeRoy I realise I'm more than safe, I've entertained them. I'm Golden. They all continue to hoot and holler, and it become a bit of a fun game, with everyone laughing. In the end, I won that first match. LeRoy shook my hand, and the crowd faded away.  We played another match, and another, and LeRoy won both. In truth, he was a better chess player than me.

When it came to meal time, that fabled crucible where the new inmate has to find a table to eat, LeRoy called me over. The boys on H block had reserved a spot for me. They were awesome.  They looked after me over the next few days, LeRoy and I played several more games of chess (he won slightly more than me, but I won a few more times).  As weird as it sounds, I had a great time in prison.  

LeRoy taught me a lot over those few days. He was quiet and intelligent. Mostly, he taught me to back myself, to have courage, and let the chips fall where they may.

As it turns out, they released me after about 5 days for good behaviour, and I had a great time travelling around Europe.

A Meeting In Harare, 1999.

By November 1999, Robert Mugabe had ruled Zimbabwe since the early 70s .  He was a leader of the native African power grab as the colonial powers departed the continent.  Despite all the talk of democracy and fairness for the people, we now know these leaders just enriched themselves.

By the time I was travelling through Zimbabwe, these tactics had transformed themselves into 'land reform'.  In real terms, this translated to Mugabe arming gangs to intimidate white farmers, in some cases murdering them, until they agreed to leave their farms, or sell them at a fraction of their worth.  (The politics are more complicated than that, but I'm simplifying it as the politics aren't germane to this story).  The point is, there were active communities of gangs acting in anarchic ways all over the county.

Living in London, I'd seen articles in newspapers about Mugabe, and the unrest in Zimbabwe. I knew there was turmoil.  I'd scanned across photos, full of civic mayhem. But I hadn't read the articles - I was on my way to the sports page.

So when I decided to hike about 5 miles into Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, from the Backpackers Lodge on Kilwinning Road, I was relatively ignorant, or näive. I assumed it all happened elsewhere.

At that point, I'd been travelling through Africa for about two months, and travelling with Anniken, who I would later marry and have three children, for about a month.  African towns were often heart-wrenching visits, full of children begging for anything.  Mostly, these kids were full of life and humour, and nothing like the pathetic images the charities use to raise money. The kids were fun!  But behind the curtains, one could find the horror stories.  I didn't blame Anniken for not wanting to go into town, and was glad she hadn't later that day. So I went alone.

The route into Harare along Airport Road is pretty flat - it's a divided highway, fairly straight, with some neighbourhoods on one side and large fields on the other. It was a typical day in Africa, sunny and a bit humid. I set off early, maybe 9am.

I don't remember much about the journey into Harare. I did a little shopping. And as I departed, I held a plastic bag. I remember it dangling by my side. I know it was before lunch, as I was hoping to get back to the Lodge before the heat of the day. I wore cargo shorts, a t-shirt, and pair of flip-flops, for which I would soon be grateful.

I was probably about half-way back when I noticed, across the divided highway, a group of about 30 young African men who all looked pretty fit, like in their late teens or early 20s, turn from a neighbourhood side street onto the opposite side of the highway I was walking. The divide on this highway was pretty wide, and they were ahead of me, maybe 100 yards away.

A tingle chilled my spine. Like some sort of primal warning system, something about this group of young men felt menacing. I'd been travelling around Africa for weeks, through Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Even hitchhiking occasionally. I'd seen plenty of groups of young men. I'd never felt anything like this. I made an effort to neither quicken nor slow my pace. I was walking my direction, opposite side of the highway, and they were...

Just like that, running directly toward me.  Surely not, I thought, and looked behind me to hopefully find something else. Nothing but fields. They were definitely sprinting towards me.  I don't remember hearing them shout or holler anything; it's all very silent in my memory.  

Time slowed. They crossed the opposite side of the highway, and were racing across the grass median. Right at me. I dropped my bag. I looked along the highway for hope of rescue. No cars coming. They were closer now... what was happening? Getting nearer. I looked down at my feet, and realised that a) I've never been a sprinter, in the best of conditions I wasn't going to outrun these guys, and b) running makes you look like prey, and predators love a chase; even still, I needed the third fact, c), that I was wearing flip-flops, and running through the thicket would hurt like hell, to realise running was futile. 

In that moment, my heart seemed to stop racing, a calm came over me, and I made the decision that I believe saved me from... something.  

I walked toward them. Smiling. With my hand extended, to shake theirs.

By this time, they were nearly on me, and as I walked toward them, closing the distance, we met in the middle of my side of the divided highway, where about 30 men encircled me.  I'd been right - they were all pretty young and fit. One guy, about 6'4" and 250 lbs, with an Aaron Neville birthmark, looked and screamed at me in Shona, the local language. I couldn't understand what he said, but I tried to shake his hand. He wouldn't take mine, but the guy to his right would. I smiled. He didn't smile, but he took my hand. I then turned to the next guy, who also had an angry expression, but I flashed my gormless grin... and he accepted my hand, and even shook it, too. I smiled even bigger. I kept finding a hand to shake, avoiding the big guy, and smiling, as if I were a politician on some sort of tour, welcoming them to this side of the highway. You'll love it here boys, it's sunny!!

As I was looking for another hand to shake, a little guy broke through my extended arm, and pushed the big guy with the Aaron Neville birthmark - hard!  Started really yelling at him, and getting in his face like the piercing approach of a small dog you can't ignore - it has teeth, after all.

Even now, I don't know who was more shocked, me or the big guy, but I remember looking in his eyes and feeling a bit of relief.  For whatever their reasoning, his aggression was more in keeping with the situation than the little guy's protection, who was was clearly berating the big guy. Even if he spoke in Shona, so I will never know for sure, I believe he said, "Can't you tell this guy's retarded! Look at his stupid smile! He's not a farmer, and he's too stupid to know when to run. Now, come on you big oaf, let's go smoke a cigarette." 

Then, as quickly as it began, they dispersed. Melted away. I stood there for a moment, somehow vacantly calm. I'm glad Anniken wasn't there - who knows how I would have reacted if I'd felt the need to protect someone (although they may not have bum-rushed me had she been there). And I'm glad I wore flip-flops.

Mostly, though, what I learned on the side of that highway in Zimbabwe in November 1999 was this: even when there are genuine reasons to be afraid, acting through fear is the wrong thing to do; and if, when you are afraid, you can look down, gather your nerve, and then raise your hand with a smile to greet the world, you'll be surprised by the sort of situations that will actually work.  

Thank you, crazy gang in Harare.  

Ideas on Parenting, footnote link.

As you can tell, I've not been in writing mode lately.  It's for good reasons, I've been stretching myself creatively on other projects - with my work as an artist and directing some short films.  So the blog has taken a back seat.

But I just came across a TED talk I'm going to be watching again and again.  Although the delivery is a bit dry, not everyone can be Sir Ken Robinson, the content is fabulous.  Somehow he's taken some of my Spartan leanings, and worked out how to add the softness my approach has needed. I can't wait to put this stuff into practice.

I hope you find it useful, too.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_feiler_agile_programming_for_your_family.html

In Defense of Pranksters.

This week, a prank my company created has been getting lots of press attention, prompting a deluge of critiques and celebrations on the art of pranking.  Did it go too far, or not far enough?  Was it funny, or a sick joke?  And of course, how would you react if it happened to you?!

I’m a big fan of a good prank and have given this topic more thought than most. I don’t think we do enough practical jokes in the world, and this blog will share some of my thoughts.

Let’s clarify what pranking really boils down to – it’s playing a joke on someone.  It’s fun.  But it is distinctly a joke on that person, not a joke with that person.  When we were children, we all pranked each other; often that involved hiding and jumping out to scare each other.  Pranking, or punk!ing, as Ashton calls it, has innocent origins.  However, most of us were also victims or instigators in some fairly malicious teasing – children can be cruel.  So what separates a prank from humiliation?

There are four main criteria.  Firstly, the actual act itself – a prank is a situation anyone would find awkward; it’s not a personal attack.  For instance, we knew in this prank that Alex had a slight fear of flying.  So Plan A was to charter a plane, attach some smoke canisters to the outside of the engines, like at air shows, and fake a double engine failure while the pilot dropped a few thousand feet.  We knew it’d be easy to film Alex’s terror, while he was actually completely safe.  But then we realized that as it’s a minor fear of Alex’s, it was too personal, and might have had the unintended consequence of sabotaging all future airborne travel for the poor guy!

The second is that a good prank must get the ‘pranked’ to play along.   Information should be exposed during the event from which, really, you ought to deduce it’s a prank.  But you don’t… and down deep, you’re playing along.  When Alex, Fred and Leo were arrested in LA, it was 7am.   They had slept for 2 hours after a big night. The arresting officers mentioned vague allegations from 4am the previous night, and claimed the officers had already reviewed surveillance tapes, identified the accused as the likely suspects, and were here to arrest them.  Really?  How would they know the accused names?  Or which hotel they were staying at?  What about warrants?  And however they did this, they worked it out in 3 hours?  Even Jason Bourne isn’t hunted down so quickly.

A good prank also needs to reflect the intended victim’s relationship to risk.  The fact is that Alex Tulloch is an alpha male.  He’s charismatic, confident and going places.  He would have laughed off a boring prank and, here’s the kicker, he nearly laughed off ours.  On several occasions he says to the police, is this a prank?  Somewhere deep inside, he knew this was too crazy to be real.  In truth, I will admit it was too long, but only by about 5 minutes.  Because 10 minutes before we end the prank, Alex finally looks at the policeman and says, “This is really happening…”  And it is only at this moment the prank has even worked.  It is only at this moment we have provided him with that gasping, roller-coaster moment of genuine fear (while actually being completely safe), that pumping of adrenaline, that primal edge of life stuff that actually helps us appreciate living - as close to the 'elixir of life' we're ever going to find.

This is why I can’t actually ask you how you would react to this prank.  Because I didn’t play this prank on you, and if I did play a prank on you, I’d think of a different one!

Finally, a good prank has to come from a place of love.  It is a gift of the most shocking proportions.  Think about it.  When Alex, Leo and Fred realize it was a prank, they enjoy a flash of euphoria - I’ll wager one of the greatest of their lives.  Pranking requires forethought, planning and usually some type of expense.  How many times have you bought someone you love a gift with less than 5 minutes’ effort?  We all have.  And we all know it didn’t show our love and hoped the recipient didn’t notice.  But you can’t pull off a decent prank with 5 minutes’ effort.  Throughout the planning of this prank, one thing that was completely obvious was the love Ben has for his buddy.  He wanted to treat him to an experience of a lifetime, to produce the best prank in the history of pranks.

And I think we did.  

Thoughts about Fitness. Part 3.

During the darkest years of the Great Depression, from 1929 - 1933, Americans living in the midwest were subjected to a famine of nearly biblical proportions.  It was the great 'dust bowl', with crops failing over huge swathes of landscape.  It was also one of the few times in history where such an intense famine hit a first world country with good doctors and records.  Hence, we know something surprising about it.  During a period of mass starvation, where people seemed to struggle to exist, life expectancy actually increased.  And not just a little - by 6 years.  

A couple of years ago, I lost a bunch of weight (about 50 pounds in 4 months), and wrote a couple of blogs about both the ideas and practices that helped me do this.  In the 2nd of those blogs, I made the following comment:

"It turns out, hunger can be incredibly good for you.  Various research suggests it acts as a natural anti-depressant, increases alertness, and can be good for learning."

I have a confession to make.  I was exaggerating a bit.  I had found a couple of studies online, but not that much.  Mostly I had felt the benefits of hunger, so I blogged about them.  Since then, I've come across some really interesting stories, and hard science, to take my understanding a lot further.  I had speculated that hunger could be good for you, and suggested that, from an evolutionary perspective, we would have benefitted "if hunger helped improve our vision and hearing", but even my wildly unscientific blog did not suggest that hunger could make you live longer.  Could there be a link between the famine of the 1930s Great Depression and increased life expectancy?

A recent BBC Horizon programme looked into this very question.  According to Professor Valter Longo at the University of Southern California, a clue lies in a group of South American people most of us would call midgets.  They actually suffer from a rare condition, but the clue lies not in their height, but how they die.  Or rather, how they don't die. They don't die from cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.  Despite the fact that they smoke and drink and live just as unhealthily as the rest of us, they don't die from the 'big three'.

As it turns out, the condition they have means they have very low production of Insulin-like growth hormone 1 (IGF1).  The fascinating part is what IGF1 does in all of us, not just the midgets.  When we have a normal amount of IGF1, our body is in drive mode, and produces lots of new cells to cope with the demands of every day living.  However, with low levels of IGF1 our body stops producing new cells and - this is the fascinating bit - starts repairing the cells we already have.  With low IGF1, DNA damage is more likely to get fixed.  The theory goes in people with low IGF1, like our short South American friends, their cells are constantly repairing themselves which prevents certain diseases from ever developing. 

I was blessed with a gene pool filled with cancer, alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease.  Every single day my parents, in their early 70s, break a new family record for longevity.  If there's a way to get my cells to repair one another, I probably need it.  So what affects IGF1, and can I reduce my IGF1 production?

As you probably deduced, food plays a big part.  The food which seems to accelerate IGF1 production the most is protein.  So that's meat, my favourite food group.  Great.  But it turns out that all food stimulates IGF1 production, so to get really low levels of IGF1, the BBC programme recommends fasting.  So all my other favourite food groups.  Wonderful.

I've never fasted from food before.  My usual excuse is that I'm too busy, but in truth, I've never seen the point.  If fasting actually helps my body repair itself... I can see a point.  The typical 65-year old in America today takes 8 drugs a day.  Modern medicine is amazing, but living to 70 or 80 is abnormal for most of us.  In all likelihood, old age will be a regiment of drugs, side effects and regular visits to the doctor.  To me, this sounds even less wonderful than fasting.


The very tiny, minuscule, silver lining to the massive grey cloud is that fasting is being studied by loads of scientists and there are quite a few being recommended:

• The old-fashioned way: four days without food, several times a year.  You can have all the water you want, and up to 50 calories per day.  Apparently, day 1 is the hardest, and day 2 isn't that bad.  
• Alternate day fasting.  Eat anything you want on day 1 (so far, so good), eat 1 small meal on day 2 of about 500 calories.  Repeat.  This one is fantastic because you really can eat anything you want on day 1, you just have to keep to the single meal on day 2.  It seems easier, but you really have to keep on alternating... like, forever.
• The Five-Two Fast.  Five days of normal eating, followed by 2 days of 600 calories a day.  The beauty of this one is that you can choose the same two days each week, and just work it into your normal life.

None of them are easy, I suspect.  I've loosely had a few weeks of doing the Five-Two, but in truth I'm still on the sidelines.  I don't guess the point is being easy.  Whether we suffer now, by fasting, or later, in other ways, seems to be the choice.

And this is where we get to a final big idea about fasting.  In addition to the benefits of lower IGF1, and the reduced risk of aging-related illnesses, in addition to the benefits of losing weight and feeling good (when you're not fasting), there's something else.  According to Dr Mark Mattson from the National Institute on Aging, fasting appears to lower one's likelihood of contracting Alzheimer's and dementia.  According to the BBC programme, "Sporadic bouts of hunger actually triggers new neurons to grow.  It seems that fasting exercises your gray matter in ways that exercise strengthens your muscles."

So fasting is really, really good for you.  

In my original Fitness blogs two years ago, I proposed skipping lunch every day, as mankind has done for most of our history.  As I write this, I've skipped about 70% of my lunches for the last couple of years.  I've still got the 32-inch waist, and I'm still feeling fit and healthy.  The question is, does being hungry for an hour or two each day qualify as fasting... does this count?  I don't know, but I thought I'd mention it here as I know a few people who read this blog are doing two meals a day, and it seems there's a decent chance it's making us healthier, too.