The Meaning Of Life

So we are on to the second episode (do blogs have episodes?? What else would you call it?? Post? Part 2? Whatever, “episodes” is good enough for Star Wars so I'm sticking with it. If you have the answer, absolutely reach out to tell me but if I'm honest I’m going to stick to Star Wars) and I’m already tackling the big questions.

Now anyone old enough and nerdy enough will no doubt have already thought of the answer - 42 - so full marks for that, however my catchy title is really just clickbait for what I really want to talk about. PS If you have no idea of the reference from which 42 is the answer to the question of what is the meaning of life, please find out and read that first.

In the human sciences, so much of what happens, doesn’t happen and how it changes in between makes no fucking sense and is even less predictable.

So much so that I actually try to teach anti-prediction in my courses.

While there is of course, a gigantic amount of pure randomness in nature, humans and the universe, and so knowing it is a pipedream that smarter-yet-dumber than me can grapple with. There is a way that one can let go of the need to understand, explain and retrofit stories, and be quite happy to do so.

It is recognising that the natural world and the things in it - ie us - are geared for one thing.

Survival.

And not just the fittest. Just survival.

Not happiness, success, fulfilment, anthropocentric governance of the universe.

Survival.

Stay alive long enough to pass on your genetic material, then you can wither and die.

So at least the universe is geared for you to see as much action as you can on the long, cold, lonely path to total irrelevance.

Survival is the somewhat unsatisfying answer to the question I get hit with the most.

“Why the fuck does this hurt so much”

Expanding that further

Why do people with the same injury feel different things?

Why do some people feel more pain than others?

Why do some things that are completely cooked not hurt very much?

And why in the name of all of fuckdom does it hurt so much when I stand on fucking Lego!!!

Our systems are geared for survival.

In the few hundred thousand years of human evolution, maybe even prior to that through branching descent, all the way down to you and your behaviour, there is a long line of influences that shape why you do the things you do. This is different from me (although if you don’t squeal like a pig when you stand on lego then you are not human and should be investigated for the benefit of science) and different from Jimmy down the street’s mum.

So while individual behaviour can vary wildly, each of those systems has still evolved along a common theme - survival.

It’s worth noting here survival is at a species level, not the individual.

Again, conditional on being around long enough to drink too much, make bad decisions and 9 months later fulfil your evolutionary role (or if you are Dave Grohl in that situation, explain to your fans about the baby mama - I know this has dated the blog, and Dave is one of my heroes, but still, couldn’t resist some basic pop culture instincts), the universe is then happy for you to buy the farm.

You are fragile in the extreme so humanity can roll on.

So, back to me in pain land.

All the wacky things we see with people in pain and the behaviour of those people and that pain. All the time things improve when everything suggests they won’t, or things never change, despite no discernable reason that they should stick around.

All the different ways pain can manifest, the lack of pattern and reason.

While there can be testable, either quantifiable or qualitative, processes that are involved in individual circumstances, the underlying “what does it all mean” question is often that - because the system is geared for survival.

It doesn’t give a shit about your football career, your job, your positive affirmations and your life coach.

In fact a lot of the shit we get bombarded with in health and “wellness” (the term wellness is so often associated with complete bullshit that the quotation marks seem insufficient) is often one dodgy fuckers idea to exploit the need in us humans to have these things explained and answered, when in reality, we have mostly no fucking idea why things occur the way they do, why our bodies react in certain ways, in certain environments and at certain times.

However, if we view things from the point of view of survival, then we can either make sense of them, or, forget about trying to explain them and get on with decreasing the effect on people’s lives.

For example. It’s 50000 years ago Sid and Nancy are walking through the jungle. Sid is regaling Nancy with stories of great deeds, thoughts on the meaning of life and hopes and dreams involving wheel shaped objects. They hear rustling in the leaves. Sid fancies himself a skilled warrior, as well as a highbrow intellectual and deep thinker. A modern (for 50000 years ago) warrior poet, with some lethal moves in his arsenal.

While he is analysing the most likely opponent and combining that with his knowledge of the terrain and best fitting form of combat, Nancy just fucking runs.

So Sid is dead, and while the description of Sid may remind you of some wankers you know (if you say this author I will find you and show you my Jeet Kune Do) we are all descended from the Nancy’s of the ancient world.

Just get the fuck out of there.

If it hurts, don’t do it.

Pain bad, cuddles good.

We are hardwired for such things.

So in uncertain situations where the possibility of death, injury or insult is possible, most human systems just hightail it out of there. Even the ones who try and tough it out are still descended from Nancy, so there has to be some strong environmental, emotional or psychological stimulus to keep them there to fight it out.

It’s also the explanation for why I have had 1000s of conversations with people about why their body does something even when they KNOW that they don’t need to.

For example, they know it’s safe to bend their back, but they just can’t work out how.

Basically, if your system/body decides that you MIGHT be in trouble, remembering that most of this system acts without your awareness, and regardless of whether that trouble is REAL or not, even if you know that it isn’t really that bad, your mind/brain/consciousness can eat a bag of dicks - the system reacts the way it has evolved.

Survival first.

So what does all this mean practically?

It means we can give ourselves a break. As people and as clinicians.

As people we aren’t soft, weak, yellowbellied cowards. We are products of evolution, environment and social groups. How our systems react to stress and the processes underpinning them are nearly completely subconscious. We are aware of the reaction, or the effect, not the driving physiological chemistry.

As clinicians, we can embrace the uncertainty of “I don’t know” and the impulse to explain. Sometimes shit is weird.

Now, this isn’t my permission to be a shit human, make terrible decisions and take morally reprehensible actions. Or be a shit clinician, stay ignorant of the things you should know and how to best help the people in your care.

There are minimum standards for society to consider you a competent clinician (I have even higher standards for me to consider you a decent human).

This is just recognising that so much that determines how we behave and react is hardwired and really hard to override. So when pain, especially, does things that are unpredictable and frustrating, it’s not your fault and it doesn’t mean you aren’t getting better.

Sometimes we have to just chill while the freak out freaks out, then continue along the plan.

For us clinicians, you just aren’t going to know everything and you can’t predict so stop trying. Instead of trying to be super smart, realise you are basically a pretty chimpanzee and instead refine how you ACT given certain circumstances. What to do in situations is way more likely to help people than analysing why it happened.

Even if you persist in feeling that you have uncovered the truth, you are likely wrong.

Systems are geared for survival (of the species). When things go haywire, the system has reacted in a way suiting that priority function. Just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean evolution gives a shit.

Puny human.