Men - a different species?

When I was reading Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
I thought, really, men and women are TOO different. It's like two
different species! And I thought, what if this really is the case.

What if, sexual reproduction started off with related species mating.
What if the the male Y chromosome came from different species!

I think when John Gray wrote Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
he definitely had some sort of evolutionary perspective in mind.
Because it has been proposed that life was introduced on earth from some other planet.
He was definitely hinting at a very radical difference by saying both
were from different planets.

I had read an article about the bonobo monkeys sharing 98% of
our genotype, and I thought, if 2% is what makes us human....
then the difference between X chromosome and Y chromosome is
too large to account for just the sexual characteristics.
There is something there!

And then, poof! I found this in a Washington Post article:

"When Nick Patterson of MIT and his colleagues at the Broad Institute
compared the genes of humans and chimps, they found that one of the
chromosomes -- the female sex chromosome X -- was 1.2 million years
younger than the others. It appeared the two species shared a common
ancestor who gave them both their X chromosomes, and did so more
recently than the ancestors who gave them all the other chromosomes."
Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees



Direct Observations yield vital insights

Gregor Mendel arrived at the mechanism of heredity (genetics) with indirect observation and his experiments with plant hybridization.
Clearly, John Gray also arrived at a profound evolutionary truth from
directly observing his marriage and accepting the difficulties that
other couples were also facing in their marriage.

[Gray's teachings, From Wikipedia:
Gray's books teach that men and women are intrinsically different in their biology and psychology. He writes that harmony between the sexes is achieved by recognizing and accepting these differences rather than trying to erase them.
His books have sold over 40 million copies world-wide.]

While John Gray didn't venture into species evolution but I really think,
the title is deeper than we imagined.

Here's the Washington Post article, with claims that the male Y chromosome and the female X chromosome came from two different species, roughly 1.2 million years apart:

Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees

John Gray's book:
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Mirror Neurons: Key to Empathy?

Research by animal behaviorists on bonobo monkeys indicates that they have mirror neurons which enable them to 'simulate' the actions and feelings of other monkeys (and humans) and empathize with how they're feeling.

Now there's evidence of the presence of mirror neurons in humans too. About 5% of people who suffered from a stroke on their right brain (resulting in total paralysis of their left side) were unable to recognize that their left side was paralyzed. Not only that, they failed to recognize the paralysis in other patients whose left side was also paralyzed.

All this and a whole lot other interesting observations:

MIRROR NEURONS and imitation learning as the driving force behind "the great leap forward" in human evolution

Foot + Tape = Miracle

I've had an unresolved foot injury for 2 years now. It was actually a fracture and the doctor looked at wet X-Rays and said it was just a sprain. After many months the pain persisted...and another doctor showed me the fracture right away. Only...it seemed too late and he said a plaster wouldn't help now.

I was no longer able to run or even walk without some pain. Tried all kinds of sneakers but it didn't help. Tried wearing a crepe bandage but it used to slide off. Tried different types of braces, they felt too tight and made my foot tingle.

Finally my frustration with my weight hit a new level and I remembered that runners often tape their feet. I pulled out a new roll of plaster and taped the area securely, but not too tightly. Very gingerly, I tried some on-spot jogging. No pain. I finally increased the intensity till I was doing high-impact aerobics. No pain at all!

After two hours, my whole body ached. Even my good foot. But not my bad foot!
Miracle. You get plenty of adhesive plasters that are paper thin, come off real clean and easy and lend fabulous support. Oh, why didn't I try this before!

Big Apple Juice: Red Hook by the Water

Unique perspective on the Big Apple, loved this blog

http://bigapplejuice.wordpress.com/

It's a Phase

We often hear that phrase in connection with teen angst, or midlife crises or generally, when people are 'not being themselves' - as in, not being their usual selves. 

It's usually a negative thing when we say 'so and so is going through a phase' and we want that phase to be over soon so that things can return to 'normalcy'.

A friend of mine, who prides herself on being a go-getter all her life, is going through one such phase. She feels like slacking off and taking it easy lately. No specific reason. But since she got married about a year ago, she first blamed her marriage, her husband, people around her...Each time I asked very specific questions as to what was stopping her from pursuing her dreams, or what she wanted to accomplish and in what timeframe, she had no answer to that.  But she finally accepted that nobody was stopping her, except she herself. 

Now, she has a problem with why she is not feeling like a go-getter anymore. The more she wonders about the change, the more she's likely to fight and resist it. I told her to accept it as a phase - a phase she has no control over, and to enjoy it. She is probably too young to get that. 

I started to 'get' this around the age of 30. I wanted to keep chasing big bucks, but found myself getting increasingly emotional and temperamental. I dreamed of finding a man, falling in love...watching silly romantic movies, going for long walks and chatting for hours over coffee. After fighting that urge like crazy I finally backed down and hopped on a dating site. And then I fell in love with the sweetest, most gorgeous and intelligent man on earth (he was a conman). I found out and got out without much damage...but the main thing is that I realized the importance of  'going with the flow'. Of course after that disaster I was too scared to date again for a while and I went back to working hard for refuge.

Then it happened again recently. I somehow got into an intellectually very intense phase of my life. My brain has never hopped from idea to idea like this. Nor have I had the capability to feel and contain this volcanic explosion of emotion that is surging through me lately. But I didn't want to do brainy stuff! I wanted to fall in love this time. Romance was pretty much on my agenda as I felt that my body clock would soon slow down and I had to catch a man now! Sadly,  I was in a different 'phase'. My body and my mind were in no mood for romance. As a 35 year old, it meant grief. Why is this happening to me? Why am I not mellow and confused and contented and silly and romantic when I WANT TO BE!! Sadly, it doesn't work that way.

So once again, I have decided to go with the flow. I'm writing my book, I'm ordering cartloads of books to read from Amazon and I am somehow reading them all, and I read academic journals on the Internet and get into heated discussions about mental illness (what else? lol). Oh my Gawd. All I know is that it's happening and it's a phase. If I don't do this now, the next thing you know I'll be in a romantic phase and trying very hard to make sense of nerdy things that sound like gibberish. 

All of life is a fucking phase. And it's never timed to coincide with my actual intentions, NEVER!
But knowing this helps. Yep, knowing this helps me make the most of what is going on and see the positive side. After all, it's not just our bodies and minds that go through phases. The economy, technologies, ideologies, fashions.....all go through phases.

I have this friend who wants to feel all charged up and on the go...and she is unable to feel that way. And here's me feeling all charged up and on the go....and I really just wanted to catch a man.
Sometimes I feel life is a joke being played on us. Neways, I'm laughing. And I'm doing what my 'phase' is instructing me to do, which is to....read books on psychopaths and attachment theory and mirror neurons. 

WHY? WHY NOW? WHY ME? Is not for us to ask. Follow your passion and trust that all will be ok.

If machines took over...

I'd hope the takeover is a peaceful one because frankly, they are better than us.

Robots aren't corrupt, stupid, devious or attention-seeking. I'd like a few robots in Parliament.

I'd like to  work for a robot boss. I'm very logical and at the same time, very creative. Robots might like me.

I'd marry a robot. Intelligence is attractive to me. Besides, a machine rarely ever betrayed me. 

I'd live happily ever after, because if there's one thing in the world you can truly rely on, it's robots.

The Ghost of the Bride

Almost every ghost story starts with the author telling you, they don't believe in ghosts.
I don't believe in ghosts either.  I think ghosts are sub-conscious fears that people carry inside them. I am so open with accepting and following my waking dreams, that few thoughts or emotions are taboo or suppressed. I sometimes wonder if I even have a sub-conscious mind. 
I didn't even believe in the ridiculous dreams people have and their interpretations. 
All my sleeping dreams are mundane dreams. As if the mind is meeting the formality of REM sleep. I have no secret desires. My dreams have nothing to tell me that I don't already know.

But wait, I do have a suppressed dream. A dream I hate to acknowledge. And when I do, I try to just tell myself to accept that it's never going to come true.  That dream visited me last night. It was the strangest dream. 

I was standing by the kitchen window, watching the highway that runs along the side of my house. It was a dark night. But I knew someone was going to come walking down that road that night. And she did. A woman in white. A beautiful woman in flowing white dress was walking down the pitch dark road. She seemed too far away, but I could see her eyes clearly. She had eyes that just burned through the black night with a fire that said, "look at me. I have something to say". She was looking right ahead of her, but not at me. I kept on looking as long as I could bear to. And then I suddenly.... Fear swept over me. What if she sensed I was looking and looked straight at me? Even in my dream, I knew she was a ghost and I thought, if my eyes met hers, she would haunt me forever. I turned away... 

And the dream ended. I didn't have to read Sigmund Freud to know what that dream meant. 
It is the only dream that I can't look in the eye. Not that none of my dreams ever failed. But because in this case, I didn't really try.  

I have many excuses. Being from a family of limited means, I left home early and got a job. It was an immensely happy time for me, as for the first time I knew my life was in control. But the job was tough and the staff at the distance university where I joined, were uncooperative. I dropped out from college. From the age of 20 to 30, I just struggled with finding the financial security that had eluded me all my life, and I found it. Did date off and on and had casual-sex kind of 'relationships'. I hated that I was there for these men when they wanted me and they were never there for me when I wanted them.  I hated their lies and excuses.

Then I gave up looking. It has something to do with how deeply I love myself. You don't mess with silly men and look for a good provider when the love and belief you have in yourself is so deep and utterly unshakeable. I think I've dated only about 12-15 men in my whole life. And now I tell myself to give up on men and marriage. Like a story that got over before it could start.

I don't know why this is so, but each time I've opened my heart and my eyes to a man, he came across as so pathetic and lame. Maybe the men in my life too looked into the eyes of the ghost of the bride and drew away. She has such a power and aura about her. The ghost of the dead bride.