Common sense

In the early days of modern psychology William James stated that without bodily sensations there would be little emotional experience left. Try to imagine this before you reject his statement as completely going against common sense: When your heart is not pounding any faster, you’re not feeling the butterfly tingles in your stomache, when your knees don’t go wobbly, how could you tell then for example that you are in love?  At least for some emotions the body responds with obvious symptoms which seem to be universal for all humans.

Very coincidentally while studying for the coming exam of Emotion and Cognition at the moment, I’d found a discussion on TED about this subject. Andrew Leader from New York was asking the TED community the question “How are different body parts connected to the emotions we traditionally associate with them?”.  The comments are from a very broad perspective and I think the unique way of responding to that by the author of the question is what makes it interesting. He acts really cool in bringing science and non-scientific opinions together. He is showing respect for every contribution and he explains in a clear way the scientific approach. You can read and participate in the discussion through this link: http://www.ted.com/conversations/10210/how_are_different_body_parts_c.html

In between feeding my mind I have exercised my body too last week. The wonderful Spring weather that keeps continuing for over a week now, very seldom in the Netherlands, lured me away from my desk every day in the past week to go roller skating. Hopefully the weather helps me to keep doing that for a very long time because I never have slept so good in a time full of exams and workload before. It was more than a year ago I went skating but cycling I do pretty often. People say it is one of the typical Dutch things, riding a bicycle. Except for people like me who own a car as well. When the weather is windy, which is also typical Dutch, I hate to cycle and I only use my bike to do my daily grocery shopping and other nearby errands. However, this week it is different because the weather is too tempting even for a long ride to another town about 20 kilometers from here. I did that happily yesterday, to be frank it was partly because I had lent my car to someone for this weekend. There is some nice green scenery along the route I went and I saw many newborn lambs which reinforced the Spring feeling some more. I even discovered my hometown has its own wooden suspension bridge, however very small and not so high, it reminded me of the picture from the one in Vancouver Canada which I looked up on the internet after reading about it in my textbook of emotion.

Because I am the lucky owner of a smartphone and a little obsessed with numbers and math I used the tracker application of my phone to calculate the distance and speed I rode. I then noticed for the first time the tracker also calculates the burned calories which makes it even more attractive to me to cycle instead of using the car. Although the prices of gas are mile high lately, like in almost every country in the world, I’ve figured out that the price per kilometer here is still under € 0,20 (only for fuel). I guess that for the USA it is about the same, $ 0,20 per mile. To me, money is the least effective argument to persuade me to choose my bike above my car, however I could do with some cash savings. Even the environment, although I do care for environmental issues a lot, does slip my mind more often than not when it is about using my car for transportation. The fact that cycling does use up a whole lot of calories (around 300 kcal an hour) might do the trick for me on windless days like last Saturday. Another discussion I’ve read last week (http://www.nrcnext.nl/blog/2011/09/12/fietssnelwegen-hebben-de-toekomst/, although it is written in Dutch) was about the idea of highway-like cycle lanes between cities in the most crowded part of the Netherlands, the Randstad.  It says among other ideas that the Arab sheikh of Qatar ordered a 40 kilometer long roofed and air conditioned cycle lane because he considered his people were becoming too fat.  When a windshielded cycle lane will be invented here, without blocking the view on the country sites I love so much, I promise to choose my bicycle above my car more often.

Until that moment I will soothe my conscience with the idea that at least I do my part for keeping the crazy economy in balance. Isn’t that what economists keep telling us anyway, that it is all about supply and demand and that it is like a fragile spider cob, all connected to each other?  Imagine that every driver or every commuter in the world,  obeys a virally spread request like Kony2012, and choosing for one day to go to work by bike, walking, skating or stay home instead of using  a gas fuelled transportation device, what will happen with our economy then? Common sense will tell that this will never happen for many reasons and therefore we don’t need to worry that we’ll possibly blow up what is left of our financial (in)security. Mother Earth is strong enough to take care of herself but economy needs human interference. Half of the gas prize consists of taxes in the Netherlands, many people are weighing too much and at risk for diabetes and cardio vascular and other diseases and air pollution is a serious problem too. Imaging how we will not only interfere in supply and demand of the gasoline but also in healthcare costs and governmental income with a silly act of leaving our cars. That might have a domino effect leading to final bankruptcy. We couldn’t and wouldn’t do that. Isn’t that common sense or what?