Signals and Systems

    I recently watched a lecture on flow and it really conglomerated a lot of observations I've made over the past month or two. I've been reflecting on some of the happiest and saddest moments of my life thus far, and not-so-independently realized it's far more valuable to reflect on the most meaningful. If we were to measure the happiest moment of someone's life, per the chemicals and connections in our brain, it would probably be the first time being fed after birth. But we don't remember that; it's meaningless, not in a survival sense, but it's meaningless to us.

   I think my happiest memory - ever - was driving down Sheikh Zayed road between the skyscrapers of Dubai with Karen on our honeymoon. It was at night, just after Ramadan so there was a crescent moon, we went through a 6-lane tunnel and came out to all the Burj's lit up; the song "Waiting for Love" played in the background. Every aspect of that memory and my description of it has meaning. The waves of sound synchronized in just the right way through the car speakers, the hundreds of cars on the massive freeway and their lights dancing in the peripheral, the inability to see the tops of the buildings, the moon at a specific time of year; they all seemed to be signals to us to be at an energized peace. THAT is what got cemented into my head to enjoy for the rest of my life. I don't remember shit about being born. 

    Even darker times, times in Cambodia, times deployed, times in rehab, I can for some reason conjure good memories be they happy or sad or angry. This bothered me. "No goddamnit. I'm not supposed to remember being deployed or in rehab better than when my son was born." So I did what I do and started reading and watching and reflecting. 

    The first thing that I noticed was at rehab with my friend Aaron. We would joke and shoot the shit... like ALL day. We had a well oiled flow of conversation, and of laughter. People would gather around wherever we were sitting just to listen to us bullshit for 15 minutes between classes. It was after about a week of spending all day together that I realized our laughs had synched up. 

    What the fuck does that mean? I mean the rhythm of our literal laughs, our loud bursting cackles, had become synchronized. He or I or someone else would say something funny, we'd look at each other, and every subsequent "ha" was like the beat of a metronome. I noticed it because I made fun of it, "Dude we're turning into crows..." which made the why of it all click: BIRDS DO THIS!

    If you're reading this you've hopefully been introduced to the sandhill cranes that we share real estate with. They like to laugh. Well, I don't know if it's a laugh but it's a loud bursting cackle that they like to do together. If you can mimic it or play the sound from a speaker, they will start to anticipate the "call" cackle and answer with the "response" cackle in synch with your next "call". Sometimes there'll be five of them in a group in the morning, all circled up cackling in unison like they're summoning Cthulhu. It's very interesting to watch. 

    I'm starting to think that's the purpose of laughter, a reflex in communication. It's communicating "I get it, I understand the group of people around me well enough to understand that now it is time to laugh...riiiiiiiight...now." I think yawning is similar and maybe even dancing. 

    There are a lot of social behaviors both birds and humans share. Flying in formation is one of them. Have you ever seen a massive flock of starlings fly in warped disposition, making each bird a pixel in a turbulent macro display? It's an example of emergence that is borrowed from by the Air Force in the simplicity of "ok you go here, and I'll say this, and then I'll go here and when I do that you go back over there". But it's not simple, it's complicated. It's a football play, a symphony, a dance. 

    There's a problem of course, which ends up solving itself, in that it takes a ridiculous amount of practice and communication to fly in formation. And when you're flying a plane right next to another plane you don't have much time to correct or communicate. Radio calls are things that are quick to say and very recognizable: "Two" for acknowledge, "Knockitoff" to split up, "cakaw-cakaw" etc. Things have to be time efficient, but that means you don't have time to spare for thinking about it. It becomes reflex, like the birds drawing figure eights in the sky without even being aware of it. 

    The time investment it takes a bird to fly in formation with thousands of others, or a human to learn a complicated dance as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, is tremendous. It becomes a filter for those higher echelon examples, but even at it's most basic it's a signal to everyone else: "I've made the effort, thus I belong." 

    There's a lot of research that shows that these signals matter - they are meaningful. A palm tree is a signal that you're someplace warm, the smell of sand and salt is a signal you're on vacation, a Michael Jackson song is a signal that the year is 1985, or at least that's how it feels. A son or daughter's eyes have a quaint familiarity signaling it needs care - your care. 

These signals are meaningful, the Almighty CNS has decided that, and they are layered. That's the best answer I could come up with as to why I remember driving to a hotel in Dubai better than the actual happiest moment in life - which was probably a long time ago, and must not have mattered much.