It's Adaptation, Amigos

I came out of the airport at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, smack bam into the blasting sunshine. Between me and the airport wall the sun beat down, tumid and enveloping. New York had been cool, bordering on chilly. I remember thinking, damn it's hot.

Dodging taxi offers of around $60 a ride, I found the bus stop and some locals who helped me flag down the bus to Sayulita. Sitting up near the driver and the overridden clutch (actually I have no idea where the clutch on a bus is, but I was sitting near a rather large mound that screeched and swore like a wet cat every time a gear changed), I had a good view of the road and its variability, the roadside stalls featuring an inordinate number of magazines about nail-art, and the passengers who came on and off. We stopped every few minutes - at one point I think we stopped so a man could pick up some cigarettes. He wandered off and we left without him.

Sitting back on the crusty seats wearing my cowboy hat, I felt like Indiana Jones. He definitely would have taken a bus rather than a taxi. Or Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone, on her way to Cartagena.

Okay, so I also took the bus because I was way under budget. Okay, I didn't actually have a budget. But I did spend an extra $120 on a taxi from New York's JFK airport back home to pick up my Green Card (which, incidentally, looks just like a credit card), then back to JFK to get the plane. So, in Mexico, I took the bus. Not really so adventurous, just cheap. And fun.

I love the change that a vacation entails: change of routine, change of scenery, change of experience. I'd been planning this trip for so long, there was so much to anticipate. I had imagined it, how it would be, how it would feel, what it would look like. New foods, drinks, smells, flavors, temperatures, experiences.

Once in Sayulita, after finding out by text that my friends hadn't even arrived, I headed down to the beach hoping to find someone from the wedding party. Lugging my suitcase along the sand, sweating in my heavy plane clothes and randomly ear-wigging on conversations felt less Indiana like, but my quest was soon over when I happened upon the French contingent and settled at their table with a gallon of frozen margarita.

Later, at a beach table with my beach food (cerviche) with my beach friends and Texas hat. The novelty of the little beach table deserved a photo...

Sayulita itself is a small town about 45 minutes by taxi, or an hour and a bit by bus, from Puerto Vallarta on Mexico's Pacific Coast. The small town is unencumbered by large hotels or chain restaurants. The people - and this came up often in discussion so I feel justified in such a generalization - were genuinely friendly and helpful, almost as if the lack of commercialization had kept things sweet with the locals.

With five friends, representing Australia, New Zealand and Ireland (a perfect target for the French who unfortunately were rugby fans) - we hired a house near the beach. It was beautiful, all primary colours, open spaces and a maid.

The wedding was day two, on a clifftop over looking the sea. After that, we settled in proper.

In a day or so I knew the beach and the strange, short-breaking surf. I knew the cafes and the beach-front bars that served the best margaritas and salsa. I knew that the outside couch on our patio at "home" had fleas and that the hot water didn't work. I knew, with some relief, that my roommate Derek didn't snore.

I'd been reading about how our minds adapt to circumstances in Professor Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis. He, like many psychologists, has studied our incredible capacity for change and its effect on our happiness.

Adaptation enables us to cope in a labile world. Our lives are defined by change, and without the ability to adapt we would desist completely, be overwhelmed.

So, what long-term effects do external changes have on our internal well being? There are dissenting views: one famous study showed that people who suffer paralysis, compared with lottery winners, all within a year or so return to near-abouts their base level of happiness. Others differ in opinion, and cite cases where occurrences such as the death of a spouse or divorce do impact well-being in the long term.

Regardless of where we end up on the life-satisfaction scale, we often anticipate our inability to change as far greater than it is. In The Happiness Hypothesis, Professor Haidt says:

We are bad at "affective forecasting," that is, predicting how we'll feel in the future. We grossly overestimate the intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions.....The human mind is incredibly sensitive to changes in conditions, but not so sensitive to absolute levels.

I was thinking about this principle in relation to a my friend's impending career change. He is feeling some trepidation regarding a new career move - a looming fear of the certain drop in income that will come with starting his own business. Like many of us, he's always worked for someone, and been paid a salary. He wonders how he will cope on less income, given that he is used to certain luxuries.

What the science points to is that, he will start the new job and at the beginning, in comparison to his previous pay-check, he will feel less satisfied. But as he adapts to the new level of income, each gain or accomplishment will register as a positive change, and give him a boost.

The flip side of adapting to negative changes is our ability to become accustomed to positive ones. The "hedonic treadmill", as described by Martin Seligman, "causes you to rapidly and inevitably adapt to good things by taking them for granted. As you accumulate more material possessions and accomplishments, your expectations rise." (Pg 49, Authentic Happiness). We get used to things, but still want that rush of positive feeling that comes with the change involved in earning more or gaining more.

At Sayulita, what had sufficed for entertainment in the first few days - beach, friends, the wedding, food - was soon to be superceded with more daring adventures. Some people went deep sea fishing. My group went out into the humid jungle and swung down long wires strung between trees - in New Zealand we call it a flying fox, over here they call it a zip line. Awesome.

To me, adaptation is also closely related to mindfulness. Knowing we will adapt, it is even more useful to be mindful of every moment. The future will never turn out the way we imagine it. In the meantime, with all our (read = my) day-dreaming and imagining, we've adapted to circumstance without appreciating it just for what is is....a moment - each little moment being a micro-bite of constant change, constant renewal and constant adaptation.

I took a taxi back to the airport. Done with the bus, time for something new and more comfortable! My driver's name was Jose and we sang to Classic Rock, windows down, barefoot and warm. Maybe I appreciated him and the car more because of the bus experience? It definitely felt like a treat.

At the airport it was hot. I felt the heat, recognized it. I remembered it and the feeling of novelty just days ago.

I wanted to be back on the beach, my beach. I wanted to be with my old friends. I wanted to be drinking margaritas with my feet in the sand.

Then....then I just got in the line to check in. And hoped that they would have something other than peanuts on the flight back.

Savoring - tasting the tip of each moment

As I've been thinking about how to phrase this post, I've been chowing through a fat-free muffin from the corner store, with watermelon and yogurt. It's barely registering, apart from a cement-like mixture forming in my gums, and I've already almost finished it. Ironically, this post is about savoring.

When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing that waddles into your brain? For me, it's often what I have to do at work that day, then the activities I have planned afterwards, and then even that I must try and get to bed earlier tonight so as to not wake up so tired tomorrow!

Why our little grey cells rush to and from the present, into the past and future is debatable. What isn't such a mystery, is that staying present, savoring the moment, has proven benefits for reducing stress and increasing feelings of well-being.

Martin Seligman talks about enhancing our every day pleasures by concentrating moment by moment on what we are experiencing. Right now. The concept is closely tied to the Buddhist practice of mindfulness - being aware of external stimuli and internal thoughts, without judgement.

The benefits of savoring and mindfulness include a heightened awareness of what's going on around us, as well as how we're interpreting that in our heads. The result being that we can choose to live each day to its fullest potential. We concentrate better, we get more stuff done. We worry less. Our relationships are improved; if we are fully present, we are more likely to listen, understand, and respond with thought.

Sometimes something unusual or unexpected jolts us out of our reverie ... we tend to remember these times? Because all of a sudden we're not in our heads, we're fully present, we're alive! (My first view of the thing below. It reminded me of a Tiffany bean, one a giant might wear. A giant Chav ;)

Looking ahead to an upcoming vacation can be fun. Except that a) the future NEVER turns out exactly as you think it will and b) there is the added risk of this habituation infecting the vacation itself, implanting thoughts of the next thing, the evening or meal ahead, or even going home or back to work - while you're supposedly relaxing!

Well aware of my own tendencies to day dream, on a recent weekend trip to Chicago I had a bit of a heart-to-heart with my mind to try as hard as possible to be present in each moment. Some people have this knack anyway. I don't, but I have the capacity to try.

Luckily, my trip was crammed full of stimuli. Cycling along the pier near the lake with the wind in my face and the strange, disjointed feeling of lack of sea-smell, despite this vast stretch of water laid out in front of me; the Bean (above), where the shiny contours meld macabre distortions of the people under and outside of its belly - in particular, I noticed a bride in her white puffy dress, gorgeous in the daylight, was reduced to a mulched, squashed little white blip reflected in the mirrored surface; the feeling of cold water chundering over my head as my friend and host, Dave, held me under a fountain/sculpture in a park (don't tell him, I would have gone under anyway, it was stinking hot), and the taste of a sweet frozen margarita after the bike ride. And Dave's chips.

That night we hollered along to a Neil Diamond covers band, Super Diamond , and the next day toured Frank Lloyd Wright's beautiful early century houses. In these cases a bit of study would likely have enhanced my experience - I could only recall the words to one song, "Sweet Caroline" and my knowledge of the greatest architect the US has ever produced is abysmal. Yet there was still an appreciation - the velvet pants, the stick on side-burns, the identical voice; the delight in identifying a FLW house amongst others, and seeing aspects of his style in vastly different houses - one flat, one turreted, but with similar, hidden away beveled glass windows, or manicured lawns in geometric patterns.

Despite the intention, of course my mind did go on its own vacation at various moments, slip-tripping into the past or imagining the future. To stay fully present constantly would surely make people automatons!? It's the tendency to spend the majority of the time in la la land that is dangerous....

I think my attempts at being present helped when I was playing Guitar Hero and driving the Porsche (around the block a few times, only mildly riding the clutch). Okay, honestly it would have been hard to be anything other than present when driving someone else's expensive car on the wrong side of the road. Especially when it's a manual....

Here are some tips for enhancing your experience of savoring:

(from Authentic Happiness, pg 108, Fred B. Bryan and Joeseph Veroff)

(I am paraphrasing and truncating cos this post is already long)

a) Share the moment with others: Share the experience and converse about its value to you. "This is the single strongest predictor of level of pleasure"

b) Memory Building: Take mental photographs. Reminisce.

c) Self-congratulation: Be proud of what you are achieving.

d) Sharpening Perceptions: Taste, touch, listen, smell! Use your senses. Be aware of what you are experiencing.

e) Absorption. Try to sense, not think or contextualize the experience. You can do that afterwards.

In terms of increasing mindfulness, I personally advocate meditation (as do practitioners of positive psychology, including Prof. Seligman). Meditation helps to slow the mind and focus on the now.

Another tip is to use a marker to focus - for instance, taking three breaths, on the hour, every hour. Or, when eating, concentrate on the food rather than looking at the computer screen. When talking to someone on the phone...do just that. They'll appreciate it (and you'll remember what they were on about).

And in the end, now is all there is. Our very personal, entirely unique series of moments that make up the summation of our lives.

Bahamas - do dis, do not do dis...

When in the Bahamas:

DO:

• Ask. We got a room wit' a view, a coffee maker and extra shampoo. Pikey pikey....

• Learn to dive. Complete all the tasks: hovering, equalizing, navigation. Taking the mask on and off underwater. Preferably without a big booger hanging out of your nose. Even though most the the time we were learning stuff to keep us alive, we still saw some good fish, a ray (pretty, big, with teeth), and an aeroplane, sunk for a James Bond film. The Bahamas are a James Bond mecca...a lot of the dive instructors at Stuart's Cove were part time stunt doubles.
  
  
  

Go diving with Hank! Hank was a large Canadian on the same diving course as us. Hank panicked when his large girth kept him afloat, banged his head on the underside of the boat, got twisted up in his gear and had to go back to the boat (blamed the gear) kicked us underwater, got distracted by the fish and end up off course, complained about jet-lag...even though the Bahamas is in the same time zone as Toronto, where he came from. Hank made us look GREAT. (Hank still passed. Scary)

• Meet the locals! The food is better and cheaper outside the hotel, especially at a group of sea-side restaurants/bars called the Fish Fry. There is a lot of conch ('conk'). Conch tastes like boiled rubber. Conch is stewed, fried, grilled and made into a salad. This man, a criminal attorney, told us that the conch is quickly becoming over-fished, endangered - god knows why. He is eating conch salad.
  











• Luke is eating a snapper head - apparently the best part.
  










• Try to learn a few Bahamian phrases. The words are clipped and they talk fast...except to tourists.... 'dis and dat', 'tink'..... Although when we asked a wandering guy on the street where we could get some food nearby, he says 'Of course mon, I'm from Jamaica. How much do you need? It's good stuff'. Since when was marajuana known as 'food'?
  


• Get a taxi to a cheesy nightclub. Your pumpkin could turn out to be a limo, circa 1970.
  
  Avoid the timeshare people. 'Free drinks! Free tickets! Free breakfast!' It ain't worth it - 90 minutes of sales talk from sales rep, Grenville, including 'Are you a model' (in reference to our pay bracket and the fact that I live in NYC). Luke sniggers. 'Well you're tall. You could be.....with a bit of make up on'. Luke suggests a lot of make up would work better. Then he tells us we'd like Miami because it is like New York. He likes Miami, the people are beautiful there. I suggest that maybe I could be a model there instead. 'No, probably not. All the girls are models there. All along the beach,' he says. Then, to Luke, 'And strippers at night. He he.' At the end of the session, Luke tells them the hotels they have listed are crap, because he has stayed in them, and not worth the money. The promise to 'depart as friends, whatever you decide' seems unlikely. We come away with $60 worth of flavored rum, one of which breaks in Luke's bag after the flight.


• Torment the bird, it deserves it for crying like a baby, biting and mocking your laugh.
  




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• Learn how to play craps! But don't lift the dice up off the table. Everyone yells at you.
  


• Go to the cabaret, Jambalaya. A multicultural singing orgasm - lots of taught buttocks. Don't be the guy who gets pulled up on stage for a multi-buttock dance. Your girlfriend won't be impressed. And tourists will recognize you later, down at the Fish Fry.
  


• Play dominos! Or, to be safe, watch it instead. Gets pretty crazy -the rules are the same, but each piece must be SLAMMED down. Torretts is encouraged. Yell! Slam! Push the other players! Luke and I only went into the bar because we thought a fight had broken out.


• Drink rum. Preferably from the road-side daiquiri-only shacks...fresh fruit, ice, rum...yum.

• Visit Atlantis, the not-so-budget hotel on its own island, Paradise Island. The Atlantis has a cave system, waterfalls, sharks and tropical fish, myriad of swimming pools, a massive, glitzy casino with incredible glass sculptures ......
  
  

• ....... fat couples in faded denim and white sneakers walking by the super yachts and boats as big as large houses, Gucci and Cartier and other over-priced tat, Haagen Daas - $10 for three scoops, young girls with braces, thick make-up and mini skirts smoking on the balconies, boys wearing chunky chains, making plans on cellphones - like a mall that's had an expensive make-over. One visit is enough. Escape (with your expensive ice-cream). Possibly maybe accidently 'steal' a small expensive bottle of water.

• Mix it up at Senor Frog's, where they don't serve mojitos because they are a MEXICAN bar. Avoid the local expat Canadian contractors, trawling for cruise boat fodder. Do a Bahamian version of bootylicious, led by an on-stage DJ - 'Sexaholics make some NOISE! Alcoholics make some NOISE!'. Shake off that fried lobster holiday fat with your white girl/guy dance moves....

• And scare the locals with your eerily non-floral, matching outfits....