Posted by Q (198.64.206.92) on January 15, 2000 at 01:57:32:
In Reply to: not so sure about the rational explanation of cause posted by gary on January 14, 2000 at 23:53:09:
The cause does not have to be rational. It just has to be. Eventually someone will rationalize it, but I'm not sure we even know what IT is. All these symptoms we have lumped together under the CH umbrella could be several distinct conditions. CH could just as well be used for "COMPLEX headache".
The way I envision the CH process under this theory is that one part of the brain wants euphoria and resorts to drastic means to this end. Somthing in the CH-brain is not wired up normally and occassionally malfunctions. Perhaps there are mutant neural pathways in the CH-brain which allow this to take place. There are probably no two brains exactly alike, anyway. Part is chemical/electrical, part is instinct. It is the instinctive part that intrigues me. Perhaps the instinctive part of the brain has found a pathway to the cognitive functions and CH is the result of this? The CH-population does seem to be pretty bright, as a whole. Why could the CH-brain find a way to mutate and link the euphoria-seeking part signal the pain-producing part? That would not be according to the design specifications, but eh, take that up with the manufacturer. That mix of instinct and learned behavior is where the most variability is likely to reside anyway. Mix a little stray instict with with a little loose wiring and salt water and BINGO, a CH-brain. Add a four-barrel carb and chrome kick-stands and watch it go.
I've been watching this one particular wosh-willie who now lives in the wood pile by my beach house in Belize, Central America. He is the first cousin to an iguanna, except he doesn't have the spines on his back that the iguanna have, is about 18 inches long and weighs about two pounds. We call him "iggy" anyway. Iggy lived as a bachelor in a dead coconut tree high up in an abandoned woodpecker hole for about a year. He rode out Hurricane Mitch in 1998 by hidding out in the woodpecker hole. 18 months later he and new MS. Iggy have a bunch of baby iggies in the wood pile. The babies are just less than a year old. Iggy has a pretty good life -- Bask in the sun, eat bugs, raise a family. His survival instincts seem strong. His main concern is likely to keep from being eaten by the boa constrictor family a few hundred feet away.
I like Iggy. Somedays we just sit and look at each other. I wonder if he thinks I wonder if he tastes like chicken? He has the routine down pat. Come out when the sun comes up. Bask in the sun, but not too far from the shade of the palm trees. Eat the bugs and red plants. Watch out for the snakes. Keep the eggs hatching. Your basic stuff. I presume Iggy lives a pretty normal life, for a lizard.
Iggy's brain has most likely never seen a drug, nor, except for the sex thing, been euphoric. I guess lizards enjoy sex. Even better if they don't, just do it. In any case, he has a primitive program to follow: part learned, part pure instinct.
My guess that his brain and mine are pretty much alike, except he has about 100,000 years or so to evolve. The local Mayan population work according to the sun, moon, stars and day-to-day weather. They are even today much more in-tune with the natural rythmn of things than my recent ancestors. Fishermen time their work according to the sun and moon, not by the electic clock or TV schedule. There is a reason for this. It is because it simply works better that way.
My neighbor there started dating this local girl who had never in her life been away from the island. She went to Munich with him on holiday and simply could not cope with the city. She went a bit insane it seems. Upon returning to the island, she returned to normal and is now taking care of my house and doing fine.
As for CH, the point of all of the above is that a couple of thousand years is not very long in the evolutionary scale. Despite our desires to move up on our own timetable, the choice is not ours alone to make. There are other forces at work which we must consider, or at least concede that might be a significant factor. Who am I (or you) to say they are not so?
As far as the CH puzzle is concerned, there are probably as many exceptions to the seasonal attribute as there are not. My guess is that seasonality may influence the CH-ripe candidate, tip the scale a little bit, but it seems to me that that is not a cause or primary attribute of CH. The circidian pattern is more likely to be CH-related than is the soltice pattern. Unless, of course the CH-brain hibernates or incubates. Who knows how far back these imprinted memories may go? Maybe Iggy looks at me as his long-lost cousin? I think he looks and acts more like my ex-mother-in-law.
None of this we have any control over. I do not consider myself a CH-victim, rather a CH-host. I can become a victim if I buy into the pain and let it control me. Some people enjoy the victim role and actively seek it out. That is a different problem and not related to CH. You can not play the victim role and also transcend the pain. You have to believe that the pain has nothing to do with you other than choosing your brain as the host-site. In the end it doesn't matter what causes it. We only have to know how to cope with it.