The Fancy Monkey Method of Homeostasis

    One of my driving principles is that humans are all, each and every one of us, just fancy monkeys whose brains developed far faster than they should have. And now we have to coexist as both a computer program that can contemplate its own existence so hard we have a term for it (existential dread) and a body that is, at its most basic, a very bad car that needs lots of check ups. 

    This sense of perspective helps me in times of struggle, which Ladies, There Have Been Many. Sometimes the brain gets caught up in the thinking stuff it can do and forgets about all the body stuff it has to do to function properly. You can’t think away the fact that you must eat several times a day, lots of it carbs, as well as sleep as much as you can and move the physical apparatus periodically to stay functional and sane. 

    This ties into the second of my driving principles: the Zookeeper method, which helps maintain homeostasis without overthinking. You’re an animal, as we’ve established. A fancy animal, to be sure, but an animal all the same. Here’s where the fancy comes in: you are also your own zookeeper. I am both the tiger in the cage and the zookeeper who lovingly throws it a pumpkin every October. Treat your animal body the way a zookeeper, who has at least one degree and a heart full of compassion for lemurs (or whatever), would treat it. Again, the food, the exercise, the rest. But this time around, add enrichment. Are you giving yourself a metaphorical wheelbarrow full of ice every now and then? Just to see what you’d think of it? Just to roll around in?

    My enrichment lately is running. I haven’t run since high school, where I lived as an anti-running sleeper agent in a house full of runners. As soon as I moved out, I quit. I didn’t like all the measuring and metrics that accompany running as a community- I’m not a competitive person. Now that I’m on my own, I run literally for fun. I like being outside and going fast and feeling my spine unfurl from the shrimp-like position I hold it in all day. I never could have seen this renaissance coming. But then again, I’m an animal creature most of the time. Every now and again, the zookeeper within me lights up with a bright idea that will change my life, if only for the next few weeks. I can’t keep myself from being a monkey. But I can wield my fanciness to be the zookeeper.

 -Claire