Reaching An Action Potential

I start to boil water for coffee, put on pants, set the microwave for two minutes my oatmeal, check email. I pack a bag of dance clothes for a ballet class, put on a shirt. I grab a book I want to read during breakfast and put it on the desk in front of me, then pour the water over my coffee grounds. I begin eating my oatmeal, get up to pour the coffee, go back to the oatmeal, realize I can't read, drink coffee, and eat oatmeal, contemplate listening to the radio. But by the time I get the radio going, my oatmeal is finished, and it's time to go use the bathroom if I'm to leave the house at the appointed time.

Instead of the ballet class I'd packed the bag for, I might decide to do my ballet routine at home "to save time" though it ends up feeling like a waste of time. So it's twenty minutes of exercises, splits, and a shower.  I'm trying to squeeze in that routine before I go off to class at NYU. Oh yeah, and at some point, I'm supposed to be reading the New York Times. This all inevitably puts me in a bad mood. Doing one thing prevents me from doing another, and I'm never doing the right thing, or so go my thoughts.

Later that day, my bad mood still with me, I decide to play the violin "for a little while" to cheer myself up.  I play scales, exercises, the Préludio from Bach's E-major partita. Half an hour has gone by. But I keep playing, working on an Andante movement, always Bach. It goes well. My fingers are warm; my sound is warm, too, and the in-tune notes fill the basement. I just want to play it again. So I do. Then, I think of playing a fiddle tune, Baker's Waltz. Then, I play some Swedish music. An hour and a half has gone by. I am happy.

I think that 90 minutes of playing violin, not sure where the playing would lead me, was worth 3 hours of doing various, structured activities in order to check them off a list.  When I do six different activities, some of them at the same time, with an aim to "get them done," I may be efficient, in the sense that I check things off the list, but I don't reach that point of feeling warm, happy and satisfied.

I think that these activities are like nerve impulses.  As a nerve cell prepares to send a message,
positive ions go into the cell, but only when the cell reaches a certain voltage will the nerve "fire": will the ion channels that open in response to voltage open their doors, letting in more ions, which open more doors in a positive-feedback loop. If the nerve doesn't reach that threshold voltage, it can't send its message. Those positive ions entered the cell for nothing. Poor sodium. 

I think that in doing something, like playing violin, if you don't get warmed up, you don't reach the point at which you can do really satisfying work.  That's known about exercise and music, to some extent: you have to warm up. But I think it really applies to all activities. For example, when I start to write, I may not feel inspired. If I write for 20 minutes and stop on my circuit of productive activities, chances are, I won't get anywhere.  I keep going, something usually comes to me. 

There's a certain point in writing an essay where I feel inspired. When I have a deadline, that point usually happens the day before it's due. I remember trying to write an essay about Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly Last Summer" and winding up with some theory about how people who love each other also exploit each other. The essay didn't turn out that well, but I did have a moment of inspiration when I realized what the point of all my writing was.  This happened rather late in the game, too close to my deadline for me to really polish the idea. But sometimes, I don't reach that point at all with a piece of writing. I might just write a piece that doesn't really have a compelling point. Blog posts, published too early, are like essays that don't reach their full potential.

An action potential in one cell is what lets the nerve send its message to the next cell and nudges that cell toward an action potential of its own. I think that activities work the same way. I think that doing one activity to its fullest, being inspired, and being in a good mood leads one naturally into the next activity. When I used to go running in the morning before work, a short run might just put me in a rush and stress me out, but a nice, long run would put me in such a good mood that I would have a great day at work. The runner's high led to other highs throughout the day; the impulse propogated.


I am happiest when I can do things until I reach that inspired point.  Stopping early, like leaving this blog post now and doing something else, would leave me unsatisfied. I might check more items off my list, but I might ultimately feel disappointed. I'd be like a nerve cell that had let in some positive ions but not enough to fire.  That cell might as well have done nothing.


As for a person doing nothing, that may not be such a bad thing. Rest is probably better for the body and soul than a flurry of unsatisfying activities. Better for the mood, too.

Moods are rooted in action potentials and communication among nerves, after all. Maybe this allegory is more scientific than I realize.