Read your owner's manual

I'm going to let you in on a little secret - we humans have evolved from a bunch of easy going folks. Our ancient ancestors - early homo sapiens - got excited only when it mattered most - like when the tribe found themselves standing in the middle of a migrating herd of burly mastodon or trapped like rats at the cul-de-sac of a box canyon with a ravenous saber tooth tiger waiting for dinner safely at the only exit - the entrance. You're talking pure fight or flight here. Or slice and dice. Simple choices.

100,000 B.P. (before present) I'll bet Mum and Dad didn't obsess about little Klaaaakta Tum's feelings or how many birthday parties he hadn't been invited to, if he had enough of the right toys or had poor self esteem issues. I'm sure they still concerned themselves with proper friends for their children. Who wants their kid hanging out with losers?

Food and keeping the offspring alive long enough to fend - literally - for themselves must have kept Mum and Dad pretty busy. No time, energy or enough light to lay awake at nights wondering if they'd chosen the right career path.

Still Dad would have to think about where tomorrow's brochette de bison would come from, and Mum might have had her share of sleepless nights fending off killer colds and flus, mumps and infections in her precious children and beloved buffalo hunter.

Naturally, Mum homo sapiens never got sick. Good thing, too, or where or where would our species be today? I'll tell you where - the same place our cousins, those loveable scruffians, the Neanderthal ended up, that's where. Right! Gone bye bye forever. Broken branch. All gone.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

Oh sure, we've developed a pre-frontal lobe in the eons since, but to our detriment in many ways. For one thing, we take life and ourselves way too seriously.

For once you know a thing, you can't unknow it and we love to "wallow in the mire" as Morrison once sang, so we throw ourselves into the muck headfirst, eyes wide open, knowing it's not a good thing. Shoulda stuck with the happy stories - just couldn't help myself, is what we say, but sure as spit, we'll be back. Oh, yeah, brothers and sisters - we'll be back.

Once you've allowed your marvelous lobe full rein - oh, there's no telling what kind of imagery it will unleash. Free to roam and breed new synapeses at will - why, who knows what, where or why your lobe will lead.

And you know of course, that you - the very you who "thinks" he's in the driver's seat - is now out of his head. He's really been relegated to a post in the rear seating of his own vehicle, and hasn't the brain to realize it.

Since we're the current owners of our brains and our pains, it behooves us to READ THE MANUAL. Nobody else can read your owner's manual but you. It's a closed blog with an audience of one.

One thing I know for sure is that is the chapter on "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is universal - everybody's got that chapter in their manual. Check right at the beginning. And it isn't a suggestion, it's a requirement of good vehicle maintainance.

Keep that in mind the next time your lobe switches over to red alert, because happiness is catchy - a good catchy.