I won’t vouch for this being 100% scientifically accurate, but it seems to track what we’re seeing.
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“So - this is the least stupid picture I can find to illustrate what I think is about to happen. This process is called a lot of things, and often, in this context, it is called "will power fatigue."
Focused, intentional action for primates is often a short-lived thing. It is very costly in terms of overall energy expenditure and - evolutionarily speaking - we MOST often can get through MOST threats in just a few minutes (oh fuck its a tiger) to a few weeks (oh fuck its tiger season).
Occasionally the thing we need to have intentional action to defeat has a much longer half-life than our own personal or community will. Human will is less matter of strength of character or any other such waspy bootstrappy Enlightenment nonsense: It is more a matter of biology and statistics. Intentionality is energetically expensive. Habit is cheap as fuck.
We can usually only easily do really hard, non-intuitive things for 3 - 6 weeks at the very mostest.
And then our pre-frontal cortex (=PFC=the thinky smartypants part of our brain) just says, well, there you go! Gave it our best shot. Did what we could. Cheerio! Back to tea and biscuits.
This part of our brain is simply not designed for the protracted, complex cognitive and social labor required for things like, say...a pandemic.
This is when even very determined people most often relapse after quitting whatever is really plesaurable (booze, porn, cat videos, twizzlers, playing tiddlywinks, or - er...being a social human).
This is when our determined career of trying to fix depression through yoga fizzles.
This is when you stop responding to your duolingo alerts about your Tagalog lessons.
This is when....social distancing falls apart.
Watch for it.
I suspect we will see our first resurgent C19 "wave" very soon as many of us lose our ardor for staying alive and for keeping everyone else alive by giving up the things that we love and that come instinctually to us. Like interacting with the rest of our primate troupe.
Giving up these things has taken a great deal of intentional will power.
And the system is becoming fatigued.
And yeah - it is not a surprise that the first surge of this behavior is from a bunch of white guys that have never had any practice managing their own selfish desires. (Take note - do not be like these numbskulls.)
And none of us are immune, but yes - looking more toward what we care about and noticing our increased desire to do what we want or crave (often connection)...this can help keep our intentional selves online long enough not to kill any more John Prines. The trick is to notice that it is really hard, And still do the right thing.
Please.
Stay the fuck home.
The main thing that keeps the PFC online and functioning - even when it is fatigued - is values. What we believe in. We can push the system a little if we decide to act on something other than what we WANT, but rather, what we think is MEANINGFUL.
The better we are at keeping that super smart, ethically-driven, complex-thinking, empathic, compassionate and thoughtful part of our mind on line despite stress and fatigue, the fewer people we kill.
STAY THE FUCK HOME.
These next few weeks are going to be way way way harder than the first few.
Stick with it.
Maximize your virtual interconnections, your exercise, good food, self care, help of others, sleep, reruns of Friends, whatever it takes...these self-kindnesses will all help the will power fatigue from eating your brain.
Stay. The. Fuck. Home.”
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