The Wit’s Guide to Interoception

Or, mindless mindfulness

The Hanger of Tieleman Roosterman, Frans Hals, 1634

There are many reasons to be upset, certainly more than there are reasons to be set. But the ones that you’re most often overlooking are the ones directly emanating from the bulky meat suit in which you currently reside.

“Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.”
— Mark Twain

The fact that the portmanteau hangry is a relatively new word is evidence of how thoroughly that jerk Rene Descartes had us fooled with his mind-body divide jibber jabber. We are all ethereal beings of pure logic, he told us, but by quirk of fate we’re tethered to these lumpy pedestals of flesh. If our minds are troubled, it’s probably due to existential anguish, right? Wrong, Rene! More likely it’s because we need to eat, or we need a sweater, or we slept funny last night. 

“Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.”
— Mignon McLaughlin 

Hence interoception! The non-thinking person’s mindfulness! It was snoozily defined by a Nobel laureate in 1900 as the perception of bodily states by afferent processing, but didn’t grab my attention until I read the 2019 headline If You’re Sick of ‘Mindfulness,’ Might I Recommend ‘Interoception’? I was!  As

Edith Zimmerman

wrote in that New York Magazine piece, “it feels like getting the keys back to my whole life.”

“I got up with stoic fortitude of mind in the cold this morning; but afterwards, in my hot bath, I joined the school of Epicurus. I was a materialist at breakfast; after it an idealist, as I smoked my first cigarette and turned the world to transcendental vapor. ”
— Logan Pearsall Smith

The problem with mindfulness is that the mind is already full of itself. Also, it asks us to pay close attention to mundane things. Focus on every scrub as you wash the dishes, they say. No offense to your cutlery, but the dishes aren’t worth it. Instead, listen to your body. The call is coming from inside the house! 

“How many visions of eternity have been born of low blood sugar?”
— Robertson Davies

Spend that precious brainpower to figure out what might be causing you to feel the way you’re feeling. It’s called affective realism, defined by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett as how we “experience supposed facts about the world that are created in part by our feelings.” Barrett’s simple advice, from her 2017 book How Emotions Are Made: “Anytime you feel miserable, it’s because you are experiencing an unpleasant effect due to physical sensations. Your brain will try to predict causes for those sensations, and the more concepts you know and the more instances you can construct, the more effectively you can recategorize to manage your emotions and regulate your behavior.”

“I used to think that the human brain was the most fascinating part of the body. Then I realized, whoa, ‘look what’s telling me that’.”
— Emo Philips

So if you know about interoception, you can blame your mood on lunch’s dodgy burrito instead of man’s inhumanity to man. Or both! My brain says both is probably the correct answer. 

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that it is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know it is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”
— Emily Dickinson

---

Logrolling in Our Time

One of my very favourite Riposte Cards — and one I will mail to anyone who takes out a paid subscription to this newsletter! — is June’s installment by Jason Logan of

Toronto Ink Company

, a.k.a. The Wizard of Ink. I sprung for special watercolour paper to capture his glorious gradient:

Now Logan has a new book out, How To Be a Color Wizard: Forage and Experiment with Natural Art Making, and it is an unmitigated delight. He turns his esoteric passion for natural inks into a universe of wonder for curious kids. Make confetti with autumn leaves and a hole punch! Create a currency based on acorns! Generate cold fusion with twigs and rainwater! It’s the intersection of being creative and being outside, or as the dust jacket flap explains: Science + Magic = Art. A terrific gift idea! 

---

Diplomatic Impunity

Ah, the United Nations! Best hope for world peace or simply a good opportunity to reference David Letterman’s classic obsession with Boutros Boutros Ghali? Find both options in my Toronto Star News Quiz!

---

Quote Vote

“If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.”
— Fran Lebowitz

Now that we’ve solved the complex problem of human emotion, let’s keep moving.

---

GWQ No. 274 was much easier to write after breakfast, exercise, and a good night’s sleep, so if it seems sub par, maybe try all those things before you cheerfully tap the ❤️  below. Brains just aren’t that smart, but my book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting purports to be. It purports, you decide!