anthropometaphors

This evening I caught a showing of Pixar’s new gem: WALL-E.

The film easily does double duty as both a heartwarming robot love story and…a harbinger for global environmental destruction resulting from humanity’s rampant consumerism and irresponsible wastefulness.

I’ll say no more, other than please go see WALL-E. And bring a child!

(Robot Love!)

As a child I was intrigued by all things nocturnal, bats in particular. Given the difficulty I had – as a typical diurnal child – spotting bats in daily life, much of my understanding of their habits and appearance was left to my imagination.

When I first saw the wee tree bats in Costa Rica, they were clinging to a tree alongside the Colorado River. I was amazed at their miniature size and delicate vulnerability, exposed as they were to daylight and binoculars. Several days later, while taking in the sunset near Corcovado, I happened upon a pair of bats making a circuit around and through a cabana. This seemed to be their waking ritual, as every evening I would sit in the same place to watch the sunset and they would suddenly appear at dusk, fly several rounds about the cabana, then flap away as the sky darkened.

wee tree bat

On a separate trip later that same year, just outside Lassen Volcanic National Park, I watched the moon rise over an eastern range. Perched atop a pile of lava rocks I felt gentle, irregular whisps in the dusky air. Zigzags of bat flight flew near my head, then away, then to a rock, then back to where I sat. I watched the unpredictable circuit with delight, feeling both appreciation and apprehension (which bats are vectors for disease in humans?) to be so near these creatures. For once my tendency toward immobility served me well; I imagine bats would not approach and investigate me as carefully were I moving around.

Given my fondness for bats, I was excited when I came upon this article in the Perspectives section of the June 24, 2008 issue of PNAS today.  In the piece, neuroscientists Nacham Ulanovsky and Cynthia Moss present research findings from behavioral and neurophysiological studies of bats. Their data have interesting implications for understanding “the behaving brain across species”, – Homo sapiens included – based on how bats process environmental information acquired during echolocation. I also found a review of the article on Think Gene, where a user’s comment linked to a documentary about a blind boy who uses a form of echolocation in daily life. Lacking the rich information gathered using sonar, our attempts at sound navigation may not compare to that of bats. Even so, I’m curious to see how including additional auditory information in daily life would alter my experience.

On the way to work this morning I drove by an expanse of iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis) – considered by some to be a barbarian of the botanical world – and had the sudden longing for chlorophyll to reside within my skin.  Much like the growth of invasive C. edulis, my whimsical notion soon grew into a rampant daydream as I began listing the characteristics I’d expect from such a novel modification:

• I’d be green. Literally.
• I’d be The Ultimate Anorexic; never requiring food, I would sustain myself – albeit in a very “vegetative” state – with water, sunlight and multivitamins.  Supplementary nutrients would be required for a more energetic lifestyle, which would require the maintenance of my existing digestive tract.
• If properly maintained, I would continue to grow to an indefinite height.  To maintain a size – and thus retain access to size-limited objects like a home, furniture and a car – I’d require regular grooming.  I’d have my offshoots snipped, tweezed and trimmed alongside those with hair, nail and waxing appointments at the salon.  For only with such routine care would I avoid substantial prunings, the costly and potentially dangerous equivalent of liposuction.
• My carbon footprint would shrink.  No cows farmed in former Amazonia for me, I’d passively create my own fuel in parallel to daily life activities.  Installing new (and larger) windows and skylights would shoot to the top of my home improvements list.
• Sex could get awkward.  Would I be a dicot or a monocot?  And if a dicot, would I be a flowering plant?  Would my ovaries ripen like fruit?  How would fertilization occur, and would an intermediary organism – insect, bird or otherwise – be required?  Would wee chlorophumans sprout in my womb?

Imagining pollen and flowers blooming behind my ears, I blinked and the iceplant was gone.  I’d travelled several miles south along I-880, but my mind rested among thoughts of greenery.

The last time I checked it was Memorial Day. Then I blinked and…what? Today is actually 7 June.

I’m a walking, talking example of how many simultaneous life changes – even “positive” ones – can cause stress and exhaustion. Within the past 2 weeks I:

• Moved from SF to Berkeley
• Started a new job
• Made a career transition (from Molecular Biologist to Program Manager)
• Began a strict commute schedule requiring I awake at 5:30am five days a week

As part of my new-hire orientation at work I received two books, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Now, Discover Your Strengths. I have to admit I’ve already read both and have taken the StrengthsFinder 2.0 – a companion test to NDYS that covered 180 questions and took nearly 60 minutes – to identify my top 5 personality strong points. And what are they?

1. Arranger
2. Intellectual
3. Ideation
4. Strategy
5. Input

These aren’t too far off the mark, to be honest. If I do anything well, it’s putting things in a place that is “right”. I like to think intellectually, and am pleased above all else by novel ideas. Related to, but distinct from arranging and intellectualizing, I need to strategize; finding the optima of a system is a compulsion.

The primary hypothesis of NDYS is employees are most productive when performing activities that make us happy. Further, we are happiest when doing the things at which we naturally have talent. To follow this line of thinking to it’s end, we should train to our strengths rather than continually diversifying our skill sets and mending our weaknesses. To wax metaphorical: rather than pushing ourselves to become the most elaborate Swiss Army knife – an admittedly useful multifunction pocket tool – on the market, we will maintain a more satisfying career when our primary functionality – be it screwdriver, bottle opener or nail file – is identified, enhanced and utilized. Knowing I’m a bottle opener, for example, will help me steer clear of tasks requiring a flathead screwdriver.

Everyone at work has taken the StrengthsFinder; it’s required. After finishing the test, we receive a placard listing our top 5 strengths to post outside our cube. For a company of nearly 400 people, this effort to humanize every employee is commendable. It’s certainly helped me understand how to relate to my immediate coworkers very quickly. As you can see from my top 5, empathy is not one of my strengths. I appreciate the small help the posted list offers at each cubicle entrance I pass through.

As a Program Associate for the Development group, I work with a large number of people from varying backgrounds, functional roles and corporate divisions. Oh, and each person has 5 different strengths ;} For the past two weeks I’ve been in sponge mode, meeting and absorbing information about procedures, products, and people at a dizzying pace. So dizzying as to be exhausting, actually. Last week I would arrive home in the evening and head straight to bed at 7pm. This week I was able to stay up until 9pm after work, twice!