two principles to transform

You're hungry, and slightly hunched over with the world of food choices on your shoulders. Amidst your hope to just pluck some greens and a slab of meat for yourself and possibly other family members for the evening, you are confronted with imminent danger.

Between you and the lean venison steak you were salivating over is a 700 pound, muscle ripped, orange and black striped tiger with fangs that look like the spurting needles of a heroin addict.

Your heart immediately beats like the tablas under the blurring hands of Zakir Hussein. Sweat like salt water pumps out of the molecular pores of your forehead, armpits and thighs. Your lungs heave. the tiger notices you; its mouth growls like a war cry. In fright, you start beating your chest, as if you're going to go into a toe to paw fight, But you decide to take flight instead.

Fight or flight. The stress juncture - the duality of the autonomic nervous system. Which nervous system do we choose to respond with - the chilled out parasympathetic or the adrenalin rushing sympathetic? Is it even relevant in the modern world?

We are no longer in the jungle, confronted by lions, and tigers (and bears), But that primitive survival part of our brain, the limbic system, is still on alert, ready at the drop of a dime, a word, to swing with amplified words, fists, or to flail arms and legs in flight.

Someone says a word, which has just enough of the kind of hue that irks you, that drums on your nerves. What did they mean? Was it an insult? Do they disapprove of me?

You notice a gesture your way that is unpleasant. Your heart sinks. You have a deadline coming up, your head races in thought. Later that night at 2am you are analyzing all of this. Your eyes wide shut, without a wink of sleep. What to do?

How do we get rid of the stress? Can't we just zap the limbic system? Tell it we are no longer in need of the fight and flight. That we're in a modern world. Can't we just a pop a pill and shut it off? Or is there a more natural alternative, like some green smoothie that will act on the lever?

At every moment we are provided with an opportunity to get to the next level of life, like a video game, or a choose your own adventure book, or Sante's The Inferno, or Homer's, The Odyssey. That is, we choose how we respond.