Author: Jordan Petersen
Date Read: May 2021
Rating: 3/5
Rule 1: Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back
Victorious lobsters have higher levels of seretonin which help regulate postural flexion, where as Lobster losers have more octopamine.
The Principal of unequal distribution Just like in our society, a defeated lobster is statistically more likely to lose again, and again. You see this over and over in finance, art, music, science, and so on. It is often referred to as Price’s Law, which can be modelled as an L shaped distribution with people on the vertical axis and resources/productivity on the horizontal.
All The Girls Female lobsters adhere to the dominance hierarchy just as well as their male counterparts. While conflict amongst females is less common, they tend to be attracted to the lobsters with higher status.
Lobsters have been around for 350 million years. We can extrapolate that status and dominnance heirarchies, which have been wired into their neurochemical circuitry for all this time, is a fundamental component of the environment from which complex life has adapted.
The Nature of Nature
It’s not what we don’t know that gets us in trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain, p.12
Nature is Dynamic. Yin and Yang - Chaos and Order. They are interchangeable and eternally juxtaposed.
If nature were static, natural selection, fitness, would more or less model a linear path across time. Evolution would thus be predictable. All life is in a delicate dance with nature.
“In my kingdom, you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place.” The Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland, p.13
Regardless of whether it is physical and biological, or social and cultural, the longer a feature has existed, the more time it has had to be selected - and to shape life. Thus, the dominance hierarchy, which has been around for almost half a billion years, is real and permanent. Dominance hierarchies are older than trees. We were struggling for position before we had skin, or hands, or lungs, or bones. p.14
Top and Bottom
There is an unspeakably primordial calculator within us all. It monitors our position in society and dictates our life in ways we don’t even know. Level 1 means you are an overwhelming success. Your brain peceives little threat and produces seretonin, further increasing your confidence and lowering the energy you might expend worrying about food and foe.
A level 10 on the other hand, means you’re at the bottom of society. Your brain is hyper-responsive to your environment, perceiving any possible encounter as a threat. You are on high alert for food, shelter, and social circumstances. Your brain restricts seretonin and you are more apt to falling ill, both physically and psychologically.
Malfunction
The counter can be thrown off by environmental stressors such as sleep and diet. Two of the most important things you can do for your well being are get consistent sleep (particularly waking up at the same time each morning, regardless of how much or little sleep you got the night before), and eating breakfast (particularly one high in protein and fat).
Bad habits can interfere with our well-being like a destructive positive feed-back loop. Think about the deafening feedback from a microphone and amp. A microphone positioned too closely to speakers will pickup the signal, sending the signal through the line back into the speaker, in which will be amplified, sending it’s signal back into the microphone, so-on and so-forth. This very loop can be seen in various destructive ways throughout our lives (alcoholism, agoraphobia, injuries).
Rising Up
There are some who are bullied because they can’t fight back (e.g. a six year old getting picked on buy a ten year old). And there are others who choose not to fight back.
The willingness of the individual to stand up for him- or herself protects everyone from the corruption of society. -p.p24
Standing up for one self is not just physical but psychological as well. Physically, it means standing up tall with your shoulders straight. People see you differently. From metaphysical perspective, it means that you voluntarily accept the burden of Being.
To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. -p.27