All Apologies

Macaque monkeys in Jigokudani hotspring in Nagano, Japan

          In yesterday’s beautiful sun I had a long conversation withsomeone about “breaking habits,” the reasons we form habits in the first place,and why we tend to pick up the habits of family members.  My partner in conversation was apsychotherapist and she spoke about mirror neurons, which I had never heard ofbefore, but which I’ve read about now.  Apparently, the macaque monkey has been an important focus of mirrorneuron study, but incurious as this may sound,  and considering that breaking habits is very muchon my mind and the macaque monkey work is considered highly important, I’mdeliberately shying away the details of the science.   I assume that at some point vivisection comesinto the picture and I don’t agree with that.  Among other things, I already know a family of macaque monkeys in theCentral Park Zoo very well and we consider them family friends.  From the first time I saw them interact, theyreminded me exactly of my family, for better and for worse.

Newborn macaque imitating facial expression

         The conversation yesterday was extremely stimulating – itactually became one of those “translating thought into action” exercises -- eventhough to an outside observer I would have appeared simply to be a personeating lunch  -- and it pulled me in some new directions.  This morning, for instance, I discovered thatunlike the ants predictably moving along the same pathways day-after-day thatwe spoke about, I actually did a large number of things quite differently than I usually do them.  This must have been the result of pre-bedtimeand sleep auto-suggestion because it didn’t occur to me that this was the caseuntil about 30 minutes after I performed these actions.    

Planets and dwarf planets of the solar system, sizes to scale

 

        Still, there are the things we need to do every day in orderto keep the earth on its path and the sun in the sky, which now include, oddly,checking email, and today’s trove seems to indicate that everyone else’s habitsare still unbroken and in place.  One suchmissive, a letter sent to me by a “talent acquisition executive” (this isthe new name for the business area formerly called “human resources” and,before that, “personnel”) and received at 6:24 am EDT, was clearly written inresponse to a follow-up note I transmitted  on Saturday to an attorney at her company inquiringabout the status of a couple of positions this lawyer is currently seeking tofill.   After some initial, seeminglystrong interest from the company, my resume and phone number had clearly andquickly found their way into the “overqualified” pile (assuming this pile wasn’tactually or virtually shredded and incinerated a long time ago), but followingan old, still unbroken habit of my own, I actually require “no” for an answerin matters like this.  As a lawyer, I amabsolutely able to decide actively anddeliberately to let some things drift, but I cannot do this passively and negligently.  Having sent several follow-up emails and leftfollow-up voicemails for this personnel representative, I felt I had no choicebut to go back to the hiring attorney, politely re-state my case, and mentionto her that professional courtesy (a convenient, but entirely valid, attorneystandard) really required a response from her.  

Driftwood on the Potomac River

        In any event, the personnel lady’s note was cringinglypolite -- all apologies --  but mealy-mouthed, unsatisfactory and poorly written.  It contained all the usual dodges, feints,tricks and lies, including predictable references to vacation, overwork, and threatenedmassacres in Benghazi.  It did notmention my Saturday email to her senior executive as the precipitating causefor the early morning letter. 

It helps to think of it as a game. 

        Oh – and also a promise for further communication -- very, very soon.