Part 3

by Jon Sullivan - 2024-09-05 - Jonism

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The last two posts were about losing my religion and focusing on love and joy. Perhaps there is an even crazier third way.

So it's settled - All things may reduce eventually to scientific and logical explanations, but for much of my new Oregon experience it's better to set science aside and apply a hippie flower child mentality. Here science has lost primacy and defers to love and kindness. When I gather with fellows here there is a palpable energy of peace light love joy. As if (things get a little crazy at this point.....) after enough people come together, a certain critical mass is reached and we spontaneously experience a shared singular state of joy. And I'd distinguish this from any real or imagined "contact high" because it happens with or without some folks there being on psychedelics. I warned you about the crazy. We're just talking here. Please call off the intervention. I don't need adult care. Yes, I was crazy, but it got better.

The last post sort of set science aside and leaned into reading more Timothy Leary or something. But there is more science to look at. Though perhaps it strays into pseudo science since what I'm thinking of is still being studied with few hard conclusions. But we can postulate a theory.

For about 10 years now I've kept my eye out for emerging science on the gut biome. Specifically the idea that the bacteria in our gut regulates or controls seemingly odd things like our happiness, motivation, dementia, how well we handle stress, many diseases, and immune response. Note that this isn't the idea that eating junk food will make you sick. Rather, the science indicates your gut bacteria literally act as a second brain that may have a greater effect on physical and mental health than your skull brain. These bacteria can produce neurotransmitters your body reacts to, and can "talk" to your brain and body via the vagus nerve. 80% of the traffic across your vagus nerve originates from your gut to your brain. This is your gut bacteria talking to you subconsciously. The specific bacteria you personally have in your intestines can determine if you are happy or depressed. Again.... all early science. But it does appear you can make people happy by transplanting bacteria/poop from happy people to depressed people. It's science.

Your gut biome, and by extension whether you are happy or sad, is regulated by what you eat and the bacteria you consume. Maybe Finland is so happy because they eat happy bacteria, and America is angry because we eat mostly junk food.

Maybe you see where I'm going with this. All my hippie friends hang out in the same woods, share our food, hug each other relentlessly, and in general just pass a ton of bacteria around. Our gut biomes are likely sync'd up rather a lot. If we are all irrationally joyous, perhaps we can blame a common joy bacteria. Maybe all the fermented and organic foods we, as hippies, tend to eat is literally joy food. And when we come together our "community" bacteria activates an intense feeling of fellowship and belonging and cult-like gestalt. Maybe the key to joy, as I have asserted all along, is just hanging out with Marilee and eating yummy food. Maybe that's dumb. It's a theory.

It's probably not the case. I'm getting way beyond the science at this point. And my unwitting test case Rob has experienced the joy and gestalt here without being exposed long enough for his biome to become hippiefied. Maybe I could start serving bacon cupcakes with sprinkles at events and see if the mood drops. In the name of science.

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