“There won’t be peace on earth until the voices of the grandmothers are heard.”
~ Native American Teaching
Lately, I’ve been binge-watching the Smithsonian Channel series, Air Disasters. Every aviation accident the world over gets investigated for causes and conditions. After doing a deep dive into the FDR (Flight Data Recorder) and the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) investigators are almost always able to piece together the (often) unpredictable, perfect storm of events that unfolds to bring about a crash. They then write up their findings with recommendations for engineering, training and procedural changes that continue to make air travel safer and safer.
Every episode of Air Disasters underscores the thousands of hours the pilots who crash have previously flown. That’s not a metric I’m particularly interested in. Quantity of flying hours is not quality of flying hours. I’d prefer to know how many life-threatening incidents pilots have been able to surmount, how many times they’ve had to think fluidly and flexibly in the face of unexpected, stressful challenges. I want to know how many crash landings they’ve previously survived.
Wise-end Democracy
Similarly, in this democracy I live in, I want to know how many “disasters” or near-disasters candidates wanting my vote have survived. How often have they faced moral quandaries, self-interested seductions, or personal failings and managed to come through them with flying colors? In other words, I want the candidates I vote for to be … grandmothers. Or at least have “Grandmother’s Brain.” Unfortunately, our current political system provides few deliberate, constructive growth and redemption opportunities for politicians or voters.
I think of Grandmother’s Brain (if it hasn’t been adversely affected by compromising health conditions) as being unique in the human species. Not only have Grandmothers had the embodied experience of growing and bringing life into the world, but they have had to face and overcome decades and decades of real world challenges. It’s inevitable that a majority of them would acquire some degree of wisdom along the way.
Not to mention the contribution Grandmothers have apparently made to human evolution. A team of scientists from UCSD and Princeton published a paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution showing that grandmothering might well have been an important driver of the evolution of certain genes that contribute to a healthy immune system, along with resistance to cognitive decline with age.
Much like the way Grandmothers “burnish a child’s development in unique and valuable ways”, they would bring similar engagement to the political process. Their capacity to think and feel their way into and through complex real-world circumstances would be unmatched – certainly by any 18-year-old whose brain doesn’t become fully mature until roughly age 25 (I’m guessing no wise Grandmother would pass laws allowing 18-year-olds to vote, drink or buy guns!).
Wisdom Practice
In order to safely face unexpected, stressful challenges and crash landings, pilots spend many hours of their training in cockpit flight simulators. Simulators are exact replicas of the same plane instrumentation pilots fly regularly. In the simulators they get to experience all kinds of things that can go wrong, from engine failures to stall warnings to retracted and stuck landing gear. The purpose of such training is much like learning the multiplication tables: they build brain networks over and over through practice and experience so that under stress, a pilot doesn’t have to think about what proper actions he or she should take. It’s embedded in the brain and muscle memory.
Through the long courses of their lives Grandmothers of the world have had similar training. While perhaps less structured, deliberate and intentional, nevertheless, going through childbirth and motherhood, no matter how many crash landings and aborted takeoffs a Grandmother may have had with her own children, she has inevitably gained learning and wisdom that can be obtained in few other ways.
If We Build It, They Will Run
Healthy neural networks spend lifetimes moving in the direction of greater and greater connectivity and integration (learning). Greater connectivity and integration is able to process energy and information with increasing capacity for complexity. Grandmothers generally have access to a wider and deeper well of life’s complexities. They can see a much bigger picture than many of us. Many, simply as the result of a long life, possess neural networks steeped in The Six Transcendent Perfections of Buddhism: Generosity, Morality, Joyful Energy, Patience, Contemplation and Wisdom.
Who, in their right mind, would not champion and support such human beings serving as our elected representatives?
Grandmothers are too wise to run for political office.
Hopefully, then, we’ll get an effective workaround to get their voices heard, Dolat! 🙂
Best, Mark
I love this – of course!!! Well done Mark. Xxx
Sent from my iPhone
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So, it gets your vote, Suzanne? 🙂 XOXOX Mark
We moved to our current location so that my wife could be the ‘alpha’ grandmother four our third grandchild. It worked wonderfully to ‘burnish development in unique and valuable ways – for both him and her.
Nice, Frank. Basically, what I’m advocating for is … wisdom in whatever form it happens to show up in! Old, wise souls in any form get my vote. Best, Mark
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 7:24 AM The Flowering Brain < comment-reply@wordpress.com> wrote:
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Perhaps we need an army of Grandmothers NOW to right the world! It’s getting very scary out there. I’d certainly join up! In 2020 “The Christian Science Monitor” published this story: “Polish Grannies vs. the right-wing: Europe’s unlikely democracy defenders” I found it very inspiring at the time. Think I’ll read it again…as I want to do something about the sentiment overtaking our country. May be time for the Grannies to organize!? Thanks Mark for your wisdom in writing this blog.
Start locally … NOW, Judy! 🙂 https://runforsomething.net
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 8:27 AM The Flowering Brain < comment-reply@wordpress.com> wrote:
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Have you heard of The Raging Grannies? I’m not an official member but am inspired by them!
I’m going to be a grandmother in 2 months! I’m already active in my community and donate to good causes. I read about a young woman who is standing up to conservatives who want to ban books with the merest mention of sexuality in them. She is a librarian in Alabama and I think she is too young to be a grandmother, but she exhibits some fierce intelligence! A grandmother in training!
Thanks for this post, Mark! XOXOX
Megan
Start locally, Megan … https://runforsomething.net
Thanks for the link! I just signed up with them to help and made a donation!!
You’ve got MY VOTE, Judy! 🙂
XOXOX Mark
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 9:17 AM The Flowering Brain < comment-reply@wordpress.com> wrote:
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another brilliant article–thanks for the insights on grannies.
Thanks, Jeanne. Does it make you want to take flying lessons? Or run for a local public office?
Best, Mark
On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 11:43 AM The Flowering Brain < comment-reply@wordpress.com> wrote:
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Yes, we need grandmothers, and those who are elder women without grandchildren…a diverse and rooted wisdom
Yes, to Grandmothers, and elder women with grandmother mind who don’t have grandchildren….Love this….
Love this one!
Grandmothers of the world unite!
Truly, righ!
Let’s put grandmothers in politics!
Hi, Mark — Lovely to hear from you again. It’s true — something important does kick in with grandmotherhood!! A different, more encompassing perspective and desire to connect. More compassion for parents and children alike. Also something fiercely protective. I could go on 🙂
I’ve been benefitting from courses with Oren Jay Sofer as well as podcasts by Andrew Huberman. Here’s a link to one on meditation that I find very useful although very long. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000584466382
Best,
Mayra
Hi Mayra, Nice to hear from you. It’s been awhile. Thanks for the pointer to Oren. I’ll check him out. As for Andrew Huberman, I’m half way through all the podcasts his lab has put out, including the 5 hour one he did with Jocko Willink and Echo Charles! On a whim I put Andrew and my most favorite neuroscientist into Google and found this little-viewed gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc_OXqCRL1g Continued blessings on the journey. Mark