A few nights ago, I was in the car with my friend Sarah on the way to a party in Raleigh. As on most long car trips, we were yammering about guys, work, mentors, the usual, when somehow we ended up talking about teenage drug abuse.
"I really like the rule your mother made," Sarah said. "No drugs in high school. That's smart because it seems like people who start using drugs when they're young are the ones who have the most problems."
"Yeah. And your prefrontal cortex doesn't even fully mature until about 25, so there's a theory that there's less inhibition on reward seeking."
"I know," she replied, "And the animal literature suggests.."
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH. Booo-ring.
What the hell has happened to me?
Since when have I started having entirely data-driven conversations?
It was just an ordinary Saturday night, but it led to a startling conclusion-I am no longer able to expound on subjects I know nothing about.
I remember that in high school one of my favorite things to do was to go to independent coffee shops with my friends and debate various things on which we had absolutely no authority. Because we were underage, we would order lattes instead of wine and lounge on couches to discuss the nature of the universe without any scholarly inhibitions whatsoever.
"I think the universe is made of Swiss cheese and that's how all those wormholes everyone's always talking about came around. They're actually cheese holes."
"Oh yeah? Well here's my completely unfounded opinion on God, who is a spaghetti monster who created the universe with his noodley appendage."
But the more degrees I earn, the more that kind of conjecturing loses its appeal.
Now that I think about how the brain works for a living, I do not want to spend my evenings debating the possibility of a soul, especially not with someone who doesn't have some educational perspective on it from theology, philosophy or psychology.
In fact, I find that my tolerance for not having said perspective is sorely lacking.
Although I'd never outwardly admit to wanting to punch someone in the face for not knowing the difference between mental dualism and monism, I spend many conversations mentally banging my head against a wall.
The same thing happened to one of my exes while he was getting his M.Div. at Emory and working as a bartender in the Atlanta airport. A number of people would hole up in his bar during their layovers and ask him what he did other than work there for a living.
Telling the truth often earned him a half-hour lecture on the nature of God and the afterlife according to Joe Blow from Connecticut (I hypothesize that this has something to do with the high rate of flying phobias). After a year of reading Wittgenstein and Barth on weekdays and listening to uneducated nonsense on weekends, he finally told people that he planned to sling drinks for the rest of his life.
An unfortunate side effect of living in data is that I spend more time examining the average mind than my own, and then get frustrated with those who tend to do the opposite. Suddenly I have expertise, PubMed and-good God-responsibility.
But while it's no longer appropriate for me to stand on a soapbox and harangue the masses without any evidence, it's not necessarily appropriate for me to get angry at others for doing it themselves. In fact, some of the best new ideas have come from people spouting what appeared to be lunacy at the time.
So I decided to spend all day yesterday using the phrase "knob schlobbery" whenever humanly possible.
It's all about balance, people.
Jacqui Detwiler is a graduate student in psychology and neuroscience. Her column runs every Wednesday.
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