Wax - How to be human: the manual

Ruby Wax

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HOW TO BE HUMAN: THE MANUAL

A Monk, A Neuroscientist and Me

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India | New Zealand | South Africa

Penguin Life is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published 2018

Copyright Ruby Wax, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover artwork by Russell Cobb

ISBN: 978-0-241-29474-1

With special thanks to Ashish Ranpura for his outrageous knowledge of neuroscience and Buddhist monk Gelong Thubten for his wisdom of the mind and great sense of humour. Ash is funny too.

Also, with great gratitude to my editor (and wonderful husband) Ed Bye, and to my other editor (not my husband), Joanna Bowen.

And thanks to my kids Maddy, Max and Marina for not becoming crackheads. And making me so happy.

Thubten, me and Ash

After writing my last book I said to myself, never again. Its like having a baby: youre in such pain during the birth, all you want to do is chew your arms off; its the same with writing a book, except youre dilated for more than a year. But when it finally comes out and it thrives (hits number one on that bestseller list), oh my God, all you want to do is get fertile and do it again. So here it is, my next baby.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD and then my book. Im going to start where we all started, back in the swamp and with a fine-toothed comb find out exactly what happened to make us who we are today. (I spoke a little about this in Frazzled but am now digging deeper). Are we everything evolution dreamed wed be? If not who can we blame? Not that we can do anything about it, but if theres life on other planets, they may learn from us. The human race is a miracle when it comes to survival. If youre alive and reading this book right now, youre a bona fide, gold medal winner in the Evolutionary Hunger Games where you had about a trillion to one chance of not being born a frog. This should make us the happiest species alive, but were not. We spend our time on earth in a constant hunt for contentment, and as far as that goes were in a holding pattern. So whats going to happen and where are we going?

You cant stop the future from arriving, no matter what drugs youre on. But even if nearly every part of us becomes robotic, well still have, fingers crossed, our minds which hopefully well be able to consciously upgrade, making us more human and less machine. You only need a mind to practise mindfulness and compassion skills (no fingers or toes necessary) and no amount of titanium in the world can give you those qualities. Mindfulness isnt for everyone but from my own experience and according to scientific evidence, mindfulness rules.

Maybe in the future someone will invent a wearable mental Fitbit which can help us achieve insights and awareness but it aint here yet.

Since writing the last book, A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled, Ive practised every day along with every excuse in the world not to do it. Its a constant struggle, but somehow, I squeezed it in, the result being Im happier, calmer (except when Im handed a traffic ticket; then Ill go for the jugular), and more able to focus my mind where I want it, when I want it and to me thats a big part of happiness.

Most importantly, its helped me sense a depression coming before it hits. This doesnt mean I dodge it but now Im ready for it. When I sense the tiny, far-off footsteps of despair, I batten down the hatches, swiftly unplugging from any contact with the rest of the world, both onscreen and in person, giving me a chance to cold-turkey off my addictions to emailing, needing to be liked by everyone, even people I dont like and worrying about whats going to nix us next North Korea or too much salt?

Id say Im different since the last book, but my insatiable desire to know everything about everything remains, and I dont think thats such a bad thing. Luckily, I found a brilliant neuroscientist and a Buddhist monk to help answer some of my niggling questions. I figured the monk could explain how our minds work and the neuroscientist could tell me where it all goes on in the brain.

After living and breathing for what seems eternity with the monk and the neuroscientist, it feels like were an old married threesome. We harangue, nag and bitch but our relationship continues to flourish because we can make each other hysterical. I might say to the monk, Thats way too Buddhist-sounding. I dont want to hear another B word out of you tonight. And hell flip me back a Thats two thousand years of wisdom, sweetheart, swallow it. At one point, we were thinking of writing another book, combining our separate wisdoms, called Act Like a Buddha, Think Like a Jew. When the neuroscientist starts cocking his high-IQ feathers at us, the monk and I tell him to start speaking in human tongue or well cut him out of the book.

Ive been squeezing them dry for more than a year, leaving them empty and exhausted, but I got a book out of them, and thats all that counts. At the end of each chapter, I let them out of their cages to riff.

As I said earlier, its those ancient whispers that have instilled in us a drive to be top gun or at least top guns best friend. They made us survive as a species but, individually, theyve made us miserable because we feel like were in some race but we dont know what for? By showing you how we evolved and why, youll come to realize that you are not your fault. Evolution did it. What a relief.

Why do we have them? And why, oh, why are they so bitchy? My hope is that in this chapter youll come to understand that your thoughts arent who you really are. If they were, who is the one observing them? Once you understand this then you can pick and choose which thoughts to use and which to lose and that is the Yellow Brick Road to happiness.

Emotions are like the old joke they say about wives: you cant live with em, you cant live without em. The reason we have em is to help us navigate our lives; informing us what we like, dont like and why you chose to buy this book over all others (a huge thank you for that). Without emotions, were zombies. So, really, its not, I think therefore I am, its more like, I feel therefore I am.

Many of us dont think that our brains have any relationship to our bodies; theyre strangers in the night. Some of us (like me) find the body to be an irritating piece of skin I have to drag around under my neck, like an old wedding train. The fact is, the brain and body are in constant communication, each influencing the other. If you think happy, your body is happy and vice versa.

So much social media and were more isolated than ever before, partially because were not talking to each other face-to-face, only face-to-screen.

In this world, few of us have the time for compassion, being so busy with such a tight schedule, but were going to need it if we want to survive as a species, not forgetting that its the glue that makes our lives worth living.