Am I a viable human? (A life-long scientific experiment)
Sensitive Scientists! Graham here.
I went on the radio yesterday, to talk about feelings.
Every now and then one of my pieces prompts a bunch of interview requests from journalists. I often say ‘no’ to these interviews. I find them pretty stressful.
But in this case, after four polite enquiries, I ended up saying yes to one.
The interview went fine. I didn’t say anything stupid, or particularly profound. But it got me thinking about why I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to things that are outside my comfort zone, and how my attitude to that has changed over the years.
Life as a research project
Life with big feelings can often feel like an elaborate experiment.
In this experiment, I am both scientist and subject. My day to day existence is essentially one big research project, exploring that most pressing, unanswered question:
‘Am I a viable human? Or am I just kidding myself?’
Any opportunity to step outside my comfort zone becomes an opportunity to gather more data on that question. Whether it’s going on a radio show, or more mundane stuff like saying yes to a social gathering (or video group call). Each time, when I do say ‘yes’, it’s an experiment in my own capabilities.
Can I handle this? Let’s see. I never really know until I do it.
Conflicting hypotheses
Some days, I feel like the science is settled already. When it comes to the question ‘am I a viable human?’, I'm convinced the answer is clearly ‘no’. We should move on to more practical research questions like ‘what happens if I just stay inside forever?’
On these days, I’m more likely to say ‘no’ to even the simplest social request. Unplanned phone call from a close friend? Nope. Nice message from my family? Won't be reading that today.
Other days I think the answer might actually be ‘yes’. I certainly look like someone who has their shit together. My life on paper is good, so maybe I am a viable human after all?
But even on these more optimistic days, like any good scientist, I want more data. I know the scientific method is founded on radical doubt. (Radical self-doubt counts, right? ...Right….??). So I say yes to things, not because I think I will enjoy them, but because I'm curious to see whether I can.
Searching for an explanation
When I was younger, I often felt like a research subject, but in a different way.
Up until my mid-20s, I spent a number of years consulting various specialists - neurologists, psychiatrists - in search of some kind of explanation for the things my brain gets up to.
Some were more useful than others, but the more specialists I saw, the more I started to feel like an exotic bug in a glass display case. Exhibit 861: the spotted-winged, chronically anxious butterfly.
This didn’t exactly build my confidence in the ‘yes’ side of the ‘am I a viable human?’ ledger.
If life was an experiment, I at least wanted to be the one doing the experimenting.
An experiment in feelings
From that point onward, I decided the only way to deal with all the free-floating fear that marked my day-to-day existence was to treat my life as an experiment.
At that age, there were so many things I’d stopped doing, because they filled me with dread. Going to the supermarket, driving on the motorway.
My life was shrinking, and while I knew I couldn’t change things all at once, I needed to do something. So I devised an experiment. Each day I would do one thing, just one, outside my comfort zone. I would then review the results.
Here’s what I wrote about the results of the very first of these experiments, a trip to the dreaded supermarket (minus the usual anti-anxiety meds I was on at the time).
I felt fucking awful, the entire shopping trip. But I did the scary thing! When I got home, I set my bags down, and experienced what I can only describe as joy, welling up from my heart, bringing tears to my eyes. An encouraging start.
You can hear more about that big experiment in my early 20s in this podcast ep I made with the ABC about it. It was a very strange time.
‘Can I do this?’
These days, the results are not usually so dramatic or clear-cut, but the experiment continues.
Back to that radio interview. I said ‘yes’ in part because my people-pleasing instincts said ‘you can’t say no four times,’ but that wasn’t the only reason. I also said yes to the interview because I wanted to see if I could do it.
Sure, I’ve done a bunch of radio and TV interviews before, so intellectually I already knew I could do it. But that always feels so hypothetical. Just because I’d done it before, that didn’t mean I could do it again.
With the pandemic lockdown, I’ve had less and less opportunities to step outside my comfort zone. Less social events, less work meetings. In truth, it’s been a welcome chance to stop pushing so damn much. But when I stop pushing completely, I also stop gathering data. If I say ‘no’ to everything, I stop testing that hypothesis that I’m a viable human.
And that’s when my default answer returns.
‘Am I a viable human?’
‘Hm. Maybe you used to be, but I currently see no evidence to support that claim.’
Lowering the stakes
Back in my 20s, the outcome of those little daily experiments felt very high stakes. As my life was rapidly shrinking, the drive to push myself out of my comfort zone came from an extremely desperate place.
‘Can I do this? Well if I can’t, I don’t know what my other option is...’
These days, I try to lower the stakes a little.
That radio interview, it didn’t really matter if it went well or not. The point was simply that I did something scary, to remind myself I could.
Sure, like usual, I spent hours preparing beforehand, trying to make sure I ‘got it right’. I wanted to say something clever, something unique. And I had the usual minor regrets afterward about what I did or didn’t say (and about preparing so much for a seven-minute interview).
But by now, all this chatter is an expected part of the experiment. When you step outside your comfort zone, the self-doubty voices in your head get louder. That’s basically just an accepted law of physics at this point.
‘What else happened?’
So along with the usual self-doubt and analysis, the real question is, what else happened?
For me, this time, there were two other useful bits of data that came from doing the interview.
The first piece of data was, I felt good afterwards. A few hours later, once I’d forgotten that I’d even done a scary thing earlier that day, I noticed I was in an unusually good mood.
It was a reminder. ‘Oh that’s right, stepping outside your comfort zone makes you feel good, eventually.’ It’s like going for a run. In those first few minutes of running, you think, ‘my body is on fire, this is the worst thing I could possibly be doing.’ Then later, after the run, you feel good.
The second piece of data from my radio interview experiment? I finally realised why I don’t actually enjoy those short little interviews all that much. It’s a good way to promote Big Feels, to cut through the noise of the well-meaning-but-far-too-simple mental health awareness stuff that usually gets the airtime. But the whole reason I like talking about this stuff so much is that it’s super complex. Distilling it down into seven minutes never feels all that satisfying.
These were both useful datapoints in my ongoing experiment.
When self-doubt becomes curiosity
Over the years, my approach to this ongoing experiment has changed. I’ve become more curious.
The main emphasis of each little experiment has shifted. Less ‘did i do it right???’ and more, ‘hey what happens when I do this?’
I think this is the one of the biggest things you learn when you spend many years wondering if you're too sensitive for this world. Over time, you learn to cultivate an attitude of curiosity.
You learn this because you have to. That big question - ‘am I a viable human?’ - starts to look less knowable. The answer changes day by day. So you learn to live without a definitive answer.
In fact, I might even amend that original research question. Maybe it’s not such a ‘yes or no’ prospect (‘Am I viable human?’). Maybe it’s more philosophical than scientific.
‘What does it feel like to do “viable human” things, even when I’m not sure I am one?’
‘Who am I going to be today?’
On those days when that spirit of curiosity is particularly strong, there's an even more playful question that guides my experimenting.
‘Who am I going to be today?’
On the days when I can muster it, this curiosity helps me stay open to surprises. ‘Am I the kind of person who does an interview on national radio? I mean, everything in my body is screaming “hell no I’m not!”, right up until the very moment I’m live on air and the interviewer asks the first question. But would you look at that, I’ve started talking, and they haven’t even hung up on me yet. So… maybe I am?’
And when my default answer to everything is ‘no’, this curiosity helps me say ‘yes’, to some things at least. Just to keep things interesting.
