Keep Austin woo-woo

It's tempting to say it's a "keep Austin weird" thing, but I believe in every place there are people with these kinds of beliefs. But perhaps Austin is a more likely place than some others for a waiter to feel free to come to a customer and ask "excuse me, are you an indigo?"

Yes, a waiter -- a young guy, barely over 20 -- asked me this question as I was sitting at a table in a cafe, typing on a laptop, minding my own business. "Huh, I'm sorry?" I said. He repeated: "Are you an indigo?"

Now, I've heard about the so-called "indigo children", but assumed (and still do) that it's just a type of ammunition in the never-ending battle of competitive parenting, my favorite spectator sport. I guess for some parents it's not enough to have their child enrolled in several different sports teams, musical and dance activities; they also need to claim that their child is an "indigo". In fact it's an easier way to one-up other parents: first, it requires no proof (unlike excellence at sports and arts); and second, once you declare your child to be an indigo, any other parent in your circle would feel very silly parroting the same; so whoever says it first, wins.

However, I never heard adults calling themselves indigo; in fact since I gravitate towards rationalists, I would be rather unlikely to encounter such a person. So, when the waiter put this question to me, I was unsure if he meant it in that sense. So I asked "what does it mean?" He said, "it's an... uh, a different person. It's a person with a very strong aura." I mumbled about not believing things like that. He smiled, apologized and walked away.

But damn it, if someone implying that you are "special" doesn't make you want to be on your best behavior, even if for a short while! However, he wasn't my waiter, so if I left a bigger than usual tip, he didn't directly benefit.

Genuflection aerobics

Once in a while I post quotes from articles I read with a sole purpose of goofing off, and not out of genuine interest. I have no stance on the issues described -- I post these quotes simply because I find them hilarious.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/01/23/partner_yoga/

This is an article on partner yoga, the grossness of. ("Is having my face in a stranger's crotch really helpful for my meditative state?"). The only thing I can say about yoga is I tried it once and found it singularly boring. But the second of the two following paragraphs almost made me squirt coffee out of my nose.

Traditionally, yoga is taught one-on-one, takes years to master and has nothing to do with improving the definition of your shoulder muscles. It also emphasizes emotional detachment, which is difficult to achieve if your head is in someone's junk. But Dharmanidhi's [an Indian yoga master's] biggest point was this: Yoga is an integral part of Hinduism, and Americanized yoga -- whether it's called Ashtanga, Iyengar, Bikram, Vinyasa or anything in between -- is a bastardization of a spiritual practice.

"Imagine you go into a Catholic Church and there's something called genuflection, where you go down on one knee," he said. "What if a person comes out of the ceremony -- which is supposed to be about their relationship with God -- and they say, wow, my legs feel a little sore! And they go home and open up a shop and have people do genuflection for an hour to disco music. And partner genuflection, at that! It's completely taking it out of context."

A natural explanation for a woo-woo phenomenon

A recent article in Salon.com made me think that some people's claim of ability to see auras may be neither a lie nor wishful thinking, but simply a case of synesthesia.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/01/15/synesthesia/

To quote the article,

Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which activation of one sensory processing system (e.g., numbers or written language) leads to the automatic engagement of a second, distinct sensory processing system (e.g., color) to create a "crossed" sensory perception. For example, as in my case, numbers appear to have their own colors. Or, in other forms of synesthesia, sensory processing is "crossed" with emotion processing, imbuing letters, words, days of the week or months with their own personalities.

The author further says:

[...] people had colors, too. Not everyone. But many people did, whether I liked them or not, whether I knew them well or not. I didn't have to think about it; it was just so. As apparent to me as their eye color.

And

For much of my childhood, I enjoyed my synesthesia. [...] I'd turn my eyes to a teacher halfway through class to bask in her lavender glow. [...] I'd heard about auras -- radiant light surrounding a person, somehow revealing or reflecting his or her soul -- and I figured the color I saw from certain people, or numbers, was an aura. Had I somehow gained access to a spiritual dimension?

So the so-called "aura" (or, rather, the ability of some people to see it) may actually be a natural phenomenon. Of course, it is useless for any practical purpose -- you can't extract any real information from it -- because it is purely subjective. Any two synesthetes will see the same person's auras in different colors and attribute different emotional qualities to it.