Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Multipotentialites - Thank you Emilie Wapnick!

This post is a slightly modified version of a response I gave to a blog post about the difference between ADD and Multipotentiality (see below for more on that).

I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult. The criteria seemed to fit and I had always wondered what was "wrong" with me that I could never seem to settle on any one particular career path.

Some history: Out of college I worked in Silicon Valley in the late 70's and early 80's, moved to construction for the next 13 years, to programming in the mid-90's, and from 2000 on I "settled' on biomedical informatics. At least that discipline had enough dimensions that it kept me pretty much on the same career path.

So in 2004 I had that diagnosis. I started to take Adderall regularly and it did seem to help. I had always been a big coffee drinker so this just seemed like coffee on steroids. However last year I had a big crisis at work where everything seemed to fall apart. Talk about feeling like a total imposter! I had a complete meltdown, something I had not had since I was in high school. After I got a horrible review at work I decided I had to really get coaching for my ADD.

Luckily I went to see a neuropsychologist who wanted to give me a complete neurocognitive assessment before working with me. When she gave me the results she told me that, clinically speaking, I did not have ADD. Rather I was very bright and had multiple aptitudes. This meant that I didn't have anything wrong, I just needed some help in figuring out how to harness and filter all those things I'd like to do.

This was a huge relief for me since it removed the stigma I had placed on myself for most of my adult life. There wasn't anything wrong with me, I just could never be fully engaged by any one thing. Then I came across Emilie Wapnick's TED talk (http://goo.gl/Dc6fzu) on Multipotentialites and it was a revelation that not only was I okay, I was not alone. Here is a definition of the term from Wikipedia:
 “An educational and psychological term referring to a pattern found among intellectually gifted individuals. [Multipotentialites] generally have diverse interests across numerous domains and may be capable of success in many endeavors or professions, they are confronted with unique decisions as a result of these choices.”
Emilie's site, http://www.puttylike.com, is a continuing source of comfort and inspiration.

Since then I've come across something called T-shaped persons (see http://tsummit.org/ for some interesting information). This describes a person who has a particular strength (the upright part of the T) and connects with many other interests or disciplines (the crossbar at the top of the T). I think of myself as more crossbar than upright, but everyone is different. I find that I enjoy being at the crossroads between many disciplines - this is probably why I have lasted as long as I did in my current field. Biomedical Informatics covers a whole lot of territory!

Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Turkey Club Sandwich Experience

Turkey Club Sandwich photo courtesy of http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14237/classic+turkey+club+sandwich

The other day on my way home from Boston I ordered a Turkey Club at Au Bon Pain at South Station. When I went to pick the sandwich up, I was asked if I had wanted the one without mayonnaise. I was confused and didn’t quite know why. Finally I wondered aloud, “Is a Turkey Club Sandwich without mayonnaise really a Turkey Club?”. No one bothered answering me, which is not surprising since everyone was busy getting ready to get on a train or a bus somewhere. But still it got me thinking about how this sandwich was an example of a system.

Well, I could be wrong about what defines a Turkey Club Sandwich. The Wikipedia entry for Club Sandwich states, 
“A club sandwich, also called a clubhouse sandwich, is a sandwich of toasted bread, sliced poultry, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. It is often cut into quarters or halves and held together by hors d'Ĺ“uvre sticks [AKA toothpicks]. Modern versions frequently have two layers which are separated by an additional slice of bread.” [emphasis added]
So based on the list of items, it would appear that mayonnaise is indeed critical to the makeup of a club sandwich. But I seemed to have an almost visceral response to the absence of mayo, so what else was going on? 

It turns out that the definition of a system is helpful:
"A system is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole."
So I think it was this concept of the "integrated whole" that unconsciously came to mind when I started wondering about the role of mayonnaise in a Turkey Club Sandwich. And it really does make sense when you apply this idea to other kinds of meals or snacks. Taken alone, each part of a club sandwich tastes good (tomatoes in season and picked ripe are essential here!), but when put together, the whole is really more than the sum of the parts. Each component - bacon, lettuce, turkey, toast and mayo - contributes along multiple dimensions to the overall experience. So I made up this table to help me think this through:

ComponentCrunchinessSaltinessSweetnessUmamiTartness
ToastX
TurkeyXX
TomatoX
LettuceX
MayoXXX
BaconXXX

So based on this admittedly non-technical set of categories I can see that for me, the mayo contributes something missing from all the other ingredients that comes from either the lemon or vinegar added to it. But this still is a bit reductionist for my "taste". For me it is ultimately the combination of all these components with their different attributes all interacting in my mouth at the same time that make up the "Turkey Club Sandwich Experience". It's like the toast, turkey, tomato, lettuce, mayonnaise and bacon are all having a rave party in my mouth!