Baylor University neuroscientist David Eagleman has explained how many New Mexican social and psychological health problems, such as the emergence of hate groups in the state; the rising of numbers of crimes, officer-involved shootings and drug overdoses; the recent Albuquerque real estate Ponzi scheme, New Mexico’s growing gang problem, and New Mexicans’ over-consumption of sugar are actually caused by unwell and unconscious decisions that can be avoided and better understood by what he calls the “Ulysses Contract,“ by referencing the epic poem, Homer’s The Odyssey,

This is the third article in the series about the Albuquerque-born professor who, the writer feels, deserves the title “the most interesting man from New Mexico.” The writer doesn’t know for sure if Eagleman’s “reputation is expanding faster than the universe,” as is that of the “most interesting man in the world" in the beer commercial. However, he did start his own religion; he has established ground-breaking guidelines about the intersection of the brain and the law; he has connected neuroscience with music; he is a popular author of both fiction and non-fiction; he once scanned and studied a 3000-year-old mummy; he wrote the first book ever written just for iPad consumption; and he was praised by Italy’s Style Magazine, along with Brad Pitt and Mick Jagger, for being cool. Eagleman has the knack of connecting the bases of good health, such as the brain, social wellness, and spirituality, with not only each other but also with more abstract and artsy concepts as music, rhetoric, and now poetry.

His interest in the overlap of the arts and sciences apparently began as a young student at Albuquerque Academy. He recently told an interviewer that he remembered that “back at the Academy I did an extra credit project in which I took a set of equations and turned them into music on a Commodore 64 computer. I got really positive encouragement for the project, and that sort of thing probably encouraged me to explore the nexus between science and art. Thanks, Academy!”

In his recent excellent book about the workings of the brain, Incognito: the Secret Lives of the Brain reviewed here, in which he artistically compares the brain to the ancient ruler Kublai Khan in Samuel Coleridge’s poem of that name, Eagleman argues that it is possible for a person to interact with his future self and to make important decisions based on his knowledge of himself and of his future circumstances. Eagleman references an event in Ulysses’ classic journey home in Book 12 of The Odyssey to illustrate how self-discipline, planning, and proper fore-thought can support healthy decision-making about future actions such as cooking meth, being unfaithful to one’s spouse, or spitting on the sidewalk. In Chapter 5 of Incognito, Eagleman goes back much farther to Homer’s epic The Odyssey, one of the greatest works of literature to be written that recounts the long journey by the Greek hero Odysseus (Ulysses) returning home after the Trojan War.

Knowing that his ship would unavoidably pass an island that was the home of spell-binding Sirens, whose singing could “reduce even the greatest man to putty,” Ulysses made a bold decision. As Eagleman tells it, “Ulysses hatched a plan to change his future behavior. He knew that if he heard the music, he would be as unable to resist the alluring women, so he came up with an idea to deal with his future self. Not the present rational Ulysses, but the future crazed Ulysses.” So Ulysses lashed himself to the ship’s mast, and he ordered his men to tie him to it securely, making it impossible for him to move once the Sirens cast their spell on him. He then ordered his men to fill their ears with beeswax, deafening them to both his curses and unreasonable commands, and the Sirens’ seductive songs.

The Ulysses Contract has many modern-day applications. These contracts are, as Eagleman puts it, “freely made decisions that bind you in the future.” Surely some of our recent scandals could have been avoided had our politicians made contracts with their future selves to avoid seduction.”

One Albuquerquean who is living with a brain injury shared with the writer that he recently emailed Professor Eagleman this plea for help: “Dr. Eagleman, my brain’s ‘CEO,’ my prefrontal cortex, was damaged, so I, like many others living with brain injury, sometimes say or do inappropriate things (Once I approached two Hispanic men in Albertsons and asked them if they were Arabs; another time, wanting to be funny, I emailed some old friends before a reunion if I could arrange a group colonoscopy during their visit. And my wife will tell you that I use the ‘f-word’ too much and at the wrong time). I understand why that happens, but do you know if there is anything that a person living with brain injury can do to prevent that from happening in the future, as that often obviously has a negative effect on my social relationships?”

Eagleman took time out of his very busy lecture and writing schedule to immediately respond: “Two ideas: (1) Put into place Ulysses Contracts (See Chapter 5, Incognito) to constrain your future behavior if you know you might behave badly in some particular sorts of situations. (2) Practice cognitive behavioral therapy, or possibly meditation, to strengthen your control on impulsive behaviors.” The same advise might be useful for the many drug users and consumers of sugar and tobacco products in state (“More than physical dependence, addiction represents changes in the brain that lead to increased craving and diminished capacity for the control of impulses,” he has written.).

Along those lines, another Albuquerque informant told me that he suddenly stopped eating breakfast at one of his favorite restaurants on Wednesdays because that restaurant offers free pie every Wednesday. He made that decision as part of a “Ulysses Contract” with himself because he wanted to lose some weight, and he said that it worked. His subconscious mind had been nagging him to flirt with (eat) the Sirens (the pie), which he had done every Wednesday until his conscious mind, the “smallest part of what is happening in your brain” (according to the most interesting New Mexican) enforced a contract over it by tying the man concerned about widening waistline to his ship’s mast (his home or another restaurant that doesn’t offer free pie.

So it’s up to every person to let either her majority subconscious or her minority conscious rule her future actions, and therefore her wellness.