Do you throw away your home court advantage?
Why are we so hungry for novelty outside our marriage?
Castilia knit bra top, Radlee knit short, Le’Agence
This week, I felt like doing a prequel to my book “Bob and Alice - anti-design patterns in love, life and tech”.
We’ll take a trip from New York to San Diego, the hard way.
We’ll use neuroscience to explain “Why are we so hungry for novelty outside the home”.
And discover a surprising anti-pattern: The novelty you want so badly is right under your nose on your home court.
From New York to San Diego, the hard way.
Bob’s grandfather Dave had 2 brothers, Al and Richard. They grew up in Brownsville. It was a tough, poor, mostly Jewish-Eastern European immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Jewish social and political organizations, labor unions and socialist groups like the Bund, flourished. Al was the oldest. Richard the youngest.
Forest Hills
When Bob was in 10th grade, there was a wedding in NYC and the entire family was together for the first time.
Sunday before the wedding, Bob and his sister Maddie found themselves alone with Dave and Al. Everyone else was out shopping. Richard didn’t come in for the wedding from San Diego.
Al cooked breakfast for them.
The 4 of them were sitting around the kitchen table in Al and Rosie’s apartment in Forest Hills eating scrambled eggs, bagels and lox with tomatoes sliced very thin. Chocolate milk and orange juice on the table.
Bob, “Uncle Dave and Al. Maddie and I want to hear the story of Richard. We live in LA and all we know is that Richard lives in Chula Vista. It’s a 4 hour drive from LA, but we’ve never been down there”.
Dave looked at Al. Al looked back at Dave.
Dave, “Al, you should tell our story. You’re the oldest brother. You know the history”.
Maddie, “Uncle Dave, what history”?
Dave smiled, “Ahah Maddie, there is a lot of history and a lot of mystery”.
Al, “OK, I’ll tell you our story. You’ll understand why Richard didn’t come in for your cousin’s wedding”.
Al, “It was the 1930s in New York. The Great Depression.
After 6th grade, we started working to help put bread on the table for our family.
At age 13, I was an apprentice to a jeweler. By the time I was 28, I had my own store on Park Avenue. I moved with your Aunt Rosie to Forest Hills. Your cousins moved out to Jersey and sent their kids to private schools.
At age 13, Dave became an apprentice in a shmata business. By the time Dave was 21, he was production manager in the factory on 6th Avenue and 34th St.
The factory made women’s shirtwaist dresses. Their dresses became an iconic brand, with the mix of practicality and femininity that defined American women's fashion in the 1940s and 1950s.
The company built distribution channels throughout the US from Macy’s in NYC to Weinstock in Sacramento. By the early 50s, the company was struggling to manage its production and distribution with index cards.
Dave commandeered a wall in the 36th Street warehouse. Dave painted the wall black, and then painted a matrix of white lines. He made the wall into a spreadsheet with rows for products and columns for retail customers. The cells had planned and actual deliveries. Dave updated the cells every day with white chalk. After 3 months, the company achieved JIT - just in time delivery to the department stores across the country. They kept less than 3 days inventory in the regional warehouses.
Dave was an ambitious kind of guy.
He wrote a patent application for a novel system for JIT production planning and control. The patent was granted and a year later, Dave sold it to IBM.
Being an ambitious kind of guy, he divorced his Brooklyn wife and married Dorothy, a textile designer who worked for Norman Norell. Dorothy brought innovative fabrics and textures into Norell designs including the famous Norell mermaid gowns.
Dorothy was a class act. I remember. She still is a class act.
With the money from IBM, Dave bought a 50 acre farm in North Jersey. They built a big house in Bergen County with a studio for Dorothy. Her textiles became part of the work of many top fashion designers, interior decorators, and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright.
The youngest of the 3 was Richard.
Richard finished high school, and went to work as a sales trainee in the shmata business.
By the time he was 16, Richard decided to move up in the world.
He knocked on the door of Abraham E. Lefcourt, who was big in developing the Garment District. Lefcourt, originally a newsboy from the Lower East Side, was a big real estate developer, building garment lofts in the area.
Richard told Lefcourt’s secretary that he wanted to work for Lefcourt selling real estate.
She wanted to blow him off, but for his chutzpah, she showed the boy into Lefcourt’s office where Richard said he wanted to work for Lefcourt as a real estate salesman.
Lefcourt told him, “You wanna start working for me kid? You can’t start as a salesman. You start as a partner”.
Richard started the same day, leasing lofts on commission with residuals for the renewals.
By age 18, Richard was making $25,000/year, the equivalent of $500,000/year in today’s dollars.
He married Lucy.
Oh man, do I remember Lucy. She was a knockout. Classy clothing. Hats. Gloves. Every outfit is perfect.
They would come into my Park Ave store all the time to buy jewelry for Lucy.
The 2 of them were 19 and living the lush life.
After a year, they started fighting over money.
Richard wanted a divorce but Lucy had her own ideas on a divorce settlement.
Unfortunately for Richard, Lucy Fiorello came from a Mafia family.
Richard ran away to the West Coast with Lucy’s Mafioso brothers hot on his trail. They caught up with Richard in San Diego and made him an offer he could not refuse.
It was just after Pearl Harbor.
Richard enlisted in the Navy and served 4 years in Naval Intelligence. No one in the family knows exactly what he did in Naval Intelligence.
After the war, Richard married Henrietta. The marriage lasted 6 months and they divorced in Reno.
Richard wanted to restart his life and taught himself art restoration.
He met Carol, a rich divorcee with a big house in Chula Vista. They became inseparable. Neither of them felt the need to get married and they lived together as common-law man and wife for 35 years.
December 21, 1988.
Carol was on Pan Am Flight 103 after visiting a girlfriend in London on her way back to NYC and a connecting flight to San Diego. A Libyan terrorist bomb detonated on the plane over Lockerbie in Scotland. 270 passengers and crew were killed. Including Carol.
Richard was devastated.
They had been together for 35 years.
In California, the man and wife in a common-law marriage inherit each other.
Richard inherited Carol’s fortune.
Not that he needed it. Or wanted it. He was making crazy money doing art restoration for the crazy rich people in La Jolla and Coronado.
But God was kind to Richard. He sent Sarah to Richard a few years ago. Sarah saved him from the hell of losing Carol and brought him back to the living.
Once/year, Rosie and I, Dave and Dorothy will fly out to San Diego for a week and visit with Richard and Sarah.
We like the weather. It's a lot nicer than NYC.
Dorothy loves Richard because of his work in art restoration. They talk all the time on the phone. He’ll call Dorothy up and consult with her on materials.
Anyhow guys, that’s our story.
I guess that you can understand why Richard didn’t come. He’s happy in his own world and he won’t fly”.
In 1988, Bob was 5 years old. His sister Maddie was 4. They were in preschool in West LA. His parents never spoke much about his great-uncles. Dave and Al were on the East Coast and they almost never saw each other. They barely mentioned Richard. Just some vague stuff about a Mafia wife and being married a bunch of times.
Back in LA after the wedding.
Bob, “Dad, Maddie and I wanna go down to Chula Vista and spend a few days with Richard and Sarah. We’ll take the Amtrak and Richard will pick us up. It’s summer vacation and we don’t have anything better to do”.
Mr Fogelman (Bob’s Dad), “OK Bob. You’re on”.
A week later, Maddie and Bob were in San Diego. Richard, in a Hawaiian aloha shirt, was waiting for them.
A big black Lincoln was waiting for them outside Santa Fe Depot train station. Sarah - a petite, jolly, blond-haired woman in her 70s, was at the wheel of the black Lincoln.
Back at the house in Chula Vista, Sarah and Richard fussed over them and got them setup in 2 guest bedrooms.
Richard, “Tomorrow, I have a client coming in. Interesting case. You guys will wanna hang out”.
10:00 AM the next morning in Richard’s art restoration workshop.
A well dressed woman in her early 30s came in.
“Hi I’m Vanessa Sterling, the insurance company gave me your name. I hope you can help me”.
It’s a hot summer day in San Diego. Maddie and Bob are staring at Vanessa as she walks in.
Vanessa Sterling has a chic and laid-back coastal look. She wears a lightweight, white linen sundress that falls just above her knees, perfect for staying cool in the heat. She’s wearing a pair of oversized designer sunglasses with gradient lenses. Stylish yet comfortable leather sandals, featuring subtle gold accents that catch the sunlight as she walks into the workshop.
Her jewelry is minimal but expensive, a pair of small diamond stud earrings, a thin gold bracelet, and a classic wristwatch with a leather strap.
Her hair is styled in loose waves, effortlessly tousled by the ocean breeze, and her makeup is light and natural, with just a hint of bronzer and a touch of coral lip gloss to accentuate her sun-kissed glow.
Richard, “I’m sure I can. This is my niece Maddie and my nephew Bob. They came down from LA yesterday to hang out with us for a few days”.
Maddie kicks Bob under the table and hisses into his ear, “Stop staring Bob!”.
Vanessa, “We had a fire last week. 7 expensive Japanese paintings were badly damaged by the smoke and water system. I was hoping you could help me”.
Richard, “Yes I can. Your insurance company sent me the information from the policy including the original hi-res photographs of the paintings. Fortunately, it’s mostly smoke damage”.
Vanessa, “I took pictures. You can see them on my phone here. The paintings are all black. I don’t see how you can save the paintings”.
Richard, “Actually I can. What I’ll do is this. I’ll take an infra-red photograph of each painting. I’ll lift up the paint from the charred silk backing and remount the picture on a brand-new silk backing after cleaning of the char”.
Vanessa, Bob and Maddie are looking at Richard. All thinking. This sounds like science fiction.
Richard, “This is a technique I’ve used before and it works very well”.
“Vanessa, have the paintings brought over here. The insurance company pays my expenses. You’ll have 7 paintings, good as new in 3 weeks”.
Vanessa says thank you so much.
She leaves a path of effortless chic behind her.
Over supper that evening, Sarah and Richard are very warm and hospitable with Maddie and Bob.
Bob and Maddie feel perfectly comfortable and at home.
The next day, they meet a few more clients. Richard asks them what their plans are after high school.
Bob, “I’d like to study engineering”.
Maddie, “I’d like to study art”.
Richard, “You know, your uncles and I all started out as apprentices. Sarah and I don’t have children of our own. What do you think about becoming my apprentices?
I’ll teach you everything I know about art restoration. It’s a great profession. I work when I want to and it’s good money restoring art for crazy rich people like Vanessa. What do you say?”
Bob, “Uh, that’s an amazing offer, but I guess I’d really like to become a software engineer”.
Maddie, “This would be an amazing opportunity for me, if you would teach me”.
Richard, “It would be my honor and pleasure. You can live with us.
Today, after everything I’ve been through, I want to preserve my legacy.
Preserving my legacy is all I care about now”.
Why are we so hungry for novelty?
The craving for novelty in the brain is primarily driven by the interplay of several neural circuits and neurotransmitters, especially those involving dopamine, a key neurotransmitter in the brain's reward system. Here's a detailed look at the molecular processes involved:
Dopaminergic System:
Dopamine Release: When we encounter something novel, dopamine is released in the brain. This release is particularly prominent in the mesolimbic pathway, which includes the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). The anticipation of something new triggers a dopamine surge, reinforcing behaviors that seek out novelty.
Dopamine Receptors: The binding of dopamine to its receptors (D1, D2, etc.) in these brain regions enhances the feeling of pleasure and reward. This makes us more likely to seek out new experiences.
Hippocampus Activation:
The hippocampus, a region associated with memory and learning, plays a crucial role in detecting novelty. When something new is perceived, the hippocampus becomes highly active, helping to encode the novel information and distinguishing it from familiar stimuli.
The novelty signal from the hippocampus is transmitted to the VTA, further stimulating dopamine release.
Prefrontal Cortex:
The prefrontal cortex (PFC), involved in decision-making and executive functions, also plays a role in novelty-seeking behavior. The PFC integrates information about novelty and reward, helping to guide behavior towards exploring new stimuli.
Other Neurotransmitters:
Serotonin: Modulates mood and can influence the drive for novelty. Low levels of serotonin are sometimes associated with increased impulsivity and novelty-seeking behaviors.
Norepinephrine: Involved in arousal and alertness, norepinephrine release can enhance the perception of novelty and heighten our response to new stimuli.
Neuroplasticity:
Novelty experiences promote neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. This is facilitated by brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that supports the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. High levels of BDNF are associated with enhanced learning and memory, encouraging the pursuit of new experiences.
Reward Prediction Error:
The brain continuously predicts expected rewards from different actions. When we encounter something novel, the prediction error (the difference between expected and actual rewards) is high, leading to a stronger dopamine response. This mechanism helps reinforce behaviors that involve seeking out new and unpredictable experiences.
These processes collectively drive the brain's craving for novelty, motivating individuals to explore new environments, learn new skills, and engage in diverse experiences. This craving for novelty has evolutionary advantages, promoting adaptability, learning, and survival in changing environments.
The novelty you want so badly is right under your nose on your home court.
We seek novelty.
We seek adrenaline rushes.
We seek dopamine highs.
We seek these things outside the home.
In relationships - one night stands.
In work - quit and restart
In life - move and rebuild
The novelty you want so badly is right under your nose on your home court.