The Monkey brain: Our big frontal lobe. Cagey and clever and
eventually smart enough to land a vehicle on Mars. It is also vain. It is self
serving. It does not like others that much. And if so, mostly to play with.
The Cow brain: Our
middle brain, that we share with most mammals, is very emotional, goes on
instinct. Is warm, often responds intuitively. Often needs to feel included,
depending on the mammal.
The Lizard brain: The brain stem that we share with the
lower orders. Mostly responds to immediate stimulus. Fearful, reactive. Alone.
Sociopathic.
Enough on that…now my pet peeve:
Why are Westerners so hell bent on being rational and cool
in so much of we do, and then when we want to get close, we PRETEND it, often
in sentimental tones? It’s rife.
I hate sentiment, not so much because it is aesthetically
wobbly, though it is, but because it is based in fear, replacing what could be
the real thing. It is monkey/lizard when it would be better off cow.
1 comment:
Western culture fears emotion, plain and simple. I have been doing some ruminating about this in my own blog and have increasingly found that much of our unhealthy, cruel and self-defeating behaviors stem from an inability to directly experience one's own emotion.
Western consciousness places an emphasis on autonomy; ego consciousness is essential to autonomy, yet emotion is larger than oneself and can overwhelm a fragile ego.
So emotion is seen as "the enemy" -- to be suppressed, denied, controlled, etc. Those who allow its expression are seen as childish, manipulative, lacking containment or self-control. Those who control it are viewed as more mature and formidable.
Emotion and any expression thereof gets such a bad rap that many wonder why emotion exists at all as life would seem better off without it.
Needless to say, I think this is a very distorted perspective and has been responsible for creating some very negative emotion in our society.......
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