Your Brain is a fantastic piece of craftsmanship. God was on top form when it was conceived. It’s the most complex computer that exists. Its ability to process and store information couldn’t be contested by the most advanced computers (today, or in the forseable future). It’s so advanced, it seems, that it needs no real help from “You” to run your life. It issues reactions to events in your environment by reaching into its vast memory, going through all kinds of calculations, then producing the best action.

How does it determine the best action? The results can seem complex; but the way most of the reactions are determined is quite simple. It starts from when you are a baby. We are all built differently. Some of us are more inclined towards adventure while others are more subtle in their approach to life. A hormone thing, I guess; or maybe genes. Either way, even in babies, some of these traits are already discernable. Babies are extremely selfish, as you might have noticed. They want what they want, and they want it now. They have a very effective mechanism for “reacting” once they don’t get it: Cry…cry…cry. It generally works, and parents fall in line. The child knows no better. The parents must provide for it and make it as comfortable as they can.

These “wants”, in very early stages, are usually related to the basics…feeding and comfort…which is fine. As they grow older, babies try to impose their wants on everyone else. Parents are then faced with the daunting task of educating the child. They must show the child the difference between “Right” and “Wrong” (all relative, of course). They must show the child his/her limits. A line must be drawn. “No Junior, you can’t swallow stones” or “it’s wrong to sit on your baby brother”. Thus, the child starts to learn about life.

Your brain is already fully at work all this time; it’s Grand Purpose…Self Preservation. It needs to keep you alive. To do that, it must make sure that you are equipped to handle the world around you. It takes in everything and tries to breakdown all it stores into categories and groups. Good, Bad, Likes, Dislikes. Basically, it creates boxes and labels them; then organizes events, circumstances, objects into these boxes. It also has reactive behaviours stored in connection with these boxes.

As these boxes and their contents increase, we have more and more defined reactions to life. Long after the incidents that cause the addition of objects to boxes, the references remain. Result? our attitudes towards certain things are formed. We don’t truly remember why, whether the reason is valid or not. We just accept that “I like that sort of person” or “This makes me uneasy”. Or course there are loads of situations that we react to, based on intuition etc. The point is that there are also loads that we have no input whatsoever into how the brain has chosen its reaction, at least not anymore.

A fix…re-examine our attitudes to the things in our lives; especially those that cause us discomfort.

I’ll explore this some more next time…


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