the battle between your ears

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THE BATTLE BETWEEN YOUR EARS

Hi friend, 

No matter which way you cut it, it’s hard to say you’re born into a vacuum. Behind your parents stand your grandparents, behind them, grandparents. A long line of people ending in you—but not people only. Nations. Religion. Movements. Philosophy. Thousands of miles and millions of years, all coming together, all making up and compiling and comprising you.

Those who came before you—well, they hardly left you empty handed. You possess, at your disposal, many tools that border on superpowers: opposable thumbs to make and use tools, skin to keep the weather at bay, and most of all, a brain hardwired to keep you alive from the most dangerous predators. 

Of course, it’s Tuesday morning. There aren’t any predators. There haven’t been any serious predators in your life recently, or lately, or realistically at any given point of time. Dangers, yes. Risks, sure. But very large cats with very large claws? Bears? Snakes? The troubles of countless centuries before us are trifles to us today.

In fact, there’s times when it feels like being human in the 21st century is something akin to using a Ferrari to charge a smart phone: we have millions of years of development as the apex predator, but now it’s an afternoon meeting and our flight or fight response is kicking in over whether or not to roll back a project timeline two weeks. 

We tell ourselves are sorts of things. That we’re more advanced than our forefathers, kinder, less violent. We tell ourselves the world has rounded out its edges. But our brains aren’t so quick to get the memo. There’s a little part of you pre-programmed to jump at every shadow, still set to it's default mode of keeping you alive from threats that are now (largely) nonexistent.

So maybe instead we should tell ourselves: it’s ok. There’s a battle in between your ears that you didn’t start—a conflict that stems from asking our brains, hardwired for survival, to make small talk and play at social niceties on a Tuesday afternoon. So maybe you could cut your wonderful, strange, anachronistic brain a little slack? Journal Prompt: When is the last time you surprised yourself with how you reacted to something?