Marie Antoinette courtesy of wikipedia.org
After a brief meeting with a woman I’d just met, I returned to my apartment and was surprised to find her email waiting for me. She accused me of having been rude and wasted no time in telling me. Bemused, I shrugged, having had the same impression of her. The difference between us was that I chose to let the matter pass.
Judgments formed on first impressions are often unreliable. Two of my friendships arose from disagreements. Had I shut these people out of my life, I would have lost years of trusted companionship. Not wanting to slam friendship’s door on a stranger, I apologized to the offended woman who likewise had offended me. We shall see what comes of it.
A perceived slight often kickstarts the primitive brain, sending it into defensive mode at the speed of impulse. Nature has its reasons. A quick response to risk enhances our survival. To move swiftly at a shadow’s fall will leave the lion hungry. Unfortunately, lacking subtlety, impulse makes no distinction between self-preservation and ego.
We aren’t to blame. The seat of Reason, the prefrontal cortex, evolved later in humans, about 400,000 years ago, making it an infant compared to the primitive brain’s 1.8 million years. Little wonder the two authorities have little commerce with one another. The younger brain is deliberative, not emotive. It pursues cognitive capacities such as language, imagination, and complex decision-making. Its capabilities enable us to create art and make discoveries in science, and technology.
Mathematics is born of the prefrontal cortex, for example. With it, not only have we envisioned a fourth dimension but have learned to tease three-dimensional material from it. Simply put, we are on the verge of brave new worlds where, like gods, we will control swaths of nature, including seismic eruptions. Given what we know about the new and old brain, it’s senseless to ask what the pre-frontal cortex has in common with the primitive brain or vice versa.
Religion proves to be a frail conduit between the two. Born before science and mathematics, it sought to comprehend the universe without Reason’s higher powers. Conjoined to the primitive mind, it satisfied our prehistoric curiosity by creating a human-concentric view of the world. Unfortunately, when we made ourselves the center of the universe, we gave ego license–a consequence that allowed ignorance and knowledge to coexist.
If a loving philosophy had been the outcome of this union, what harm could there be? But ego makes no distinction between right and wrong, so righteousness has as much influence as kindness.
Because ego once played a crucial part in our species’ survival, we should be grateful for it. Even so, Reasn is quick to point out that because it exists out of necessity, we were never at the center of the universe nor was the earth exclusively designed for us. Nature prefers diversity. Without the honey bee, we are nothing.
As a species, we’d be wise to acknowledge that while ego serves our well-being, it also impairs judgment. One wonders what Orwellian mind could have designed such a mixed blessing. Those who succumb to self-love are at the mercy of a rabid dog. Those who resist find themselves consumed in an endless scuffle to keep the beast at bay.
Over the years, I’ve engaged in many struggles with my darker self and believe I have made inroads. Today, all I ask of my fellowman is a hymn of praise for the words that drop from my pen, and a chance to nod with pleasure should any admirer choose to scurry before me tossing rose petals at my feet.
