There is, apparently, a large portion or our brains that thinks we still live in caves and chase gazelles with sharpened sticks. Such a paradox we are. I’ve heard it said that even depression serves, or rather did serve, a critical function in the run-and-hide period of our history. The rationale goes like this: the gazelles have all run away, there is a hungry leopard in the area, and it would be a good idea to just hunker down for a while and not use up too much of your limited reserves of energy. Hence, the old animal brain cuts back on the serotonin, and you find it easier to lay low until your prospects improve. It makes sense unless you have to go to work the next day and pretend that you’re ok.
It has long been my opinion that overeating and other forms of substance abuse come from the same outdated survival instincts. (Brace yourself, here’s where I quote Abraham Maslow, with my pre-emptive apology in case I got it wrong. This is it, I won’t be crying and spilling my guts on YouTube.) Dr. Maslow said that our first level of need involves the physical, while the higher levels involve the more abstract concepts such as the need to feel loved as part of a group. In our society, most of us have shelter, food, and clothing. And, having these needs met, we become every bit as hungry for things like love and acceptance. However, knowing how to meet these needs is nebulous when compared to how to fill your empty belly. So, animal brain again saves the day, or tries to: eating a snack sure helped with the level one needs, so maybe a hot fudge sundae will take the edge off my loneliness.
What about being a bully? Maybe the analogy comes where the strongest members of the group band together for safety and cull out the weakest ones. That way the leopard will get his lunch, and the group will survive for another day. Those who are somewhere between the weakest and the strongest will wisely try to attach themselves, remora-style, to the bullies. Maybe this gives me at least partial absolution for that time that I hung around laughing like a loon while the rest of the seventh grade shoved our gym teacher into a shower stall.
So, is being hateful to those who can’t fight back really hard wired into our genes? If so, I’d say Animal Brain 1.0 is due for an update.
I have read that wired, anxious people were the survivors in caveman times, always on the lookout for that sabertooth tiger just around the bend. An interesting study would be, if these types of people are in fewer accidents of modern times, being always on the lookout for trouble.
It makes you wonder. Where do the extreme sport types fit in? (You know, the kind who like to parachute off a tall building in a crowded city
I suppose they were the ones who decided they could hunt a mammoth.