I believe it's what called ‘’ the reptilian brain’’ or the limbic system(?). That part of the brain that is our ‘’primitive’’ as it were, part of us that has the ‘’fight or flight’’ response. The vestige of our ancient ancestors and how it served their fight into nature.
I believe it’s what called ‘’ the reptilian brain’’ or the limbic system(?). That part of the brain that is our ‘’primitive’’ as it were, part of us that has the ‘’fight or flight’’ response. The vestige of our ancient ancestors and how it served their fight into nature.
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Not sure, but I’ve always thought of this response as people having deeper *grooves* in their brains, or perhaps stronger synapses that were made so by repetitive thoughts in their prior cognitive lives.
Just like your face at 40 is determined by how you’ve lived the past 20 years. Your brain at 80 is determined by how you used it the past 60 years.
Perhaps, in your analogy, the mechanism is simply that the social facade falls away and the primitive responses survive.
Whichever it is, we all need to be cognizant of how we think while we are capable of a social facade. Someday, that protective wall will crumble and what we’ve really spent our lives thinking will be all that’s left.
I’m reminded of being told that, in some people, one early symptom of dementia is a sudden habit of going up to perfect strangers on the street, laughing and smiling and greeting them as if they were long-lost friends. Perhaps that is a more positive example of the life-long processes coming through. The subject of this anecdote was a woman who had always presented as very reserved, so the change was remarkable.