The human mould

Has it ever been so difficult being inside your own head that you spend every second trying to get out of it?

I latched on to learning Japanese as an outward focus and it enabled me to avoid thinking and in doing so get out of my own head.

As I recovered following the psychotic episode I began to find my way back inside and those fifteen or so years of development I had missed out on suddenly happened in a flash.

Recently I noticed that the things that at one point were fresh and exciting had now been filed away to the back of my mind and I was beginning to lose touch with that way of looking at our world.

Fitting into the human mould is what happens to everyone. You lose sight of what is important because you are so focused on getting on with the world that your brain can cope with that the eyes you used as a child growing into an adult get shorter and shorter sighted until you can no longer see beyond the end of your own nose.

GOAL!!!!!!! (Do you care about winning?)

Red v Blue

I used to get very upset when the football team I played in or even the one I supported lost a game, the cup, etc. Losing would distress me so much that I’d end up angry and in tears.

Now I no longer get worked up about things like losing a football game but, as with everything, I recently started to question why this is.

One explanation could be that the antipsychotic medication has numbed my emotions to the point that I am physically incapable of caring.

But what if it’s simply that I’ve managed to alter my thought processes?

Have I matured to the point that winning no longer has the some importance in my life?

What if the desire to win (that, when not achieved, can leave a grown man in tears) isn’t a natural impulse? What if our culture has developed in a way that shapes our brain so that it wants to win, when what is truly natural for us is more the opposite?

I saw this army slogan recently and it seemed to be very appropriate to this idea of winning so I've included a link to the British Army Blog.

http://britisharmy.wordpress.com/

It's a loose connection but this TED talk rekindled it for me so here's the link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html 

Why are you kind to strangers?

Throughout most of our history as humans on this planet we have lived in small groups. There was no knowledge of the wider world, yet alone the vastness of the Universe.

If our brains have evolved to deal with such a small world then is it any surprise that this sudden (in evolutionary terms) expansion of our awareness of things has left us feeling a little shell-shocked?

What if our brains just can’t cope with the world on that scale?

Could mental illness be a consequence of that inability to cope?

Are things getting out of control?