0565
"You spent your early years developing some neural networks while allowing others to atrophy Some of your neurons got swept away like autumn leaves, and that streamlined your thought process. You added new knowledge, of course, but you did that in areas where your electricity already flowed. If you were born into a hunting tribe, for example, you easily added more useful hunting information, and if you were born into a farming tribe, you bad solid farming circuits to build onto. You ended up with a brain honed to survive in the world you actually lived in. The zip of electricity through your circuits gives you the feeling that things make sense. When the world doesn’t fit your developed circuits, your electricity trickles so you have less confidence in your knowledge."
From Habits Of A Happy Brain, p. 124
"This is most evident when we speak of a person’s “passion.” Consider the child who watches a doctor cure a sick family member and then decides to become a doctor. That child built a big circuit because a life-and-death experience triggers a big neurochemical surge. We are not always aware of the neurochemical origins of our passions. They’re built in childhood with a child’s view of survival. For example, if you got respect from your basket weaving teacher, the surge of good feeling might motivate you to devote your life to basket weaving. If you grow up watching rock stars get respect, you might long to be a rock star. In adulthood you might realize that your passions do not promote survival, but by then the major highways to your happy chemicals are already built."
Habits Of A Happy Brain, p. 130
***
The link between my youth and the present is in the mountain. In the mountains I feel like myself. —Rolando Abarca (From the film The Cordillera of Dreams)
***
