As I was making my bed this morning, I found myself feeling sad about Cathy, a friend of mine who had died young. She’d been a delightful person to be around, and it seemed she’d been removed from the world much too soon. Why she came to mind at that moment, accompanied by sadness, was the result of a cascade of neuronal interactions that are totally unavailable to my conscious self—an unsolvable mystery.
Fortunately, I have learned to be alert for the onset of such moods, and to consider that another mood might be preferable—a perspective made possible by my brain’s ongoing curiosity about how it works. Before it acquired its present level of understanding, such changes in mood were taken for granted, and assumed to be just “who I am” at the moment. Now it knows that whatever I’m experiencing is a transient state, brought on by natural causes, just like every other state of the universe. A change in causal circumstances will produce a change in “me,” and knowing that gives my brain a powerful tool.
Our brains have evolved to discover and use tools to enhance our well-being. We have learned that fire burns, and having a preference for avoiding such pain means we don’t use our hands to hold food over flames—a sharp green stick is a much better idea, and a pot is even better. In the same way, our brains can develop tools for avoiding emotional pain once they learn how pain and pleasure work.
In the case of grief or sadness, culture is one possible cause to consider. We may have been taught that when someone we care about dies, we “owe” it to them to be sad, to grieve, and sometimes the culture even prescribes the exact length of time that is required. Understanding that grief is taught in this way, and that different cultures teach differently, we can ask, “Should I suffer this experience because of the accident of being born in a certain time and place? Can I reject what I’ve been taught in favor of an experience I find more enjoyable?”
Death is such a universal phenomenon that there is almost always a prescription in the larger culture, at least implicitly, for how we should deal with it. In addition, each of us may learn, through our idiosyncratic experience, how to react to certain events or insights. We acquire a personal repertoire of emotional reactions cued by associated circumstances.
We can learn to look at these from a broader perspective, too, and ask whether we must remain victims of our individual history. Must I forever be scarred by the accidents of my youth, by having parents with their own personalized craziness, or by the deficits in my early environment? When I see that my current unpleasant experience has its roots in bygone days, are there tools that I can use to shift that experience toward something more enjoyable?
The understanding that my reactions are the product of my life to this point gives my brain the option of altering those reactions, of seeing that who I currently “am” can be modified by a change in perspective. It can learn to use a shift in perspective as a tool for enhancing its experience.
So this morning, my brain decided that reliving and relishing my joyful memories of Cathy’s existence was equally as valid a way of appreciating her life, of acknowledging my good fortune in knowing her, as sad thoughts of her death would be. My emotions don’t have to be held hostage by prior conditioning.
(For thoughts in a similar vein, see “Emotional Vulnerability: Its Causes and Cure,” and “Meditation, Smiling, Mood Control, and Relationships.”)
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