When I look out my window, when I get in my car to go to work or the store, as I experience the feelings I get from my fellow drivers, and when I exchange pleasantries with people I encounter each day, I sense that there is a growing disconnect between who people really are, and who they pretend to be in the world. There is an authentic connection that occurs when two people lock eyes, and recognize the presence of each other. When this happens, our central nervous systems are activated, and we tend to respond in one of four ways. First, we can freeze, like a deer in the headlights. All living organisms seems to have the ability to respond in this way to a change in the environment. This is the most primitive response in terms of the growth and development of our own nervous systems, and most humans have developed more sophisticated social behaviors by the time they are ready for independent public interaction.
The second response is to run. You probably don't have to try very hard to remember a time when you have felt this response well up inside you. This is the experience of what contemporary psychiatric nomenclature labels "social anxiety," and they have created elixirs, potions, and pills which inhibit and destroy this completely normal response. Incidentally, having the ability to respond is called being responsible. By this logic, medications intended to quell social anxiety, by their very nature, make a person less responsible. And the opposite of responsible would be dependent. Why would the people who control the pharmaceutical industry want to make people more dependent? Dependent upon what, or whom? Interesting.
The third type of response is to fight. This response has long been considered socially unacceptable, but a quick look at advanced mammalian behavior will reveal countless examples of this response in action. We think of fighting these days as barbaric, but in reality, fighting is quite an advanced response to perceived threat. Again, there are medications to fix people who have exhibited the tendency to respond with rage, and there are countless anger management programs available to people who have been told that they "suffer" from these "afflictions." Anger has been given a negative social stigma, when again, in reality, anger is a normal response to conflict, and if it is experienced and integrated, it can serve as a stepping stone to the fourth, and most highly evolved, way in which we can respond to the recognition of another.
Highly sophisticated networks in the Vagus nerve are now thought to be responsible for our ability to intrinsically calm the adrenaline rush associated with the freeze-fight-flight responses in our bodies and brains, and carefully scan the perceived threat, contemplating it. We look for connections and associations that can help us "re-cognize" another person. We have the ability to use language to ask questions and discover ways of connecting. Once enough data has been gathered, we can then consciously decide whether to embrace this new association, or to reject it. The utilization of this system requires the integration of the other three, not their inhibition or destruction.
Understanding, accepting, and embracing all of the wonderful ways in which we can feel connected to others are critical elements on the path to a full experience of the richness of life on this planet. It is important to understand that behind the pills, and behind the potions, are people with intentions. On the surface, it might seem that the people who create these medications have benevolent intentions, but when I take a closer look at the world we live in, and I see the consequences of these mind-altering substances, which always seem to be lurking in the background of mass casualty stories, I have to take a step back, and wonder if there might be a better way to help people thrive in the presence of others.
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