Do you talk to yourself in a sweet, sappy way? Telling yourself that you love yourself? Do you spend the whole day giving yourself kisses and little strokes on the inside?
What Brain Scientists Will Never Understand
A few years ago, I decided to turn my life around. Completely.
I started exercising every day, eating differently, changed my entire circle of friends, treated people differently, became persistent, started living with extreme awareness, took quiet moments, went to bed on time, learned new things, took up a martial art, quit drinking and drugs, began living according to a religious ritual (with pauses during the day) and occasionally a “day off,” and shifted my focus toward caring for other people.
Now it feels as if I have a completely different brain. Literally every thought I have is different. Every feeling I have is different.
What science often assumes is that you simply have a brain, and that everything is biologically determined. But that’s not true. A brain only exists in relation to other things. Depression is an illness because your relationship with people and with meaning is not aligned. Anorexia is an illness because your relationship with emotions and food is unhealthy. Anxiety is a disturbed relationship with tension and excitement—and a refusal to acknowledge that you are afraid.
Everyone who has radically changed their life knows that, while you remain the same at your core, it feels as though you have a new brain and a new body. There is nothing purely biological or genetic about that. Moreover, many things we consider “biological” are also shaped by behavior and upbringing. In some families, people build very healthy relationships with emotions and food. Do you think there are more or fewer cases of anorexia there?
It is impossible to imagine how different people are. We may look somewhat the same, but we are not.
You could, in fact, diagnose everyone with a completely unique psychiatric disorder. That would mean there are billions of different psychiatric illnesses. Is this a smart way to look at reality? Of course not.
The difference between religion and science is that religion sees the brilliance in things. Science only wants to know how things work. You think that if you know how something works, you also know what it is. But when I look at a Van Gogh, that is not what happens.