It's considered cool to live-in-the-moment. But wait a minute! Exactly what is this moment in history? What is this culture we call The West? The books say it's the intellectual and artistic tastes of the moment. OK, but what do you say?
While you're thinking, let me presume my own answer. Right now we're living in a culture which has increasingly decided we're what our neurobiology is. In other words, the new holy book is not the Bible, the Talmud or even Freud. It's Charles Darwin.
No denying Charlie his great due. So much of what we are is the everyday consequences of our evolved brain lobes, cells and genes. And if you still doubt it, the current issue of TIME has now made it official for the mass reading public. In six smartly illustrated pages. it makes the case for how emotional drives like human anxiety can be entirely traced to their neurobiological components.
Look -- nothing's wrong with neurobiology. It's advancing our knowledge and our health every new day. And yet, most great advances bring with them some ironic backlash. Like the nuclear scientists brought us not only great energy but also terrible weapons, neurobiological scientists are bringing us not only great medical advances but also a culture in which we're becoming little more than what our brain circuitry and genetic codes are.
Evolutionists smile: It's been a long time growing up and at last casting off from our ancient moorings to gods and spirits. As they put is: We're really all just part of this one planetary mass of evolving matter, so lets get comfortable with it.
Maybe.
But then there are those scientists who are willing to look deeper. To consider the thought what matters in us is more than just matter! Take a recent Stanford study which looked at the claim Will Power is less in our mind and more in our neurobiological supply of sugar glucose. [Sure enough, many coaches believe: the more sugar, the more fight in the game]. Not so said the gang at Stanford. There is something about us and our will to succeed that can't simply be measured under a scope.
Well now...! Is Stanford one small step for man in rediscovering there really is something more to us than we can see, smell and test...? Sorry to say, that study didn't make it into this week's TIME.
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I am 66 years old. I live with depression and anxiety all the time. I have been hospitalized and I still suffer anxiety. I have been on many drugs and now I am on an SSRI for about 5 years now. The doctor upped my dosage to 150mg. I have been thinking weird thoughts, which I have been doing most of my life. I am constantly tired. My body can only handle small doses of meds at a time. I am afraid that I will have to deal with this for the rest of my life.
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Varleo ~ I know very well what you are saying here. Members of my own extended family are among the 44 million fellow anxiety-sufferers. What I've learned through them is that yes it IS a lifelong struggle, but there ARE strategies for managing it. In many ways everybody is struggling to "manage" some burden in their life. Stay strong
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