Swing Up//Spiral Down.

The Limbic System,
second layer of our brain,
generates emotions.

But anything extreme is unhealthy.

It's sad to be emotionally shut down
just as it's sad to be overtly emotional.

Feeling something without knowing
why
[where the Cerebral Cortex,
the intellectual department kicks in
to analyse and understand]

usually either makes us
clueless, helpless, confused, frustrated,
or
impulsive -

we do things we later regret;
we find ourselves asking,

'Oh my. What was I thinking?'
[well, we didn't think.
If we did,
then we must have thought wrong].

Most of the time,
we don't know why we feel the way we do.
But I think we shouldn't
stop at
'I don't know.'
because it becomes a convenient excuse
for everything we do wrong.
And as long as you remain clueless,
the feelings could overwhelm and
kill not just you,
but the people in your life.

See,
we either
'swing up'
or
'spiral down'.

That explains why some of us
may experience the worst pains in life
and bounce back quickly -

we swing up
think positively [Cerebral Cortex],
feel positively [Limbic System],

and ultimately,
act positively [Brain Stem].

But for those of us who are
weaker in operating our Limbic System,
circumstances throws us off
into a panic attack easily.
We tend to be haphazard in our response.
We run amok.
We worry too much.
Our mood swings, like mad.

You can say,
we can get quite illogical because
our Limbic System [or feelings]
rule over our Cerebral Cortex [truth, logic and common sense].

That's why people commit atrocities.
Murder, suicide, abuse, and anything awful thing you can think of.
Everyone has the potential to.

Bringing it closer to everday living,
do you remember the time
you slammed the door/
slapped someone/
said something stupid/
flung a chair across the room/
sent a text message/

and later
regret and wondered
why you did what you did?

We spiral down.
Limbic System + Brain Stem
makes us a bull in a china shop.

Imagine the disaster of crushing
everything in your life -
just because you always
spiral down.

And what a huge difference it'd be
to muster a little more effort
to swing up.

*

I love biology.
Isn't it interesting to know
how our body functions,
so we can understand ourselves better?

The brain isn't just a lump of nerves, blood and goo.
It's wonderfully complex and amazing.


Already, at a few per cent,
it is so complex and powerful.
Can you imagine what it'd be like
if we were allowed to maximise its capacity and potential
at 100%?

And the
Mastermind and Designer
of a human race of brilliant brains

made himself
vulnerable to us,
took a risk with us,
allowed us to own the freewill to
rely or deny life and death

all because
he loves us.

*