Our evolving brain

Oct. 30, 2008

Dear Patty,

The reptilian brain is the part of ourselves we share with the creatures who preceded us on this evolutionary climb. It's the brain that controls the millions of interactions required to walk up a flight of stairs, where our fight or flight response resides, the brain that automatically orders up hormones like adrenaline when it thinks our survival is threatened.

The pictures in this brain are negatives. It's where we fear.

Fear saved our ancestors from being eaten by tigers and warns us against the wisdom of jumping out of airplanes. Some of us jump anyway.

Halloween is supposed to be about scariness but has evolved into a time of year when we make fun of fear. We feign fear at ghouls and laugh at grotesqueries.

Our friend Charlie is locally famous for hosting lively Halloween parties in the former church he owns on Mill Hill. The church is filled with curious goods he culls from basements and garage sales. Curious Goods was the name of the store where Charlie used to display the unusual things he loves.

The dimly lit church is spooky in a good way. At this year's party some of the Halloween revelers were, too, but these days many people dress up for Halloween to make others laugh or look twice more than to scare. Take the guy in lederhosen and the lovely nymphs. This year's unofficial prize winner was Marie Antoinette in towering platinum updo, short brocade dress and white stockings. He was astonishing.

Fear actually is bigger business the rest of the year. Advertisers use it mercilessly. Our fear of offending someone with an odor has made us afraid to sweat, though sweating is healthy for us. Our fear of someone driving a bigger and faster car has turned our thirst for black crude into an addiction.

What fear led one man to want to own another man?

Unlike reptiles, mammals developed an additional brain. The limbic brain operates just like the reptilian brain, but the pictures here are positive. Love, friendship and pleasure are alive in this brain. Our swampy ancestors knew nothing of the emotional attachments we couldn't live without.

We are still evolving, becoming whatever we imagine ourselves to be. Many prophets have shown us the path. They all say love, not fear, is the way. Rumi:

"You know what happens when we touch!

"You laugh like the sun coming up laughs

"at a star that disappears into it.

"Love opens my chest and thought

"returns to its confines.

"Patience and rational considerations leave.

"Only passion stays, whimpering and feverish …

"When you feel your lips becoming infinite

"And sweet, like moon in sky …

"Let me show you one tiny spot of beauty

"That can't be spoken."

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.