We walk around bearing a three pound configuration of matter inside our fragile skulls that is as complex and ever-changing as the universe itself. We can’t help but wonder, sometimes aghast, sometimes in awe, at the enormous variations of behaviors, the random feelings, and thoughts coursing through our brains and those of others. The complexity of our brains astounds.
I was fortunate to have grown up with one of those old-time docs. He made house calls every morning and had walk-in office hours afternoons and evenings. He delivered babies at 2 a.m. on a winter night if need be. He sat with the dying. He was a medical examiner and told us of the grotesque deaths, both by accidents and by suicide, that he witnessed.
I rode with him on his rounds whenever I could from an early age. I questioned him about his patients; their morbidities, their fears, their endurance and their unending generosity. There were also, of course, hints of violence in some homes and addiction in others. I wanted to know everything about being human from our births to our deaths. I wanted to understand the mysteries and contradictions of human nature. I knew when quite young that life could become too much for some and that others held on to it as long as possible despite pain and loneliness.
After 30 years of practice and having gained a relaxed acceptance of human frailty, my father, never one to philosophize, said, “Remember, there is more good in people than bad.” I believe that and also that there are far many more kind people than callous ones. It is not always easy to remember this as we are often troubled and terrified by the atrocities and acts of terror saturating the news.
But the Peaceable Kingdom never existed. Homo sapiens, without an immensely powerful cultural taboo against aggression, will often behave violently to assure personal or tribal success. To dominate. We will assault the environment that sustains us until it is destroyed if we imagine by doing so we will assure our survival. We will assault other people who, if we so decide that they threaten our livelihood or if they encroach on our territory. Slavery is found among many peoples around the world. Millions were transported to their death to assert the imaginary Aryan superiority of the few. We declare enemies that don’t exist. We are a species that too easily becomes irrational when fearful. And all too easily becomes fearful.
Some hypothesize that fear became one fallback response because our ancestors evolved in a hostile environment millions of years ago. Consider Lucy— a tiny 3.2 million year old hominid relative without talons, without wings, without large canine teeth, and without fur, stepping onto an open savannah where predators abounded.
We began as relatively helpless beings with slowly enlarging forebrains. Gradually we became a species capable of communicating with words and able to compare memories and feelings and develop myths and written signs. As we evolved, these capabilities allowed us to dominate other animals and modify the geography of the planet after only 300,000 years of Homo sapiens existence. However, we did not lose the traits we inherited through the millions of years of our slow evolution toward mammalian life. The ancient reptilian part of our brain remains forever on alert and too often overcomes our empathy for one another when our circumstances become uncertain or dangerous.
Opinions of and biases toward the imagined Other are not only determined by our evolution, but by our families of origin, our deep primate need for a sustaining and enduring community, our spiritual beliefs, and our all too often unexamined national myths. Our culture. The complexity of our singular brains is always colliding with the astounding complexity of our environment.
Each of us wrestles with our own confusion and with humankind’s innate contradictions.I find it helpful to remind myself of the words of the writer and physician, Anton Chekhov: “To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a god.”
And though lacking godlike insight, we can try to pay the utmost attention to the intricacies of our minds and nurture a generosity of spirit toward the human condition.
Margot Fleck lives in Northfield.