There have been brain experiments that suggest you make your decisions before your brain consciously articulates the decisions and reasons for them.
I’ve known people who I’m pretty confident make up reasons for their choices after the fact. But are they really lying if they believe what they’re saying?
The question is, am I any different than them? When I think about the reasons I made past choices, how can I be sure I’m not just making up shit now?
No, I’m not high. I haven’t had drugs in almost a week.
Oh, yeah. It’s because In our historical environment it was actually super important to be able to do that. Even now its super handy sometimes. There was one time my foot had been fully down on the break for several seconds before I consciously realized I had seen the eyes of a deer in the bushes next to the road.
It’s actually a super important concept I teach in violence deescalation classes. Our human brain has a natural capacity for risk assessment you just need to learn to evaluate it properly. My two examples are:
patient w/ dementia is asking a repetitive question. This makes me uneasy and I’m struggling to pin down why. After a bit I realize that if I was still working with criminally insane men, repetitive questioning means he’s not liking the answer he’s getting and trouble is coming. A dementia patient genuinely doesn’t remember asking. False alarm (but never call your brain stupid, always tell it thank you and make it a hot cup of tea or whatever your equivalent is).
patient w/ severe Psychosis has a hair trigger. One day they slammed their body into the heavy hardwood exit door hard enough to crack it away from the maglock. About a week later I’m walking past them standing in the hall and my brain just started screaming at me that I needed to do something right that second so I went and pulled an ativan and offered it, which they were suspicious of but took. I was going to document that the patient looked tense, which was enough with how rapid their escalation pattern was, but when I sat down to document I also realized, they were staring at the door. If I’d waited a few minutes later they probably would have been doing something very dangerous and I would’ve had to do an injection and a physical hold which is so much more stressful and less safe for both them and us.
TLDR; there’s also a book called “The Gift of Fear.” Anxiety is not your enemy, but you do need to learn to ask it,“Why?” and you need to learn how to address your brain’s concerns in a way that’s safe and intelligent. And on a public scale there’s a LOT of people who will try to take advantage of your anxiety and you need to evaluate their motives very carefully.
I was going to reference that book if you hadn’t. My mom was a big fan of it.
I still recall the kangaroo section, at least in part, and some of the anecdotes that are similar to yours.