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In 1996, Joseph LeDoux's The
Emotional Brain presented a revelatory examination of the
biological bases of our emotions and memories. Now, the
world-renowned expert on the brain has produced a
groundbreaking work that tells a more profound story: how the
little spaces between the neurons - the brain's synapses - are
the channels through which we think, act, imagine, feel, and
remember.
Synapses encode the essence of
personality, enabling each of us to function as a distinctive,
integrated individual from moment to moment. Exploring
the functioning of memory, the synaptic basis of mental
illness and drug addiction, and the mechanism of
self-awareness, Synaptic Self is a provocative and
mind-expanding work that is destined to become a classic.
- Google
Years ago, I read almost all of
Synaptic Self...
The major takeaway for me was the
two roads he spoke about--the low road, a 15-millisecond
connection, and the high road, a 100-millisecond gate.
What I learned and use on myself
today is this theory.
The emotional decision-making
system is connected to that low-road gate, and is most likely
irrational at best, if not autonomic in many cases, connecting
us clearly with the 4 Fs: Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, and
Procreation, as Choprah would remark. There is probably
not much more to say about that. I think everyone gets that.
The high road allows us to "ponder"
if even for a short time, the rational processes we learn over
time, that make up the executive brain and all of it's
trade-off, decision-making, and problem solving catacombs.
Recently, a number of authors,
including Khaneman writing in Thinking Fast and Slow
has taken this theory and shown how each path is used and
abused in the process.
The important part of this system
is beginning to understand and accept those things that find
their way into the low road of reactiveness and what can
follow the high road of contemplation.
We can't "catch" the low road
issues, once they are through that gate; it's pretty tough to
do anything but watch yourself being had. Yet an amazing
number of things over time, which would have gone to that low
road, can be salvaged in the process of "noticing" yourself,
your reactions to things, and beginning to understand what
"triggers" you.
Once you have an experience, where
you catch something from leaving your mouth without a
parachute...you'll understand what I mean...and you'll say,
bingo, those high road things give me time to shut the door
before the horses leave the barn, rather than the low road
realization that it's too late.
We have these 2 Roads 2 Glory for a
reason.
However, we have to notice what is
happening in ourselves to optimize how to use them well.
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