20231009 : Conflicting priorities...

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Before my stroke, I was a regular bloke with lots of work, lots of goals, lots of priorities and lots of distractions. This was both office work and personal life at home.

Like with any regular bloke, I had ample share of distractions, procrastination, laziness etc, etc 

After the stroke, it has come down significantly . I am not professing to be above all these. It has come down significantly though. Very significantly. I keep getting the complaint from everyone about my very painful following ups, urgency with everything, pestering about progress as follow up to something or updates etc.

I have thought about it. It's not like I was setting such crazy expectations and the bar so high earlier. I had assumed it was just natural because of the effect of not being able to do anything & understanding the value of time and abilities because I am like this. It made sense and I had made peace with that explanation to my mind.

Some days back, I was watching a podcast type talk show, which was with a Dr Alok Sharma - who is a neurosurgeon and very renowned for his work in related areas.
(Note: i am am not promoting this video/ talk show and have no connection with them. Just sharing the link if you are interested to watch)
Link below 👇🏼
https://youtu.be/Y4eC-qblPHU?si=NxqCPsJ9i5Y5mbuk

In this talk , what caught my attention was the bit where he explains our brains having 2 very distinct areas to make decisions. Physically one but logically two separate brains.
1. Lower brain or primitive brain
2. Upper brain or logical brain.

He mentions that most of our tendancies like laziness, procrastination, greed, etc, are caused because of the conflicting priorities between these two brains - the logical being more in our control whereas the primitive one driven mostly by animal instincts and not easily in our control.

I was thinking about this. Physically speaking, the lower instinctive brain is mainly the brain stem (medulla, pons etc). The upper logical brain is the various other parts of brain cortex in the cerebrum and cerebellum.

The lower, primitive, instinctive brain is where I had my stroke. I have known it affected various primitive functions like breathing, diaphragm control , swallowing, sexual urges, temperature regulation of the body, maintenance of circadian ryhthem etc. I am aware of how I am seeing the impacts in all those areas . However I had not thought on these lines...

What if, just speculating, what if like the rest of affected functions of the brain stem, it has also affected and impacted the influence of instinctive reactions. Not that it has completed gone but sufficiently restricted those instincts?

No instinctive reactions, nothing to oppose the logical part of the brain and naturally no effects of those conflicts - like laziness, procrastination, distractions, etc.

I have not turned pedantic because of choices and lofty habits and morals. I am transformed this way because of the stroke. Even if I want to take it easy, procrastinate, distract myself, the bloody logical brain will prevail unopposed and prevent me from doing it.

If my speculation is correct, what a brilliant outcome and gift to me by the stroke.... 

Comments

  1. Prachi14/11/23 10:25

    Loved the article, Sree and your thoughts; yes I agree most of our lives we just waste being an automaton, action and reaction more like an animal instinct; even the quality of work which is produced with this emotional effervescence and all the noise and show we make of it is poor quality; I recall I read a book some time back , it is a tedious read- vivek Chudamani and reading your article above couldn’t help but think how it connects; as per the book the sole purpose of human life is control of our inferior or primitive mind( animal instinct ); there is a lot more but v difficult to articulate with my limited comprehension of the book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sreekanth19/11/23 17:22

      Thank you Prachi. You are right i guess. All of human efforts is to try and elevate ourselves from the primitive/ instinctive reactions to controlled responses

      Delete

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