Did you know?
Did You Know?
By W. Owen Thornton BA
Human kindness must be about individual happiness. And there are a great many things out there that negatively impact our happiness.
Executive Salaries Harm Happiness and Human Kindness:
The first tidbit I have to share is a surprising one. Did you know that a recent study has discovered that the wider the discrepancy between executive salaries and the minimum wage, the greater the unhappiness of the populace? Independent surveys confirm this fact to be true. The wider the range of salaries between the highest and lowest paid people in a culture, the greater the unhappiness. This study was done over dozens of countries and the evidence seems clear.
Yes sir, those ludicrous salaries that we see executives receiving actually diminish the happiness of the entire populace. I don't know the reasons why, but I can speculate. I'm supposing that the more people feel they are falling behind those "reported" executive salaries the more stress and anxiety they feel. Perhaps, though this idea may be subtle, the rest of us feel just a little less today than we did yesterday ... like we don't measure up. Now, when we feel badly about ourselves, it would seem logical to me that we would be less likely to be reaching out towards others in acts of human kindness.
Human kindness must be about being true to ourselves. But can normal, natural processes which look protective of our "selves" actually prevent us from feeling our own emotions from our own experiences?
Mirror Neurons: Does becoming an Adult Deaden Us ... to a Degree?
I think human kindness means retaining some of our naivete ... some of our child-like wonder of the world. But is that filtered out of us?
I've reported here before that we all have mirror neurons which, when we see something happen to others, or we see them doing something, a part of our minds echoes that thing that is happening to others, or we feel the same things as the other person is doing. So, witness someone being fired and being escorted off the premises of your workplace and you feel the same emotions, to a lesser extent, as the person the action is really happening to. Now a child feels it 100 per cent and may well react with the same frightened and tearful response. But as we mature, we place filters in our mental system that limits our reaction. This means that while the same parts of our brain are kicking out slightly less of the same chemicals and hormones as those in the brain of the person actually being escorted off the corporate premises, that we "realize" we are NOT the ones ACTUALLY being fired.
So the question I want to ask is this: as we experience more and more events in life and we realize that they are not happening to us ... do we train our minds to not be impacted by these vicarious experiences? And does it follow that if we train our minds to not experience that which someone else is feeling, do we then train our "selves" to not experience things as deeply when they actually happen to us?
Is this why it takes more and more to surprise and shock us as we get older?
Here's what I mean and I hope the danger of what might be happening to us is clear. Say I see someone be fired. My brain kicks out the same adrenaline and other chemicals and hormones into my system but to a lesser extent. But my "knowledge" allows me to realize that "I" am NOT being fired. Do I train the receptors, the parts of me that uptake the chemicals and hormones that make me "feel" like the other person to cease taking those chemicals up inside of me? That seems unlikely. The physicality of something designed to do whatever it is designed to do, wouldn't seem to me to change. I still "feel" the same way through those receptors, but through experience, I learn to shut down my reaction to those feelings. This would seem to be a good thing because that experience really isn't happening to me!
So, each time I shut down my reaction to those feelings ... those protective mental filters I have put in place prevent me from reacting foolishly when something is happening to someone else. But wouldn't those protective mental filters still be there when that sort of situation actually does happen to me?
To be clear. I watch someone be fired. Mirror neurons compel me to experience the same thing to a lesser extent. Chemicals and hormones are released in my brain. Other parts of my brain pick up those chemicals and hormones and I feel sad, frustrated, frightened, worried, hurt ... Now, adult maturity kicks in and because I have more experience and knowledge, I realize that the experience isn't really happening to me. I place some kind of mental filter between myself and those feelings. This would seem to be a good and protective system. After all, it wouldn't do us any good to react to something happening to someone else as though it were happening to me right now too, or otherwise we'd be emotional wrecks.
So my question is: with these filters in place, protecting us from experiencing the feelings vicariously through others, how would our minds know to lower the filters when, say, a couple of years later, I am actually fired? Now we "should" be feeling sad, frustrated, frightened, worried, and hurt ... but I have this filter in place that downgrades this experience. In fact, I've watched lots of people in my company be fired. So when it finally happens to me ... am I a calm, rational, automaton?
So when a friend reacts negatively and strongly to our being fired ... a friend not so tainted by similar experiences ... do we hear ourselves trying to calm down our friend by saying, "It's not the end of the world! I'm going to be okay, you know. It doesn't really bother me that much."
Has our filtration system used to prevent us from reacting negatively every time we see an incident happen to someone else ... well has that filtration system, that mental capacity somehow detached us from our "selves" ... our own feelings? And if we're downplaying our own feelings, wouldn't this lead to a partial or complete denial to the emotional experiences we are really having? And so ... suddenly when we have every right to feel bad, we're denying our emotional experience ... downgrading it ... we're separating our "selves" from our "self". This seems strange to me, but leads me to wonder if this separation from our own life isn't something that leads us to denying what is happening to us ... denying what I am feeling ... And when we deny our own experiences and emotions, we are hiding from our "selves" and our own lives. We are not feeling ... not living as richly and as deeply as we might live.
In part, this makes sense. It feels as though we should want to hide from this sort of deep emotional pool. Conversely, we can wallow too deeply in pools of emotion and this wouldn't be helpful either. It's almost as though we need to intelligently know when to allow ourselves to experience emotions and to what degree. And THAT sounds like crazy talk to me: intelligently allowing ourselves to experience our emotions to the right degree. Aristotle would have something to say about virtue ethics here: doing the right thing, to the right degree, to or with the right person, at the right time and in the right way ... this is what makes us virtuous.
So a natural filtration system establishes a barrier to our emotions for perfectly logical reasons -- we don't want to be seen reacting the same when we see someone else hurt -- but this barrier could well deaden us to our own experiences if we let it.
How does all this cycle back to human kindness? If we're denying ourselves our own emotional experiences ... down-playing our own lives as it were ... we're not living our lives to the fullest extent. And when we're not living our lives to our fullest extent, including the times when we're happy and delighted, we're less likely to reach out and be kind to others.
How do we overcome this natural phenomena? I don't know. Humanity is ... hard. We are strange animals.
By W. Owen Thornton BA
Human kindness must be about individual happiness. And there are a great many things out there that negatively impact our happiness.
Executive Salaries Harm Happiness and Human Kindness:
The first tidbit I have to share is a surprising one. Did you know that a recent study has discovered that the wider the discrepancy between executive salaries and the minimum wage, the greater the unhappiness of the populace? Independent surveys confirm this fact to be true. The wider the range of salaries between the highest and lowest paid people in a culture, the greater the unhappiness. This study was done over dozens of countries and the evidence seems clear.
Yes sir, those ludicrous salaries that we see executives receiving actually diminish the happiness of the entire populace. I don't know the reasons why, but I can speculate. I'm supposing that the more people feel they are falling behind those "reported" executive salaries the more stress and anxiety they feel. Perhaps, though this idea may be subtle, the rest of us feel just a little less today than we did yesterday ... like we don't measure up. Now, when we feel badly about ourselves, it would seem logical to me that we would be less likely to be reaching out towards others in acts of human kindness.
Human kindness must be about being true to ourselves. But can normal, natural processes which look protective of our "selves" actually prevent us from feeling our own emotions from our own experiences?
Mirror Neurons: Does becoming an Adult Deaden Us ... to a Degree?
I think human kindness means retaining some of our naivete ... some of our child-like wonder of the world. But is that filtered out of us?
I've reported here before that we all have mirror neurons which, when we see something happen to others, or we see them doing something, a part of our minds echoes that thing that is happening to others, or we feel the same things as the other person is doing. So, witness someone being fired and being escorted off the premises of your workplace and you feel the same emotions, to a lesser extent, as the person the action is really happening to. Now a child feels it 100 per cent and may well react with the same frightened and tearful response. But as we mature, we place filters in our mental system that limits our reaction. This means that while the same parts of our brain are kicking out slightly less of the same chemicals and hormones as those in the brain of the person actually being escorted off the corporate premises, that we "realize" we are NOT the ones ACTUALLY being fired.
So the question I want to ask is this: as we experience more and more events in life and we realize that they are not happening to us ... do we train our minds to not be impacted by these vicarious experiences? And does it follow that if we train our minds to not experience that which someone else is feeling, do we then train our "selves" to not experience things as deeply when they actually happen to us?
Is this why it takes more and more to surprise and shock us as we get older?
Here's what I mean and I hope the danger of what might be happening to us is clear. Say I see someone be fired. My brain kicks out the same adrenaline and other chemicals and hormones into my system but to a lesser extent. But my "knowledge" allows me to realize that "I" am NOT being fired. Do I train the receptors, the parts of me that uptake the chemicals and hormones that make me "feel" like the other person to cease taking those chemicals up inside of me? That seems unlikely. The physicality of something designed to do whatever it is designed to do, wouldn't seem to me to change. I still "feel" the same way through those receptors, but through experience, I learn to shut down my reaction to those feelings. This would seem to be a good thing because that experience really isn't happening to me!
So, each time I shut down my reaction to those feelings ... those protective mental filters I have put in place prevent me from reacting foolishly when something is happening to someone else. But wouldn't those protective mental filters still be there when that sort of situation actually does happen to me?
To be clear. I watch someone be fired. Mirror neurons compel me to experience the same thing to a lesser extent. Chemicals and hormones are released in my brain. Other parts of my brain pick up those chemicals and hormones and I feel sad, frustrated, frightened, worried, hurt ... Now, adult maturity kicks in and because I have more experience and knowledge, I realize that the experience isn't really happening to me. I place some kind of mental filter between myself and those feelings. This would seem to be a good and protective system. After all, it wouldn't do us any good to react to something happening to someone else as though it were happening to me right now too, or otherwise we'd be emotional wrecks.
So my question is: with these filters in place, protecting us from experiencing the feelings vicariously through others, how would our minds know to lower the filters when, say, a couple of years later, I am actually fired? Now we "should" be feeling sad, frustrated, frightened, worried, and hurt ... but I have this filter in place that downgrades this experience. In fact, I've watched lots of people in my company be fired. So when it finally happens to me ... am I a calm, rational, automaton?
So when a friend reacts negatively and strongly to our being fired ... a friend not so tainted by similar experiences ... do we hear ourselves trying to calm down our friend by saying, "It's not the end of the world! I'm going to be okay, you know. It doesn't really bother me that much."
Has our filtration system used to prevent us from reacting negatively every time we see an incident happen to someone else ... well has that filtration system, that mental capacity somehow detached us from our "selves" ... our own feelings? And if we're downplaying our own feelings, wouldn't this lead to a partial or complete denial to the emotional experiences we are really having? And so ... suddenly when we have every right to feel bad, we're denying our emotional experience ... downgrading it ... we're separating our "selves" from our "self". This seems strange to me, but leads me to wonder if this separation from our own life isn't something that leads us to denying what is happening to us ... denying what I am feeling ... And when we deny our own experiences and emotions, we are hiding from our "selves" and our own lives. We are not feeling ... not living as richly and as deeply as we might live.
In part, this makes sense. It feels as though we should want to hide from this sort of deep emotional pool. Conversely, we can wallow too deeply in pools of emotion and this wouldn't be helpful either. It's almost as though we need to intelligently know when to allow ourselves to experience emotions and to what degree. And THAT sounds like crazy talk to me: intelligently allowing ourselves to experience our emotions to the right degree. Aristotle would have something to say about virtue ethics here: doing the right thing, to the right degree, to or with the right person, at the right time and in the right way ... this is what makes us virtuous.
So a natural filtration system establishes a barrier to our emotions for perfectly logical reasons -- we don't want to be seen reacting the same when we see someone else hurt -- but this barrier could well deaden us to our own experiences if we let it.
How does all this cycle back to human kindness? If we're denying ourselves our own emotional experiences ... down-playing our own lives as it were ... we're not living our lives to the fullest extent. And when we're not living our lives to our fullest extent, including the times when we're happy and delighted, we're less likely to reach out and be kind to others.
How do we overcome this natural phenomena? I don't know. Humanity is ... hard. We are strange animals.
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