Questioning Reality

         Interestingly, I also do a very similar thing to what ST describes in her blog post “Unifying Our Stories.” When I read books of myth and magic I automatically think of ways in which I could explain those events rationally. For example, when I imagine Hagar in Guitar’s bedroom unable to murder Milkman, my immediate reaction is that love has handicapped her and she is therefore unable to kill Milkman. I do not conclude that there is a magical, protective force surrounding Milkman that prevents Hagar from stabbing him. So too, when Guitar tied the noose around Milkman’s neck in an attempt to strangle him, and Milkman seemingly comes back to life, I picture Milkman receiving an adrenaline rush, a phenomenon common to people in life and death situations. This event is similar to being numb to pain when running through thorn bushes to escape a threatening situation. It is the result of our autonomic nervous system, a system that unconsciously regulates the body and is responsible for “fight or flight” responses. A “fight or flight” response is an unconscious physiological response to danger that involves an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and prepares the body to fight or flee. Furthermore, I’m not even phased by Pilate not possessing a navel, as there is a fellow staff member that I work with at camp that also doesn't have a navel. I believe the reason for my zealous tendency to rationalize is due to our brains constantly attempting to make sense of information that we process. 

  There is plenty of research in the psychological field of study that portrays this idea. There was someone named Joe who was suffering from severe seizures. He had his Corpus Callosum, the connection between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, severed as a surgical management option for his epilepsy. However, the left side of the brain processes things in the right visual field, and the right side of the brain processes things that appear in the left visual field. Without the connection between the two sides of the brain, information Joe viewed in his right visual field and processed in his left brain, could not reach the right side of his brain, and information Joe viewed in his left visual field could not reach the left side of his brain. Additionally, speech is processed in the left brain, while the right brain is more visual. Therefore, when the word BELL was flashed in Joe’s left visual field and the word MUSIC was flashed in his right visual field, and he was asked to point to the picture that corresponded with the word that he saw, he chose the picture of a bell rather than that of music. When he was asked why he chose that picture, he explained to the researcher that he saw the word music and subsequently and innocently concocts a story as to why the picture of the bell represents music. Joe believed he heard church bells outside a few minutes prior and therefore he associated bells with music. Curiously, no church bells had chimed. Joe knew he was in a lab and that they were manipulating his brain, and he still fabricates a reason for why he chose a picture of a bell for the word music. The brain feels a need to explain occurrences, and when the brain cannot come up with a plausible explanation it goes to such an extreme extent to rationalize the event that it invents answers that may not even exist. Unfortunately, this often unknowingly leads to wrong perceptions of reality.  

A similar idea is portrayed in Man’s Search for Meaning, a book by Viktor Frankl about his experiences in Auschwitz. Frankl explains that in order to survive the hells of the Holocaust, men had to maintain a vision of a future goal.

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, “I have nothing to expect from life any more.” What sort of answer can one give to that?

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

The only way for human beings to prevent despair in that situation was for their brain to dream up a future. Many men did so despite the fact that the chances for a positive outcome were slim to none. However, those that did survive the Holocaust were those that had familial visions, spiritual visions, and the like. 

        Perhaps myth and magic have more of a hold in reality than our brain allows us to believe.

       Woe is the power of the brain. Woe is the weakness of reality.