Harvesting the dark side for fruit
We have a precious genetic heritage in our tendency to take pause and, if necessary, withdraw when we are perplexed about our functioning. Although unintentional and often distressing, this tendency can help us become more observant of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories of the moment and integrate them in new ways to solve the puzzle, so that life can become more meaningful. Therefore, it is essential that we respect the development of this capacity in our children; that we help our partners and our patients to exercise it; and that we dare exercise it ourselves.
-Psychologist Emmy Gut, in her book Productive and Unproductive Depression: Success or Failure of a Vital Process, which also includes this quotation from cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga:
…the human brain’s unique capacity and insistence on making inferences from observed events is responsible for the two different constructions of creation theory and, finally, personal beliefs. Give the inference system orderly data…and it generates an orderly universe. Give it disorderly data, and the inference system constructs a vastly more complex notion of creation - one that emphasizes the helplessness of man.
Filed under: Life