The Brain Virus Page 4

makes perfect sense. It has been justified by the greatest legal minds, since the very first states existed.

  Once we cease believing in legal truth, we may find ourselves so incensed by the mindlessness of our existence—not with just this example, but countless others to which we were once blind—that we find ourselves compelled to do something radical. To find relief from the spiritual insult of it all, we might decide, not just to divorce ourselves from all personal legal arrangements—as many people already have—but also from legal systems, entirely, by trusting our lives to a body of people. This, I figure, is exactly how humans behaved before our minds were infected with the legal-truth virus, in the first place.

  Awareness of Life’s Laws is Paramount to Recovery

  So what do we do? Not only are conceptual transitions difficult journeys, they are never intended. They just happen to us, when the time is right. Consequently, there is nothing we can ever do about it. Can an infected computer heal itself? Does a child stop believing in Santa Claus, by conscious choice? Of course not. The child’s subconscious mind is taking comfort in the belief that Santa exists. Consequently, only when the subconscious mind sees through its illusions—be they belief in Santa Claus, or in the state—will we cease finding comfort in them. Then, and only then, is the conscious mind let in on reality. To presume that we can deliberately bring about the needed change is to presume that we—our conscious minds—are in control of life, that we are gods.

  Thousands of years ago, the authors of Genesis could not have been more clear when they explained how, by thinking we are gods, we expelled ourselves from Eden: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil—Genesis 3:5. Why do well-meaning and caring people who view the Bible as the sacred word of God, continue to proclaim the knowledge of good and evil—the very knowledge that the Bible warned us to avoid, by calling it the forbidden fruit? That this type of thing happens to all brains, not just religiously-inspired ones, demonstrates how illogical the brain can be, never even glimpsing a hint of its irrationality. It also explains the brain’s vulnerability to the legal-truth virus.

  Through the brain’s ability to reason, it seeks only one thing—to figure out how to satisfy its feelings of the moment. When living in the moment, reason serves the brain well. It is immediately evident whether a specific activity satisfies a feeling such as hunger, anger, caring, or romance. If satisfaction doesn’t result from present activities, then the brain can try something else. But reason fails, whenever the brain is trying to control the future.

  A brain that has assumed the task of controlling the indefinite future has to assume a belief regarding what law, or religious/ideological system of laws, will provide the desired control. Only by its utter devotion to, and trust in, such a belief, can the brain prevent itself from going into a state of panic, regarding the uncertainties of the future. Unfortunately, it is not known whether the activity dictated by a system of laws results in the intended future, until the indefinite future becomes the present, which it never does.

  The fact that there is never any concrete evidence to refute any belief, and that the brain must totally invest itself in some belief, in order to manage its anxiety about the future, explains why the brain gets hung up on beliefs, particularly the belief in legal truth—the granddaddy of them all. Furthermore, the more uncertain the future becomes, the more our brains crave the comfort provided by our beliefs. This only further tightens the legal-truth virus’s grip on our minds—a self-energized sequence of events that, unless it can somehow be broken, will surely seal our fate.

  Animals do not know about life’s laws, but they don’t have to. Without the linguistic ability that makes it possible even to attempt to control the distant future, animals can’t break them. But, for our “languaged brains” which have broken them, knowing that the laws of life exist is paramount.

  With that knowledge, our brains have a choice that heretofore did not exist. Either continue satisfying our concerns about the future, by believing in law and order, or find comfort by believing in the laws of life. If our brains choose to find comfort in the promise of instituted laws, then our lives will remain much as they are, regardless of what we do. If we, instead, find comfort by believing in the laws of life, given time, that belief might transform our existence.

  A Spiritual Home

  How will believing in the laws of life transform existence? First, trusting the laws of life involves surrendering our designs on the future, a surrender without which real intimacy, among people, is impossible. Relinquishing our legal identities—which is to surrender our designs on the future—frees us to trust our lives to the feelings of those we love. Having placed our trust in life’s laws, we will once-again behave like members of the social species that we are. We will serve ourselves by doing what we love most, which is to take care of others. In the simple act of living, we will make a real difference in the lives of those around us. We will feel connected to life, instead of like only observers of a world that inexplicably seems to have gone mad, and over which we have little, if any, control.

  At long last, we will have a spiritual home, the kind of home humans lived in when our emotions were evolving over hundreds of thousands of years. We will no longer be consigned to threading our way through a chaotic and emotionally hostile world—one that we don’t emotionally understand—as best we can, to get to life’s end with whatever semblance of pleasures and dignities we can manage.

  In our spiritual home, we will have a sense of belonging without need for religious, ideological, or national identities. We’ll have a sense of significance, without advanced degrees, achieving wealth, or climbing Mt. Everest. We will know that we care, because of the pleasure we’ll take in caring for those around us, every day of our lives. We will also know that we are cared for, even at the end, when we take our leave in the presence of those we love.

  By virtue of evolution, a spiritual home is the only place in the universe where our spirits fit. This is the place our hearts know as home, where we can contribute simply by being ourselves. In a spiritual home, no one has to pretend that he or she feels anything other than how they actually feel—even when angry. (Anger is as legitimate an expression of the laws of life, as any other feeling) The happiness of loving, and of being loved, cannot happen when we must pretend—lie about our feelings of the moment in the hope our lie will please someone, as if the laws of life didn’t exist.

  Something to keep in mind:

  If being true to life is our goal, then unconditional love—which is life’s ultimate reward for being true to life—is our only measure of success.

  Our Own Worst Enemies

  You see, modern humans are not participating in life according to our deepest, most heartfelt sensibilities, as humans did for our first 200,000 years. Instead, the legal-truth virus keeps us trying to protect ourselves from life by obeying written laws that specify what is good and what is evil. By finding comfort in the belief that it is necessary to protect ourselves from life, our infected brains are oblivious to something important—life is all there is. It seems to me that what the authors of Genesis were really saying, is: By presuming to know good and evil, we, as presumed gods, are trying to protect ourselves from all there is.

  Our presumption that we are in control of life—that we, like gods, are above Nature and Nature’s governance—obliges us to feel that we must govern ourselves. Unfortunately, this is a task for which Nature never prepared us, as is evident by our unhappiness and our destructiveness. Because it is not in the nature of life to destroy itself, life’s laws limit the destructiveness of all animate beings, other than modern humans: Under the rule of “sovereign” states, we are no longer subject to the limits life’s laws would normally place on our behavior. As a result, our capacity for destructiveness is virtually without limits. In a strange way, through our presumption that we must protect ourselves from life, we have become the very embodiment of w
hat we most fear.

  Under Nature’s governance, humans did not live in fear, and particularly not in fear of the future. Having no legal claims on the future, they had no reason to even concern themselves with it, leaving them free to live in the moment. Indeed, instead of trying to control the future, they dealt with its uncertainties as they unfolded into each moment, bolstered by an abiding sense that, as members of organic human families, they could deal with anything the future could possibly throw at them. No, this doesn’t mean they could actually deal with every possible future event. But, how we feel is what’s important, not the facts—regarding the future, there are no facts, only beliefs.

  Science writer David DiSalvo explains the centrality of feelings to the human condition, in his book: What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should do the Opposite:

  “A happy brain interprets uncertainty as a threat and wants us to get back to “right.” But what we often overlook is that what we are really trying to recover is the feeling of being right—because it is the emotional response of rightness that shuts off the alarms and puts us at ease. It’s easy to confuse this