Each Other
Let’s pretend your mind is a car. Let’s call it the “Consciousness Car.” Your
Consciousness Car is driving along the road of life, and there are
intersections, on-ramps, and off-ramps. These roads and intersections
represent the decisions you must make as you drive, and they will determine
your destination.
Now, there are two travelers in your Consciousness Car: a Thinking Brain
and a Feeling Brain.^14 The Thinking Brain represents your conscious
thoughts, your ability to make calculations, and your ability to reason through
various options and express ideas through language. Your Feeling Brain
represents your emotions, impulses, intuition, and instincts. While your
Thinking Brain is calculating payment schedules on your credit card
statement, your Feeling Brain wants to sell everything and run away to Tahiti.
Each of your two brains has its strengths and weaknesses. The Thinking
Brain is conscientious, accurate, and impartial. It is methodical and rational,
but it is also slow. It requires a lot of effort and energy, and like a muscle, it
must be built up over time and can become fatigued if overexerted.^15 The
Feeling Brain, however, arrives at its conclusions quickly and effortlessly.
The problem is that it is often inaccurate and irrational. The Feeling Brain is
also a bit of a drama queen and has a bad habit of overreacting.
When we think of ourselves and our decision making, we generally
assume that the Thinking Brain is driving our Consciousness Car and the
Feeling Brain is sitting in the passenger seat shouting out where it wants to
go. We’re driving along, accomplishing our goals and figuring out how to get
home, when that damn Feeling Brain sees something shiny or sexy or fun-
looking and yanks the steering wheel in another direction, thus causing us to
careen into oncoming traffic, harming other people’s Consciousness Cars as
well as our own.
This is the Classic Assumption, the belief that our reason is ultimately in
control of our life and that we must train our emotions to sit the fuck down
and shut up while the adult is driving. We then applaud this kidnapping and
abuse of our emotions by congratulating ourselves on our self-control.
But our Consciousness Car doesn’t work that way. When his tumor was
removed, Elliot’s Feeling Brain got thrown out of his moving mental vehicle,
and nothing got better for him. In fact, his Consciousness Car stalled out.
Lobotomy patients had their Feeling Brains tied up and thrown in the car’s
trunk, and that merely caused them to become sedated and lazy, unable to get
out of bed or even dress themselves much of the time.