Feeling Brain makes hierarchical connections (better/worse, more
desirable/less desirable, morally superior/morally inferior).^13 Our Thinking
Brain thinks horizontally (how are these things related?), while our Feeling
Brain thinks vertically (which of these things is better/worse?). Our Thinking
Brain decides how things are, and our Feeling Brain decides how things
ought to be.
When we have experiences, our Feeling Brain creates a sort of value
hierarchy for them.^14 It’s as though we have a massive bookshelf in our
subconscious where the best and most important experiences in life (with
family, friends, burritos) are on the top shelf and the least desirable
experiences (death, taxes, indigestion) are on the bottom. Our Feeling Brain
then makes its decisions by simply pursuing experiences on the highest shelf
possible.
Both brains have access to the value hierarchy. While the Feeling Brain
determines what shelf something is on, the Thinking Brain is able to point out
how certain experiences are connected and to suggest how the value hierarchy
should be reorganized. This is essentially what “growth” is: reprioritizing
one’s value hierarchy in an optimal way.^15
For example, I once had a friend who was probably the hardest partier I’d
ever known. She would stay out all night and then go straight to work from
the party in the morning, with zero hours of sleep. She thought it lame to
wake up early or stay home on a Friday night. Her value hierarchy went
something like this:
Really awesome DJs
Really good drugs
Work
SleepOne could predict her behavior solely from this hierarchy. She’d rather
work than sleep. She’d rather party and get fucked up than work. And
everything was about the music.
Then she did one of those volunteer abroad things, where young people
spend a couple of months working with orphans in a Third World country and
—well, that changed everything. The experience was so emotionally powerful
that it completely rearranged her value hierarchy. Her hierarchy now looked
something like this:
Saving children from unnecessary suffering
Work