They (neuroscience research) say that humans are the only creatures who are able to empathize with other fellow humans because of the cognitive functions bestowed in our grey matter.
We have evolved, or being made this way — which ever truth you believe in, to be able to feel the pain of another human’s struggle, to be able to rejoice in joy of another human’s triumph, and this is to me is truly what makes us human even when we are miles away from them and just watching events unfold through a TV screen or a twitter feed. Today was an excellent example of this cognitive phenomena.
A massacre in Paris, a car bomb in Beirut, an earthquake in Japan, and countless other attacks where we humans have given into aggression (which is controlled by a very primitive part of the brain, and not one where higher cognitive functions such as analysis or thought processing and social responsibility take place) makes me wonder if we are turning the evolutionary clock backwards and becoming less human.
They (neuroscience research) say that humans are the only creatures who are able to empathize with other fellow humans because of the cognitive functions bestowed in our grey matter. We have evolved, or being made this way — which ever truth you believe in, to be able to feel the pain of another human’s struggle, to be able to rejoice in joy of another human’s triumph, and this is to me is truly what makes us human even when we are miles away from them and just watching events unfold through
A tv screen or a twitter feed. Today was an excellent example of this cognitive phenomena.
So I may not have been in Paris with you or in Beirut or in Baghdad or wherever else your dignity was shattered through fear, and you may not have had the training I was given on how to deal with such a situation, but if you came out of this experience stronger than you were before, I salute you.
“There comes a day when these type of conflicts see their natural demise or an intervention that does the same job, and until then you need to be hopeful but never hateful.”