Our Golden Calves

Ah, to be human... What a wonderfully scary magical heartbreaking-open epic experience.

The human mind has a linear way of perceiving time. It’s just the way we get to experience this life in this dimension. It’s like an agreement, a contract: there is past, and there is future. The past is filed as memories in the brain, and the future as imagination, and all the moments seem to be happening one “after” the other. The only difference between the two is that one seems to have been crystallized in time, and the other is unknown and full of possibilities.

So here we are, us humans, with somewhat vulnerable nervous systems and bodies, usually rather traumatized – in the sense that birth itself is quite traumatizing for the nervous system at this stage of human evolution, so imagine anything else we all go through in our childhoods. And we grow up, living this life having to face all the hostilities of a world that isn’t all love and cuddles, not knowing what is to come in the so-called future.

In order to survive in this world, there’s a very intelligent program in our operating system called fear. Fear is a boundary setter. It informs our brain when something is dangerous and might cause death. It’s very useful. It allows us to not jump off a cliff just for the fun of it, and many other similar things related to survival.

The thing is, in the evolution of humankind up until now, in our unconsciousness of how powerful we are, fear has been the only thing most humans have chosen to trust.

It’s understandable: after all, with a vulnerable system in a dangerous hostile world, not knowing what the future moment will offer – who wouldn’t be terrified all the time? We would need some form of trust that the next moment is not going to be the death of us, that our desires will come to fruition, that there is some form of hope for some sort of happiness. And so, we learn to trust. That trust is what a mother caring for her baby for the first years of their life creates within their nervous system. That is regulation: trust. And as we grow up, we need to trust many other types of things, the more complex our lives become, the more possibilities of problems appear and the more we need to learn to trust. A common western culture human being will usuallyrely on statistics, science, what a parent or teacher has taught them for a skill, for cleaning themselves, for cooking food, some might trust in a religious guidance, we all rely on certain things to keep us safe, for all aspects of life. The usual ones in western culture are: money: I’ll be safe if I have food and a house, and some kind of freedom of choice ; accomplishments: I will be safe if I am loved and recognized ; politeness: I will be safe if I keep everyone happy so they don’t attack me or reject me, etc, etc.

As humans, we all need something. It’s normal. It has to do with our linear thinking. It allows us to trust in the next moment