Our Brain in Survival Mode
I THINK NOT, THEREFORE I AM NOT
Our conscious thoughts are a very large part of how we know ourselves.
In grammar class, we talk about the subject and the object of a sentence. “I move the ball” — I am the subject, the ball is the object. The subject always has the agency — taking action to impact the object.
The object has no agency — things just happen to it. These happenings are out of its control.
Because we experience limited agency in survival mode, we tend to model ourselves and other people as objects, not as subjects driving their own story.
We see ourselves as billiard balls moved around the pool table of the world by some external force. Anything that happens “inside” has only a loose connection to what happens in the world.
