As always, deep gratitude to Chris Jordan.
🙏💗 Molly
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| Evening, Strait of Magellan, Chile, 2025. Photo @ Chris Jordan |
A Daily Intentional Practice
For These Times
Contemporary neuroscience and psychology show us that when a person is in a state of fear, their thinking mind shuts down. This radically diminishes their cognitive ability. The evolutionary reason for this is that shutting off the frontal lobe shortens our reaction time, enabling exponentially quicker actions in moments of emergency. If you have ever been in an accident, you may have experienced that strange stop-action sensation where everything appears to be happening in slow motion and you can make incredibly fast decisions. The temporary cost of this is a loss of critical thinking and analytical skills, which aren't needed in such moments.
Chronic fear also causes the same neural shutdown, leading to a kind of intellectual paralysis. It can set in for the long term, rewiring our minds in the reverse way that meditation does. In chronic fear our mind becomes closed off, our worldview narrows, and our ability to think clearly becomes increasingly restricted. This phenomenon is well known and used by dictators, cultists, military trainers, and religious leaders.
Navigating these times is going to require a level of mental and emotional stamina that most of us have never had to muster previously. Managing fear will be paramount for each of us on the personal level. I don’t know what to offer or suggest, except to be aware of this, and to make a daily intentional practice of turning toward things that calm our minds and hearts. We need to become more conscious than ever before. Perhaps among other things, beauty can play role here, however small, to help each of us stay sane. May it be so, and may you find peace today.
― Chris Jordan
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