drmstream[writing]

A sec­tor of the world piv­oted today, made a quick turn and in the midst of seem­ing stressed, but orderly, cracked with such a resound­ing snap that it cre­ated a moment of pause, and then a rapid panic.

The reac­tion to panic, to sud­den fear, is uni­ver­sal: adren­a­line rushes through your sys­tem, the act of react­ing is far in advance of any actual under­stand­ing of pro­cess­ing or action, and, in the hurry to get wher­ever your unrea­son­ing dri­ves you, you go men­tally blind. The brain is a dull roar. The rush is as if the steady pulse of a plane engine had over­whelmed your rea­son, had got­ten deep into your blood stream and riven all sense.

This is the lim­bic brain. It is a con­stant, the great­est con­stant you have. And maybe the most evolved goal we can have is to stop from react­ing, for a moment, when we hear the loud snap, with the con­fi­dence that when we’ve been able to process the moment we’ll react quickly and with pur­pose. And if we don’t, then we’ll accept the con­se­quences, for they are prefer­able to the dis­or­der that comes with blind panic.