by Dr. Charles F Glassman, Guest
The definition of kindness is, “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.” In a perfect world this is a quality we would wish to bestow upon ourselves and hope others also possess. But why does it seem so hard.
I know what you are probably thinking, “Speak for yourself. It’s not hard for me. I’m a kind person, it’s everyone else who isn’t kind.”
Well here in lies the greatest obstacle to creating a world where kindness is the unwritten law of the land; the habit of humanity; the definition of our existence. The obstacle to this is the fact that humankind has relinquished control to our primitive nature, controlled and orchestrated by (what I call) our automatic brain.
Let me digress, briefly, to shed light on this brain. Our automatic brain is the same brain as our cave dwelling ancestors and the major driving force in animals (including us Homo sapiens). It does not think (i.e. lacks consciousness) and only reacts. It reacts to anything it picks up as potentially dangerous, threatening, or causing us to feel vulnerable. When any of these are detected it automatically reacts causing us to fight or flee. How does it know what is dangerous? Through a lifetime of storing information. When I say this brain doesn’t think, that is different from the idea generating thoughts. It can cause us to have thoughts if those thoughts help us to fight or flee danger.
