@: 20th Aug 2019
I believe we are all children existing within ever-ageing bodies. Who we are now has been formed and moulded by the experiences of our childhood. Those experiences dictate how we act and function as an adult. Whether we like it or not, no matter what age we are, our thoughts and actions are heavily influenced by what we experienced as a child, and how those experiences were managed.
We may be conscious of the mechanism and root of some of the influences, and lack or suppress any awareness of others. There are some influences we simply have no conscious control over.
Trauma at a young age can cause the over-development of the amygdala, which plays a very significant role in processing emotions and in fear responses, and the under-development of the prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in emotion and social regulation.
This means the very structure of our brain influences – dictates even – how we respond to certain situations and stimuli. With the brain being elastic, we do not have to be a slave to our childhood traumas, but until we are able to find a means of addressing the impact they have on us, we are beholden to them.
When we reflect on our younger selves – be it 5 years ago or 25, we should therefore do so with love and empathy, and a knowledge that we were not fully in control of our responses and reactions to certain situations, and dealt with a given situation as best we could under the circumstances that existed at the time, and who we were at that time.
Free will is therefore a fallacy.
Being human is to be a collection of mind, body and spirit, influenced by internal and external forces, many of which we have no direct control over. All we can do is explore those elements of our being, each at once both unique to us, and identical to everyone else’s, and work to gradually shape ourselves into the best versions of us we can be, through healing ourselves and world around us.