The Mind-Body Conundrum

I consider myself a wordsmith. I love to find the perfect turn of phrase, to coin one if necessary, to describe what I see, feel, or conceive. Yet here's the conundrum - I am also a person held tightly in the sway of my old brain, a person who reacts viscerally to even minor stimuli at times. And when I am in the midst of such a moment, an episode where my old brain holds my mind a kind of hostage, my language ability deserts me. I had such an experience earlier this evening, when I felt the abrasive fight or flight hormones coursing through my system. I tried to use verbal logic to describe it, to explain it in cogent and practical terms, and my words failed me. Thousands of years of human development, and coil upon coil of grey matter that supposedly filter the responses from the ancient white matter systems fell away, and I was speechless, processing by sensation rather than language.

What creatures we are of our bodies, of our old, reptilian brains. I can observe that now, using my words. I couldn't then.