I should have seen this line of thinking coming a mile away…8)
Why is riding a galloping horse thrilling to me? Because it is outside the boundaries of my normal experience.
I drive in a vehicle every day. Many times I drive at speeds faster than any roller coaster I have ever ridden. There’s not a whole lot that is thrilling about it. But put me in a roller coaster, a car that has 500+ horsepower or an aircraft and I feel an exhilaration like no other. It’s exciting and it feels good. So what’s the difference? It’s all a whole lot faster than that single horse with a saddle that excites me.
It’s what I’ve grown accustomed to and the contrast between the normal and the exceptional.
Now imagine someone that had only ever known driving or riding in a 1915 Ford Model T going for a ride in a Tesla Model S with every bell and whistle. They might even pass out in a quarter mile sprint. Maybe even vomit like a kid on a roller coaster.
Could moving at rates of speed faster than my body has evolved to travel over many many millennia be having a negative effect on me?
My brain is a highly complicated computing mechanism. My senses interface with my immediate surroundings and my brain processes all of that information from all of my senses all at once so that I can know what to do next.
When any one of my senses gets overstimulated it can literally cause a mental logjam as I try to process the additional information. The result feels like an increase in overall bodily metabolism mechanisms cranking up; a heightening of senses. A defense mechanism. It’s like my body’s ancient programming kicks in to protect itself despite my will from the overdose/stimulation. It shuts down other things to focus on the immediate danger.
But like any other messages I ignore in my own body, I become numb to. I know my body. It is too conservative to waste energy telling me the same message I am not listening to.
Have I become numb? Was I born numbed by my mothers own body ignoring some kind of hormonal emergency message during the first 10 months of my existence. Born into a world of accelerated living?
How would I know if I was addicted to this acceleration if everyone else around me is also born into this world of overstimulation?
Scribe(author) – Michael J. Loomis | Editor at Chew Digest