13-Understanding the zoo in your head

Example One: Alcohol Intoxication

How the zoo in your head cooperates determines the effectiveness of your decisions and the satisfaction associated with your actions. In order to corral these disparate animals into working together we must first understand their motivations. To illustrate the distinction between the strata, let's start with a simple example where the three brains dance in their own color: alcohol consumption.

Liquor coats the synaptic cleft, thereby restraining neurotransmitter activity. As one partakes, two things happen: first, brain function decreases and second, pleasure-chemicals concentrate. Starting at the top with the primate and working to the bottom with the reptile, tiny alcohol molecules peel away each successive brain. The “buzz” is the first sign; feelings become intense because the thinking monkey falls asleep, exposing the emotional mouse. Doubt dies. Group-Think lives. And when one bathes enough communication sockets in soul soaking sauce, the experience of being drunk means you've awaken the lizard king. The stratum clarifies into sharp relief once the flood saturates the brain and drowns the king: you die. Without the reptile the heart does not beat; the lungs do not breathe.

Witnessing someone transition from human, to chimp, to dog, to rat, to turtle, to python, and finally to a heaving lump on the couch after drinking to excess, illuminates hidden truths. For example, the primate's sophistication lies easily but the mammal's fidelity finds deception difficult. On the other hand, the reptile doesn't care either way. It is useful to recognize the animal before us in order to understand who, if not what, we are dealing with.

When a friend becomes intensely engaged, painfully dismissive, acutely concerned, lovingly attentive, or any of the other signs of initial intoxication, we watch the primate depart and the mammal arrive. Adjust expectations. This is not a subtle thinker but a person intensely focused on social attachments and personal grievances. Their love and hate has changed scope and detail (greater scope, less detail). When you recognize a friend has become a mammal, embrace and bond with them or say, 'hi,' and simply walk by.

The reptile is incapable of comprehending the short-term consequences of intoxication. When we see a friend is no longer surfing a range of emotions but stuck in one or two, we are watching the mammal escape as the reptile surfaces. We cannot expect a snake to be human and civil when extricating their keys, talking sense to them, or simply intervening before the potential for violence is fulfilled; instead, we can expect a fight. They are “blackout” drunk. Reptiles do not have access to complex thought or the ability to encode specific memory. So, when we do right by our inebriated companions with compassion for their compromised state, let us have faith that once they've sobered up their forward-thinking primate will express an understanding for events not easily recalled. The best of friends also make clear their appreciation for what we did and their humility over what we endured on their behalf. When you recognize a friend has become a reptile, either embrace the role of zookeeper-caregiver or smile, say goodbye, and leave.

When we have the compassion to appreciate the drunk zoo in other people's heads, we better understand how to deal with them. When we recognize our own state, we can own our condition and honestly ask ourselves how much further we intend to devolve.