PARANOID ABOUT PREDATORS

There is a creative writing technique that involves producing stories that link seven words picked at random from a dictionary.  The last word becomes the title of the piece and the first three words must all be used in the first paragraph. Try for less than 250 words in total.

The procedure fascinates me. Plausible fictions can be quickly cobbled together from a small number of randomly selected elements. How is this possible? Why is this possible?

The mind is trying to ‘make sense’ of the various ‘bits’ of ‘mental stuff’ that are available. New stuff is continuously arriving through the sense doors and being categorised as ‘similar’ to stuff in the ‘memory’. Past knowledge of cause and effect relationships (whether ‘right’ or ‘wrong’) can then be used to guide responses to the external stimuli.

Consider what might be going through the mind of a Thompson’s Gazelle. “What is that smell? Why have the birds stopped singing? What is that spotty thing moving slowly through the long grass?” There are the makings of a nothing-but formula –

smell + sound + sight = cheetah = death = panic response = enhanced ability to run away

But we can dig deeper into this thought experiment and create a more subtle set of links and of cause and effect chains.

We need a lot of coding and decoding to move information from here to there. Physical inputs from the sense doors move along the sensory neurones to ‘appropriate parts’ of the brain where they are ‘conceptualised’, and ‘judged’ (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant). And they are then passed on to the parts of the brain that deal with responses in physiology (hormones), psychology (thoughts and emotions) and movement (muscles and bones).

The system evolved rather than having been designed from scratch. ‘Redundancy’ is to be expected. Traces of the main stimulus/ response chains will diffuse to other areas of the brain where they contribute to the brain’s ever-changing, integrated ‘world view’.

We can imagine what the Gazelle might be feeling and thinking. Panic attack, red alert, cheetah (or is it?) in the long grass to the south. Head north at warp speed – shut down other life support systems so that all energy can be used for running.

But it might be a trap. Keep a look out for other cheetahs waiting in the north. Keep yourself between the cheetah and the young calves. Be prepared to counterattack if need be. Consider if there might be other dangers – unleash the paranoia. It is better to be safe than sorry.

Making sense of the world involves combining sensory inputs with memories. From the past and the present we create all manner of imagined futures with incredible speed. The human brain and its language ability are fine tuned story telling instruments. They have served us well over the ancestral years. Perhaps it is time to rethink restlessness, anxiety, stress, depression, neurosis and paranoia. In these changing times real sanity rests with those who are abnormal in a creative sort of way. 

ACTIVITY: Drag out a dictionary and write a seven word story.
WARNING :You will be stunned by what your brain produces.