This "State-of-the-Mind" thing !! - part 1

The patient was gravely depressed. His attempt to commit suicide was just stopped by his family. He was crying and we could see that his sadness was profound and deep. There was no reason for him to live and all he could narrate, whenever he spoke, was gloomy and depressing. It was effecting other patients and they were all forgetting their own illness and comforting him.

The Doctor arrived and forcefully gave our depressed patient one pill and asked him to take rest. Reluctantly, our patient lay down on his bed – still crying and still melancholic. Somewhere between his bouts of hopelessness, he fell asleep.

He woke up about an hour later and we were surprised to find a totally different person. He was now whistling his favourite tune - happy as a lark and almost laughing at himself for all the sadness that he displayed an hour earlier. To us - he gave an apologetic expression as if he was sorry for creating the difficulty.

A total 180 degree change in his mood. And how did that happen? ONE PILL !! All that it took to swing his mood was ONE PILL !!!

And what exactly did this pill do?? The PILL simply changed the chemical balances inside him by triggering the right glands, that secreted the right hormones - and he became happy. The feeling of happiness (or lack of it) is due to electro-chemical balances somewhere in the brain. 

This opens up an interesting chain of reasoning …

Do we perceive something – which triggers a chemical reaction in our minds – which finally makes us happy or sad??

… OR …

Do we perceive something as happy or sad because of existing electro-chemical predilections that are already embedded in us??

There are arguments in favour of both theories and it is difficult to eliminate one.

Different people react differently to the same external event. Does that mean that different people are able to perceive the same situation differently? Definitely yes - otherwise everyone's reactions would have been the same.

But, does this fact eliminate the former theory?? No. A deeper analysis says that perhaps this difference in perception is because different people have had different experiences in life, and that shaped how they have reacted now. A soldier is not scared when he sees someone with a gun – but many of us can get nervous at the sight of someone carrying one. Mental Conditioning due to having lived lives in different ways … perhaps.

Speaking of mental conditioning … isn’t that what separates a human being from an animal? We are able to condition ourselves better and control our emotions to reflect a correct behaviour rather than a natural behaviour. We often react the right way (or at least the 'practical way' which will be more accepted by society). And if we can do this – can we actually stretch a little more and control how we react to everything that is external to us?

Can we condition ourselves to be happy or sad (or any other emotion) by choice irrespective of what is happening around us?  Or do we need to carry a set of pills for doing that??

Worth a deeper thought – don’t you think so??

I will indeed follow up on this topic in a future blog…

Link to "This state-of-the-mind-Thing part 2"