The Road (of Science) not taken.

Kanishka Joshi
5 min readNov 21, 2023

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Imagine….

A man is driving with all his senses alert on a freeway, keeping up with the apt speed limit. There’ s no lane changing, overtaking, over speeding or under speeding of any sort. Some light-hearted music playing in his car and he’s getting a good hang of it.
“Honk.. Honk.. Honkk”, honks a car that’s following him closely from behind. And with a rush of speed (with apparently no speed check by police around) that car overtakes and drifts into his lane suddenly.
“You s** o* a b*****!!”
“You a**h***!!”
“Are you blind???”
A stream of aggression flows through his veins.

OR

A family of four (with the husband and wife, their teen boy and their pup) have family friends visiting them for dinner. “Our guests are here at the gate”, says the father. “Open the door for them boy. Greet them well and welcome them inside. We’ll be right there”. As the boy opens the door for the guests, he spots this extremely pretty girl with her parents as it seemed. While he is flattered by her beauty and wants to approach her as fast (yet smoothly) as possible, his dog hops over them and makes the girl cry in fear. He is stunned by her emotional swing of fright and laughs hard at her. “How could you possibly be afraid of a tiny little puppy? Are you an alien or what? Hahahahaa…”. Which makes the girl sad and now she hates him. Despite that he irresistibly keeps making fun of her endlessly.

While Science explains theories like:
1. Why everything drops downwards and doesn’t float in air?
2. Why does a Rainbow appear during the rains with the sun shining in the sky?
3. Why are clouds formed?

Science also explains HUMAN BEHAVIOR which we often neglect and shadow it with our own judgement.

Nobody wants to justify another human’s behavior with science because we ‘assume’ that we are smarter than the other person.

Very often, when we are dealing with another human being, we cloud our minds with a self-defense mechanism that we ‘think’ we built to PROTECT our self-esteem or our ego. Nowadays, we are being taught to ‘Rule the world’ which we often tend to confuse with teasing or throwing a demeaning attitude towards those who carry a different personality than you.

Do you want to know why a person reacts in a certain way?

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

Let us not go too deep into the Brain anatomy and just understand One crucial part of it which has relevance with our subject matter. It’s the AMYGDALA.

“Amygdala” is an almond-shaped structure in the brain that drives our emotions. It stores our good-bad experiences in the brain. For example, that driver I referred to above, reacted in anguish because he might’ve met with a rash car driving accident that hurt him. And the girl from another example. She feared a small puppy as she was bitten by a dog when she was five.

Amygdala generates action in response to certain experiences stored in it. In such situations, rational thinking takes time to work, or doesn’t work at all. Because the amygdala’s response is as fast as a few milliseconds before the logical brain nerves begin to receive neurological feed.

Science doesn’t work supporting a single theory.

A thousand theories in a human body react to generate a specific set of actions. When a baby is born, it is known that he/she is born with many inherited characteristics which include behavior, personality attributes, health issues, good or bad traits. Alongside, too many factors exist which could be explained by science, but they are not known by us.

Therefore, there is also science behind ‘how’ a person acts in a particular situation.

It is a thousand times easier to NOT understand a person when he/she is not related to you as there is no bondage or relationship that you need to be careful about. However, bringing this theory into play while dealing with the strangers can bring a lot more peace to your inner soul by giving reasoning to their actions. In a worst-case scenario, give your anger a few minutes to cool down till the time you begin to rationalize the situation.

Let us learn to check our behavior before we judge someone on the grounds of their nature, attitude, habits, way of speech, the way they carry themselves, or their knowledge. Respect them for what they are in the similar way we seek respect from them. We need to learn to be peaceful and patient around those who you find are contrasting from your expectations.

This theory can also help you a lot if you’re dealing with a bitter relationship. Many a times, I feel that there are some close relationships that can be saved, where self-respect should not exist. Key to a happy home starts with building the bond, understanding where the person is coming from, finding solutions to how it can be resolved, and adjusting with difficult times where you don’t feel pleased too (Keeping exceptional cases aside where science solely cannot resolve permanently damaged relations).

You are who you are because of your inherited nature, your own experiences and how you want yourself to be. Being emotional and understanding someone doesn’t make you week. It gives you a concrete strength to your emotional intelligence. Revolting and breaking relationships give you a lifelong damage to your own soul. On the other hand, if you try to discern the answers to ‘Why’ it is happening you will make your heart feel lighter than you could ever imagine.

While comprehending a situation and before making a judgement call try to:

  1. Mellow down your flight of anger,
  2. Seek answers to WHY and HOW someone spoke in a certain manner, and how to resolve the situation.
  3. And ask yourself too, why did his/her words hurt you? How can you help and make yourself feel better?

Remember, you can never change anyone overnight. With your consistent efforts and love, you can let the tables turn. And if you fail to make it better, always feel that you were a better person than everyone else in the room who uplifted from the thoughts of self-importance to make things work.

It is not easy for everyone to think this way and make efforts to brighten a dull relationship. And it is also tough to change the way you used to see and react to people or circumstances as before. Even so, you shall follow the path that brings peace to your mind and soul. You are strong enough to empower your brain and train it for the best. Choose Tranquility over Resistance. In the end, you’ll always feel proud of yourself.

Bring Science into the picture, and everything will work out for you.

Thank you dear Readers,

Kanishka

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Kanishka Joshi
Kanishka Joshi

Written by Kanishka Joshi

Reading the writings and writing the readable is all that matters.

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