In the last post, mariner cited a man who had lost his brain functions but could still make breakfast. The article citing him was about habit and how much of our behavior is managed by a special part of the brain that stores habits. Habits are frozen procedures that require no thought in order to take action.
For normal folks who still have brain function, much of our personality and our capability is under the control of habit storage – no thought or judgment required, A simple example is getting ready to go out the door. Typically, the car keys are always in the same place, ready to grab without thinking. If the keys aren’t in place (often in a purse or pocket), a person may get to the car door before realizing the keys are not at hand.
Mariner is aware that he and the gentleman with brain damage have similar habits. With mariner, it’s making the morning coffee pot. He is aware that he doesn’t need to process the routine – just do it!
Our reasoning skills are supported by many habit files. For example, one may have a firm prejudice about which route to take to a destination; why? “Oh, it just seems the easiest way to go” [even if it isn’t]. Prejudice, no matter the subject or behavior, has strong support from habit files.
In politics, a good example is staying with a political decision that isn’t relevant anymore. That person has a habit for their position on the matter and uses that memorized (habitual) position rather than apply new reasoning to a changed reality.
It requires way too much wordage to indulge in examples of a person’s personality. Suffice it to say there are tons of habit files; one doesn’t have to reconstruct who they are every moment of the day.
The comfort of habit is that one can do many procedural (and physiological) things and not have to think about them. How about when you change jobs and you realize you can’t do something the way you’ve always done it – something as simple as pulling out of the driveway in the right direction to go to work?
As we move through those periods of life where we have to figure out a new us, especially at retirement time, it often is a difficult time. Or it is a tough time when a family member dies. Or perhaps one’s role in past life disappears completely at retirement. What makes these transitions difficult is that we must toss out a lot of internalized habits about who we are and how we behave in a new situation. We have to invent new habits! The brain, of course, is hesitant to participate because these were supposed to be habits so the brain didn’t have to deal with them.
As the brain dwindles in old age, habits become important whether they are relevant or not. Perhaps this is why it’s so hard to be a new ‘you’ in one’s eighties and nineties.
Ancient Mariner