The Caveman and the Astronaut
walk into a bar...
Why are there random brown orbs attached to the generated caveman child? Anyways…
Two Wolves
There’s a parable I’ve heard throughout my life that has stuck with me. The story goes that there is an elder telling a child about two wolves fighting inside each person.
One wolf represents evil. The other good.
Which will win, the child asks…
Whichever you feed, the elder answers.
This idea of a balancing act where not only do your choices matter but the culmination of your choices is at the heart of living for me. You are not a good or happy or successful person because of one choice. You succeed by habitually making the choices that lead you there. You have to feed the right wolf every single day because that other wolf is always there looking for an opening.
And I’ve written about choice once or twice. I’ve talked about how perspective is a choice, being a human is a choice, choosing to deal with the devil, choosing public school, choosing what sucks, choosing relentless optimism. Hell, even my silly post about Balatro is really about choices.
All of these things are important because every day is a question: Which wolf do you choose to feed today?
But only recently have all of these metaphors and complexities and tradeoffs really been something that I’ve felt compelled to write out for Squirt. Before all of these things, years in the past now, Squirt and I had a different choice that we talked about. Something more appropriate for a precocious child learning to navigate a world filled with other tiny savages…
Caveman Brain or Astronaut Brain?
My child, being my child, has been learning about space and physics and the march of civilization for his entire life. He’s known what an astronaut was since he was two years old. More importantly, he has understood how much better an astronaut was than a caveman for just as long.
The astronaut has understood the world. The astronaut learned how rocketry and gravity and technology worked and they took that knowledge and they left this planet. The astronaut went to the stars while the cavemen spent millennia staring up and wondering what was out there. Out there, right now in the sky, there are astronauts looking down on our planet and they did this because of their brains. They did that because they used their reason to conquer their superstitions and their fear and reach the summit. They did it because they had control over themselves and that brought them control over their environment.
The caveman has no control. The caveman knows only what he feels and fears. For the caveman the unknown and the dark are only filled with terrors and dangers. The caveman sees others only as competition and bites their neighbor that took their toy. The caveman throws a tantrum when they do not get their way. The caveman doesn’t think at all, but simply reacts with the first thought that comes into their head.
I didn’t tell my kid about two wolves. Instead I talked about two brains:
Are you using your astronaut brain or your caveman brain right now?
We Are Both
It wasn’t that the caveman brain was inherently wrong, I would tell him. Indeed, my strongest arguments against approaching the world with pure reason are because the caveman is part of us. Because passion is part of us. The ocean of humanity that built the world didn’t do so because they were automatons simply grinding out the next logical step. They did it because they were driven to see what was over the horizon. Because it brought joy to solve the problem.
What we talked about instead was the balance. We talked about that push and pull. Being at Eliot’s perfect turning point, even if I didn’t use those words. Because I think it is twisted to not admit the caveman inside of us who can feel pure joy at looking into a fire or sharing warmth with another human. What’s the point of reaching the stars if you can’t share them with someone?
But did you really need to punch the other three year old?
Squirt Says…
While it is smart to act on the astronaut brain the caveman brain is sometimes needed too. If, back to your example, a toddler hits the kid who took his toy he will learn to not do it.
Dad Responds…
So I started giggling at him because, to me, I read the “he” that will learn the lesson as the kid that took the toy. My child assures me he is not advocating for violence but, instead, meant that the child with the teeth will learn not to get all bite-y. We will work a bit more on pronoun clarity and exercise that astronaut brain a bit more.
