metonymy4u

One could ask: why philosophize? Why write philosophy? I do it because it is helpful for me. I have a very emotionally vulnerable brain. My emotional states often take over my entire body, and emotions then become my only facts. Writing helps center me. The usefulness of this activity has been verified by scientific investigation. When teens are in an overwhelming emotional state of mind, we teach them to take out a piece of paper, write the alphabet down one side and then come up with an animal name for each letter. This activity activates additional neural circuits that can balance the emotional urges and feelings that are threatening to overwhelm the individual and also helps fill short term memory with alternative, emotionally neutral cues. I have no problem with the hypothesis that our urge to think may be driven in part by our hugely emotional brains. Kierkegaard asked, “What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…. And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’ – that is, ‘May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.’”