The Lizard Brain
" The only correct answer to 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' is 'Because it's lizard brain told it to.'" -- Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
When I went out to feed the beings this morning, two hens waddled rapidly across the lawn to greet me. I suspect that their gate is similar to that of the tyrannosaurus rex. For reasons unidentified, I thought that if a chicken or tyrannosaurus was old, fat, and in poor health, its movements would look more like Donald Trump on stage, or walking down a ramp.
Turning on the morning news, I could not wash that image from my mind. Being old, fat, and wrestling covid, it occurred to me that there was a reason the thought of Trump crossing the road might be important. Might the consideration of Donald's "lizard brain" -- the limbic system/ brain stem -- along with his basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex help explain what behaviors that he and his cult are engaged in?
For the sake of this discussion, we should consider a type of human thought and of behavior that are closely related. Both have been part of the human experience since we were coming into being in Africa. Both continue to this very day, both consciously and unconsciously. The first is superstition, which includes beliefs that an objective outsider would recognize cannot be proven to be true.
Rituals involve either individual or group activities that are often, but not always, related to the superstitions. Both superstitions and rituals have the potentials to be good, neutral, or bad. Religious and spiritual beliefs often involve rituals that tend to help an individual in their understanding of the meaning of their life. I think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X as positive examples. The neutral example that comes to mind is the wall that separates church and state. The negative is when one group wants to force its belief system upon others, and punish those who disagree.
Many decades ago, as an amateur boxer, there was one pair of trunks that I liked to wear into the ring for my potentially toughest fights. In the locker room, my preparation -- getting dressed, having my hands wrapped, and the gloves put on -- was a ritual that helped me to relax and focus my energies. Looking back, I do not think that the cloth the trunks were made of had any magical powers, of course. Yet that superstition and ritual helped me in ways that certainly can't be measured.
Now, let's consider Trump. Perhaps the example that best illustrates superstition is his belief that gold makes him a super human being with magical powers. Thus, the ritual of the (relatively) calm Trump is to pretend he is Scrooge McDuck instead of a human chicken. to wallow in false ledgers, and brag about his wealth. These behaviors demonstrate that he is an utter failure as a human being, someone only admired by other failed specimens.
Angry-afraid Donald is even more a slave to the nonrational, primitive lizrd brain. Indeed, his ritual behaviors are defined by the six "F's" : fight, flight, freeze, fear, feed, and fornicate. In his case, that last one translates to his willingness to fuck anyone to avoid responsibility for his actions. Thus, when confronted, he yells about conspiracies against him, claims victimhood, points fingers, lies faster than my hens can run, threatens, claims to have never lost a fight, and/or throws his plated against a wall.
At this point, while he may appear as pathetic as the decaying carp of hair upon his skull, one might ask why some human beings worship him in a religious manner? The only correct answer is because their lizard brains are telling them to. And that is why the current level of threat from them is so high.
= new reply since forum marked as read
always seen "the others" as being reptilian, cold blooded, with soulless dead eyes. I just didn't connect the limbic brain to how they "think"!!! Lol I'd say duh, except my brain isn't wired that way, thus the disconnect.
I do appreciate your take very much H2O Man 
I do believe Trump believes gold makes him superior and that he believes he can create his own reality out of whichever situation he finds himself. I don't know what reality he will create when and if he goes to prison? I suppose he will be the acting warden or envoy to the Governor or some important person to the other prisoners?
