In 2009, I was writing my dissertation. Truth be told, I was struggling. I wrote the initial 3 chapters in 3 months. The fourth chapter was another story.
It was a chapter on neuroscience and emotion. I was chest deep in research around the emotion of fear when I stumbled on to some research about an evolved fear module. It came from evolutionary neuroscience, and I thought it explained everything.
I read article after article that explored the evolutionary connection between different parts of the brain. It seemed to explain exactly what I was trying to understand about humans and our natural inclination to become afraid.
I loved the simplicity of that story. I thought that my fourth chapter would be little more than a retelling of the evolved fear module research. Then, in the midst of my research a critique popped up.
It wasn’t about fear, but more a critique of evolutionary neuroscience. Intrigued, I downloaded the article. Sitting in the dining room of our rented house, our oldest napping in the next room, everything crumbled.
What seemed like an easy fourth chapter turned into a confusing nightmare. I wanted that story about the fear module to be the final answer. After reading those critiques, the simple explanation unraveled, leaving me faced with a choice.
Continue down the path of evolutionary neuroscience and their evolved fear module or find my own way. I wanted the former, I knew I had to do the latter.
Simple stories are nice. They are beautiful, often causal, ways of navigating the world. If I do this… then I receive that.
If I receive this stimulus or have this experience, then I must react this way or always behave that way.
In 2009, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a TED Talk on the dangers of a single story. It emphasizes how a single narrative can shape perspectives, fostering division and reinforcing biases. Such stories often reject critiques in favor of comfort and simplicity, keeping complexity at bay to preserve predictability. Sixteen years and 14.5 million views later, this idea still resonates with me.
There’s a relationship between single stories and simple stories. Both lack the complexity needed to accurately understand and respond to the world. Single stories are often something shared with us from another person. Simple stories are what we often internalize to develop our beliefs and values.
When we internalize simple stories, we develop habits and biases based off imperfect memories and recollections of our experiences and what we’re told. It’s akin to only getting our news from one source.
The more diverse our data, the more robust our possible response.
But it’s hard. Hard to unwind years of narrative reinforcement. Hard to find alternative data and accept it when it appears. Hard to believe in our own becoming rather than rely on our biases.
So, in 2009, I wrote a 150-page chapter on neuroscience and the emotion of fear. It was a horrible mess of a chapter. It was about the evolved fear module and why I couldn’t depend on that model to explain why human beings are afraid. It included recent understandings of the genesis of fear in the brain and how the interconnected systems fueled interpretations and actions.
I think it was an apology for ever believing in that simple story. I needed to grapple with everything I was reading and put it in a framework that provided evidence of the importance of fear in our lives. It was a rambling garbled mess of a story. I remember trying to explain my thinking about the brain with a 25-page analogy, to which I received the simple feedback “I hate this” from a trusted mentor.
It was hot garbage, but necessary. Necessary because pain is often a part of complexity. Once we realize we’ve been living a simple story, unwinding and wrapping it in new data can be difficult. There’s turmoil and suffering involved in realizing the potential pain we’ve caused ourselves or others.
I think that’s why we often seek simple stories. We’re avoiding pain. We don’t like to be wrong, to be biased. We want to think the best of ourselves and our intentions. What we don’t often realize is that our confidence in a simple story means suspicion about another’s experiences. It means disconnection, distrust, and disbelief.
I used to think my work as a therapist was to soothe discomfort, now I’m learning that may be more about safely creating it. It’s discomfort that creates the conditions for learning and choice.
Reading the feedback from my mentors on my chapter helped. There were a lot of tough critiques to stomach. I’m grateful for their willingness to plow through it and provide thoughtful remarks.
While they didn’t simplify my story, they did sharpen it. They helped me discern what was important and what was mere fluff and apology. 150 became 50 and eventually would become 20. And, in that work, I was able to begin to see choices and possibilities I’d never previously considered.
Once I was through that gauntlet, the rest of the dissertation just flowed. The remaining seven chapters were done in around six months. Intentionally engaging the complexity allowed me to consider things I’d never previously thought about. It strengthened the arguments I was making and when it came time to defend my work, I was ready.
We don’t always have to suffer to learn. However, we do have to consider the experiences of others, to gather diverse data, and to engage our considerable creative capacities.
I have a lot more to say about this, but this is already too long.
I’ll leave you with this… I wish you discomfort on the road ahead, because the world deserves all of you, not just your biases and simple stories.