How did we become 'us'?
Looking back into our evolutionary history, language classification gives a false impression that an organism like a human being exists as a discrete evolutionary unit. There must be large tracts of time spent between successive mutations, when we and other creatures were 'something else', suspended somewhere in-between the many species that Darwin described to the world in 1859.
And in that history of our physical changes, there's also an important history of 'sense' development.
Which sense came first?
Was it smell? Or touch?
Did each new sense alter the functioning of the other ones?
On Earth, the defining difference between the inorganic, and and the organic, is movement. That makes the it more likely that touch, or a sense of movement is close to the top of the list, or maybe a a variation on sound, because it also involves sensations of vibration.
Taste is also a good candidate, because it's about chemical attraction, which is how we came about and the represents the need to survive. In that way it's quite close to smell. Did we start with one taste/smell organ, and then it diverged into the mouth and nose at a later date? Is it in the process of recombining?
This is interesting because there is no reason to think that we have reached any sort of plateau. The world is changing as we are changing, and it's fascinating to think that we could be in a constant state of benevolent mutation between generations.
This is the connection with 'mental wellness' - the acknowledgement and care of the 'animal' component of us. To think of mental health in terms of the separated 'mind' model means loosing perspective on our physicality - is a very incomplete way of looking at mental health.
At the heart of all our basic functions are cycles. Whether its cellular reproduction, breathing or heartbeat rhythms, circadian rhythms, or the menstrual/hormonal cycle we are at every level, a beat, and a rhythm.
Taking away social pressures, the instinct to move. and to do, is innate.
And it is cyclical.
We all have days with a sense of 'flow', and some, without.
And at the extremes, we can look around in nature to see examples of hardwired behavioural extremes that occur at certain times of day, or at certain times of the year.
If you've ever seen lambs jumping in the spring sunshine - they are 'high' on the change of season and the coming of the light. If we're free of heavier emotions we too have an inner life which reacts with pleasure to to the sunnier mornings, and the lengthening of the day.
We know very basic changes in the seasons brings out quite different social behaviour in all animals.
We know what a bear likes to do in winter. It is 'depression' done right, because the bear is completing a physical process in synch with the seasons around them.
In some people the lower levels of sunlight trigger million-year-old adaptive processes to wish to stay put, and decrease activity until winter passes. In later years, older people feel a pull away from darker climates. In migrating for sunshine, they are creating a life based on mood and seasonal interaction.
In the same way 'mood' is our 'state of doing'
In a low mood, we want to do nothing.
In a high mood, we want to do everything.
If we accept this as a biological fact, we can see that it's related to survival and reproduction. On a basic level we are attracted to 'doing' (moving, breathing, expressing) and un-attracted by 'non-doing' (silence, stillness, death).
On a higher mental level, we are able to understand much of the world around us thanks to pattern recognition. Recognition requires knowledge, and our bodies are packed with hidden knowledge from the millions of years of developing our genetic makeup.
We do not just 'know' common sense.
We can 'feel' common sense.
At a biological level, in the structure of our brain, 'reason' is equivalent to 'resonance'.
