Most computational neuroscientists tend to estimate human storage capacity somewhere between 10 terabytes and 100 terabytes, though the full spectrum of guesses ranges from 1 terabyte to 2.5 petabytes. (One terabyte is equal to about 1,000 gigabytes or about 1 million megabytes; a petabyte is about 1,000 terabytes.)
Forrest wickman, in North korea’s ‘2MB knowledge’ taunt: How many megabytes of data can the human mind hold?
That’s a lot of data.
It isn’t any wonder that sometimes those data points can be triggered. That one grief triggers all past griefs and that different circumstances can trigger things that happened long ago or last week.
When I asked my psychologist father-in-law whether we could control it — his quick answer was a hard NO.
We cannot control what our brain dredges up as it associates one thing with another at random. It’s no wonder that the scripture says to sing to ourselves in songs and hymns and to keep our thoughts and minds stayed on The Christ. It’s a way to rest.
It’s also hard to do.
This random association can turn from simply thinking about something unpleasant to an overwhelming spiral of anxiety. In our day, many people suffer from this kind of debilitating sense of panic with acute panic attacks and anxiety disorders of all kinds.
I don’t have any platitudes for these conditions because they’re hard paths for those who have to deal with it daily and even for those of us who have to deal with them occasionally. It’s easy to say do this or do that. But it’s an issue that comes with no easy answers.
It’s our human condition. It steals from us constantly and consistently. And all we can do is trust that through practice and patience we can overcome. ❤
TotallyKris 