Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer

by Barbara Ehrenreich

Then, the mind, the conscious mind, and here I am relying, appropriately I think, solely on subjective experience: We may imagine that the mind houses a singular self, an essence of “I-ness,” distinct from all other selves and consistent over time. But attend closely to your thoughts and you find they are thoroughly colonized by the thoughts of others, through language, culture, and mutual expectations. The answer to the question of what I am, or you are, requires some historical and geographical setting. Nor is there at the core of mind some immutable kernel. The process of thinking involves conflict and alliances between different patterns of neuronal activity. Some patterns synchronize with and reinforce each other. Others tend to cancel each other, and not all of them contribute to our survival. Depression, for example, or anorexia or compulsive risk taking, represent patterns of synaptic firing that carve deep channels in the mind (and brain), not easily controlled by conscious effort, and sometimes lethal for the organism as a whole, both body and mind. So of course we die, even without help from natural disasters or plagues: We are gnawing away at ourselves all the time, whether with our overactive immune cells or suicidal patterns of thought.