There’s one opinion I assert in What’s Stopping You? that may raise a few disbelieving eyebrows. It’s the notion that – in my opinion – everybody thinks of themselves as good people. And their bad behaviour, which many will admit, can be personally justified as forced upon them by poor opportunity or prejudice, or the righting of a perceived wrong. They were made to act in such a way, they’ll state, through circumstances not of their own making.
Certainly, this is how I’ve justified my own episodes of bad behaviour. There have been occasions when my reactions have been outrageous and damaging – ill-tempered, insulting, selfish and emotionally immature. And while I apologise now to anyone who suffered my nonsense, I maintain that – underneath – I was responding to what I perceived as an attack on me. That I was acting in my own defence. I was the victim (at least in my head), not the person on the receiving end of my temper or insults.
Yet this is a position I’m going to have to defend – not my own justifications (I know what goes on my head, at least most of the time), but those of people society condemns as “bad “ or “evil”. While the self-justification of a terrorist, even of Osama Bin Laden’s notoriety, is obvious (he felt his cause was just and required such extremism), can such a defence be made of bank robbers, murderers and or even rapists? These are surely selfish crimes, driven by uncontrolled greed or lust. Difficult as it is to assume from such a moral distance, I’m convinced it can – not from a moralistic point of view but from the wholly practical standpoint that, deep down, we all aim to be good people.
I’m not stating we are not responsible for the crimes we commit – we are 100 percent responsible. I’m just offering the view that those guilty of crime, in all its forms, will most-likely defend themselves on the grounds that they were forced to do it due to actions or circumstances that were not of their choosing. And that, given the choice – and differing circumstances – they’d have chosen peace, friendship, respect and a whole host of other positive reactions.
What’s this got to do with fear of failure? A lot. One of the most difficult aspects of any recovery programme for fear of failure is focused on our dealings with other people. It is our encounters with others that produce the fear-based and usually ill-conceived responses that send High-FFs (as I call those with fear of failure) in the wrong direction. Convinced we are under attack, we react defensively – aggressively even. This is the result of what Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence calls a neural hijacking: an emotional explosion in which the limbic system of the brain proclaims an emergency, “recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda”, says Goleman. This hijacking, which is instantaneous and arrives in an emotional surge, overrides what Goleman calls the “thinking brain” – leading to instant emotional responses based on fear, whatever the reality.
Is there any way we can prevent these neural hijackings? Again, as I state in What’s Stopping You? the unfortunate answer is no. I reason that fear of failure is an innate condition that is, in fact, a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatic events in our early childhood – some of which we may not even be aware of – have led us to respond with fear when triggered, leading to those neural hijackings that, in turn, lead to those terrible responses that, on reflection, we wish we could undo.
Is there an answer? Yes. While we cannot stop the neural hijackings, the poor responses they currently induce are not inevitable. Many of us, on reflection and after the passage of enough time for the emotional fog to clear, look back on those emotional fear-based moments and realise we may have misread or over-read the signals. We may have been under attack, but – probably – we misheard them or mistook the body-language or misunderstood the intention behind their comment or action. This realisation – hopefully (though certainly not always) – dawns on us after a while and we become embarrassed by our defensive response. A response moreover, that makes us appear the aggressor – adding to our sense of injustice and potentially sending us further down the path towards vengeful thoughts and actions.
The challenge, therefore, is to be able to have that second – better, more reflective – response sooner. In fact, if only we could have that second response as an instant reaction to the original neural hijacking, we’d have prevented the neural hijacking from generating the first defensive response (the one that’s turned us into the guilty party and left us isolated, alienated and embittered).
Developing a kinder response is, therefore, one of the most vital aspects of any recovery programme for a High-FF. We must think of everyone the way we want others to think of us: as essentially good people trying to overcome their own agonies and deal with their own insecurities. We don’t need to become evangelical about this. After all, few people like having their insecurities pointed out – something almost guaranteed to produce a neural hijacking in anyone on the receiving end. We just need to be aware that – at heart – everybody thinks of themselves as a good person and that any act or utterance that contradicts this conviction is almost certainly the reaction to some perceived slight or injustice. Or, more likely, we have misconstrued their actions.
And if we adjust our thinking to see it from their point of view, we’ve immediately transformed our view of them. Look hard enough and everyone has a justifiable viewpoint that, if we can empathise with, will deflect their perceived attack on - or threat to - us. And this, after a lot of practice, can help prevent those inevitable neural hijackings from producing those, far from inevitable, awful responses.
Showing posts with label Daniel Goleman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daniel Goleman. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Thursday, December 2, 2010
My shocking memories, and their impact
The Kelsey Effect also works in reverse, it seems. I had tickets for West Ham Vs Manchester United on Tuesday. Yet it was snowing and I assumed we’d (i.e. West Ham) would lose to the mighty reds (unbeaten since April). So I didn’t go. West Ham won 4-0, although it goes without saying that, had I been at the match, we’d have lost 0-4.
There was a more serious reason for my absence, however. Snowy midweek football matches trigger memories of one of the worst incidents of my life. As a 13-year old on my way home from a very snowy football match our train pulled into a station with policemen, expecting trouble, lining the platform. As we waited, the snow blew into our carriage. I got up to shut the window, only to find a policeman pointing at me from the platform. Before I knew what was happening I’d been hauled from the train and beaten in the face by leather-gloved fists.
Bloodied and confused, and in utter terror, I was dragged to a corner of the station and interrogated. Perhaps at that point – through my tears and blood and my obvious shock and urine soaked trousers – it began to dawn on these burly cops that they’d pulled an innocent child from a train and beaten him up for no good reason. I could hear them discussing the train, now leaving the station, and the fact it was the last one of the night, which led to a bizarre sirens-wailing police-van chase down a snowy motorway to beat the same train to the next station.
As they put me back on the train one of the officers – pointing to my bloodied face – said: “If anyone asks, you did that falling down the stairs, OK.”
Only when I rejoined my friends – who were themselves still shocked from the incident – was I told that one of the officers had shouted “spit at a policeman would you,” as the first leathered-fist hit my face. I guess the snow, the boredom and the shutting window had confused him (although nothing excuses the violence).
Days went by with the only external evidence of the trauma being my fat lip – which I explained to my parents as the result of a crowd crush at the match (this was a decade before the Hillsborough disaster). Yet by the weekend the shock of the incident came flooding out – with me eventually breaking down in tears over Sunday lunch as I confessed the event to my parents.
And the incident has left permanent mental scars – something I have only realised since researching my book What’s Stopping You? It had a profound impact on my view of the world – ending my innocence and shocking my belief system. It shaped – and distorted – my perceptions for many years to come. My attitude towards authority changed. Even with teachers and my parents, I felt more marginalised and became less trusting, less interested in their view. I became more rebellious. More angry, even.
Sure this may have happened to me anyway – a lower middle-class teenager from the English exurbs in the rebellious late-70s could hardly escape the pervasive air of moral and economic decay. And, of course, I do not blame this event for the fear of failure I have experienced all my life (the tackling of which, forms the basis for What’s Stopping You?). Yet even here, unconscious feelings of victimisation – the “why me” aspect of my insecurities (even the half-joke Kelsey Effect with respect to luck) – can all come into play now I think of it.
But I write about the event, not to offer an excuse or seek sympathy, but as an example of memory triggering, and its consequences. The incident illustrates something important: the role of traumatic events in shaping our self beliefs.
In short, the event caused me to experience something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is not as exaggerated as it sounds, and I mean no disrespect to ex-servicemen that have had their lives turned upside down by PTSD. As Yale University’s Dennis Charney – one of the most respected authorities on PTSD – states, even minor incidents, perhaps of public humiliation, can have a major impact on our beliefs because the incident has made a far greater imprint on the brain.
In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman – citing Charney and others – describes the impact of such traumatic events on the brain. The amygdale – which Goleman describes as a key cluster of components in the limbic system dealing with emotions such as anxiety, distress and fear – signals other brain areas to strengthen their impression of the incident, creating a bigger imprint on the memory. For instance, despite a gap of over 30 years, I can still clearly remember the leading policeman’s face, including his moustache, as well as the smell and feel of his leathered glove.
This strengthening generates what Goleman describes as a new neural “setpoint” in the brain that can cause a lifelong resetting of the brain’s default (i.e. instant) responses to even tangentially-similar situations. In other words our inner beliefs regarding our expected outcomes from particular circumstances have been fundamentally altered.
Importantly, according to studies into PTSD, even brief or mild exposure to traumatic stress – especially when young – can permanently damage the hippocampus (a key part of the brain for the formation of memories) stopping normal new cell growth. And this can prevent us from ever evaluating information other than via this traumatised default setting. Goleman uses the example of a child once frightened by a dog developing a fear of that breed of dog and never naturally developing a calmer response (and potentially the opposite – with each fear incident adding to the fearful “setpoint”). Indeed, it can go further than this – with the child perhaps unknowingly developing a fear of particular footpaths where an encounter with a similar dog is no more than possible.
From such incidents, large and small, our belief system springs – a system that can be all but impossible to shift. Sure, we can work on our responses, once aware that our initial evaluations may be faulty (I spend some time on this in What’s Stopping You?). But a total rewiring is unlikely to ever happen – even through hypnosis of other techniques that, in reality, produce only a deeply-embedded and dangerously unworked form of denial.
So is it any wonder that, once the sky turned snowy, my enthusiasm for the match disappeared? Of course there’s also the fact that, now in my 40s, I’ve done my time freezing my nuts off at a football match, whatever the potential for a historic win! Yet the memory was, indeed, triggered – hence me writing about it now.
There was a more serious reason for my absence, however. Snowy midweek football matches trigger memories of one of the worst incidents of my life. As a 13-year old on my way home from a very snowy football match our train pulled into a station with policemen, expecting trouble, lining the platform. As we waited, the snow blew into our carriage. I got up to shut the window, only to find a policeman pointing at me from the platform. Before I knew what was happening I’d been hauled from the train and beaten in the face by leather-gloved fists.
Bloodied and confused, and in utter terror, I was dragged to a corner of the station and interrogated. Perhaps at that point – through my tears and blood and my obvious shock and urine soaked trousers – it began to dawn on these burly cops that they’d pulled an innocent child from a train and beaten him up for no good reason. I could hear them discussing the train, now leaving the station, and the fact it was the last one of the night, which led to a bizarre sirens-wailing police-van chase down a snowy motorway to beat the same train to the next station.
As they put me back on the train one of the officers – pointing to my bloodied face – said: “If anyone asks, you did that falling down the stairs, OK.”
Only when I rejoined my friends – who were themselves still shocked from the incident – was I told that one of the officers had shouted “spit at a policeman would you,” as the first leathered-fist hit my face. I guess the snow, the boredom and the shutting window had confused him (although nothing excuses the violence).
Days went by with the only external evidence of the trauma being my fat lip – which I explained to my parents as the result of a crowd crush at the match (this was a decade before the Hillsborough disaster). Yet by the weekend the shock of the incident came flooding out – with me eventually breaking down in tears over Sunday lunch as I confessed the event to my parents.
And the incident has left permanent mental scars – something I have only realised since researching my book What’s Stopping You? It had a profound impact on my view of the world – ending my innocence and shocking my belief system. It shaped – and distorted – my perceptions for many years to come. My attitude towards authority changed. Even with teachers and my parents, I felt more marginalised and became less trusting, less interested in their view. I became more rebellious. More angry, even.
Sure this may have happened to me anyway – a lower middle-class teenager from the English exurbs in the rebellious late-70s could hardly escape the pervasive air of moral and economic decay. And, of course, I do not blame this event for the fear of failure I have experienced all my life (the tackling of which, forms the basis for What’s Stopping You?). Yet even here, unconscious feelings of victimisation – the “why me” aspect of my insecurities (even the half-joke Kelsey Effect with respect to luck) – can all come into play now I think of it.
But I write about the event, not to offer an excuse or seek sympathy, but as an example of memory triggering, and its consequences. The incident illustrates something important: the role of traumatic events in shaping our self beliefs.
In short, the event caused me to experience something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is not as exaggerated as it sounds, and I mean no disrespect to ex-servicemen that have had their lives turned upside down by PTSD. As Yale University’s Dennis Charney – one of the most respected authorities on PTSD – states, even minor incidents, perhaps of public humiliation, can have a major impact on our beliefs because the incident has made a far greater imprint on the brain.
In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman – citing Charney and others – describes the impact of such traumatic events on the brain. The amygdale – which Goleman describes as a key cluster of components in the limbic system dealing with emotions such as anxiety, distress and fear – signals other brain areas to strengthen their impression of the incident, creating a bigger imprint on the memory. For instance, despite a gap of over 30 years, I can still clearly remember the leading policeman’s face, including his moustache, as well as the smell and feel of his leathered glove.
This strengthening generates what Goleman describes as a new neural “setpoint” in the brain that can cause a lifelong resetting of the brain’s default (i.e. instant) responses to even tangentially-similar situations. In other words our inner beliefs regarding our expected outcomes from particular circumstances have been fundamentally altered.
Importantly, according to studies into PTSD, even brief or mild exposure to traumatic stress – especially when young – can permanently damage the hippocampus (a key part of the brain for the formation of memories) stopping normal new cell growth. And this can prevent us from ever evaluating information other than via this traumatised default setting. Goleman uses the example of a child once frightened by a dog developing a fear of that breed of dog and never naturally developing a calmer response (and potentially the opposite – with each fear incident adding to the fearful “setpoint”). Indeed, it can go further than this – with the child perhaps unknowingly developing a fear of particular footpaths where an encounter with a similar dog is no more than possible.
From such incidents, large and small, our belief system springs – a system that can be all but impossible to shift. Sure, we can work on our responses, once aware that our initial evaluations may be faulty (I spend some time on this in What’s Stopping You?). But a total rewiring is unlikely to ever happen – even through hypnosis of other techniques that, in reality, produce only a deeply-embedded and dangerously unworked form of denial.
So is it any wonder that, once the sky turned snowy, my enthusiasm for the match disappeared? Of course there’s also the fact that, now in my 40s, I’ve done my time freezing my nuts off at a football match, whatever the potential for a historic win! Yet the memory was, indeed, triggered – hence me writing about it now.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Luke just gave Billy a neural hijacking, or you can call me Shirley
The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 hosted an interesting debate on banker’s bonuses the other morning, although its fascination for me turned out to be different from my expectations.
The debate was between singer, songwriter, campaigner and all round “good bloke” Billy Bragg, and private equity investor, FT columnist and nasty “unrepentant capitalist” Luke Johnson, which means I immediately have to declare my interests. Luke is a friend and business associate, as well as the foreword writer for What’s Stopping You? Meanwhile, the Sage of Barking (or more recently Burton Bradstock) is a songsmith that made a deep impression on me as an angry young man in the 1980s – with many of his lyrics still captured in the dustier recesses of my mind. And I can’t even claim neutrality in the subject of the debate, having spent my entire post-university career sniffing around the City in one guise or another (journo/banker/PR) although my encounters with those legendary bonuses have been all-too brief.
All this gave me an acute interest in the debate. Yet it became of even deeper interest towards the end. Billy Bragg lost the debate, not because he was wrong – he pretty much has the entire population on his side when it comes to lambasting City-excesses including those “obscene” bonuses paid to bailed-out bankers. He lost because he lost his cool. Angered by one of Luke’s comments he unthinkingly and instinctively jumped in with a riposte that was patently nonsense, opening him up for the demolition that was duly delivered.
Billy had become emotional, and it rendered him – and therefore his argument – weak. In fact, he later accepted this as he opened a live debate on the same subject that evening at the British Library (the promotion of which explains the earlier radio interviews). He blamed the early hour of the radio programme and too much caffeine. Certainly, the Today programme suits City workers more than rockstars, and this may have been what did for Billy. Yet my interest was tweaked because it is not everyday you get to listen to someone having a “neural hijacking” on live national radio.
As I state in What’s Stopping You? such neural hijackings are a central cause-and-effect of poor results for those with high fear of failure (High-FFs as I call them). Arriving in the form of a neural surge through the body and triggering a flood of hormones they are the very moments that instantly throw High-FFs and others that may have confidence issues off course. Our primeval instincts of fight-or-flight have been triggered and our base reactions have taken over, with usually negative consequences. We may react with anger or fear but we do not react rationally. We react emotionally. Our uber-rational opponent, meanwhile, spots his or her chance and goes in for the kill. It is the neural equivalent of a boxer hitting the canvas – a game-changing moment where ascendency or otherwise is established. And the bloody-annoying thing for the hijacked is that these moments are entirely self-induced. We deliver our knock-out blow to ourselves, simply because we could not keep our emotions in check.
An important book explaining the causes, and impact, of neural hijackings is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Here’s him describing the hijacking process:
“It is in moments such as these – when impulsive feeling overrides the rational – that the newly discovered role for the amygdale [a part of the brain dealing with emotions] is pivotal. Incoming signals from the senses let the amygdale scan every experience for trouble. This puts the amygdale in a powerful post in mental life, something like the psychological sentinel, challenging every situation, every perception, with but one kind of question in mind, the most punitive: ‘Is this something I hate? That hurts me? Something I fear’. If so – if the moment at hand somehow draws a ‘yes’ – the amygdale reacts instantaneously, like neural tripwire, telegraphing a message of crisis to all parts of the brain.”
Goleman also describes the instant impact these hijackings have on the body. For instance, if our hijacking induces an anger response blood rushes to the hands ready for action. Meanwhile, the heart rate increases and there is a surge of adrenalin and other hormones (such as cortisol). With fear, blood rushes to the skeletal muscles such as the legs, the face blanches and the body momentarily freezes as it decides whether hiding may be a better option than running or fighting. The body is put on general alert, making the hijacked person edgy and unfocused on anything other than the threat or object of anger. Basically, the hijacked person’s rationality and reasoning is, at that moment, shot.
An important aspect here – that Billy will need to be aware of as much as most High-FFs – is that these hijackings are inevitable. Those that react emotionally when triggered are likely to do so for the rest of their lives. There is no instant cure or quick fix that can remove the neural hijacking as a feature for people more emotionally sensitised than others, meaning that we will always have to be on guard for Goleman’s tripwire – catching us when we least expect it and sending us careering down an intensely frustrating alleyway with respect to our dealings with others. What we have to develop – and what What’s Stopping You? devotes considerable effort in attempting to achieve – is a better second response that can, in time and with effort, suppress the external expression of the neural hijacking. And this can, hopefully, reduce in number the occasions we are defeated by our own overly-emotional responses to a hijack-inducing situation.
A final point here concerns the fact I have used someone else – in this case Billy Bragg – to demonstrate a neural hijacking. Given my earlier blog apologising for preaching (Forgive me sinner for I have preached) this may seem like another example where I have strayed into assumption regarding someone else’s thoughts and potential insecurities. I have, but my inspiration here is the fact Billy Bragg admitted to “becoming a little emotional” on the radio when I heard him speak at the British Library later that day. He was clearly embarrassed and seemingly determined not to repeat the error during the live debate with Luke sitting next to him. He didn’t, but I thought I could detect intense concentration in order to avoid being triggered (just my guess – I have no proof of this and I apologise now to Billy Bragg if any of this is wide of the mark).
Certainly, I am not suggesting Billy has high fear of failure, although – as I have written on many occasions – it is rather typical of a High-FF to desire a life of pop-stardom. What I am saying is that, by his own admission, he became emotional during an important debate on something he feels passionately about. And I am almost certain he regrets doing so not least because it destroyed his reasoning. But he had no choice, he was triggered. And if what followed was not the consequence of a neural hijacking, you can call me Shirley.
The debate was between singer, songwriter, campaigner and all round “good bloke” Billy Bragg, and private equity investor, FT columnist and nasty “unrepentant capitalist” Luke Johnson, which means I immediately have to declare my interests. Luke is a friend and business associate, as well as the foreword writer for What’s Stopping You? Meanwhile, the Sage of Barking (or more recently Burton Bradstock) is a songsmith that made a deep impression on me as an angry young man in the 1980s – with many of his lyrics still captured in the dustier recesses of my mind. And I can’t even claim neutrality in the subject of the debate, having spent my entire post-university career sniffing around the City in one guise or another (journo/banker/PR) although my encounters with those legendary bonuses have been all-too brief.
All this gave me an acute interest in the debate. Yet it became of even deeper interest towards the end. Billy Bragg lost the debate, not because he was wrong – he pretty much has the entire population on his side when it comes to lambasting City-excesses including those “obscene” bonuses paid to bailed-out bankers. He lost because he lost his cool. Angered by one of Luke’s comments he unthinkingly and instinctively jumped in with a riposte that was patently nonsense, opening him up for the demolition that was duly delivered.
Billy had become emotional, and it rendered him – and therefore his argument – weak. In fact, he later accepted this as he opened a live debate on the same subject that evening at the British Library (the promotion of which explains the earlier radio interviews). He blamed the early hour of the radio programme and too much caffeine. Certainly, the Today programme suits City workers more than rockstars, and this may have been what did for Billy. Yet my interest was tweaked because it is not everyday you get to listen to someone having a “neural hijacking” on live national radio.
As I state in What’s Stopping You? such neural hijackings are a central cause-and-effect of poor results for those with high fear of failure (High-FFs as I call them). Arriving in the form of a neural surge through the body and triggering a flood of hormones they are the very moments that instantly throw High-FFs and others that may have confidence issues off course. Our primeval instincts of fight-or-flight have been triggered and our base reactions have taken over, with usually negative consequences. We may react with anger or fear but we do not react rationally. We react emotionally. Our uber-rational opponent, meanwhile, spots his or her chance and goes in for the kill. It is the neural equivalent of a boxer hitting the canvas – a game-changing moment where ascendency or otherwise is established. And the bloody-annoying thing for the hijacked is that these moments are entirely self-induced. We deliver our knock-out blow to ourselves, simply because we could not keep our emotions in check.
An important book explaining the causes, and impact, of neural hijackings is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Here’s him describing the hijacking process:
“It is in moments such as these – when impulsive feeling overrides the rational – that the newly discovered role for the amygdale [a part of the brain dealing with emotions] is pivotal. Incoming signals from the senses let the amygdale scan every experience for trouble. This puts the amygdale in a powerful post in mental life, something like the psychological sentinel, challenging every situation, every perception, with but one kind of question in mind, the most punitive: ‘Is this something I hate? That hurts me? Something I fear’. If so – if the moment at hand somehow draws a ‘yes’ – the amygdale reacts instantaneously, like neural tripwire, telegraphing a message of crisis to all parts of the brain.”
Goleman also describes the instant impact these hijackings have on the body. For instance, if our hijacking induces an anger response blood rushes to the hands ready for action. Meanwhile, the heart rate increases and there is a surge of adrenalin and other hormones (such as cortisol). With fear, blood rushes to the skeletal muscles such as the legs, the face blanches and the body momentarily freezes as it decides whether hiding may be a better option than running or fighting. The body is put on general alert, making the hijacked person edgy and unfocused on anything other than the threat or object of anger. Basically, the hijacked person’s rationality and reasoning is, at that moment, shot.
An important aspect here – that Billy will need to be aware of as much as most High-FFs – is that these hijackings are inevitable. Those that react emotionally when triggered are likely to do so for the rest of their lives. There is no instant cure or quick fix that can remove the neural hijacking as a feature for people more emotionally sensitised than others, meaning that we will always have to be on guard for Goleman’s tripwire – catching us when we least expect it and sending us careering down an intensely frustrating alleyway with respect to our dealings with others. What we have to develop – and what What’s Stopping You? devotes considerable effort in attempting to achieve – is a better second response that can, in time and with effort, suppress the external expression of the neural hijacking. And this can, hopefully, reduce in number the occasions we are defeated by our own overly-emotional responses to a hijack-inducing situation.
A final point here concerns the fact I have used someone else – in this case Billy Bragg – to demonstrate a neural hijacking. Given my earlier blog apologising for preaching (Forgive me sinner for I have preached) this may seem like another example where I have strayed into assumption regarding someone else’s thoughts and potential insecurities. I have, but my inspiration here is the fact Billy Bragg admitted to “becoming a little emotional” on the radio when I heard him speak at the British Library later that day. He was clearly embarrassed and seemingly determined not to repeat the error during the live debate with Luke sitting next to him. He didn’t, but I thought I could detect intense concentration in order to avoid being triggered (just my guess – I have no proof of this and I apologise now to Billy Bragg if any of this is wide of the mark).
Certainly, I am not suggesting Billy has high fear of failure, although – as I have written on many occasions – it is rather typical of a High-FF to desire a life of pop-stardom. What I am saying is that, by his own admission, he became emotional during an important debate on something he feels passionately about. And I am almost certain he regrets doing so not least because it destroyed his reasoning. But he had no choice, he was triggered. And if what followed was not the consequence of a neural hijacking, you can call me Shirley.
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