Bearing Reality: Thinking About Thinking

Part I — The Material

I didn’t go into this with an agenda. In fact, I didn’t go into it at all. I was trying to take a vacation. I wanted to see whether I could actually step away, and reading has always been the one place where my nervous system settles rather than accelerates. So I read. For hours each day. I highlighted. I wondered. And at some point, I noticed that I wasn’t just engaging with the material, I was watching myself engage with it. I’ve often asked clients to slow down, examine their thinking, and become curious about their own patterns rather than defend them. That realization forced an uncomfortable question: was I actually doing that myself, or was I simply collecting ideas that felt familiar or validating?

That question is what led me to invite AI into the process. Rather than asking it to summarize what I had read or affirm the breadth of my reading, I asked something far more useful: What patterns are emerging in what I highlighted? What does this reveal about how I think? And just as importantly; what am I missing? Where are my blind spots?

This series is not an argument for AI as authority, nor is it a display of insight. It is an example of a process I regularly ask others to engage in: the discipline of orientation, of examining one’s own thinking carefully enough to allow it to be corrected.

This series is not a book review, a reading list, or a summary of ideas I found interesting while away. It is a record of orientation. What follows in this first entry is the material only: a set of extracted learnings taken directly from highlighted pages, presented without commentary or interpretation.

In the posts that follow, I will examine what these selections reveal about how I think, what they exposed that I initially missed, and how they ultimately required integration rather than agreement.

While this series begins with my own process of orientation, it is not meant to stay there. The questions raised, and the discipline of asking them, apply to any of us willing to examine how our thinking takes shape over time. This first entry offers no conclusions, only the material that shaped them. **Listen in as well** Untangled Mind Podcast

---

What I’ve learned

FOUNDATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGY, MEANING, AND MANIPULATION

• When individuals do not understand where they come from or where they are going, they become highly susceptible to manipulation, because meaning and direction are the primary anchors against coercion, ideology, and external control.

• A lack of coherent origin and destination narratives leaves people vulnerable to adopting imposed identities, belief systems, or behavioral expectations that do not align with their actual good.

• Confusion about purpose is not neutral; it actively weakens agency and discernment.

• Identity formation requires an intelligible story of origin; without it, the self is easily reshaped by power structures. Stories of origin do not require positive or intact beginnings. Many people form themselves in the aftermath of rupture, neglect, or harm. What matters is not that the story is good, but that it is truthful enough to be lived without distortion.

THE HUMAN PERSON, DIGNITY, AND RELATIONAL ETHICS

• Every human person possesses inherent dignity rooted not in function, productivity, or usefulness, but in being someone rather than something.

• Treating a person as a means to an end constitutes a violation of their very essence, regardless of intent or outcome.

• The moral injury of being used is instinctively recognized by human beings and produces resistance, resentment, and psychological harm.

• Authentic love is directed toward who a person is, not what they provide, accomplish, or make possible.

• Any framework: personal, relational, institutional, or therapeutic that instrumentalizes people undermines human flourishing.

• The human aversion to being used reflects a deeper moral intuition about personhood and respect.

COMMUNION, RELATIONSHIP, AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART

• Human beings are fundamentally relational, and relationship operates at the deepest levels of psychological and spiritual experience.

• Earthly relationships are meant to reflect, imperfectly, a deeper pattern of love, care, and intimacy that exceeds human capacity alone.

• Intimacy between people functions as a partial expression of a more complete intimacy humans desire and seek.

• Art and music reveal relational truths because harmony, communion, and shared meaning are embedded in human perception of beauty.

• Relationship and communion are not secondary emotional experiences but core expressions of human meaning.

• Disordered relationships reliably produce emotional distress, while ordered relationships foster fulfillment and stability.

• Humans desire not only to love, but to be known, found, and held, reflecting a deep longing for secure attachment and unconditional acceptance found in God.

SEEKING, ATTACHMENT,

AND THE NEED TO BE FOUND

• The desire to be sought after is foundational to human attachment and identity formation.

• Being found and held is not childish regression but a mature expression of secure relational need.

• The longing for a perfect, trustworthy protector reflects a universal human pattern, not personal weakness.

• The absence of secure attachment disrupts emotional regulation and relational trust across the lifespan.

WILLPOWER, SELF-CONTROL, AND FRONTAL METABOLISM

• Willpower is not merely metaphorical; it is a finite neurobiological resource.

• The frontal cortex operates at a high metabolic cost, making sustained self-control inherently taxing.

• Frontal neurons are expensive to maintain and therefore particularly vulnerable to disruption, fatigue, and injury.

• Excessive reliance on self-discipline without regard for neurological limits leads to failure, not virtue.

• Self-control deteriorates when cognitive resources are depleted, even in morally relevant domains.

• Moral failure is often the result of neural exhaustion, not necessarily lack of values.

COGNITIVE LOAD AND BEHAVIORAL DEGRADATION

• Increasing cognitive load on the frontal cortex reliably leads to declines in:

• prosocial behavior

• honesty

• charitable actions

• emotional regulation

•After cognitively demanding tasks, individuals are more likely to lie, cheat, and violate their own standards.

• Decision-making quality declines after sustained frontal engagement, even when individuals are aware of correct behavior.

• Multitasking amplifies frontal depletion and reduces performance across domains.

• The brain’s capacity to maintain moral consistency is context-dependent, not constant. Moral judgment is real, but moral action is not automatic.

AUTOMATICITY, HABIT FORMATION, AND MORAL FUNCTIONING

• Initially demanding tasks can become automatic through repetition and neuroplasticity.

• When behaviors become automated, they shift from frontal control to more reflexive brain regions.

• Moral behavior is more stable when it becomes habitual rather than effort-dependent.

• Honesty and restraint often emerge from automaticity, not constant conscious effort.

• Moral strength is often the result of long-term training, not moment-to-moment exertion.

FRONTAL DAMAGE, TRAUMA, AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

• A disproportionately high number of individuals incarcerated for violent crimes have a history of concussive trauma affecting the frontal cortex.

• Frontal injury disrupts impulse control, judgment, and social decision-making.

• Neurological injury can mimic moral failure without reflecting moral intent.

• Damage to frontal-limbic integration undermines the capacity to learn from negative consequences.

FALSE DICHOTOMY BETWEEN COGNITION AND EMOTION

• The idea that cognition and emotion are adversarial systems competing for dominance is overly simplistic.

• Emotion and cognition are functionally intertwined and mutually necessary.

• Healthy decision-making depends on synchronized activity between emotional and cognitive systems.

• Increasing complexity in moral or social decisions requires greater integration, not separation, of emotion and reason.

dlPFC (DORSOLATERAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX)

• The dlPFC functions as the brain’s primary cognitive regulator and decision-maker.

• It governs logic, abstraction, long-term planning, and rule adherence.

• It is the most recently evolved and last-maturing region of the prefrontal cortex.

• Excessive reliance on dlPFC alone produces cold, utilitarian, emotionally detached reasoning.

• Loss of dlPFC function results in disinhibition, hyperaggression, and impulsive behavior

vmPFC (VENTROMEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX)

• The vmPFC integrates emotional meaning into decision-making.

• It enables “gut feelings” that guide behavior based on emotional learning.

• Damage to the vmPFC preserves intellectual understanding while eliminating emotional resonance.

• Individuals with vmPFC damage can articulate moral rules but fail to act on them.

• Without vmPFC input, negative feedback loses motivational power.

• vmPFC damage leads to socially inappropriate behavior delivered without malice or awareness.

EMOTION-LADEN DECISION MAKING

• Antonio Damasio’s work demonstrates that emotion is essential for effective decision-making.

• Emotional simulations (“How would I feel if…”) guide future-oriented behavior.

• Removing emotional input increases decisional paralysis and moral misjudgment.

• Purely rational agents become outcome-focused but relationally indifferent.

• Emotional intuition is not irrational noise but critical data. Feelings are not facts, but they are information.

SUPEREGO, INHIBITION, AND MORAL RESTRAINT

• The dlPFC functions to a “superego,” enforcing inhibition and social norms.

• Loss of this function results in hypersexuality, impulsivity, and socially destructive behavior.

• Emotional detachment without cognitive restraint produces cruelty without awareness.

• Moral behavior requires both inhibition and emotional attunement.

SYNCHRONIZATION RATHER THAN DOMINATION

• Emotion and cognition do not battle for control; they collaborate. (Need to)

• Optimal functioning occurs when dlPFC and vmPFC activity is balanced.

• Moral maturity involves synchronization, not suppression, of emotional experience.

DELAY OF GRATIFICATION AND SACRIFICE

• Human civilization depends on the ability to delay gratification.

• Sacrifice represents the voluntary postponement of present pleasure for future benefit.

• The future functions as an evaluative structure that rewards or punishes current behavior.

• Sacrifice is the behavioral expression of future-oriented meaning.

• Without the concept of sacrifice, responsibility collapses.

SACRIFICE AND PROPORTIONALITY

• Small sacrifices resolve small problems.

• Large, complex problems require proportionally larger sacrifices.

• Fragmented effort cannot correct systemic disorder.

• Sometimes entire identities, lifestyles, or self-concepts must be relinquished.

• Avoiding the necessary scale of sacrifice prolongs suffering.

THE MOST DIFFICULT QUESTION

• Once sacrifice is acknowledged as necessary, the next question becomes unavoidable:

• What is the largest, most effective sacrifice possible?

This question destabilizes comfort-based ethics. Meaningful transformation requires honest confrontation with cost.

• Partial offerings often produce resentment rather than growth.

CAIN, ABEL, AND WITHHELD OFFERING

• Both Cain and Abel sacrifice, but only one offers what truly costs him.

• The failure is not imperfection but withholding.

• Strategic half-sacrifice breeds bitterness and resentment (of others and in self)

• Resentment emerges when individuals know they have not fully committed.

• The story critiques performative effort rather than weakness.

CLINICAL AND EXISTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS

• People are rarely stuck due to ignorance; they are stuck due to avoidance of sacrifice.

• Insight without commitment produces stagnation.

• Healing language without cost becomes a defense mechanism.

• Growth requires truth-telling about what must be relinquished.

• Peace emerges not from avoidance but from alignment with reality.

---

References

Catholic Church. (1997). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd ed.). Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Heidland, M. J. (2018). Loved as I am: The transforming power of discovering you are deeply and delightfully loved. Ave Maria Press.

The Holy Bible. (1966). Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. Ignatius Press.

(If you primarily referenced CSB, swap edition/publisher accordingly.)

Peterson, J. B. (2018). 12 rules for life: An antidote to chaos. Random House Canada.

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Press.