Thus the “mind” decides to move the body toward what the “will” desires (e.g. a cookie) because this increases negentropy and prolong the inevitable. This is why people get frightened when they find themselves alone in the woods at night, or growled at by a large dog, or become happy when they meet the boy/girl of their dreams or they win the lottery or get a promotion. Negentropy has just increased for them so the limbic system kicks in the “reward” mode.

As trauma expert Bessel Van Der Kolk put it, “Emotions are our body telling us we are passing through something important.”

What I am interested in is reprogramming our response system so that we can feel positive (happiness, joy, peace) in any situation, even the seemingly “suboptimal” ones. If “emotions” are a subsystem of “self”, then “self” should be able to choose what “emotions” to experience, instead of waiting for optimal circumstances.

Arthur Koestler, the author of the great adapting systems thesis “The Ghost in the Machine”, seemed to think that drugs were the only way to do it. We all need Prozac or Lithium, I guess. I am betting that he was wrong. We can possibly choose our emotions just like we choose what shirt to wear in the morning.