Fear and Smoking

I just heard an interesting article on the radio that has inspired me to take a few moments from writing my book to add to this blog. It was about neuro-marketing, a relatively new field of study that looks at brain activity in various situations, to sum it up in terms that I can understand. I wish they did that on the radio, but no matter.

First, what interested me was the statement that they have proven something that was a surprise to them: no smoking ads promote smoking. The more no smoking ads there are, the more smoking seems to rise. I'm not sure why this is a surprise, but it evidently is.

So, why am I not surprised? I think I talked about it below, but am not going to take the time right now to verify. Simply, the brain cannot process negatives before it processes the positive. All those ads that say "no smoking" are interpreted by the brain as "SMOKING don't". After all, how can you understand what not to do before you understand what it means to do it?

The experiment, evidently, showed that the areas of the brain that are ignited while someone is watching a no smoking ad are the same ones that light up when they, well, light up.

In other words, "bravo". We now have the physical proof of what we've known for years.


Ok. That was only one of two things that caught my attention.

The second item was the statement "We are ruled by fear". This same scientist, whose work I do admire, looked at various political ad campaigns and the effect they had on the brain. Contrary to popular belief, they did not shut off parts of the brain. Well, maybe some did, but the ones he was studying did not.

First, he looked at an ad from the 60s, in which a little girl is picking flowers and then the camera cuts to an atom bomb explosion. Another ad was from 2004 which is quite similar, but features wolves crossing the border, aka terrorists. Both highly ignited parts of the brain, and so on and so forth, and his conclusion was that we are ruled by fear.

With all due respect to his work, I draw a slightly different conclusion. I think we are ruled by love.

I think the reason that fear is so powerful an emotion is that we fear losing that which we love. In every instance of fear that I can think of, love is at the root.

Do we fear death? It is because we love life.

Do we fear heights? It is because we love our safety.

There are countless other fears I can name, but in the end, I believe they are all because we fear losing that which we love.

And this realization, to me, is a means of defining how we live, and where we focus our attention. Rather than trying to fight the fear, savour the love.