11 Reasons Why Your Brain Is A Total Dick

Look, who's in charge here?

scumbag brain
Wikipedia/Stevie Shephard

Your brain is pretty amazing. It keeps you up and running all day and all night, making all the decisions and calling all the shots. Time to wake up, cross the road now, don't put your hand on that hot thing, that pretty girl is looking at you, quick say something funny, but make sure your fly is zipped first - the brain is always looking out for you.

But it is also a conniving little prick that is out to ruin your life.

There are some little quirks in the human mind that end up making your life more difficult than it needs to be. Perhaps not on purpose, but your brain is just so busy that, like an overworked oil-rig safety inspector sticking his chewing gum over a crack in the pipe, it cuts a few corners to try and save both time and effort. 

Sometimes this works like a dream, other times it means that you end up malfunctioning in a wide variety of infuriating and embarrassing ways.

Whether it's being unable to stop yourself eating a whole family pack of Wotsits or not being able to get that damn song out of your head, your brain has a lot to answer for.

11. It Rewrites Memories

scumbag brain
New Line Cinema

Have you ever been arguing with somebody about a past event and you're both absolutely convinced that two different things happened? Maybe you have a strong, formative childhood memory, only for your mum to insist that it never happened, or it happened to your sibling? 

Or perhaps you could have sworn that you put your glasses down on your bedside table last night, you vividly remember doing it, and now they're not there (somebody must have moved them).

It's just your brain playing tricks on you.

Memory doesn't behave like a video recorder, faithfully noting down everything that happens and storing it away. The human memory is there as a learning tool, and will therefore alter itself as and when it needs to in order to fit in with the new information that it has.

When the brain recalls memories, it's not so much dredging them up from some recess of your mind, it's actually more like the brain creates the memory from scratch all over again. This obviously leads to processing errors and alterations depending on any new thoughts and experiences you may have had since it happened.

This means that you might want to think a bit harder next time, before you go tearing up the house looking for your glasses and shouting about how every keeps touching your stuff ... and maybe check whether they're on your head first.

 
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