Arthur C. Brooks argues feelings mislead us. Start with disciplined practice—reading, listening, engaging—and let beliefs and deep feelings emerge later. He traces how this rewires the brain's periaqueductal gray and brain stem, aligning moral aspiration with instinct.
Feelings are liars. They lie to you. What you do is you start going. And then on the basis of that and what you're seeing and hearing and reading and reading on your own and treating as an interesting intellectual experience, you'll develop some beliefs around it. And then occasionally you'll have deep feelings as well. And that's what it means to actually bring this into your life. Then the miracle really happens for you. That's when you start to experience the difference in your periaqueductal gray and that stuff in the brain stem. It requires a conscious act. And this is why it's so important to understand that. The discipline, the moral aspiration, how it's linked to the animal impulses, how the miracle of what we have is minds, bodies, heart, souls and brains. How it all hangs together. And this glorious miracle that is each one of us. This is a classic example of how that actually works. So run the algorithm in the right direction. Practice first, feel later. That's step one of the protocol for bringing more faith, spirituality, or philosophy into your life.
