I know that feeling, but I don’t know how conscious it is. Basically when then outcome matters in a real immediate way and is heavily dependent on my actions, I get calm and go into ‘I must do what needs to be done’ mode. When my car lost traction in the rain and spun on the highway, I probably saved my life by reasoning how to best get control of it, pumping the break, and getting it into a clearing away from other vehicles/trees, all within a time frame that was under a minute. Immediately afterwards the thoughts running through my head were not, ‘Oh fuck I could have died!’ but ‘How could I have handled that better.’ and ‘Oh fuck, I think the car is trashed.’ It was only after I climbed out of the car that I realized I was physically shaking.
Likewise, when a man collapsed at synogogue after most people had left (there were only 6 of us), and hit his head on the table leaving a not unimpressive pool of blood on the floor, I immediately went over to him and checked his vitals and declared that someone should call an ambulance. The other people just stood around looking dumbfounded, and it turned out the problem was no one had a cell-phone on Saturday, so I called and was already giving the address by the time the man’s friend realized there was something wrong and began screaming.
Doing these things did not feel like a choice. They were the necessary next action and so I did them. Period. I don’t know how to describe that. “Emergency Programming”?
I know that feeling, but I don’t know how conscious it is. Basically when then outcome matters in a real immediate way and is heavily dependent on my actions, I get calm and go into ‘I must do what needs to be done’ mode. When my car lost traction in the rain and spun on the highway, I probably saved my life by reasoning how to best get control of it, pumping the break, and getting it into a clearing away from other vehicles/trees, all within a time frame that was under a minute. Immediately afterwards the thoughts running through my head were not, ‘Oh fuck I could have died!’ but ‘How could I have handled that better.’ and ‘Oh fuck, I think the car is trashed.’ It was only after I climbed out of the car that I realized I was physically shaking.
Likewise, when a man collapsed at synogogue after most people had left (there were only 6 of us), and hit his head on the table leaving a not unimpressive pool of blood on the floor, I immediately went over to him and checked his vitals and declared that someone should call an ambulance. The other people just stood around looking dumbfounded, and it turned out the problem was no one had a cell-phone on Saturday, so I called and was already giving the address by the time the man’s friend realized there was something wrong and began screaming.
Doing these things did not feel like a choice. They were the necessary next action and so I did them. Period. I don’t know how to describe that. “Emergency Programming”?