[Mimic#301_non-scientific]Stumbling on Happiness_Chelsea

Young Happiness by Jeyheich, licensed by creative commmons from Flickr

Except from Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, page 15

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A permanent present- what a  haunting phrase. How bizarre and surreal it must be to serve a life sentence in the prison of the moment, trapped forever in the perpetual now, a world without end, a time without later. Such an existence is so difficult for most of us to imagine, so alien to our normal experience, that we are tempted to dismiss it as a fluke- an unfortunate, rare, and freakish aberration brought on by traumatic, head injury.
But in fact, this strange existence is the rule and we are the exception. For the first few hundred million years after their initial appearance on our planet, all brains were stuck in the permanent present, and most brains still are today. But not yours and not mine, because two or three million years ago our ancestors began a great escape from the here and now, and their getaway vehicle was a highly specialized mass of gray tissue, fragile, wrinkled, and appended. This frontal lobe- the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age- is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens. No other animal has a frontal lobe quite like ours, which is why we are the only animal that thinks about the future as we do.



First Draft
The[A] permanent moment- what a haunting phrase! How bizarre and surreal it must be to serve a life sentence in the prison of the moment, trapped [forever] in the perpetuate now, a world without end, the[a] time without later. This[Such an] existence is so difficult for [most of] us to imagine, so alien to our normal experience, that we are tempted to dismiss it as a fluke- an unfortunate, rare and freakish aberration brought on by traumatic[,] head injury.

But in fact, this strange existence is the rule and we are the exception. For about a[the first few] hundred million years before[after] their appearance on our planet, most brains were stuck in the permanent moment, and most brains still are today. It was[But not yours and not mine, because] two or three million years ago that our ancestors had [began] this [a] great escape from the here and now, and their [getaway] vehicle was a highly specialized mass of gray tissue-[,] fragile, wrinkle, and appended. The[This] frontal lobe- the last part of [the] human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age- is a time machine that allows [each of] us to vacate from the present and experience the future before it happens. No other animal has that [a frontal lobe] quite like ours, which is why we are the only animal that thinks [about the future] as we do.

Second Draft
A permanent moment- what a haunting phrase. How bizarre and surreal it must be to serve a life sentence in the prison of the moment, trapped forever in the perpetual now, a world without the end, a time without later. Such an existence is so difficult for us to imagine, so alien to our normal experience, that we are tempted to dismiss it as a fluke- an unfortunate, rare and freakish aberration brought on by traumatic, head injury.

But in fact, such existence is the rule and we are the exception. A [For the first] few hundred million years before their initial appearance on our planet, most brains were stuck in the permanent moment, and most brains still are today. But not your and not mine, because two or three million years ago our ancestors began the[a] great escape from the here and now, and their getaway vehicle is[was] a highly specialized mass of gray tissue, fragile, wrinkle and appended. The frontal lobe- the last part of human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age- is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens. No other animal has the frontal lobe quite like ours, which is why we are the old animal thinks about the future like we do.

P.S. This book is interesting. A book about happiness:)