The neuropsychology behind our emotions involves loss

This post is part 2 of the series. You can find part 1 here.

More damages continued in 2015, but this time it was due to incorrect shelves being kept. During my daily cleaning, I removed the porcelain and cleaned the shelves. In the process of replacing it, the shelves gave way when the glass doors in the cabinet opened. The crash was immediate. The recently acquired and deeply cherished Dutch armor parts tee set has been broken. Some pieces were compensated. Others weren’t.

When my assistant and I cleaned up the wreckage, it was not labor that was the sudden loss of an object that had endured over two centuries. These were artefacts that crossed the ocean, survived generations, and even surpassed the empire. The weight of that irony was heavy.

Neuropsychology has long shown that humans form attachments not only to people but also to objects. This is especially true when objects have narrative weights and researchers call them “autobiographical meaning.” My porcelain does just that. It tells the story. That crack and brushwork evoke not only 18th century China, but my journey as a collector. Thus, porcelain is simply not decorative. It became a part of me Identity.

This is why the damage is still painful. The loss of Foo Dog Teapot wasn’t just about aesthetics. It represents a failure (my failure) to protect a part of the material culture. The same can be said about saucers lost on travel, or partial tea sets destroyed on shelves. The objects were finite and my stewardship was incomplete.

Guilt It is one of the more fascinating emotions from a brain science perspective. It involves both emotional and cognitive assessments and requires that our behavior be compared to internal moral standards. In this case, my standard was preservation. Neuroimaging studies have shown that guilt activates the medial prefrontal cortex, which causes self-referential thinking. Looking back at my role in these losses, I do more than I remember. I I’ll relive it Events, neurologically speaking. Memory The brain system reconstructs an emotional experience almost as vividly as the original moment.

Window washing machine

What’s worse, it’s an incident caused by others. The washing machine in the window, I once broke the 19th century underglaze blue temple jar before I banned others from processing my collection. He glued it together and said nothing. Of course, I realized. His indifference was almost as stabbed as the break itself. To me, objects were important. For him, it was decoration at best. From a neurocognitive perspective, this divergence reflects various evaluation circuits. One brain encodes as valuable, another brain can barely register.

Loss over time

Over the course of 20 years, I have lost 16 porcelain pieces. Some can be repaired. The numbers may seem small, but they are important to collectors. What’s worse, there’s quiet damage. No one can see the crack. The tip is invisible until it is observed in intense light. And what about other collections? Who is paying such attention, if I lose so much, wouldn’t I be too careful at home? What about museums with safer displays, but not immune to disasters?

Losses are inevitable. Neuropsychologically, we know this. The brain is wired to register losses sharper than gain – bias It helped our ancestors survive, but it causes pain for us today. The so-called “negative bias” remembers what went wrong for longer than the right thing.

Conclusion

I’m exactly that fact feel The deep things about broken porcelain are signs of engagement, care and meaning. If judged by what we cherish, it is clear that I value them. These works were more than China for me. They were memory, history, and beauty.

Yes, I was able to replace some of them. But the new dog isn’t like that my foo dog. The tea sets purchased online are not sailing through the Atlantic Ocean. Replacement is a surface repair. Neuropsychologically, it does not erase the emotional connection to lost items.

Ultimately, I still collect. but, fear The loss continues, and the objects of joy are brought along and etched into my brain.