Category: Neuroscience

Every new experience that we have creates neural pathways in our nervous system making possible, in this way, the sharing of electrochemical between neurons located in different parts of the brain and nervous system.

And when we repeat a specific experience we create a new neural pathway each time we repeat it. Also, we relate those new pathways created with the ones created previously (while having the same kind of experience) and we related them with the subconscious perceptions, reactions, thoughts, and other memories surrounding the experience.

Because of the accumulation of information surrounded an specific experience, the brain makes sense of what it is and how it makes us feel, the effect it had on us, emotionally and physically, all according to the unconscious memory associations created by the brain.

In terms of reward, depending on how strong the memory associations are, we tend and can be motivated to repeat pleasant experiences and try to avoid the experiences that gave us an unpleasant effect. And, as well, to be indifferent or neutral about stuff we didn’t create associations yet.

We have limited control of how we store information but knowing how this works. we can tell why we react in ways we do when in contact with certain information and what drives our actions and behavior. Including why get motivated to decide taking distinct actions when presented with particular perceptions.

Motivation and reward to take specific actions are triggered by our memories relating to specific subjects. This system of neural pathways and associations is known as motivational circuitry or motivational neural circuit or reward system.

Marcel Proust published the first volume of his most famous novel, “À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu” (In Search of Lost Time), in November 1913. A masterpiece many people can’t get enough of, as they find themselves coming back to it again and again. And many of my personal favorite Marcel Proust quotes come from the mentioned novel. Although, I favorited quotes from other novels of him, like “Swan’s Way.”

Proust is, historically, one of the most admired authors among other authors, and has reached a status challenging to surpass or even achieve. We can tell why by reading his work and books. Among so many quotes of him I identify with, I present you my favorite ones:

“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.”
― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

“Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”
― Marcel Proust, À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.”
― Marcel Proust, À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu: Volume VII – Time Regained

“Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”
― Marcel Proust, À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

“Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.”
― Marcel Proust, À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

“The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost.”
― Marcel Proust

“It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for.”
― Marcel Proust

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”
― Marcel Proust

“Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade. ”
― Marcel Proust

“Love is not vain because it is frustrated, but because it is fulfilled. The people we love turn to ashes when we posess them.”
― Marcel Proust, À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu: Volume II – The Guermantes Way & Cities of the Plain

“Le véritable voyage de découverte ne consiste pas à chercher de nouveaux paysages, mais à avoir de nouveaux yeux. ”
― Marcel Proust