A page from The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley
I guess it’s not exactly surprising, but it seems to explain a lot of things I’m witnessing in my later adulthood. I’ve always felt deeply impressed by selfless heroes, but I never really pondered the profile of heroism.
Ripley discusses trauma early in the book and there appears to be some correlation between the size of a person’s hippocampus and their capacity to absorb and rebound from traumatic events.