When reading books about human biological psychology in the past, I often ran across the phrase: reptilian brain. We apparently have this in common with all other back-boned animals; it emanates from structures internal to the base of our skulls closest to the cervical spine, and its neurons are believed to mediate our most primitive motivations: hunger, thirst, murderous rage, plus rote mindless habit formation and maintenance. It is the antithesis of the sophisticated thoughts occurring in networks of our cerebral cortex, which earn our species the label homo sapiens sapiens, meaning in my translation: the cleverest of the clever.

Occasionally you will run across a projection from the human/lizard brain in a look from a stranger, maybe even on the face (briefly let’s hope) of a loved one. Here you can see that gaze in naked form. Looking into this shop I felt like prey for the salesman’s hungry python self — me the monkey or the young antelope about to receive a violent strike, then to undergo a process of slow digestion. In the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul where I took this picture, there are thousands of sellers, many of whom are just as aggressive as this fellow. With their quick wits they act toward their potential customers quite rapaciously.