Tag Archives: brain

clear cut near Shawnigan Lake Vancouver Island BC Canada

What is the Big Hurry

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I just read a post by a fella who said since loosing his mother he’s been finding it harder and harder to connect with people with their challenges and goals and all that jazz. I can’t help but empathize.

I look at something like this clearcut and I ask myself: “What is the big hurry?”

I used to hike to the top of mountains with the peak in mind, and then hit the peak, slap that peak in the ass, turn around, and head right back down. This no longer makes sense to me really, as every step along the path are peaks of little miracles. Bugs, bark, blossoms… why is a view of a lake I just walked along ignoring to get to the peak better then stopping beside that lake to dip my toes in?

Of course, this is an analogy to life. Us humans have a tendency to nurture the scatter brain, the lizard brain, that encourages us to not be content with the moment, but instead be planning ten thousand things more. Sure ten thousand things are an exciting proposition, but there also exists ten thousand things in looking the person close to you in the eye and saying: “Hello, thank you,” with a smile.

Productive or Insulting Criticism

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As Seth Godin explains clearly in his book Linchpin: “But it’s clear that no matter what sort of creative work you’re doing, no matter how acclaimed or successful you are, the Lizard will seek you out and probably find you. What happens after that is up to you.”

The Lizard he is referring to, is the Lizard brain that tells you to avoid anything that’s scary, unknown, or that will invite criticism. The Lizard brain tells us we’re not perfect.

Nobody is perfect. Nobody has ever been perfect. Walt Disney was told a mouse would never work, Jerry Scienfield was booed off the first stage he walked onto, Steven Spielberg was rejected from University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times… the list goes on.

When we do ship our product, we subject ourselves to boundless criticism. We are bound to hear it, get it, and if we’re smart, we should take note of it, evaluate it, and make the necessary changes to make our product a better product.

Productive criticism helps us identify specific areas to work on, it gives us focus points to research and develop further.

Any other criticism shifts from cultivating the genius inside of us to stifling the genius inside of us.

Interpret it as you wish.

 

Exercising the Mind

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The mind, in all matters concerning it, must be exercised in order to keep it healthy and growing strong. It is as a muscle, requiring constant and consistent activity to stay healthy. Sports players, cards players, computer programmers, engineers, and on and on all continually and relentlessly practice their profession; going over and over selected scenarios, developing new ideas, or reaching new depths of creativity are all ways to exercise the mind.

Einstein

Starting at birth, new parents are encouraged to challenge their child with new responsibilities, play memory exercising games, or teach them multiple languages. This makes headway into the starting of the child’s academic career, where it is quite obvious it is demanded that they do indeed use their brain for scholarly purposes: calculating formulas, creative writing, memorizing biological systems, etc.

It is easy to sit back and let the exercising be demanded of a person and let it grow in a passive pushing mode, but the real character comes when graduation is upon the student.

At this conjuncture in life, the student is now free from all prescribed and demanded learning. This is where personal motivation comes into the equation. The new graduate is only looking for fun adventures and to explore the limits of their newly found freedom; which by all means is necessary in the growth of the person, but there is a certain tipping point, or balancing that needs to be acquired. After all, balance is the key to life.

Scanning of a human brain by X-rays

The exciting part is now that the graduate is indeed graduated, it is upon them to decide which path they wish to explore.

No longer is the learning prescribed, but rather opened up for interpretation where the mind is the school master cracking the whip, and the conscience is the poor school boy waiting eagerly with big wide eyes for what is to come next; open to be influenced.

Activities like reading and writing are great ways to keep the thought process active and firing on all cylinders, which incidentally can also be used to keep the mind focused (this is a good thing). You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again; in this day and age of the internet and instant communication, it’s hard for people to stay focused on one topic for any length of time.

Writing down ideas can help keep the thought process aligned straight towards success, in all essence of the word.

mind

The main point, however, is that without activities that keep the mind thinking, keeping all those neurons sparking like luminescence in the midnight waters, the brain will not keep the doors open to creative thought.

Before you know it, you will be a machine working at a dead end job wondering how you got there, feeling sorry for yourself the whole time.

SO! I encourage you, don’t let it happen to you! Exercise your mind!

Do you have any other ideas or games that will help keep the mind active?