Sometimes I try to trick my brain into thinking it is dormant, but I know it’s not. I know for every reason I say to it, “stop working, turn off, go to sleep now,” it has a thousand other reasons to continue thinking, to stay on full tilt - - whether I like it or not.
So when I think I’m tired of firing salvos into the abyss, my eyes flitter as they follow the curve of the smoke from the artillery shells, watching them ricochet off the falling stars.
My brain doesn’t flinch as it cranks up and starts more verbose evacuation. I am a glutton for punishment as my brain puts me under the gun and instead of screaming, “Stop,” I scream, “More.”
Before I even wake up, my brain has already made breakfast and serves it to me in bed. It’s quick to tell me that it has broken into the word bank; selected key words, constructed sentences, lined up paragraphs, formulated ideas, summarized theories, and placed the word cache back into the vault.
I’ve learned not to fight it anymore. It really does have a mind of it’s own -- mine.
My fingers hit the keyboard running. The words on the screen start to look blurry and nonsensical, but I keep hitting the target until the last word is extracted from my bloody fingers.
In honor of my 500th post, (actually more, but I rounded it down) celebrate my brain with me. Celebrate your brain. Celebrate thinking. Be a free thinker, but not free of thinking. Be thoughtful, not thoughtless. Celebrate doing. Celebrate being in the moment, but most of all celebrate your life. We really are blessed to be here, to be alive and to be cognizant of our existence.
When I think of the brain, I think of being in England, boarding the underground at Victoria Station on that rainy September morning. As I shivered from the cold and the steam from the hot chocolate traveled up my nostrils, I remember seeing the sign, MIND THE GAP. I always loved that sign.
The sign is a warning for train passengers to watch out for the gap between the train door and the station platform. Some station platforms are curved and since the cars are straight, the distance from the platform to the car at certain points is greater than normal, and the phrase, MIND THE GAP is painted on the edge of the platforms.
As I waited patiently for the underground, I can still see that English gentleman who ironically smells of English leather (the cologne, not actual leather) wearing the camel tan trench coat, and brown fedora. He tips his hat to me, smiles and says in that British gentleman accent,
“What’s the matter love, brain freeze?”
“Excuse me,” I say.
“You look like an ice cube,” he laughs.
“I feel like one too,” I retort.
“Don’t worry love, the weather here keeps the blood circulating, keeps the brain going, keeps you alert,” he adds.
As I glance down at his hand, I see a book partially tucked in his newspaper. He must have read my face.
“It’s for my wife,” he says abashedly. I was so relieved to know that HE wasn’t reading, Memoirs Of A Geisha. I don't know why, I guess just felt that it was a book for women, not men.
The train speeds past us blowing a gust of warmth in our faces. Then I hear the lady on the P.A. say,”Mind the gap.”
She was not only talking about the gap on the platform, but mind the gap of knowledge. Always keep learning, growing, and evolving. That’s what mind the gap is to me. Minding the ability to fill the void with life.
Humans have an unlimited capacity to learn. Unlike computers, no human brain has ever said, "Hard drive full." Even if we only use a percentage of our brain at a time, we are still engaging the infinite possibilities that reside in our craniums.
Keep Minding The Gap And Feed Your Brain
- When you were born, your brain weighed about 350-400g and you had almost all the brain cells you will ever have. In fact, your brain was closer to its full adult size than any other organ in your body. Your brain stops growing at age 18.
- The adult human brain is about 2% of the total body weight and weighs about 3 pounds (1,300 - 1,400 g.)
- Your brain uses approximately 20% of the total oxygen pumping around your body and about 750ml of blood pumps through your brain every minute!
- Your skin weighs twice as much as your brain.
- Your brain consists of 60% white matter and 40% grey matter.
- Your brain consists of about 100 billion neurons. That's about 166 times the number of people on the planet.
- The number of internal thought pathways that your brain is capable of producing is, one followed by 10.5 million kilometers of standard typewritten zero's!
- Unconsciousness will occur after 8 -10 seconds after loss of blood supply to the brain.
- All of your thinking is done by electricity and chemicals.
- The human brain is approximately 75% water.
- Your brain is capable of having more ideas than the number of atoms in the known universe.
- If you could harness the power used by your brain, you could power as a 10-watt light bulb.
- The brain itself is incapable of feeling pain. (That doesn't mean brain surgery doesn't hurt.)
Myth Understandings
It is a myth that we only use 10% of our human brain. This myth is more misleading itself than the so-called myth of unused brain potential.
We no more use 90% of our brain potential than we use 90% of our muscle potential all of the time. We no more use all of our brain all of the time than we use 100% of our lung capacity sitting at our computer keyboard.
We no more use all of our brain all of the time than we use all of our car all of the time; that we always drive at the full speed; that our trunk and seats are always filled to capacity; that we have even figured out and daily employ every single way in which we could use our car.
To say that we use all of our brain ignores the fact that we keep losing our car keys and that we can't remember where we left our car in the parking garage - - even though this is well within our brain potential.
Nobel prize winner, Sir John Eccles summarizes the infinite potential of the human brain.
"To say we use all of our brain all of the time says nothing about the potential of human intelligence, creativity, and problem solving. Such a skeptical rebuttal of the vast potential of the human think machine implies that we have reached our limits of brain potential - - probably the most harmful dead end notion of all. We haven't even gotten close. Our frontal lobes have been culturally and socially lobotomized. At this stage of evolution, we are simply still apes with pencils.
To say that 'we use all of our brain all of the time' or 'it's is a myth that we only use 10% of our brain,' are both misleading and unhelpful uninspiring skeptical crumbs with barely a grain of truth and are not accurate statements regarding usage of the human brain. To say that the human brain is only 10% functional means that we would have to calculate infinity and how can you calculate a percentage of infinity?"
Read more...
