No, not MADE of plastic — the brain physically changes when you do the same thing over and over. To me it feels like it creates little grooves in my brain. You have to rest your brain by doing something different — something so absorbing that you are completely diverted from what has exhausted you. You can’t fly an airplane safely and fret about taxes at the same time. You can’t line up a pool shot and plan a marketing strategy simultaneously.
Nobel-prize winner Dr. Kandel, featured on PBS’ show about the brain, is quoted in “The Shallows”:
“The growth and maintenance of new synaptic terminals makes memory persist.” The process also says something important about how, thanks to the plasticity of our brains, our experiences continually shape our behavior and identity: “The fact that a gene must be switched on to form long-term memory shows clearly that genes are not simply determinants of behavior but are also responsive to environmental stimulation, such as learning.”
Learning changes our brain, and continual learning strengthens our “learning muscles.” The more we do something, the better we get at it. But constant pressure can be exhausting.
Two important elements to repair “the little grooves” that we wear into our brains by intense repetition of the same mental activities:
- A change of scene and
- Doing something different that is creative and absorbing.
How do you relax your brain? Non-verbal play or do you use mental diversions like playing Bridge? What do you think is most effective?
The Shallows” postulates that it much harder to have Deep Learning and Deep Thinking when screen sucking. When reading online, every link requires a decision “Do I Click?” and that keeps the thinking shallow. The shallow thinking explains why it is so hard to learn to design websites online. When I am seeking an answer to question A, I am always distracted by the offer of a solution to a tangential problem. This may be why people sign up for classes taught the conventional way, in a classroom. Do you learn better staring at a screen, fully absorbed, or do you prefer a textbook or a class?
Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIAs bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a CIA counterterrorism analyst until 2004. His writing is maddeningly unquotable, and his point of view is hidden until the last pages of the book.
My father paused before explaining it this way. “Omar, try to imagine a two-wheeled bicycle. One wheel is made of steel. The other is made of wood. Now, my son, if you wanted to destroy the bicycle, would you destroy the wooden or the steel wheel?”
My friend Dee lives in Port Aransas, a charming and artistic beach community on a barrier island near the Southern tip of Texas. Corpus Christi is the nearest city. For a year now, Dee has been writing an interview column for the local newspaper and she just decided that she wants to get paid. Will getting paid erase the fun and wipe out the creativity of writing for the Island Moon?
Dee loves Port Aransas, a drinking town with a fishing problem. It is a colorful, artistic beach town on Mustang Island and a fun place to party for the students from the University of Texas at Austin. Dee owns a profitable business that has thrived on her writing talents but she longed for a more creative outlet. She started writing for the Island Moon as a hobby, interviewing the artists and interesting shop owners to get to know her neighbors better. The Island Moon doesn’t pay for writing, and that was a perfect fit because Dee was looking for a social hobby. A year ago, Dee did not want to have to sell advertising to her interviewees, but the Island Moon only pays for selling ads, not for writing. If Dee wants to get paid by the Island Moon, she will have to ask the businesses profiled in 
I’ll never look at orchids the same way after hunting for the elusive Ghost Orchid with John Kalafarski, a brilliant botanist and all around genius. 
We were seeking the elusive Ghost Orchid which blooms at the start of the summer rainy season. After a long dry winter, this leafless orchid appears briefly in just a few rare locations where the conditions are just right. John, our guide, visits this area often and has a botanist’s eye for the details that lead to the tiny but dramatic wild orchids that flower in the 
The most exciting part was hearing the rumble of an alligator as a jet plane went overhead. John explained that alligators are not afraid of humans, but they don’t understand the sound of the jets overhead and it agitates them. A few steps further and we could smell the alligator who had created a Gator Hole in the black swamp muck. The muck itself was actually clean smelling, just decaying leaves mostly, John dug up a handful for us to sniff. It looked muddy but was actually rather crumbly. We circled around the gator hole so we upwind of the gator and Howard got a pretty good photo. 
John explained that the early Spanish visitors called this critter a lizard “legato” so The Lizard is El Legato. Ellygato. Corrupted to ellygotta, then alligator. 
The Everglades are beautiful. We kayaked in a mangrove tunnel with a bird guide and watched a little gator flee. The next day, an ex-Marine power boated us out to the 10,000 islands so we could kayak in salt water to see manatees and turtles and to visit a small island with a sandy beach, hardwoods at the center and a portapotty. While we were on the island, some canoe campers landed, planning to spend the night. They were touring and camping in the islands (that looks like a fun trip!). The following day we spent several hours in the Fakahatchee strip, a botanists paradise, with a Ph.D. naturalist looking for Ghost orchids. Didn’t find any, but heard, smelled and saw a gator at his hole. Very gushy hike.