I failed my resolution for the year 2012 by not changing a major opinion. This marks three consecutive years during which I've kept nearly the same world view, with all my new ideas coming as nothing more than refinements of previous ones.
Was my resolution for 2012 silly? I suppose so. I can't willfully change an opinion. Changing an opinion requires, in addition to an open mind, serendipity, and one can't force serendipity. But I also lacked an open mind. I've become set in my comfortable thoughts and theories.
It's impossible for me not to relate this to getting older. Most living things, as they age, become less adaptable and more adapted. What was once in an organism's youth a universe of potential necessarily collapses over time into a set of ever narrower possibilities. This brings to mind a metaphor, one of a crooked tree that was warped in youth due some pressing circumstance of the time, such as having to grow around the obstruction of a building or away from the shade of a bigger tree. After some years of thickening its trunk and branches, the tree's crooked shape becomes fixed, and the tree grows only by extending and hardening the basic shape it already has. Even if the building it grew around is later torn down or the tree whose shade it grew away from dies and falls over, the crooked tree retains its awkward shape until it too dies. To survive new obstructions, the tree relies on the adaptations it's already made.
The forward arrow of time can't be avoided, and it can't be undone, but neither is it wholly regrettable, for it's chiefly the unchangeable parts of ourselves that make us who we are. Nevertheless, I won't be the champion of a closed mind anytime soon: during 2013 I'll strive to be both adapted and adaptable. But as far as resolutions go, maybe I'll try something that's more within my control, such as being punctual or eating five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
4 comments:
5 servings a day everyday would REALLY be amazing.
BW
Anonymous BW— Yep, it would be amazing. I'm by no means committing myself to such awesomeness.
Hi Craig. Happy New Year! A friend, who is a scientist by training, told me that she's starting Zumba classes, despite her lack of coordination and the fact that she hates dancing. It's outside her comfort zone, but she mentioned that, due to her mother's present struggles with dementia, she has been considering trying new things in order to forge new pathways in her brain as she ages. This gave me the same sense as the imagery of the tree you've mentioned here. I am certainly comfortable in what I know and like, but now I'm thinking about how I could stretch myself a little.
Lindsey— It's good to hear someone taking a route other than playing through sudokus and solving crosswords to try to keep their brain fit. Plus, aerobic exercise has been correlated with better brain health. The brain comprises 2% of body mass but consumes about 20% of the oxygen at rest.
Interesting fact: the intelligence of a mammal correlates to its brain mass divided by its spinal column length. This implies that the metaphor of the brain being the CPU of the body is misleading. Instead, the brain is more like an I/O controller, taking in sensory input and signaling muscular output. If you want to work your brain, go do some I/O.
Happy New Year to you and your family!
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