Let’s take a journey where we learn about the plasticity of the mind. How we can shape our minds ourselves, where we are in control. What can we do with that?
First things first….
I know everyone knows what a paradigm shift is. Maybe you’re not familiar with the term. Just in case, I’ll describe what it is, and the effect it has on us.
(Maybe you don’t think this piece should be under the section of “Brain-Engage,” but just wait. You’ll see!)
Here’s a paradigm shift:
Imagine someone is speaking to a group. You’re a part of that group, and you’re listening intently, as everyone else is. The speaker is describing something, in detail, in such a way that you are all-of-a-sudden realizing that your whole understanding of the topic was wrong until now. All of a sudden, you really and truly understand what it’s about, how it works. You are experiencing a paradigm shift.
You get it now!
What happens next is that the whole world outside your head goes quiet. Your jaw goes slack, your mouth agape. You might hear a faint ringing sound in your ears. The only other sound you can hear is the distant sound of gears running, meshing together. Some people might hear a hamster wheel running off of its axle. You feel your socks rolling up and down your ankles, several times.
This whole-body experience could last for seconds, minutes, hours, depending on how massive a shift was caused in our minds by the sudden realization, the sudden understanding.
You get it.
Many people I’ve discussed this topic with can remember when their first paradigm shift occurred. I honestly can’t remember my first. All I know is that I’m addicted to the feeling, and I just can’t get enough of it.
I will relate more examples of the plasticity of the mind, as the result of a conversation.
(Now, I realize that when neuroscientists speak of brain plasticity, this is not exactly how they define it. But I think you’ll see that this definitely falls into the category of plasticity of the mind.)
Here’s a new example:
Perhaps you were on either end of this dynamic. Imagine someone who feels just terrible, they are emotionally spent, they have been wronged somehow by someone, and they are feeling the lowest they have ever felt in their life. Perhaps their heart was broken, or maybe they are severely disappointed for some other reason. Maybe they’re depressed about something. They are feeling at their lowest. Even their body is hurting.
Now, imagine that a “neutral” 3rd-party (not the person that caused the harm) is consoling them. They are offering reassuring words, offering reasoning intended to reverse the effect of the hurt. Eventually, the person who was feeling so bad starts to feel better as a result of this conversation.
Have you experienced this? Where mere words can have such an impressive impact as to (more or less) heal the person who was feeling so bad?! They were previously feeling so bad that their body was actually hurting. Now, that physical pain is gone, and they are feeling somewhat uplifted. True, they’re not completely “over it,” but they are orders of magnitude better!
I can’t get enough of this stuff! How mere words, which are nothing more than symbols of constructs, simply thoughts, ideas verbalized in auditory symbols, can change the way we think—the way we feel?
Still another example:
Have you ever had something that seemed complicated explained to you so that you finally understood it? That feeling of “Aha!” is overwhelming, it lifts you up, and the whole world seems brighter, somehow clearer than ever before.
These are all examples of the plasticity of the mind. If your mind is open, that is, if you are not feverishly clinging to the way you have always viewed the world and everything in it, your mind, your viewpoint, the way you understand the world…can be changed.
Having an open mind is not the same thing as being “wishy-washy.” No, that’s simply being gullible, such that you will believe anything someone tells you with a straight face. No, it’s not the same thing.
Having an open mind is something to be attained. It means you have developed a sense of confidence in your understanding of how the world works, yet you are open to learning new things. This is an advanced state of independent thought, an advanced state of intellectual achievement. Being truly open-minded requires a sense of self-assuredness that can only be attained by someone who has pondered and understood fairly deep-level mechanisms of the world, human behavior, and overall, how the universe works.
My wish is for everyone to attain this level.
I know some people think that what they learned while growing up, in other words, what their parents and/or school teachers taught them is the “gospel truth,” and cannot be replaced by some fad, new-age wisdom that someone tries to “float” by them.
But that’s just not the way “wisdom” works.
Parents and school teachers only teach children things, and in ways, that they feel the children are capable of understanding. In the worst cases, they teach them the same “old wisdom” that they themselves were taught, that has filtered down through the ages from what simple-minded people thought was safe to consider. Many people who might have possessed advanced mechanical knowledge of “everyday things” were taught that abstract concepts were simply too “flighty” to even ponder or consider. “If you can’t see it and hold it in your hand, it doesn’t exist.” Does that sound familiar?
Yet the way wisdom truly works in the universe is that, as people evolve, and their minds become more capable of abstract thoughts, they are able to understand more. In other words, in a given lifetime, the more someone understands, the more they are capable of new understanding. That they should reconsider things they previously thought they understood is only natural.
That is what true open-mindedness is. It is where, even though you might have had a good, working knowledge of how something works, you can be open to new insights…thus leading to a deeper understanding.
And another thing….
Think about how man has evolved. Thousands of years ago, people’s lives were not really that different from the way they are today. They had many of the same concerns, like getting meals every day, paying their taxes, and wondering whether or not their neighbor was coveting their wife. It was only in terms of technology that things were different. In the last few hundred years, we’ve learned about microscopic things called germs, and even smaller things like molecules and atoms. And along with that knowledge about such things, we have also learned to manipulate those minuscule things, for the betterment of our technology.
And, once again, it is words that have advanced that knowledge! Because, as humans learned to speak words (which again are symbols of abstract constructs), we have also learned to write them down and record them in books! With that, has developed the novel concept that not each individual has to explore and discover everything themselves—they can read about them, and learn that way! Thus evolves the human storehouse of knowledge. Now, each individual has the opportunity to learn, in their early life, more than what previous generations could possibly learn in an entire lifetime of exploration.
As each generation comes along, they learn that vast storehouse of accumulated human knowledge at an earlier point in their lives. What only advanced college students could learn just a few generations ago is now learned by elementary students in the latest generation. And, so it goes.
All these things we’ve considered here are about how the human mind is plastic, continually being molded by our experience. Also how words can convey abstract concepts.
Now I want to take you on a journey of learning to shape your mind, where you are in control. A journey of understanding where you control how you learn, how you respond to events around you, and so you continue to grow and develop only in ways that make a better you.
This is the journey called “Brain-Engage.”