Jogging My Memory

The weirdest thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. I was attempting to clean out the dishwasher while deep in thought about other things. I pulled two items from the dishwasher, wandered around, set one of them down on a counter, and then put the other one away. I was so lost in thought that after putting the one item away, I couldn't remember what item I had set down. I scanned the counter, but everything seemed more or less in place. Unless the canning jar by the stove wasn't supposed to be there. I tried to review my movements around the kitchen, but couldn't remember if I had actually set the jar by the stove. Finally, still quite unsure, I walked over and picked up the jar. Immediately, I knew that it was the other item I had had in my hand. Why? Because of the particular noise it made when my fingers ran over it's surface.

Isn't that weird? My mind was far away from my task, yet it stored that funny rubbing noise somewhere in my head. As soon as I heard that noise, my brain recognized it, and I realized that I had been carrying the jar around previously. But why did it take that noise to jog my memory? Why did my brain remember that noise in the first place? Why couldn't it have remembered visually or sensory clues?

Anyway, the moral of the story is... Either pay attention to your task and do it right, or else don't pay attention to your task and see what funny things happen.

One of Two Minds

Watch out! The following is a favourite subject of mine. I hope I won't bore you to tears...

Do you find yourself dreading large parties because they can be exhausting? Do you find it confusing that you don't seem to enjoy socializing like everyone else? Do you find yourself being overwhelmed by a task that others seem to think is simple? Do you often need time to organize your thoughts before you answer a question? If you answered yes to more than a couple of these, chances are you are not abnormal like you think; you're probably just an introvert. (Further down, I've posted a link that will help you decide)

Introversion and extroversion could be considered personalities, but really they describe the way our brains our wired. Introverts are happiest when by themselves, with well known friends, or in any restful setting. They recharge themselves mentally when they have time to rest and reflect. Extroverts, on the other hand, love socializing and adrenaline. They recharge when there is lots of excitement. While some people are extreme introverts and others are extreme extroverts, most people are somewhere in between, usually defaulting to one side or the other. Others, however, are very balanced, and can operate on both sides. As you grow older, you will slowly drift towards the middle of the scale.

Neither side is right or wrong. However, because introverts make up only 25% of the population, they often think something is wrong with them; the world they are in is geared towards extroverts.

If you know that you're an introvert, there is a way that you can function in this majority of opposites. The key is to understand how to recharge yourself. Maybe before you go out for the evening you can read a book, take a nap, do some easy tasks, or just simply sit and do nothing. This will give you extra energy, which you'll need, because being in a big group can be very draining!

Most importantly, you are not abnormal because you don't like to socialize like extroverts. Most likely, you can remember a time when you socialized with just a few friends and you had a complete blast. See if you can do that in large groups. Pick out another person that looks like a fish out of water, and try start a slow, relaxing discussion by tuning out all the people milling around. I think you'll be surprised.

Here's a website that will help you determine whether you are an introvert or not: Being an Introvert If you think you are an introvert or if you have a close friend who is an introvert, I suggest you read the book, The Introvert Advantage, available at Chapters. It'll really open your eyes!

The diversity in mankind is truly amazing!

Superlative Hand

A continuation of Deft Fingers with an excerpt by Dr. Brand...

     "Often I have stood before a group of medical students or surgeons to analyze the motion of one finger. I hold before them a dissected cadaver hand, almost obscene-looking when severed from the body and trailing strands of sinew. I announce that I will move the tip of the little finger. To do so, I must place the cadaver hand on a table and spend perhaps four minutes sorting through the intricate network of tendons and muscles. (To allow dexterity and slimness for actions such as piano playing, the finger has no muscles in itself; tendons transfer force from muscles in the forearm and palm.) Finally, when I have arranged at least a dozen muscles in the correct configuration and tension, with a delicate movement I can maneuver them so the little finger moves firmly without the proximal joints buckling...

     "In order to observe the types of artificial hand that scientist and engineers have developed through years of research and millions of dollars of technology, I have visited facilities that produce radioactive materials. With great pride scientists demonstrate their skilled machines that allow them to avoid exposure to radiation. By adjusting knobs and levers they can control and artificial hand whose wrist supinates and revolves. Recent models even possess an opposable thumb, and advanced feature reserved for primates in nature. Smiling like a proud father, the scientist wiggles the mechanical thumb for me.

     "I nod approvingly and compliment him on the wide range of activity the mechanical hand can perform. But he knows, as I do, that compared to a human thumb his atomic-age hand is clumsy and limited, even pathetic - a child's Play Doh sculpture compared to a Michelangelo masterpiece. A piano concert proves that."

     from Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Dr. Paul Brand and

     Philip Yancey

A Question of Nerves

What would happen if you had surgery on the nerves in your lower spinal cord, and the doctors crossed the nerves for you legs? If you would stub your left big toe, would you feel it in your right?

DNA

I was fascinated by the following facts about DNA:

"Each cell carries the entire instruction book of one hundred thousand genes. DNA is estimated to contain instructions that, if written out, would fill a thousand six-hundred-page books. A nerve cell may operate according to instructions from volume four and a kidney cell from volume twenty-five, but both carry the whole compendium. The DNA is so narrow and compacted that all the genes in all my body's cells would fit into an ice cube; yet if the DNA were unwound and joined together end to end, the strand could stretch from the earth to sun and back more the four hundred times."

                  from Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Dr. Paul Brand

                  and Philip Yancy

The whole book is filled with interesting facts and uses them to draw parallels between the human body and God's church.

Metacognition

"Knowing about knowing." What an interesting definition!

Picture your brain sitting in your head. All folds and layers and made up of billions of stringy nerve cells that are extremely interconnected. These cells zap each other with electricity and chemical reactions, which is the basic process we call "thought." So right now those nerve cells are thinking about themselves...