Brain Physics

I pride myself on constantly thinking of ways to take disparate ideas from academic, spiritual and/or artistic disciplines to try and derive parallels between them. In doing so I hope to construct more abstract rules/laws/commandments that simplify the world as I know it.

Let's take high school physics. I enjoyed taking physics. I gained an understanding of the world ( force, momentum, energy, mass, etc.) I never knew before. However, I very rarely use that knowledge today. I mean I really haven’t tried to predict the trajectory of a cannon ball in ages. Have you?

I try to recycle some of these nuggets of knowledge and apply them to my favorite pastime: self – improvement. How do I take two disparate areas of study and make them play nice together? Yes, you guessed it. Using analogies.

Example:
Let’s take the physics of an object moving in one direction. It has a position, velocity, and acceleration. In order for an object to change it’s position, it must have some velocity. If it wants to increase its velocity, it must use some acceleration.

Just to clarify, imagine an old hound dog sleeping on a porch. It just lies there. It’s position is constant. It doesn’t move. It has no velocity or acceleration.

Now suppose it wakes up to go for a walk with its owner. Since it’s on a leash, it walks at the same pace as it’s master. It walks at a constant velocity.

Now suppose it sees a squirrel running up a tree. It immediately dashes forward to chase the squirrel. It suddenly changes it’s velocity and that is acceleration.

Do you see where I’m going with this?
The mind has a position also known as your state of mind. If it’s constant it’s just like the old dog slumped on the porch. It’s asleep and does not move. Have you ever been in a state of depression, confusion, bliss, or shock? How did free your mind? For me, I kick my brain into gear. The best way to relieve the blues is to use critical thinking.

The mind has a velocity which is its train of thought. If the thoughts are focused, constant, and consistent (critical thinking) it’s just like the old dog on a leash. It keeps the same pace as its master. If it's not, it's more like the dog meandering from tree to tree and sniffing the ground for whatever dogs sniff the ground for.

The mind has acceleration also known as passion. If it’s there, it’s just like the old dog chasing after the squirrel. It doesn’t care about keeping pace with it’s master. It sees what it wants and goes for it.

So what am I getting at?
If you want to change the state of your mind, you have to move your mind (read: think).

If you want to think faster, you must accelerate your mind. This usually occurs when you pursue a passion. Your obsession increases the amount of information you take in, your comprehension, and your productivity. This is the essence of becoming smarter.

Once you start to accelerate, your velocity starts to kick into high gear. You train your mind to perform tasks that were seemingly impossible before. Such as increasing your typing speed, remembering names, working longer, multi-tasking, etc…

Once this happens, then your mind is free to chase squirrels.

2 comments:

Jennifer Jones said...

Wow... I love the way you think!

:-)

Jennifer

Jessica Enneby Eldenstjärna said...

very good post, :) and I also like the one about the learning cycle with the pastry shop, really interesting to think of it that way :)

I write some similar things on my blog, but maybe with a more bohemic touch ;),

 

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