What is one thing (object, idea, practice, etc.) you love?
The thing I love is my lifelong refinement of my brain’s ability to think. I also think of it as a sense-making mechanism that was born of childhood trauma, likely heightened by retrospectively obvious neurodivergence.
How did you first come to discover your love for your brain’s ability to think? Do you remember?
From a very early age, I was drawn to rulesets and logical conclusions that arose from board games and role-playing-games, though I didn’t know what they really were at the time. I made elaborate battles with toy-soldiers and other such token-based play, and this, along with a love of reading books increasingly beyond my grade level, encouraged me to think of complex systems such as logistics, transportation, governance, food production, and taxation. When I was 12, I discovered Hammurabi’s Game and Eliza from a BASIC computer book with game examples. I did not have a computer so I learned the language and executed the program using quadrille paper to hold the values as they changed. This manual calculation of the computer operations drilled into my brain that everything a computer does is a set of discrete and simple operations strung together in complex ways. From this I became aware I could use the same technique to apply to larger and more complex data sets. I immediately set out to obtain a computer.
Do you feel like anyone mentored you when you first discovered this love or in developing your love for your brain and thought? If so, who and under what circumstances?
There is only one instance of anyone helping me in any way that I remember: I was 14 years old I think, in 1982, and I was at my neighbor’s house, where his father was talking with one of his friends. The friend, a man with graying temples and a stern face, asked me what I wanted to do, and upon replying “computers”, he launched into a mini speech, mostly directed at my neighbor’s dad, about how there would be two classes of people: the few who program the computers, and the great many who just use them. I don’t think he knew that I understood what he said. I never saw that man again, but I remember now, 40 years later, that this is what made me want to be one of those people who control the machines, who program the computers.
What do you love about your brain’s ability to think?
I didn’t understand for the longest time that applying what I knew about computers to my own mind would result in a sort of mastery of thought, because humans and computers really don’t operate the same way. What was interesting is that the notion of deconstructing activities into discrete and repeatable instructions was the essence of computer programming, at its base, and that any sort of higher abstraction layer became more and more patterned after modes of thinking. To master computer programming, engineering, and system design, one would have to be able to draw a virtual line in mid-air between how thoughts occur and how lines of code appear on lined paper. This intellectual rigor could then cut through mumbo-jumbo of unexamined assumptions and religiocultural upbringing. Whenever I am faced with an issue, whether societal or local to my surrounding, I always solve it best when I remember to apply this very mechanistic approach to finding a solution. This has essentially been my superpower and the reason for my success.
How do you express your love for your brain’s ability to think?
The same way we express love for people: We are mindful of them, caring, supportive, and attentive. Likewise I care for my mind and its proper functioning by watching what goes in, by maintaining my body so it can provide nutrients and such, and by not impairing its function. I am very mindful that even moderate amounts of excess in anything can impair my brain’s functions, so I make it a point to always be in control of my mental faculties. This also means being keenly interested in how it functions, constantly learning how to improve its health, and striving for a life-balance not hinged on 20th century American-dream but rather in full awareness of the age we live in and its demands and opportunities.
How do you feel loving your brain’s ability to think makes your life better?
Thinking of one’s brain as malleable–not fixed and rigid–allows for growth and reinvention, but if we are not aware of that, and not keenly focused on improving it, we are at the mercy of everything we consume, everything we hear. How much better the self-directed, confident existence than the passive, slow decay into obsolescence. So it is with eagerness and dedication I constantly learn and push myself to think clearer, with better information, free of bias and bigotry, setting aside superstitions and cultural stucco. I prefer this life to any other I might have, and I would not trade clarity and wisdom of thought for riches or dominion.
If someone were interested in discovering more about their brain’s ability to think, where would you direct them? Where would they start?
There is no substitute for effort and dedication in the lifelong pursuit of self-education. There is also no pre-approved plan or path. One must be curious in all things and be willing to look critically at oneself in all things., for dogma is the enemy of learning. My own path was literature and computer programming: I learned english as a second language after mastering french, and I learned a vast array of computer languages, covering the gamut of environments. Now my path dictates I utilize this facility with language to self-introspect and express through stories and poetry, but they are only the conduit for my self-exploration, the benchmarks of my progress. Others will find their own way–one that suits their temperament and abilities. For the very beginner, to awaken the latent curiosity, I only recommend being a voracious learner, and as soon as possible, being to develop the habit of creating for its own sake, for it is by doing our brains learn best, and it is through repetition of movement our bodies are shaped and trained.
Finally I would add that what worked for me beginning in the 1980s will emphatically not work now, for the world has changed! So pursue curiosity, whatever form it takes, and pursue creation, whatever form that takes!