the sun gave us … it was nice … that … The truth is I didn’t know why we looked at the sun.
Not to judge: That’s the important lesson that kid taught me that day. He looked at cars and I looked at the sun. I kept quiet and he went crazy about what he saw. I’m sure that hiscars gave him as much as the sun gave me: color, health, happiness. I imagine that watching people park cars gives you some sort of pleasure as well. The important thing isn’t what you look at, but what you get out of looking.
I got very angry that day, cried so much that night.… I didn’t want that kid to die in a couple of months. The way that boy looked at things had to survive, had to get him as far as running countries, leading men. There was something in his passion that dazzled me. I don’t know what became of him. So I hope that wherever he is he’s still looking at things with the same passion.
I never judged anyone again. I just enjoy other people’s passions. I have friends who like looking at birds, looking at walls, looking at the waveforms emitted by cellphones.
Find what you like looking at and look at it.
12
Start counting at six
Change your brain!
—idea given me by a neurologist in blue pajamas just before they gave me a CAT scan
They took three CAT scans of my brain. You have to stay very still. I tried not to think about anything personal; I was scared that the machine would print it. I knew that the machines didn’t print these things out, but I felt that everything was being recorded, so I didn’t think about anything.
One summer, the summer of the World Cup when Gary Lineker was the star, I spent three hours waiting in the hospital and the only thing that I could think of was that I was missing one of the semifinals. I was sure that when they did the CAT scan they’d see Lineker and his goals and the whole stadium going wild.
There was a man there who looked at me. He was an older man with little eyes. He was wearing blue pajamas likeme. We started to talk to each other: “They’re taking ages. Is it for a CAT scan?” It’s that sort of question that brings people together in waiting rooms.
We went to sit next to each other. Neither of us went to where the other one was but we both went to a third place. He told me he was a neurologist. The conversation we had was about the brain, the famous 10 percent of the brain that we use. This is something that has always bothered me; I want our successors to be able to use 30 or 40 percent. In the end we’ll go down in history as the guys who used only 10 percent, the ones with the sticks and the rocks and the 10 percent, that’s those guys, over there. We’ve come a long way, but for the people of the thirtieth century we’ll be primitives.
This neurologist told me that in order to use more of the brain all we have to do is change our brain.
If you say the words
change
and
brain
to a fifteen-year-old boy, then you’ll get his attention pronto. “How can you do it? I want to change my brain.”
He spoke to me about numbers. It was a simple example. He showed me four objects: In this case it was four magazines. He asked me to count them. I said that there were four of them. He asked me: “Did you need to think?” I said no, that it was easy. I started to wonder if he really was a neurologist; he was more like a patient from Floor 8 (Psychiatry). He showed me five magazines and asked me to count them. Suddenly I realized that my brain had started to work. I was counting: I couldn’t do it without counting. He smiled at me, and his eyes grew even narrower: “You’re counting, right?” I looked at him in amazement.
He explained to me that when you get to five, our 10 percent of the brain starts to count. The way to exercise it is to try to make it start counting at six, and then at seven. In this way we force it to increase its capacity, so more neurons fire up when we use our brain. We change it a little bit at a time, so that it isn’t
Not to judge: That’s the important lesson that kid taught me that day. He looked at cars and I looked at the sun. I kept quiet and he went crazy about what he saw. I’m sure that hiscars gave him as much as the sun gave me: color, health, happiness. I imagine that watching people park cars gives you some sort of pleasure as well. The important thing isn’t what you look at, but what you get out of looking.
I got very angry that day, cried so much that night.… I didn’t want that kid to die in a couple of months. The way that boy looked at things had to survive, had to get him as far as running countries, leading men. There was something in his passion that dazzled me. I don’t know what became of him. So I hope that wherever he is he’s still looking at things with the same passion.
I never judged anyone again. I just enjoy other people’s passions. I have friends who like looking at birds, looking at walls, looking at the waveforms emitted by cellphones.
Find what you like looking at and look at it.
12
Start counting at six
Change your brain!
—idea given me by a neurologist in blue pajamas just before they gave me a CAT scan
They took three CAT scans of my brain. You have to stay very still. I tried not to think about anything personal; I was scared that the machine would print it. I knew that the machines didn’t print these things out, but I felt that everything was being recorded, so I didn’t think about anything.
One summer, the summer of the World Cup when Gary Lineker was the star, I spent three hours waiting in the hospital and the only thing that I could think of was that I was missing one of the semifinals. I was sure that when they did the CAT scan they’d see Lineker and his goals and the whole stadium going wild.
There was a man there who looked at me. He was an older man with little eyes. He was wearing blue pajamas likeme. We started to talk to each other: “They’re taking ages. Is it for a CAT scan?” It’s that sort of question that brings people together in waiting rooms.
We went to sit next to each other. Neither of us went to where the other one was but we both went to a third place. He told me he was a neurologist. The conversation we had was about the brain, the famous 10 percent of the brain that we use. This is something that has always bothered me; I want our successors to be able to use 30 or 40 percent. In the end we’ll go down in history as the guys who used only 10 percent, the ones with the sticks and the rocks and the 10 percent, that’s those guys, over there. We’ve come a long way, but for the people of the thirtieth century we’ll be primitives.
This neurologist told me that in order to use more of the brain all we have to do is change our brain.
If you say the words
change
and
brain
to a fifteen-year-old boy, then you’ll get his attention pronto. “How can you do it? I want to change my brain.”
He spoke to me about numbers. It was a simple example. He showed me four objects: In this case it was four magazines. He asked me to count them. I said that there were four of them. He asked me: “Did you need to think?” I said no, that it was easy. I started to wonder if he really was a neurologist; he was more like a patient from Floor 8 (Psychiatry). He showed me five magazines and asked me to count them. Suddenly I realized that my brain had started to work. I was counting: I couldn’t do it without counting. He smiled at me, and his eyes grew even narrower: “You’re counting, right?” I looked at him in amazement.
He explained to me that when you get to five, our 10 percent of the brain starts to count. The way to exercise it is to try to make it start counting at six, and then at seven. In this way we force it to increase its capacity, so more neurons fire up when we use our brain. We change it a little bit at a time, so that it isn’t
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