In our perception, everything around us might be changing, but we are still. In our mind,the Universe revolves around us, time passes by us, and we stand watching the world go by.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no place on Earth, or in the entire Universe, (and that, of course, includes us)that there is no change, but change occurs at either such incredibly fast rate, or such at incredibly slow pace that we do not perceive the change, until…well, until the change can no longer be ignored adn something needs to be done about it.
Conception, the merging of two cells happens so fast, that if you say "………..OOOOOOO", you’ve missed it. Yet, that first transformation is only the first step of in an almost infinite number of changes that will occur in the lifetime. These changes happen at a high speed but noticeable change does not occur fast enough for us to be perceived from day to day. Watching the grass grow might be an enjoyable although somewhat boring experience, but hard as we might to SEE it growing, we will only notice when it is too long, and needs to be mowed.
Like the Universe itself, that is constantly expanding, contracting, spinning, revolving, cooling, burning, colliding, creating, evolving, everything on earth, living or material changes and , whether body and mind are one, or separate, whether we perceive it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we are in control of it or not, our mind changes at an incredible speed and at an alarmingly low rate. (Yes, I know it is a contradiciton. The Universe, my mind and "I" have this in common: we like to contradict ourselves)
Consider this: the brain and the nervous system contain billions of interconnected neurons. These neurons are interconnected through trillions of pathways, and the number and way of these organizations influence everything from the ability to speak, recognize letters, and symbols, to the way we maintain relationships. At birth, a baby is born with most of its neurons “ready”, but a very limited number of connections. The brain and mind are a blank state: a possibility for an unlimited number of possibilities.
In the first three months of life, neurons connect rapidly to form synapses: one neuron can connect with up to 15,000 other neurons, the number of synapses multiply more than twenty times.
At three months, in about the time it took to change diapers approximately 1080 times, the infant changed the number of synapses from practically nothing to an incredible 1,000 trillion synapses! Next time, when you cry out: "Is this baby will EVER sleep through the night?!" Remind yourself: he is busy building synapses, he has no time to sleep!
In the first three years, the brain will go through the most dramatic physical changes and the baby learns at an amazing pace, as it is being bombarded with new experiences: to a baby, EV ERYTHING is new. But the brain is also very efficient; connections that are not used are” disconnected” . Pruning speeds after the first year, but a three year old has almost ten times more synapses than an adult. During the next few years, the child has built, tested, and either strengthened or discarded trillions and trillions of synapses, and at age ten, has about 500 trillion synapses, the same as an average adult.
This building, testing, pruning, wiring and re-wiring continues through childhood, and adulthood, although it slows down considerably and –although it never looses its capacity to learn and form new synapses- it looses its “flexibility” or plasticity considerably. Learning languages is a good example of this: at age three, a baby has the potential to distinguish several hundred spoken sounds, the possibility to learn any language spoken on this Earth or possibly, any language of the Universe. Over the next few months, the brain organizes itself to recognize only those sounds that is spoken around him, and although it retains its “plasticity” up to about three years of age, by age ten, the plasticity is lost. This is why young children can learn languages quickly and speak without an accent.
Adults learn too, but at a much slower rate, with more effort, and, like myself, they will never be able to loose their accent completely. English is my third language, and although I’ve mastered it sufficiently to produce this –relatively- coherent piece of written material, in “real life”, I speak with a thick accent, reminiscent of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Dahling.... Although I can spell the word “birthday” better than my seven year old grandson, after twenty five years living in an English speaking environment, I still pronounce the word as “birdzdaye”. I do convince myself though to think that it is my wit, rather than my funny accent why most people consider me very entertaining.
Whether physical changes in the brain create the mind, or the mind creates the physical changes in the brain, the mind continues to simultaneously making up its mind (cementing knowledge) and changing its mind (learning through new experiences) all through life and thus creating new connections in the brain. The mind literally wires and rewires the brain, creates and recreates itself from the beginning until the end, and as some would argue, the mind started this process before the beginning and does not stop after the end.
Touch, sound, sight, taste, smell, and the experiences that come with the sensory stimuli create a need for the brain to organize itself to be able to orchestrate appropriate responses for the biological body to survive. There is another need, the need to make MEANING, SENSE of what is happening, and this is what many believe separates us, Homo Sapiens (Thinking Man) from Homo Erectus (Erected Man). It is not that mammals, birds, and Erected Man do not “think” and some mammals on the top of the chain are capable of “feeling”, having simple emotions. Only us, Homo Sapiens and Femme Sapiens are believed to have complex emotions, as well as the need to make SENSE and MEANING of what is changing “in here”, “out there” and “In the Universe” at large.
We use our emotions to make sense and meaning of our emotions and we use our capability to make sense and meaning out of our emotions to make more sense out of our emotions. (I could go on ad Infiniti, and it would STILL make sense!)
This is where the irony lies. (By the way, we are the only known living species in the known living Universe, other than the Universe itself that is capable to contemplate “irony”): We evolved into creatures with a mind in order to fulfill the same evolutionary need as an amoeba, or a virus, that has no “mind” to speak of, but is actually much more effective at surviving and reproducing than us. It is not the first nor the last time in our evolution, that we created a solution that creates more problems than it was created to solve.
If we had no mind, we would probably still survive quite well, but we would not be pondering the power of the mind, nor would we have the illusion, or the real power of the mind to ponder, and we could not understand “irony”. How sad, boring, or how peaceful that existence would be: it is only a matter of perception.
We are the only species that is capable of feeling emotional pain and emotional pleasure and our mind is so powerful, that by creating a meaning to our emotions and by making sense of them, we can even override our biological and instinctual brain. We have free will to choose pain, if it gives us emotional pleasure, and we can avoid rewards that cause us emotional pain. This is what makes us, humans capable of the most honorable sacrifices most terrible digressions. We are capable of giving an arm and a leg, a kidney, or give up our life for those we love, for the ideas we believe in, to serve, or in honor of our God. We are also capable of cutting of an arm, a leg, a nursing breast of our enemy, killing a nursing baby, if we feel the need for ethnic cleansing, for the ideas we believe in, or for the glory of OUR God.
Our mind can discern “positive” from “negative” experiences –it knows good and evil. The bad news is, that often, our mind is wrong and it makes mistakes: we almost always create our own misery, our own damnation, our own hell out of our “negative” emotions. The good news is, that we can also create a heaven of "positive" emotions out of our hellish experiences.
Consider an infant. He or she has the need for one of the 1080 diaper changes. He or she “knows” this, because she or he is in physical discomfort. Baby was born with the capability to instinctually “know” that this discomfort needs to be avoided, and fixed. Baby also instinctually “knows” that in order to bring upon the relief from the discomfort of dirty diaper he needs change. Baby cries, which is another instinctual response. At this point, baby does not care, if it is 3AM in the morning, or 5PM in the afternoon. Baby does not consider that you need to sleep. Baby does not consider, that he/she might not be worthy of a diaper change. Baby does not want a diaper change for attention. Baby does not want to wake you up just to piss you off. Baby wants his bum dry. Period.
If somebody comes and creates the desired change, baby learns that her cries for help are effective. If no one comes, baby learns that crying is not effective, and will, eventually give up. There is nothing more sad, than an infant in a crib, that never cries. Baby already learned what they call “Learned Helplessness”: that his needs are not important, and there is nothing he can do to change this. A connection was built, a synapses formed, and although it is possible to change this hardwiring, it is extremely difficult later in life.
But, baby does not yet attempt to make meaning of what happened. He does not have a concept of “I must be bad and not worthy of a diaper change”. She does not think “My parents are trying to teach me to be more independent” , she does not think “nobody loves me” and she does not think “I have really shitty parents”. That comes later, but the connection, the possibility to “go down that road” is already there. He just “knows” that he can not in any way control whether his needs are met or not. He “knows” he is not in control, but he has not yet begun to try to make sense or meaning of this.
Consider a two year old, who wants a cookie. He or she already have WANTS not just needs. He or she already judges, based on personal preferences: I want cookie, not broccoli. He knows what he wants, and he will go for it. (Unless he is one of the aforementioned poor babies with learned helplessness). He will make cute faces, he will five hand signals, he will ask for the cookie, he will say NOOOOOO! NOOOO! NOOOO! When broccoli is offered, he will cry, scream, stump his feet, throw himself on the floor, and he will do this exactly as long as it takes to either get the cookie, or giving up and moving on to other reward seeking adventures.
Five seconds later, he has forgotten the whole incident. He does not sit there, thinking: YEAH! I GOT the cookie. I knew I can do it! That stumping combined with the screaming from the top of my lungs has REALLY worked this time, perhaps because we were in the supermarket. When I do that, my parents are really embarrassed, and they will do ANYTHING for me. (insert evil laugh).
She also is not thinking: I did not get the cookie. I never get the cookie, and never will. I don’t deserve the cookie, I deserve broccoli. I only embarrassed myself when I threw myself on the floor, and really, was the stumping necessary? It is no use. My parents hate me, they don’t’ love me, because I am a girl, not a boy. Life would be so much easier if I was a boy, Boys get the cookie, girls have to eat broccoli. Well, I am watching my weight anyway…and broccoli really, does not taste so much different than a cookie…
By the time we are adults however, we “learned our lessons”. Things don’t’ just happen to us: we want to know BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! Things that don’t make sense, have to make sense. By now, we believe, that if we “do the right thing”, we will get the reward. If we do the “wrong thing”, we will cause ourselves pain. If we do the right thing, but do not get a reward, then either are bad, and don’t deserve it, or others are bad because they refuse to give it to us. Or, we were wrong, and what we thought the right thing was to do, is the wrong thing. If we do not get what we want, we get angry , resentful and down right hateful against either the “other”, or at ourselves. We think we know what is happening, we made up our mind, and we refuse to change our mind.
Or, we are so insecure, so helpless, so confused, that we can’t make up our mind, and we change our mind too often for any solution to work. When we want the cookie, we ask for it, but then we say: "Oh, no, forget it, it is not important, I’ll eat the broccoli, never mind. I LIKE broccoli. Cookie is bad."
Everything is still happening at the same time, change is happening all around us, inside us, and we still have to react to the changes, some of which we can control, others we can’t.
Every new experience either breaks a rule, or re-enforces the rule. Our mind is programmed, conditioned, and controlled to believe it has control over everything or it believes, sometimes simultaniously, that it has no control over anything.
Who did this programming, conditioning and controlling of the mind? Your mind, that is. Who is the one, who can reprogram, recondition, and take control of our individual and collective mind? Your mind, that is.
Who is in control? Your Mind, that is. Who is it controlling? Your Mind, that is. See, how powerful is YOUR MIND? You can start a revolution of evolution! You can change your mind to change the universe itself! You can be the change that you desire! All you have to do, is to Change Your Mind About Everything!
Lets thank Evolution again for giving us a Mind that can appreciate the irony. Now, let’s take control, and change our mind about what we think about changing our mind: Change is inevitable. Evolution is optional. Let’s choose evolution and start a Revolution Of The Mind Evolution.
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