January 14th, 2022

You gotta admit, that looks really cool.  It's a map of all (or at least many) of the neural pathways that exist in our brains. Side view obviously.  There are about one hundred million of these neural pathways which make 100 trillion neural connections. Wow!  And all of this goes on all of the time every day in our brains.  It's impressive and a little overwhelming to consider.

The only reason I know this is because I was curious about the way my crazybrain works.   And believe you me,  mine is a crazy kind of brain.  Tim says that it's a scary place.  heehee.  So ok, after doing some reading this is apparently what happens in my head.

All of those wild flashing neurons and that are clicking all the time?  Evidently, my brain wants to utilize them all. No pathways will go unused is the theme.  I guess it's like how I feel about the piano.  There are 88 keys and I will, by golly, use all 88 of them.  No point in having them if you aren't going to use them.  But, and I think we can all agree on this, we do not need to use all of them at the same time!  Have you ever heard some body just mash down as many keys on the piano as they possible can at once?  Like maybe sit on the keyboard of something?  It sounds horrible!  Cacophonous!

That is kind of what happens in my grey matter.  I've learned to pull it back, somewhat.  But, ok, let me try to draw you a picture.  If an idea is introduced (intentionally or not) immediately my thoughts go to at least a couple of dozen different places and then there are 42 different side paths off of those and another dozen or so off each of those trails and etc.  Then there are the images that pop into my head that go along with each of those and naturally the accompanying music.  It gets loud in there.

As a kid, of course, I assumed that everybody's brains worked like that.  What a surprise to find out that most people can give all of their attention and focus to just one thing at a time.  Dang!  That's really cool!  And I desired to be able to do that.  What I kind of taught myself to do was to shove most of it into a closet (most - not all) when I need to concentrate.  It works, after a fashion.  The connections to the connections to the connections has actually come in very handy when writing essays, reports and papers throughout my school career.  And when making a plan for a project, I am immediately aware of steps A through Z which is helpful.

Along the way I realized that a neat and orderly environment is useful for me.  I find it hard to operate in chaos, probably because the inside of my head is so chaotic that I need tidiness somewhere in my life!    Which means I am very good at bringing order to a space. I know where everything is in this house.  If you needed a pair of scissors for example, first I would ask what you needed them for so that I would know what sort of scissors you required.  Then I could direct you to exactly, precisely, step by step where those specific scissors are.  A place for everything and everything in it's place.  Yup.  And Not because I am obsessed with cleanliness for cleanliness sake, but to counterbalance the kookoo-land that is my cerebrum and cerebellum.

My brain makes connections between everything, every place, every person I've ever known, visited or read about. Oranges and asphalt; Phoenix and Persia; Abraham Lincoln and Patti Rynkeiwicz; in my brain they are all connected. Turn left at the 2nd neural pathway parallel to the 467th spark.    

I have heard and read so many times the phrase, "I don't know what goes on in that person's head" and every time I kind of laugh to myself because I'm pretty sure nobody knows (until now) what goes on in mine.

Of course to be fair, I don't know what's going on in your brain either!  Maybe it works just like mine :)