Tag Archives: brain

Circular

Circular: (n) a letter or advertisement that is distributed to a large number of people.

“Shrink to think.”

If you want to get your brain functioning in the realm of creativity instead of repetition, this is better achieved by shrinking what you’re
 doing down to its simplest forms.

There is no evil in technology.

There is no sinister nature to the Internet.

But sometimes if life is not simplified, the complication confuses us into believing that we are not responsible for our actions, but instead, victims of a mass plot.

When I was younger, much younger than today, I sat and read circulars. They were little reports, newspapers or flyers put out by people who wanted to communicate what they were doing, how they were doing it and even the way in which they wished others to become involved.

Usually laid out with a typewriter, they were poor quality–carelessly paragraphed and overworded.

But reading them demanded that I do something I did not want to do: stop.

The main reason we don’t start is because we can’t stop. We spend most of our time skidding into the next project with no idea about whether our passions will sustain it.

Please don’t mistake me for some old codger who yearns for the “good ole’ days.” There was so much bad that it deserves to be quarantined for all time.

But there was the introduction of pieces of paper called circulars, which made you stop long enough to think about what somebody else was doing instead of browsing the Internet, bouncing off subjects like a rubber ball.

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Chopper

Chopper: (n) a helicopter.

Knowing that my brain, like most human brains, has selective memory, and that triggers installed for certain sounds, words, or even smells, I can tell you of a truth that the word “chopper”–and the vision of one–for me conjures memories of Vietnam.

I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s because I came of age during the height of the conflict, came upon my eighteenth birthday and was eligible for the draft. Helicopters were prevalent in the nightly news, and made me think about that horrible war.

Today I call it horrible. When I was a teenager, I lived in a community that actually had its own chapter of the John Birch Society, and the violence in Southeast Asia was extolled as patriotic–our best avenue for stopping the spread of Communism.

So for me, it’s a chain of mental commands:

Chopper makes me think about Vietnam.

Vietnam makes me think about the protests.

The protests make me think about rock and roll.

Rock and roll conjures images of Woodstock.

Woodstock reminds me that I was living in a provincial village and was too frightened to go to the festival.

And being too frightened to go–as a young man, I was also always arguing with my family over a half-inch of hair over my ears, trying to rebel by listening to The Monkees.

I was no hero.

But as history moves forward, we realize that unfortunately there were no heroes during that era.

The government was corrupt, the hippies were imbalanced, the Vietnamese were crazed, violent and suicidal, the draft dodgers were relegated to the status of cowards as they drove their Volkswagen vans to Canada, and the soldiers who did go to war bled in a jungle that no one even cares one bamboo shoot about today.

So I guess when I see the word “chopper,” I think of lost causes, and I am alerted to spy them–and call them out before they generate guilt, graft … and graves.

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Chomp

Chomp: (v) to munch or chew vigorously

Sometimes I think my body is working really hard to kill me–but other times I feel a sympathetic pang streaming from my consciousness,
wishing me well. I don’t know if either is true or if one is actually more prevalent than the other.

But as I get older, I don’t “chomp” as much. It’s been years since I’ve used the phrase “chow down.”

Especially over the past week, recovering from a stomach virus, I realize that my internal organs have very little interest in food. It is my brain that is completely obsessed by the notion.

So when sickness comes along and makes the brain calm down, the stomach has the opportunity to be very picky about what comes through the door. Over the past couple of days, I feel like there’s a bouncer stationed at the end of my “food tube,” kicking out the riff-raff.

First and foremost, I find myself chewing slower, giving my belly the chance to adjust to the idea that soon there will be a visitor.

Now, I do realize that within a few days I will be completely well and the brain will once again insist on more chomping. But for this moment, it is very intriguing, and also cuts the calories.

Could I ever learn to not be a chomper? A fascinating question.

Perhaps I could learn to eat like a kid. They take a bite or two, leave the table and run, and come back and take another bite or two. Not much chomping there.

So I guess the best thing I can say is, I’m kind of chomping at the bit to find out if I can chomp a little less at the table.

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Cheat

Cheat: (v) to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage

Some people compare the human brain to a computer.

There may be truth to that–though the brain is capable of much more reasoning and processing.

But one of the similarities that would hold true is that the brain does maintain a browser. It has a listing of most recent files, frequently viewed files, and even files we think we’ve deleted.

Every once in a while, they’ll just pop up and remind us that the mind doesn’t always find ways to be kind.

It’s a little piece of nastiness.

So it runs a tally.

How many murders have we watched in television and movies over the past six months?

How many shows on the beauty of Antarctica and gorgeous flower displays from India?

How many scenes of pornography and the abuse of the female body have crossed our eyes in comparision to the downloads we have perused of mothers loving their children and women conquering prejudice, to be successful in business?

Because our browser is filled with corruption, we cheat.

  • We cheat on our taxes.
  • We cheat on our lovers.
  • We cheat ourselves out of blessing because cursing is so easily available.
  • We cheat our children out of intimacy in favor of a quick trip to the amusement park.
  • We cheat our talent out of the privilege of being used in a creative way while constantly bitching about the limitations of our job.

We cheat.

And then, fearing that we will be revealed as cheaters, we develop a honeycomb of intertwined lies, which now buzz from our lips with far too much glib precision.

Where will our cheating take us?

Well, we certainly don’t think anybody is going to be better than us, so it turns us into suspicious, angry and vindictive neighbors.

We cheat.

Mostly, we cheat ourselves.

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Chart

Chart: (n) a sheet of information which is a diagram

My brain sometimes pauses, not yet convinced of the validity of any particular opinion. In other words, I could argue it either way.

In my personal life, I’m very organized. At least, I think I am. Yet there is a vanity to even stating such a mercurial thought as a fact. Am I
organized? Or just more organized than the person next to me?

Yet I do get around human travelers who insist on living a totally spontaneous life, and to some degree it works for them. They’re always looking for surprises, luck, miracles and good fortune to blow their way, but there is a certain charm to their presumption.

It begs the question: can organisms be organized?

The classic line of defining futility by comparing it to herding cats is true with almost every creature. No living, breathing animal on the face of the Earth likes to be told what to do. Yet each one, in some strange way, finds a plan of action that keeps them from being cold in the winter and too hot in the summer.

So what is the power of charting our lives to such a degree that there is little awareness of the element of chaos (which certainly will arrive)?

I think it may just be as simple as realizing that a line item which appears on our “Things to Do Today” list may very well still be there next week.

 

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Chap

Chap: (n) A true gentleman

Writers are insane from spending too much time in their own brain–drunk on the intoxicant of finding new words to make great phrases.

Often in writing a story line, when you’ve used “he, man, guy and fellow” so many times that you know the reader must be gagging, you go to the Thesaurus and look for other terms for the same idea.

You often land on a word like “chap.”

No one actually refers to another person as “a chap.” Even in England, you probably would not find many people pointing at others and saying, “Now, there’s a fine chap.”

But in a pinch, a writer who wants to extend his story by one more paragraph and needs a variable to describe a male figure will insert the word “chap,” hoping that the person reading his or her novel will overlook it and move along to the next verb.

It is in that moment when you know the writer has run out of words before running out of ideas.

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Cerebral

Cerebral: (adj) characterized by the use of the intellect

A think tank.

Much of my thinking tanks. Does that count?

We are so impressed with the brain that we fail to read the instructions–like getting a new appliance. We unpack it and try to figure out its
intricacies as we go, instead of truly understanding its purpose.

The brain is where three distinctly different experiences collide:

  • Our upbringing
  • Our fear
  • New information

We cannot receive new information without fearing it and comparing it to what we’ve already been taught. So new information has to work really hard to displace old, faulty mind-wiring.

Because of this, our attempts to be cerebral or intellectual are often the rehashing of old outdated concepts.

Is it possible to give new information a primal position–where we have the opportunity to expand and grow with much more fluidity?

Yes, it is.

But we must take care of our fears and emotional inadequacies. We must get rid of superstitions. Then and only then does a fresh notion have a chance of gaining life in our cerebrum.

The world will continue to be a place of repetitive disaster until we understand that what needs to be done is not already in our brain–but will come as we open the door to greater understanding.

 

 

 

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Cavalcade

Cavalcade: (n) a formal procession of people walking, on horseback, or riding in vehicles.

I often rebuke my brain for always trying to turn something into a philosophical quagmire instead of just eyeballing what is set before it, and
 accepting the image for just what it is.

I like parades–I do.

But for some damn reason, my brain starts thinking too much.

Am I letting the parade pass me by? Am I merely in the gallery watching the participants stream along?

First of all–I don’t like to stand for much of anything. Never have. I will always find a seat. Matter of fact, if you give me a bucket of chicken and a chair, you could march two or three parades by me.

There is a cavalcade–an ongoing flow moving down the highway. Someone is in charge of that parade. There is a person who knows where it begins and where it ends. At least I think so.

But as life streams by us, is there anybody in charge?

Does anybody really know what they’re doing?

Is there a Parade Planner?

You see? There I go again.

My brain will not leave well enough alone. Sometimes I punish my mind by watching episodes of “I Love Lucy,” which couldn’t possibly have any other meaning than foolish 1950’s television.

Other times, I just listen to the news … which seems equally as vacuous.

 

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Cagey

Cagey: (adj) reluctant to give information owing to caution or suspicion.

Is it getting the “smart” out, or is it “out-smarting?”

Simply said, the goal of human beings should be to humbly impart what we experience to the tribe around us, to measure its merit and allow
 for wisdom to instruct our neighbors. Yet for some reason, we feel withholding makes us more powerful than imparting.

For those who believe in a Divine Being, there seems to be greater joy in establishing doctrines which alienate outsiders instead of widening the opening to include as many visitors as possible.

We like secrets. Therefore we become secretive. Once secretive, we need to be suspicious in order to maintain our solitude. And once solitude has been established, we become convinced that a cagey approach to life is the way to establish our supremacy.

Actually, the process is simple: a) say what you think; b) tell what you know; c) learn what is available.

Without this three-step process, our thoughts seem to gain golden proportions.

There’s a reason the brain is gray–it needs the colorful opinions of others.

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Brain

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Brain: (n) intellectual capacity

A friend of mine bought a German shepherd. He did so as a means of protecting his house.

He named the dog Rugby.Dictionary B

Rugby was probably one of the sweetest animals I’ve ever encountered in my life. I was absolutely enthralled with the kindness of this creature, but certainly convinced that Rugby was incapable of guarding anything. He was even patient with the four-year-old child who lived in the house, who was enamored with the animal’s nose, and continually tried to pluck it from his face.

I laughed at my friend when he insisted that Rugby was a replacement for a burglar alarm.

Then one day we went off on a brief shopping trip. As we returned, pulling into the driveway, we heard barking and growling. It sounded very aggressive–frightening to the ears.

Stepping into the house, we discovered a terrified gentleman penned in the corner, held prisoner by a very intimidating Rugby.

Apparently the man had decided to come into the house to steal some items to sell at the pawn shop–only to discover that the house was well protected by a deceptively dutiful German shepherd.

The man begged to have the dog called off.

As soon as my friend called the police, he motioned to Rugby to come to his side, and the family pet returned–with a wagging tail and a panting tongue.

You may ask me what this story has to do with the brain. Here it is:

The brain is like Rugby.

It doesn’t have any natural inclinations of its own, but only brings forth its training when the situation arises.

  • If you think being smart makes you generous, you are sadly mistaken.
  • If you believe that a formal education causes you to be ingenious, you will be disappointed.

A brain is merely a “thing” until something breaks in, and it does what it was trained to do.

 

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