Rachel Barr

A Neuroscientist's Guide to a Healthier, Happier Life

How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend

Parmin

In The Brain that Changes Itself, Doidge likens neuroplasticity it. But ential, nesses "Wait, brain adult to pliable snow on a hill-a metaphor he attributes to the neurology professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone. Initially, when you sled downhill, you can swerve in any direction, choosing whatever path your heart desires. But sled down the same track enough times, and you're stuck in a rut. 

When someone else's fiction aligns with our own, we enter into an unspoken, often unconscious pact: I'll affirm your distortion if you affirm mine, and together we'll build a reality where our insecurities seem justified, our fears rational, and our anger righteous. And slowly, unconsciously, the lies pile up. Eventually, we can find ourselves in a world entirely of our own creation, where decisions and beliefs are driven by emotional validation rather than evidence.

In conversation with Ross Gay, journalist Bim Adewunmi posed the question: "What is delight?"10 Gay emphasized that delight often comes from acknowledging small, joyful experiences, suggesting that noticing and appreciating these moments is crucial. Gay also drew a link between delight and curiosity, pointing out that the spontaneity of these moments is what makes them so special. He spoke of how delight often emerges from connections with others, highlighting its communal element. 

Forgetting is a feature, not a bug, quietly working to keep our minds uncluttered. It means we can use our brain power for other things, like forming meaningful Connections betvween the memories we do retain. That's the magic of human cognition: we're built to understand, not to memorize.

We used to think the "filter bubble" was the culprit. Introduced the author and digital activist Eli Pariser, the filter bubblei ed by the idea that algorithms create information echo chambers that gradually filter out opposing ideas.69 In fact, social media usere tend tend to have a more diverse and centrist media diet than nonusers.70,71 The real issue is that once an idea grabs us. even briefly. it becomnes hard to shake off. Whether or not we're exposed to opposing ideas is irrelevant if our brain simply filters them out. When confronted with new ideas, the brain doesn't examine them with detached objectivity. Instead, they're viewed through its prism prism of cognitive biases, refracted and distorted to suit a of predefined sense of reality.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

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