PLASTICITY
|
I’ve been thinking about plastic recently.
Stores are outlawing plastic bags. We’ve been using cloth bags for a while
now. Then our grandson comes to camp with newly acquired technical knowledge
about cell phones and computers and other things we haven’t quite caught
up with. Among other things he’s been educating us on plastic. For one thing
he “outlawed” our special plastic water bottles. “Even REI won’t sell
those anymore, Grampa!”
|
Meanwhile out on my boat – also made
of plastic fiberglass by the way – I’ve been reading a book about the brain:
“Train your Mind – Change your Brain.” It’s a thoughtful book
written by Sharon Begley, science editor for the Wall Street Journal. It
has a forward by the Dalai Lama.
|
I won’t review
the book except to say that it reports a new tack (I am, after all, reading
on my sailboat!) in neuroscience. It has a new word to describe the new
thought: “Plasticity.” The study of this science is called “Neuroplasticity.”
|
I love it when I know a word that my
spell-check doesn’t. It lit up right away when I wrote neuroplasticity. It
means that the neurons in our brains are “plastic,” that there is more going
on with them than previously thought. It means that brain damage can be
worked around, and lots of other things. In fact, Columns, the University
of Washington alumni magazine that most of you do not qualify to receive,
tells of a faculty member whose MacArthur
'Genius" Grant Award is being use to help the brain operate prosthetic
arms and legs. The brain can adapt to this kind of work she says.
|
So I celebrate this emerging science
that discovers what the Dalai Lama already knew: that the brain can be trained.
Hail neuroplasticity!
|
Having nothing better to do with my ever
plastic brain I thought of a couple of other words about plasticity. Add
this to words you won’t find on your spell check: “Politicoplasticity.”
|
Can politicians and politics change as
is hoped by many? Is it destined that our political positions are locked in
perpetual unchangeable atrophy somewhere in some lobe of our brain? What would
happen if we actually used our minds to train our brains to work around concrete
barriers to create new routes? I was reading a book (Banker to the
Poor) by a guy named Yunus who has established the Grameen Bank to
loan interest free money to the poorest of poor. He’s done billions of dollars
of such loans. The barrier he has to break down with politicians, relief
agencies and bankers is the notion of a “trickle down economy.” It is an
idea that does not work. Nothing trickles down to the poor. Alas. He argues
for what I label “politicoplasticity.” Those in political power need a major
brain change with regard to the poor. We need to elect people with flexibility
– plasticity.
|
There is still another plasticity that
I call “religioplasticity.” Whamo! There goes my spell-check again.
But you might want to add that word to your vocabulary list. What is killing
us world wide is lack of religious plasticity in the world. Those of one
set mind are a major road block to progress in the world. I like what the
Dalai Lama said about Buddhism:
“In Buddhism scriptural authority cannot outweigh an understanding based
on reason and experience.”
|
Try to find that plasticity in Christian,
Jewish, Muslim or Mormon religions. What hope is there when the major religious
player’s brains are locked into a mindless adherence to “revelation” passed
down from another era?
|
I’m not using
plastic bags if I can help it. My grandson has thrown out our plastic drinking
bottles. But I’m trying to remind my mind that my brain still has plasticity
in case there’s something new I need to learn or something out of date that
I need to change. In case you are adapting this for a sermon (as I’ve heard
some preachers have done) the text is from Romans:
“…Be transformed by the renewal of your minds.”
─ Art Morgan, July 9, 2008
|