Posts tagged as:

growth

Root and Grow

May 15, 2009

in Poetry,Process,Thinking,Words

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko:

“When I was
a younger man,
art was
a lonely thing.

No galleries,
no collectors,
no critics.

No money.

Yet it was a golden age,
for we all had
nothing to lose,
and a vision to gain.

Today,
it is not quite the same.

It is a time
of tons
of verbiage,
activity,
consumption.

Which condition is better
for the world at large,
I will not venture
to discuss.

But I do know
that many of those
who are driven
to this life

are desperately searching
for those pockets of silence
where we can root and grow.

We must all hope we find them.”

Transcribed from Simon Schama’s The Power of Art. The line breaks are my own.

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Keep Learning

March 24, 2009

in Learning,Process,Thinking

From a story on NPR about measuring the structural integrity and speed of the brain’s white matter:

Haier says the good news is that we’re not necessarily stuck with the brain, or the brain speed, we inherit. He says thinking is like running or weightlifting. It helps to have certain genes. But anyone can get stronger or faster by working out.

The brain is like a muscle, Haier says: “The more you work it the more efficient it gets.”

So people who practice the violin, or do math problems, or learn a foreign language are constantly strengthening certain pathways in their brains.

And Thompson notes that our brains, unlike our bodies, peak relatively late in life.

“The wires between the brain cells, the connections, are the things that you can modify throughout life,” he says. “They change and they improve through your 40s and 50s and 60s.”

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