Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Changing Lightbulbs --- Day 4/257

Walk: Target, Vogue Theater (17th Annual Festival of Animation)
Distance: 2 miles

Image result for the changing brain

(From yesterday): Dogfight, the play, was Good!  At dinner before it, Ciwt was talking to friends about their grandchildren and relevant to something one of them said "Don't assume that today's grandchildren are like us."  Meaning they are probably a slightly different species, having been brought up since infancy with technology among other central changes.

Then driving home from Dogfight, the radio was airing a Ted Talk type broadcast about the plasticity of the brain and how it adapts and changes to meet life circumstances and demands.  And how it evolves into a different 'machine.'

It's called neuroplasticity and there are likely reams of literature available on it.  But, while she'd heard speculative talk about it here and there, she hadn't realized it - brain change - is an actual certainty.  And this thought actually makes her happy.

There are times when so many core level changes have happened in her lifetime (technology, babies with technology, social media, relationships between the (several) sexes, the nature of work, travel/world connectivity, scientific discoveries, the earth, the atmosphere....) that she gets totally overwhelmed.  And she projects that thinking out into something like those poor kids coming along; how are they going to handle all these things?  

Now the neuroplasticity concept has her thinking They'll be just fine; they have different brains, more equipped to handle life in their time. Plus, new brain or not, everything that is 'too much' for Ciwt is already part of their young lives and factored in from the beginning.  They will have different challenges.

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