“You feel great
when you create.”
— Fab, my roommate
“One of the most impressive features of brains- and especially human brains- is the flexibility to learn almost any kind of task that comes its way. Give an apprentice the desire to impress his master in a chicken-sexing task, and his Braun devotes its massive resources to distinguishing males from females. Give an employed aviation enthusiast the chance to be a national hero, and his brains learns to distinguish enemy aircraft from local flyboys. This flexibility of learning accounts for a large part of what we consider human intelligence.” — David Eagleman, from Incognito, The secret lives of the brain (We are all intelligent)
“Consciousness is the long-term planner, the CEO of the company, while most of the day-to-day operations are run by all those parts of [your] brain to which [you] have no access. Imagine a CEO who has inherited a giant blue-chip company: he has some influence, but he is also coming into a situation that has already been evolving for a long time before he got there. His job is to define a vision and make long-term plans for the company, insofar as the technology of the company is able to support his policies. This is what consciousness does: if sets the goals, and the rest of the system learns how to meet them.” — Incognito by David Eagleman
Memorial Day weekend and Im wondering - Through the lens of neural processing, is the current 2-day weekend optimal for business productivity and human quality of life? Would a different structure - Traditional 3 day or half day Friday and Mondays - be more beneficial for individuals? Or on a larger scale, would it be better for families, communities, organizations, businesses, corporations and/or economies?
I’m feeling very reflective and balanced today. Friday and Saturday I put the week away (my guess is my brain was still doing unconscious processing), and rejuvenate my energy with the company of friends. I spent Sunday recovering from food poisoning; on the plus side, I had time to think over the week’s events, and my needs for the week ahead. On any traditional weekend, that would be it- that’s all the time you have for you. I may be incredibly biased, considering I’m currently working as a 10-hour a day service volunteer. Yet, I am not the first nor the last to feel like a 2-day weekend is too short to maintain a sustainable work-life balance.
Knowing I had one more day to get my life together, I woke this morning feeling energized, and ready to accomplish the tasks I compiled on Sunday. I notice in my extra leisure time that my reflections about my shotty week have become constructive, rather than destructive.
I think my brain has had time to process the what occurred, who said what, and how I felt a certain way. I had time to accept events as they happened. If this were a traditional weekend, this mindset is where I would have begun my week. Sounds productive, right?
What is missing for a happy employee is time to process the “why” and “how,” which provides an opportunity for manipulating and remodeling that neural information. For me, I incorporate this information into plans- thinking in a more macro-level enables problem-solving and strategizing.
Because of this extra day, I have had more down time and brain power to devote to goal setting and action planning. I have had time to reconsolidate my experiences from the days prior into meaningful lessons learned. And so I wonder what life would be like if all weekends were 3 days, and whether or not I would have a better quality of life. More time to incorporate physical activity, and self-development in the pursuit of hobbies.
I think that we could all be better off with more time to be reflective and make more targeted decisions. From my experiences, a three day weekend allows for this. It makes sense to me neurologically speaking too. Does it seem optimal for brains in two days to process the overwhelming amount of data and information collected from the 5 days of the week?
We created the 5 day workweek. Who says we got it right the first time? Maybe the brain can teach us where we went wrong, and how we can improve life in our hardworking society…
(yeah, it’s a big maybe. I own that.)
What are your thoughts?
Money shouldn't matter when it comes to getting an solid education -
This is where I went to high school.
And Louie is a lot like my old classmates.
Even with the stress, sleepless nights, and dorm room drama, GSSM was pivotal to my overall development. I feel fortunate to have gone there, and looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.
My educational experience was unique, but I hope that one day it will be the norm. I believe students should be able to take on academic challenges without limit. It’s not fair for children to be in the position to ask their parents to take out another loan, or refinance their mortgage, because they want to push their intellectual boundaries.
And that’s why GSSM is such a special place to me.
Octopus-Spider-Treeman (Taken with instagram)
JP Pond on a Sunday afternoon (Taken with instagram)
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“Today is like Valentine’s Day, for people who love Jameson and bad decisions.” — Ben, describing the romanticism of St. Patrick’s Day
I use this as a reminder to always take the high road…
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (via llbeanbackpack)
(Source: superblop)
Phyllis says, Happy St. Partrick’s Day. Now, drink Boston!