Last night around 10:30 I informed my daughter for the umpteenth time that it was time for her to sleep. She said her brain wasn't tired. I told her to tell her brain to go to sleep—that she was the boss. She came back with, 'Mom, you know I can't do that, my brain has a brain of its own."
It's hard to argue when she thinks she is making perfect sense and according to neuroscientists at UCLA, she's kinda-sorta right. According to a recent WSJ article, these neuroscientists found that we have specific neurons in our brains that are each dedicated exclusively to one specific idea, person or thing. The examples they gave (they are from L.A. ya know), were people with neurons dedicated to people such as Halle Berry, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna and even Homer Simpson. (Doh!)
My daughter obviously has a nerve cell exclusively dedicated to NOT sleeping. It makes sense, she is never tired, doesn't nap, is extremely active and only needs about 7 hours of sleep per night as opposed to the 11 that the experts says she needs at this age.
'Mom, since you are up now, let's have a conversation." So I told her about these doctors and how they found these things in our brains that only 'thought' about one thing. And I asked her what were the things her brain were focused on. Here is her list of thing-specific neurons:
Chocolate, eating lunch, Daisy (our dog), playdates (or lack thereof), Esme/Jada/Emma, Grandpa John, Turkeys, Questions, Not Sleeping, Chocolate (yes, she has two things that think about Chocolate), swimming and finally, Commander Gree (who is a Star Wars persona that she 'is' a couple times a day…fun).Given that the article stated that the researchers believe that the neurons were responding "to the distillation of an experience" -- and not pictures, per se – this list makes perfect sense for my daughter. This list is the distillation of her experience at this exact point in her life. It is inevitable that this list will shift and change as she grows and as her experience in total grows—but there are certain neurons that will stay only about certain things—in her case, probably chocolate and turkeys…which is a whole other thing.
Anyway, she then asked me what my brain thingies thought about. I found my list mostly not-surprising…here it is:
Daughter/Son/Husband, Chocolate, family, travel, work, friends, weight, books, creativity, Husband, cheese, 'what ifs' and then to be honest, Viggo Mortensen and Jon Stewart.
Besides the fact that she thought that it was gross that I thought they were "cute", I'm totally going with my daughters reasoning here—my brain has a brain of its own. And, there are days when my brain spends what is probably an inordinate amount of time on one or the other, or both of these men.
The thing is, if these neurons are about the 'distillation of an experience", then Viggo and Jon make complete sense in that they are simply the "face" to a distilled experience in total for me….in this case, the experiences of my husband that rev my engine the most, so to speak…the combination of the brooding artist and the politically-focused funnyman. Viggo, for me anyway, brings the brooding artist to life—the craggy face, heavy lidded eyes, the perception of being a 'loner', painting, poetry, music, a great ass (essential!). Jon Stewart—the smart satire, ability to laugh at self, the laugh itself.
That I've personified these experiences with people who are attractive to me is not out of the ordinary—Lloyd Saxton speaks to the personified ideal in his book, The Individual, Marriage, and the Family. And, you could say that our whole obsession with celebrity culture is about finding and associating with the ideal as defined by your specific needs.So, back to the list—it's obvious, from a scientific point of view, that having Viggo and Jon on my list is just like my daughter having Daisy and Commander Gree on her list. Completely innocent with no reason to worry.
Until, of course, I have a neuron that is all about the one idea of "What if Viggo, Jon and Husband were covered in chocolate?"
No comments:
Post a Comment