A husband and wife duo and I were “social distancing” a few weeks ago, sitting on my back porch, no closer to one another than ten feet, masks at the ready, when the subject turned to the different ways our minds work. I mentioned that I need my desk to be uncluttered in order to concentrate on bookkeeping or writing. The husband said he feels exactly the same way. In fact, if he’s working in the family room but knows the bedroom is a mess, he can’t focus and will ask his wife to tidy up the disturbance in the force that he can’t see but knows exists. She thinks this is nuts but has accepted that it matters to him. Then we got into deeper details about how our brains function. The wife used a recent interchange as a classic example. She’d held up a glass of water and asked him, “Do you want a glass of water?” Then she watched him as he stared off into space. He described it as cogs jerking from one setting to the next. “Water.” Ratchet, ratchet. “Am I thirsty?” Ratchet, ratchet. “I should drink more water during the day.” Ratchet, ratchet. “There’s a glass of water on my nightstand in the bedroom. Should I get up and drink that instead?” Ratchet, ratchet. “But that water is tepid and stale.” Ratchet, ratchet. Meanwhile, nothing is coming out of his mouth and she’s getting tired of standing in front of him holding a full glass of water. In her brain, there’s no ratchet. There’s a Maserati racing from point A to point B without any pit stops. In her mind she’s holding the glass in her left hand and with her right hand she’s pointing to it, saying “Water. Yes or No?” It’s a simple question without need for deliberation. Yes or No? Lacking any response, she turns on her heels, marches to the kitchen, and dumps the water down the drain. Just about then the husband comes out of his trance and asks her, “Where’s my water?” Meanwhile, back on my porch the husband has a new question that will demonstrate how our thinking methods differ. He asks me, “If I tell you there is a fawn in the forest, do you see any image in your mind?” I instantly reply, “Yes. But I see two images. One is of a fawn, a baby deer, in a forest glade. The other is a faun, the mythological creature, also in the same forest glade.” The husband has pictured the entire animated scene. He’s already begun to fill in the colors of the surrounding mountains and probably the grass blades in the fawn’s mouth. He then tells us that he’s asked this question because he’s recently learned that there are entire swathes of humanity who understand there is a deer in the forest but don’t see a picture of it in their heads. Further, they can’t imagine the need for a picture and think those who have them are weird and wasting brain time. The wife was more direct, as usual. She said, as if holding up an imaginary glass of water, “I see one baby deer and one tree. That’s it, that’s all that’s needed. One deer; one tree.” Hesitating a moment longer she added under her breath, “And then there’s the ballet about a deer in the afternoon.” Naturally, I pitched in with “Claude Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun.” Of course I did, because that’s how our minds work. The brain is a strange and mysterious world. It controls everything and only occasionally lets us know what it’s doing. It exists both as a physical mass inside our skulls and as a transistor for quantum particles that live outside time and space. It is the embodiment of Schrödinger's cat, being both concrete and theoretical at the same time. One of the things our brains allow us to do is think about things ranging from primal needs to abstract concepts. What’s particularly interesting about this is the gobsmacking number of ways the brain permits us to think. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. If your neighbor would think the same way you do, you wouldn’t have to slash his tires at night. No, wait, I mean you wouldn’t have so many uncomfortable conversations with him about why he should park his car in front of his house instead of yours. When I mentioned that our brains “allow” us to think about things, what I was referring to are the latest studies that show the brain is capable of processing eleven million bits of data per second yet it only alerts the conscious mind to about fifty bits per second. In other words, our brains consider us too stupid to handle the workload and only feeds us what is deemed necessary for our survival. Many of you believe the brain creates our outer reality and is the channel to our inner reality. You are ever vigilant to what your minds are telling you and you strive to elevate your thoughts to see a higher path. Others believe in focusing on scriptural teachings that will lead to a better life and a better world. Kudos to you all. Keep up the good work. Meanwhile, your brains are going to continue the full-time job of running your body. True, the higher the quality of your deliberative thinking, the easier you make it for your brain to keep you hale and hearty. Yet with or without your active participation, as long as your brain is intact, with all of its parts and pieces functioning as intended, it’s going to send and receive messages via neuron/chemical transmitters to all your parts, which means every single cell in your body, all 37.2 trillion of them. You see now what I meant about your brain being too busy to sweat the small stuff? What I think the brain does is set up a special chat room for us, giving us lots of opportunity to talk to ourselves most of the time and to other people some of the time. Whenever the brain thinks it needs our attention, it will interrupt our on-going conversations with bits of needful data. As an example, suppose you are sitting on your porch, having a nice social distancing visit. You’re enjoying the sound of your own voice when suddenly you’re distracted by a strange sensation on your ankle. You look down and see that a spider is crawling up inside your pants leg. You then scream, leap up, and frantically hop around the porch like an insane voodoo dancer until either you or the spider is dead. That’s a perfect example of how the brain leaves you happily ensconced in your chat room until it decides to alert you to incipient danger or other necessary interruptions. Another notable attribute of the brain is how it uses different chemicals to perform varying tasks. During a visit to a neurologist’s office, I was told that one chemical is used to store information and a different one is used to retrieve it. That’s why when they treat patients with memory deficit issues they need to know which chemical is missing. Google “how many memories can the human brain can store” and you’ll get the answer of around 2.5 million gigabytes worth. Now imagine an ancient Roman library filled with 2.5 million scrolls, on each of which something notable is written. Picture the poor librarian who is supposed to not only figure out which niche to slide your document into but also remember where it is located when your heirs come to claim it. No, that is asking too much of one person. A two-librarian system is needed. Over one desk is a sign “Deposits” and over a neighboring desk floats the sign, “Withdrawals.” If either librarian is out to lunch you can kiss your memory retrieval goodbye. Let’s get back to the chat room, shall we? Would it surprise you to learn that not only does memory depend upon neuron/chemical interchanges, so does thinking and talking? Some people are of the opinion that the way we think and talk is a function of personality plus conditioning plus cultural exposure. They could be right. But what if thinking and talking depends upon the way we retrieve information? In other words, what if thinking and talking is mostly dependent upon the paltry amount of neuronic chemistry our brains are willing to spare to keep the child entertained? This leads us to the all important question: Is your brain wired for “Water. Yes or No?” Or are you more of a “Ratchet, ratchet” wire-head? There’s no right answer. The world needs all types of thinkers. If it didn’t, our grey matter wouldn’t waste the neuron/chemical output. It has better things to do.