Postaday for January 15th: Brain Power. Let’s assume we do, in fact, use only 10% of our brain. If you could unlock the remaining 90%, what would you do with it?
First of all, I would separate my brain in ten pieces, so that I could do ten things at the same time.
One part of my brain would be watching TV shows, so I can get caught up on all the pop culture. I’m caught up on Game of Thrones, Brooklyn 99 and I Zombie. Need to watch all of Justified, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, and House of Cards. Should also probably watch Breaking Bad and Walking Dead, but I’m only willing to do that if I can get a whole chunk of brain dedicated to it. Not that I have anything against those shows per se; I just found them tedious and dull when I tried them the first time.
Oh, and Battlestar Galactica, Portlandia, and Hannibal. People on Tumblr are going nutso over Hannibal, and I want to know what’s up.
There are other shows I’m way behind on, but I’m watching those with the wife. We’re just starting season three of Scandal, and we’re also watching True Detective. We watch Modern Family when it comes on, and we want to watch Suits and Homeland.
Then I’d have another part of the brain read books. Maybe have on part read news books and one part rereads old ones. I just discovered one of my all time favorite writers, Thomas Berger, passed away last year (kinda feel bad I didn’t know this sooner). So I’d reread all of his books. And reread The Chronicles of Amber by Zelazney, although I bet my super brain would get through that pretty quickly. I think also I’d reread Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies because when Hillary Mantel puts out the third book in the series I want to be ready.
The third book I’d read with the part of the brain for new reading. It would also read every Booker-prize nominated book over the last ten years that I haven’t already read. It might also read Game of Thrones, even though I’ve already read the first book and I did not care for it. I also have a lot of Jim Thompson to read.
Of course another part of my brain would be dedicated to writing. Blog entries, short stories, and all of the novels I’ve started and never completed. Also, book reviews for all those books those other parts of my brain are reading.
Here’s where it gets tricky: I have a lot of video games to get through. Not sure how I can write and play video games at the same time. I’m tempted to use some sort of dictation device for the writing, leaving me hands free, but I like the discovery aesthetic of writing and wonder if I would get too glib, being able to just let it flow. I don’t think I can think fast enough to speak what I write!
I know— I’ll dedicate a whole other part of my brain to solving that problem.
So one part for TV, one for books, one for re-reading, one for writing, one for video games, and one to figure how to do these things all at the same time. That leaves three parts. One I’ll need for miscellania, sort of a catch-all. Internet research, meal planning, vacation planning, and so on. One will have to be dedicated to work, I guess. And the last one is for meditation.
People will say to me, why do you meditate? I’ll tell them, I’ve got a lot on my minds.