Neuroplasticity, Growth, and The Source
How to reprogram our minds even in our 50s +
Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change itself. It was once believed that the human brain grew to a certain stage and then, like height, stopped growing. Even though some things, like language, are easier to learn when we are younger, our brains can continue to develop as adults, even beyond midlife. This must not necessarily be the case. New neurons grow and synapses strengthen to make transmissions, connections, and pathways. Just as the name suggests, our brains are not concretized and as the brain can be rewire, grow, and develop the mind can also follow. However, there is also some circularity involved. If brain can develop, then there needs something to make the brain develop. If the brain contributes to what the mind does, assuming the mind is more than the brain, then what makes us want to change? In other words, if a computer program needs to be updated then what is that does the updating? Is it the computer itself? My phone and computer automatically make its own updates, but there needs to be someone who programed it this way and there needs to be new code that needs to be inserted by someone. Perhaps one day computers can program their own updates, but not yet. This is not an argument for some divine programmer (watch the 80s Tron film if you want that), but to simply ask the question how we continue to have brain growth if the brain is all we must achieve that growth?
Neuroscientist, Tara Swart (MD, Phd) speaks of neuroplasticity in relationship to human growth and development in The Source and attributes the change in the brain itself. For Swart, “the source” is the brain and its functions. Although the brain, brain stem, and human body are all participants in human growth and brain change and plasticity, it does not explain all that is involved in changes made in the brain. Most of the time, people want to grow and change because of some kind of pain, either from external forces or internal forces or both. Pain makes me aware of a problem in my life. It disturbs me. It is part of my dis-ease and therefore I need to seek a remedy to elevate it. There the pain can be subtle or it can be drastic, but it creates a longing for change. I did not know that I needed to improve my Vietnamese language skills until I met my now wife, Paula. Her family mainly speaks Vietnamese and if I am to communicate with them my abilities needed to be developed. I learned reading (writing less so) and practiced speaking. It was extremely difficult to do this as an adult, but if I could read three dead languages, learning a living language like Vietnamese is easy. So, I put my mind toward it if I wanted to do have a good relationship with my wife’s family. So, the pain is not being able to communicate, embarrassment, or the shame in not being able to do something. The solution to the pain is to learn and practice it. So, the pain of learning outweighed the pain of making mistakes. My brain grew and became more curious as to my culture and Asian languages itself.
There are plenty of studies, including the famous “nun study,” where people with Alzheimer disease lesions with no significant neuropathology. This is because these nuns are continually active in learning and their brains reroute to bypass physiological, cognitive diseases. But the core of this needs to be the desire to grow and change. One can imagine that it could be bliss for a person to fail cognitively, because the person would not recognize it. If I wake up not knowing who my friends are and not remembering what I did yesterday, then that might be the best thing for me (but not for anyone else). Non awareness might be actually better than awareness. Someone might have to take care of me for the remainder of my life, but what would I care because I won’t realize this. If no one takes care of me in my state, then what do I know about it? There is no difference. What might be the benefit of wanting to overcome this? This is because there is something in us that wants more to our lives. Like all organisms we have an innate, genetic need for survival.
I have a very active mind and imagination, so there have been various abilities I’ve picked up over time. Let me lay down the cards as to the skills that I’ve learned:
Cooking
Home brewing
Woodworking
Audio podcasting
DJ-ing
Audio mixing
Running ethernet cables
Electrical work
Plumbing
Graphic design
Car repair
Welding
However, many of these skills I would not want to make as a profession. I’ve learned these just to know these things. Now I would rather have a professional mechanic to work on my car than to do the repairs myself. The only skills that I’ve found that gives me the most joy and seek to monetize are writing, teaching, and painting. The reason I do the other things above, and mainly free or only for my friends, is to keep a skill that grows my brain. These skills are about problem solving and connection. When we are seeking to work out some difficulty, it creates new neuropathways. When we do this over and over, it creates a habit and growth. Like my friend, Matt G., who is an ecologist and handy in many ways, says, “It seems as soon as you master something, you will no longer use that skill.” This is true and is the point. I want to be able to make the best food and never have to do it again! (Not really, but you get the point. It’s about the ability itself and not just what it does.)
NYT Bestseller and translated into 39 languages.
Tara Swart has compared it “as going from a dirt road to a motorway” where the more we traverse this course the more we pave the way into something easy to traverse. But the importance in this is to know where we are going. This is where having a clear vision of what we want to do with our lives is important and far outside the scope of this article. For her, this means being able to tap into our deepest desires as to who we want to be and what we want to achieve. These desires cannot be shaped socially or culturally, but need to start with self-assessment and awareness. However, I want to say that this is where my discussion of consciousness and transcendence is relevant. Human flourishing reaches out for transcendent meaning. Like branches that grow toward the sun, our minds and even brain grows to make new connections. Neuroplasticity does not mean that the brain can be rewired to do anything or that there is no need for interventions like therapy or medicine or surgery. It is only one component of what we know about how humans develop. What it does point toward is our human desire to grow and change, regardless of age, experience, or even neurological diseases.
In her book, Swart does discuss her own family of origin and religious background. She even has a podcast which connects the ancient wisdom of various religions to insight made by neuroscience. She attempts to make room for some kind of mystery outside the body, but her commitment to science resists these assumptions. At the end of the day, what neuroplastiticity says is that our desires constantly reach beyond ourselves, into a deeper source than simply the brain, but something both out there and in here. It asks us, what more do we want from our lives. It calls us to reflect on this, however uncomfortable and painful it might be. It seeks to ultimately bring healing.