Pithy sayings 5

"L'art de l'écrivain consiste surtout à nous faire oublier qu'il emploie des mots." Henri Bergson

"The writer's art mainly consists in making us forget that he is using words." Henri Bergson

Ever got so caught up in a story that you forget you are actually doing the mechanical action of reading words and making connections in your brain?

The words become instant images in our imagination; we create the film of the story in our own head. But our interpretation of the story is always influenced by what we already know and have experienced or seen. 

I've come across a number of articles, documentaries and films on the capacity of the human brain to note everything, to the smallest detail and to store that information away. Quite an amazing machine, our brain.

Have you seen "What the bleep do we know...?" or "Limitless" ? Do you watch any of these new police series : the modern "Elementary" or the older "Sherlock", "Perception", "Numbers" ??? Even good ol' Gibbs from NCIS is as successful as he is because he has that capacity to notice things and to keep those things in his consciousness.

It's the most powerful argument I have for encouraging people to watch what they feed their brain through literature or media, songs, music, films,etc. I'm not being ultra conservative in saying this: I just know that the Holy Spirit renews our intelligence and it would probably take longer for Him if we keep filling up our brains with rubbish! Next step - define what I mean by rubbish!

We read the Bible and hear sermons and read books on Christian themes with all of this info in the sub-conscious part of our brain. It takes time to filter out the rubbish and to perceive the truth of what God wants us to understand about Him, about life and love.

Another challenge would be that all that is stocked in our brain could be used to honour and serve God. It's probably fortuitous that we only use 5% of what is stocked! It's also in our favour that we live as long as we do ! Why ? because a priori we get older and wiser and have sorted a lot of things out through experience and understanding. If we are Christians and growing in the Lord, then we have the added benefit of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to enlighten us.

Something else I tend to beef about: we live in a society which drowns us in noise, information, activism. Our brains need quiet times and rest in order to process information and to discern truth. Is it so surprising that more and more people explore meditation?