Travel Destinations

People think they are free to think about anything and everything, almost in the same way they are free to travel the roads and highways, but they are not. If there are no roads there already (vehicle pathways), you can't travel there - unless you have some kind of "off road vehicle" or go it on foot, but even then, you still can't go certain places. Same with thinking. If there are no "roads" there already (neural pathways), then you can't think about it yet.

How do these roads get laid down, anyway? Somebody has to do it. Same with thinking, usually, but not always. Somebody has to think it, and not only that, they must speak it or write it down so that it can be heard or read. THEN, you can travel there, but generally not before. This is why it is always SO EASY to comment on somebody else's ideas - whether heard or read - but SO HARD to come up with something of your own, and especially, on a regular basis.

Try it for yourself: Break out of THIS "line-of-thought" and open up Notepad, and compose five hundred+ words on a topic that you have NEVER read before, NEVER heard before, NEVER thought about before. Go ahead. Try it for yourself...

For the ninety-nine-to-one-hundred-percent who didn't even bother to try it, here are some topics you might want to consider the next time you have 25 or 30 minutes to fill - hey, it won't kill you:

• Why is it so hard to invent/create new ideas for yourself, that you KNOW at the time are new to you? 
• Could it have anything to do with the idea presented above, that there are no such neural pathways in you yet? 
• If so, then whatever you think about must have some kind of stimulus from out there - or even in here - that kick-starts the whole process. 
• And if so, then consider this: how might one learn for oneself to kick-start their own brain into some kind of "accelerated neural activity" that consistently generates new ideas, new thoughts, new areas of investigation? 

"Practice," it is suggested, "makes perfect" (though there are caveats to consider: look for the link to a fun and interestingly related game to play - Axon.) Practice does improve things, however, at least between the ears. One must use (the higher operations of) their brain or one WILL lose it - bit by bit, connection by connection - and sometimes much quicker than one could possibly imagine, and usually at the most inconvenient times. Too much practice at not using the mind - i.e., not activating/expanding the higher neural pathways - is always somewhat detrimental, and, it seems, we humans are just made that way... to practice everything BUT activating higher neural pathways. In fact, the most time-consuming way to avoid this intentional neural activity is by watching/listening to TV, radio, movies, youtubes, and all the other forms of externally received "infotainment," which could easily be grouped into the larger term: Day-dreaming.

For another kick in that sensitive place 

(don't you just love 'em?) 

check THIS out.