Metaphors Gone Wild: Attics and Brain Boosts
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle consider the brain as an “empty attic.” He recognized the need to stock it with metaphoric furniture, the choices of which are left up to each individual. Two important cognitive functions occurring up in that attic of yours are listening and being creativity. Here are tips for polishing both these metaphoric pieces of furniture.
LISTENING
“The essence of genius,” according to William James, “is to know what to overlook.” And, author Mitchell Posner urges us to be “ecologists” as far as information is concerned. Here are exercises to help you be ” as far as listening is concerned, to help you avoid verbal pollution.
In the center of a clean sheet of paper, draw a circle. Ask a friend to find a dense paragraph from an article. (Or, to simply go on and on about some topic for a few minutes.) Then extract three key words from the verbally- inflated paragraph that he or she spoke aloud. Write those words in the circle. Now that you have the essence of what you heard, use the three words to prompt your memory Noocube reviews about the most important things you heard. Check with your friend to see if you have captured the main points.
This exercises not only sharpens your listening skills, but your verbal fluidity skills as well. Ask a friend to talk about an enjoyable experience and to stop unexpectedly after a few minutes. You are to take one word from the last sentence uttered and use it to begin speaking about something you enjoy doing. Stop unexpectedly and have the other person continue the conversation using one word from the last sentence you spoke.
Next, give some thought to barriers that can impede the listening process. Can you list 20 of them? Then consider which of these you can control. Finally, engage in a dialog that refutes Dr. Leo Buscagli, who said, “Most conversations are just alternating monologues-the question is, is there any real listening going on?”
CREATIVITY
Creativity is the result, in very large measure, of the belief that we are creative. To develop your creativity muscles, periodically ask yourself: “What if… ?” and “What could this be used for?” questions.
Convergent responses are typical, expected, logical. For example, asked how one gets to Heaven, you’d probably say something like “Follow the Golden Rule.” Ask this question of a divergently-oriented child, though, and you might hear, “Go to Hell and take a left!” Or, “You need the God elevator.” Or, “You need to buy a really big trampoline.”
