March from Lynne to Caroline - Catnaps for brains

 

Here is another bluebird of happiness from Lynne. When I was writing the blurb with Irene's bluebirds of happiness, I did not think there was any way that a search for where that expression came from would yield anything fun or interesting. Now - a few days later - as I am down to the very last 2 Caroline posts - I find myself needing to avoid the inevitable end-of-an-easy-task and return to the drudgery of life in a house with a yard and meals and laundry... so I searched - and if you need all kinds of fun info about bluebirds and why they have a long history of popping up in legends, stories, movies, poems, etc - here you go:

LINK to bluebird of happiness on Wiki

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I only recommend this book (The Organized Mind) if you want to delve into all kinds of technical things with new words to remember. My Cliffy-Notes version might be tedious enough.

A point to keep *in mind* - I'm pretty sure *mind* is the part that *they* can't really figure out. They have figured out that we have all kinds of complicated *networks* in our head. And they can see the tangible parts - we could call it the *hardware* - but there is a ton of stuff going on that is intangible and not understood at all.

Here's the part *we* can understand. Your brain has all kinds of activities - but they do not all switch on when you wake up and stay on all day. We know that our brains are mostly *shut down* when we sleep - but recently it has been discovered that parts of our brain will literally *switch off* or go to sleep when we are not using them - to take little catnaps - and conserve energy - while we are still awake.

So THAT explains all the stupid forgetful stuff you do every day. YOU are not doing anything wrong - your brain is trying very hard to function - but it has this complicated operational system - and if the part of your brain that was going to bring the grocery list is napping as you collect your phone/wallet/keys and walk out the door --- then you'll end up at the store without your list.

Of course you could take a photo of the list - but that would require another part of your brain to be awake. The point is - don't be mad at yourself for all the things that go wrong. Keep track of all the things you actually accomplish.