Let's Be Less Stupid: An Attempt to Maintain My Mental Faculties (3 page)
Read Let's Be Less Stupid: An Attempt to Maintain My Mental Faculties Online
Authors: Patricia Marx
Tags: #Humour, #Essays
One-syllable word ending in
k
__________
French-sounding word meaning “man about town” __________
Word you don’t know the meaning of __________
Same word as above __________
Latin word, or, if you were not educated, a four-syllable word beginning with
m
Remember when we used to go to Esther’s? Not the first place, the second place. Start off like you’re going there, but don’t go that way. Go the other way. Stay on that until you come to that street we always miss. Make a right. Unless it’s a left. You’ll come to a __________ [ONE-SYLLABLE WORD ENDING IN
K
] in the road. It’s actually more like a __________ [FRENCH-SOUNDING WORD MEANING “MAN ABOUT TOWN”]. Keep going. There’ll be a tree on your left and then some rocks. Go past where the gas station used to be until you see a little, like, __________ [WORD YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF] thing. If you see a big __________ [SAME WORD AS
ABOVE] thing, you’ve gone too far. We’re the house with the red __________s [LATIN WORD, OR, IF YOU WERE NOT EDUCATED, A FOUR-SYLLABLE WORD BEGINNING WITH
M
]. It’s impossible to miss.
Unit of measurement, plural __________
One syllable, begins with
sk
- __________
Railings on a staircase __________
Place where nuns live __________
Adjective __________
Four, uh, what’s the word? Four __________ [UNIT OF MEASUREMENT, PLURAL]? No. That can’t be right. Four __________ [ONE SYLLABLE, BEGINS WITH
SK
-]? Four __________ [RAILINGS ON A STAIRCASE]? Anyway, that word plus seven years ago—or maybe even longer—in any event, our fathers brought forth on this—what’s the thing called when it’s not a country but it has countries in it? __________ [PLACE WHERE NUNS LIVE] or whatever. So, then, something something something and dedicated to the president. No, no, no. I’m the president. I think.
Dedicated to the—what? Wait a minute, wait a minute, it’s a hard word and it’s—does anyone know? Where was I? The important thing is that all men are, that all men are created __________ [ADJECTIVE]…
Back to my ol’ noggin. What would it take to—poof—transform it into a spiffy young noggin? Back to the days when it was in tip-top shape? The days before the nuts and bolts and wires and connections inside my head started to slow down, shrink, get sidetracked, forget, become lazy, and go amiss in dreadful ways, but let’s save the science for later? We’re just getting to know each other’s frontal lobes, and by
each other’s
I mean
mine
. Here I just want to say that I would like a brain lift. Why not? If grown men can have bar mitzvahs, grandmothers can give birth, and Mick Jagger can sing “Time Is on My Side,” then can’t I have the mental prowess of someone who looks young enough to be carded, or at least someone qualified to think she will keep on thinking forever? There are a lot of neuroscientists who claim that cognitive rejuvenation is possible through a miscellany of interventions, ranging from exercising to eating sensibly to turning the photographs on your desk upside down to buying a piece of art that vexes you. Should I bring out the
crossword puzzles? Learn to play bridge? Chew gum? Take a nap? Drink more coffee? Eat blueberries? Give up tofu? There are studies that tout the restorative benefits to the brain of each of these undertakings. There are also studies that say phooey to them all. How to proceed?
I would do just about anything for my brain. If you don’t believe me, keep reading. But first…
Can you figure out which of these facts I’ve made up? Answer true or false.
1. Women who have large breasts compared to their waists score higher on cognitive tests than do less curvaceous types.
2. In a sequel to
The Wizard of Oz
, the scarecrow worries that he has become
too
brainy.
3. We only use 10 percent of our brains.
4. Becoming rich can change your brain and make you less empathetic.
5.
If a right-handed person wears an eye patch over his right eye for a week, his brain will remap itself and he will become left-handed.
6. Teenagers with IQs of 125 drink twice as many beers a night as those with IQs of 75 or less. (Could it be that the latter haven’t figured out how to open the can?)
7. Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.
8. High school students with longer ring fingers relative to their index fingers have higher math SATs. Those who have a higher index-finger-to-ring-finger ratio do better on their verbal SATs.
9. Analytically minded folks tend to be left-brained, whereas artist types are more commonly right-brained.
10. Boys have bigger brains than girls.
11. Ears emit sound that can sometimes be heard by others.
12.
Pea brain
is not just an expression. A pea has a primitive neural tube that regulates the rate of transpiration and operates many of the plant’s functions, such as photosynthesis.
13.
If you made a smoothie by blending the contents of your brain, it would provide all the vitamins you need.
14. You have more thoughts on days when the barometric pressure is lowest.
15. There is a tiny region in the brain dedicated to passwords.
16. When a part of your brain is damaged, other parts can pitch in and take over.
17. People with higher IQs are more likely to be alcoholics.
18. The reason we turn down the radio in the car when we are lost is that we only have so much capacity for paying attention.
19. If you were to connect all the blood vessels in your brain, they would circle the earth four times.
20. The pathologist who removed Einstein’s brain during the autopsy kept it with him in a jar for twenty years.
21. Learning is largely a function of growing new brain cells.
22. A study by Excedrin found that accountants get more headaches during the workweek than any other professionals.
ANSWERS:
1. (T)
Women who have large breasts compared to their waists score higher on cognitive tests than do less curvaceous types.
2. (F)
In a sequel to
The Wizard of Oz
, the scarecrow worries that he has become
too
brainy.
3. (F)
We only use 10 percent of our brains.
4. (T)
Becoming rich can change your brain and make you less empathetic.
5. (F)
If a right-handed person wears an eye patch over his right eye for a week, his brain will remap itself and he will become left-handed.
6. (T)
Teenagers with IQs of 125 drink twice as many beers a night as those with IQs of 75 or less. (Could it be that the latter haven’t figured out how to open the can?)
7. (F)
Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.
8. (T)
High school students with longer ring fingers relative to their index fingers have higher math SATs. Those who have a higher index-finger-to-ring-finger ratio do better on their verbal SATs.
9. (F)
Analytically minded folks tend to be left-brained, whereas artist types are more commonly right-brained.
10. (T)
Boys have bigger brains than girls.
11. (T)
Ears emit sound that can sometimes be heard by others.
12. (F)
Pea brain
is not just an expression. A pea has a primitive neural tube that regulates the rate of transpiration and operates many of the plant’s functions, such as photosynthesis.
13. (F)
If you made a smoothie by blending the contents of your brain, it would provide all the vitamins you need.
14. (F)
You have more thoughts on days when the barometric pressure is lowest.
15. (F)
There is a tiny region in the brain dedicated to passwords.
16. (T)
When a part of your brain is damaged, other parts can pitch in and take over.
17. (T)
People with higher IQs are more likely to be alcoholics.
18. (T)
The reason we turn down the radio in the car when we are lost is that we only have so much capacity for paying attention.
19. (T)
If you were to connect all the blood vessels in your brain, they would circle the earth four times.
20. (T)
The pathologist who removed Einstein’s brain during the autopsy kept it with him in a jar for twenty years.
21. (F)
Learning is largely a function of growing new brain cells.
22. (T)
A study by Excedrin found that accountants get more headaches during the workweek than any other professionals.
I
n case you haven’t noticed, our brains, which peaked, by most measures, at twenty-two, have likely been on a cruel slide since we were, oh, say, twenty-seven. Since then our speedball has been chugging along progressively slower, and over in the paying-attention department, things haven’t been getting better, either. Nor has time been a friend to our “working memory”—i.e., the scratch pad in our minds that allows us to retain information long enough to manipulate it, for instance by calculating the tip on the taxi fare or remembering what question we are in the middle of answering.
On the bright side, some neuroscientists such as Michael Merzenich say that the reason we lose our memories is not that our mental machinery forgets how to remember, but that it is representing the things we are seeing, hearing, and feeling less saliently than it did it in its heyday. When I talked to Merzenich over the phone, he told me about research showing that the slice of the world perceived by the average sixty-year-old is three-quarters the size of that perceived by a child; an eighty-year-old takes in only half of what she’s capable of seeing. If life were a production of
Hamlet
, you wouldn’t see the ghosts overhead or the soliloquies to the side and forget about Horatio almost drinking the wine in the corner. Here is some of what else you’re missing:
How about wisdom? As we get older, aren’t we supposed to acquire the common sense and sublime insight one otherwise must find embroidered on pillows? After testing three thousand sixty-to one-hundred-year-olds, some researchers at the University of California concluded so-called wisdom is merely the result of the brain’s slowing down, becoming less impulsive and driven by emotion. Can’t they come up with a wiser explanation?
