Imagine an argument between Capn' Jack Sparrow, Sherlock, Dr. House and Tyrion
Lannister. I know 11 people who would
die to witness that spectacle.
Having a sharp brain with the ability to churn out crucial
knowledge whenever needed is something many people dream of. Because the idea
of a sharp brain mixed with an interesting personality is fiercely attractive. That is, the idea of always being two steps ahead in your mind, compared to the general
population.
We'll keep the ambiguous concept of an interesting personality
for a later time. How do you build up your brain to play the part first? How to
think your way ahead of everyone and turn your brain into an efficient problem
solving machine? I'm going to show you the answer..
1) Declutter
Once upon a time, I happened to be standing in
front of a system of gears rotating beautifully in unison. I was a jerk so
grabbed a few pebbles and dropped it on the system of gears. Alas! The one
pebble got stuck in between and the gears stopped rotating.
I apologize for making the lamest analogy in the world. What
I'm saying is, if you have random thoughts littering your mind all the time,
then they're bound to create obstructions for brain gears from functioning
smoothly. De-clutter your mind and you
will be amazed at how efficient your brain actually is, without disturbances.
Endless thoughts bounce around the walls of your mind
restlessly. De-cluttering it all may seem like a monumental task. But I assure
you, its not. There are just 2 things you have to do.
a) Physical clutter reflects in your mind. So get your desk
cleared up right after reading this step.
b) Finally give your brain the much needed calming boost, by
Meditating. If you're too lazy to read all of it, just skip the article's 6th
point, "The Thought Train", and enjoy the goodies after practicing
it.
This first step itself is going to give you a unexpected
boost to your brain's ability.
2) Read a shit ton!
"A mind needs books as a sword needs a
whetstone to keep its edge. That's why I read so much." One of the most badass Tyrion dialogues.
Regular reading serves as
the most effective all in one workout for your brain. Read the last sentence again.
Drill it in your mind.
*Sounding like the
superfast Terms and Conditions narrator in TV Ads*
Reading boosts creativity,
spikes intelligence, improves analytical thinking, adds to your knowledge
storage, improves memory, generates ideas, covers your vocabulary, strengthens
your command with words, increases concentration, gives a peek into the most
brilliant minds on earth, blah...blah
I have blabbered too much.
In simple words,
reading is damn important. You could argue, why visual media doesn't serve as
a better learning tool? With visual media, what you're doing is getting spoon
fed with information. Your brain doesn't get to work out much. Consuming information effortlessly hardly leaves much of a
trace in your mind for long time, unless you were watching an awesome movie like Die Hard. It also leaves a lot less room for thinking, which kills half the purpose.
Read everyday, switching
between fiction and non fiction. And bte, reading tweets doesn't count as "reading".
3) Memory
Memory may the most pesky element of this whole
cycle for most people.
"How the hell do I remember what I read?"
"I read this whole thing a month ago, and I don't
remember shit"
The first thing you have to do is stop googling for
"How to get an Eidetic (Photographic) memory"
Secondly, remember that forgetting is a natural thing and
the brain has to let go of things that it doesn't consider useful. Such useless
thoughts end up in the recycle bin(where you can still restore them), and after
a while get deleted permanently.
Now we have identified why you forget. So what is the
obvious solution? I said, the brain deletes things, it considers useless. All
we have to do is, convince the brain
that it is not useless. Sounds simple enough. Lets directly dive into an
example.
Suppose right now you're reading the book, "A Brief
History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. You've reached the part where you learn about the 2 scientists who accidentally
discover an important proof towards that the Big Bang theory. You prolly forgot the
names of those two scientists and how they did it right after reading that
part.
The ridiculously simple way to counter that it is, spend
just 10 minutes on Google everyday, to look up bits about what you read. Look
at the scientist's pics. Visual data is much easier to store. Your brain
automatically creates a locker about what you searched and related stuff. Even
better, if you find something related to your today's reading session in real
life, observe it, or engage with it. It's all a way of telling your brain that
what you read is not useless. Ofcourse, you can't remember every word you read, but
its easy to remember the important chunks of knowledge this way. Engage with the information after you've read it once.
4) Learning a new Language in Sleep
"सदस्यता के बॉक्स में अपना ईमेल टाइप करें, और सà¤ी अद्यतन प्राप्त"
Did you understand what's written above? Don't do Google
translate. Admit that you'd have felt a lot wiser you had understood on
reading.
Don't worry about that sentence. Learning a new language
opens new horizons to the way your mind thinks. It broadens your understanding
of everything, and also makes things easy if you have your crush is foreign and speaks that language.
I want this step to be the simplest of all 7. So lets' just
learn a new language in our sleep. Fortunately I'm not joking. Just follow the below steps. I'll take French
for instance.
a) You're in bed after an exhausting episode of Game of
Thrones Season 6. Ofcourse you can't sleep. So follow step b)
b) Go to this Youtube video
c) Listen to it for about 20-30 minutes, with eyes closed, in your bed.
If you get sleepy in between, just stop and go to sleep.
d) Start watching French entertainment i.e. movies, TV
series, etc . Identify the words you know from the sleep sessions, get familiar
with how French is spoken. Watch with English subs first and slowly remove the
crutches and watch it without subs.
e) Go 2-3 months like this, and you'll be able to pretty
much make sense out of most French you hear. That's when you start looking at
French words start reading small comics. Google will help you through.
I know this way to learn a new language would sound
amateurish to some, as opposed to starting from the letters, grammar and
pronunciations. But this is a more
effortless and more fun way to get grasp a new language. Go for it. Richard Feynman said it,
"Study hard what interests you in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible"
Btw, the Hindi sentence above meant, 'Please scribble your email in the
subscribe box to the right, so you can receive cool updates'. I know right, shameless plug.
5) Curiosity
Curiosity never killed the cat. That was just
a stupid old story, made up by a stuck old guy.
Look around your room. What do you see? Don't tell me you
see dirty tissues. Do you see a Wifi Router? Okay...Do you know how a router
works? Do you know how exactly are you able to read this article that I wrote
while I was eating m&m's in my room. Google for how a router works. Good,
you're about to learn something cool.
That's a basic mechanism of curiosity. It takes you places just to find one itching answer and you learn loads of new stuff along the way. Start asking questions. Start observing the big and small things around you. Try to understand how things work. Be Curious.
Because understanding how things work, is the best possible shot you have at taking any situation under control when the time comes.
6) Just Do It
Do you want this? Do you need to work out your way to a powerful intellect? Every
single big thing starts with one decision. The simple decision to try. You have
to start somewhere. Start now.
Yeah, bye...
- 23.10.16
- 0 Comments
