Talent Imprisoned by Mind
How does the brain of a genius function? Is there a difference between the mind of a prominent painter or inventor and a common man’s one?
People believe that outstanding men have outstanding brains. An explanation for this opinion was different at different times: Hieronymus Bosch was visited by Devil, Johann Bach was guided by angels, Bill Gates, as some assume, is a reptoid. Achievements of talented people are so mind-blowing that it is difficult to believe that they don’t have superpowers.
However, if not superpowers, then, perhaps, these lucky ones have special genes. It could be true, but not necessarily. Getting perfect genes as inheritance equals getting a big amount of money: you can through the money out of the window or invest them into something big. Biographies of many talented people show that they had unremarkable ancestors and the children and grandchildren of geniuses do not always realize their potential. So what do we have left? Brain difference?
It is not possible to distinguish between the brain of a genius and the brain of an ordinary person at first sight. However, the difference can be found if we look deeper. What makes people talented and brilliant? What prevents us from being like them? Leaving brilliance for geniuses, how to produce at least one non-standard decision when it is desperately needed?
Two competitors in one head
Revolutionary discoveries of recent years in the field of neuroscience have shed light on many of the mysteries of brain work. The functions of the left and right brain had been know for a long time, but only recently it has become clear how exactly they interact with each other. The way they interact is quite impressive — not peacefully! Right and left brains constantly compete with one another. Their goal is to select the optimal solution as fast as possible and submit it to the owner. Everything happens so fast that a person does not have time to realize that there was a conflict in his mind.
The leading researcher in the field of cognitive neuroscience Professor Michael Gazzaniga (SAGE Center) in one of his researches managed to determine the response of each brain hemisphere separately on a question “Who do you want to be when you grow up?”. The left brain, the logical one, answered ”a designer”. The right brain, meanwhile, had a different answer — “a racer”. The following experiments showed similar results. These results are very impressive — our mind has two separate wills, which are completely independent one of another and often competing.
“The consequences of this are incomprehensible to the mind. It turns out that each of us, perhaps, carries in his skull a mute prisoner with his own personality, ambition, and consciousness, different from the essence that we consider ourselves. “ (R. Carter, “Comparison of the Mind”)’.
When it is not required to make an important decision or come up with something creative, the left and right brains have a peaceful dialogue. However, even in peace, the “silent prisoner” in our mind is controlled by the dominant hemisphere. The creative hemisphere is the one imprisoned for an ordinary person. The left brain keeps the creative power of the right one under control. As a result, dreams of becoming a racer, a poet, a painter rarely come true. The logical part of the brain is a problem solver, it stands against everything new and ensures the operation of neurons according to a standard scheme. The left brain can bring up archives of our memory, take out fear and insecurity with the emotional part of the right brain.
People have always known how to suppress the left brain without going deep into neurophysiology — alcohol, drugs, and so on. However, it leads to a full degradation of the brain and its owner. Good news — there is a more delicate way to make the left brain back up a little bit.
How to let the prisoner out without killing the guard?
You can talk the guard (the left brain) into being your personal assistant. It is not possible to turn it off, however, you can distract the guard. You could explain to the guard that that from now on he should stand protecting his owner from being trivial. The guard would be obliged to keep a watchful eye on the owner so that he does not impose stereotypes and does not make templates. His new task would be to judge whether a work is unique or not. Being fascinated by the new task, the guard will fundamentally reconstruct the approach to the matter and will intervene only when needed.
We have tested this method here at Outcrowd. Our team concluded that logic and control are necessary for any creative work, however, the most important part is to ask the internal guard to control and protect projects from stereotypes. This method works great for one person and a group of people at the same time.
When a mental controller gets his task and sees the goal clearly, it opens up the doors of the invisible prison of the mind to creativity. Being involved in reaching the goal, the logical part of the mind would help to find creative ways out, company combinations, and choose optimal solutions. The left brain would simply have no time to bring up the archives of memory and stick to old fears.
This is a way to let the creative prisoner out, to let the new ideas to be born, discoveries to be made and projects to be accomplished. This is a way for ordinary people to open talents within themselves.
