Brain overload?!

“Overload”?’ Yes! Not only that the problem I am working on but also all the information related to it will have me completely in its grip.

So overloaded with this information that there is no space for ordinary things.

I don’t remember several things that happened in my life. I don’t remember names.

I can’t remember the routes I passed through! If you take me to an unfamiliar place and leave me alone there , I just can’t come back without asking for directions or taking the help of Google maps! May be there just isn’t enough space in my brain to form new circuits for travelling, even in my own city!

I make several silly mistakes while performing ordinary tasks because my mind will always be somewhere else, thinking about something else!

If you point them out to me I get bewildered.

Some things happening around me even fail to get register properly in my mind sometimes!

Image source: Sciencetech daily

Whenever I do my research or any other complex work, I make a few silly mistakes sometimes while doing ordinary things outside my lab/studio & later on after realizing my mistakes I feel bad about them. My cousins consoled me several times by telling a story about a famous scientist. It seems the scientist had two cats-one kitten & its mother. The scientist built a house for his two cats. He left two openings to the house – one small (for the small cat) & one big (for the big cat). It didn’t occur to the scientist at that time – who 's considered as a genius – that one big opening was enough for both the cats!

Another story: Norbert Wiener, an American mathematician, was known for his absent-mindedness. He used to drive to work at Harvard in the morning and come back home in the evening. One day there was to be a change in the routine. The Wieners had sold their house and were moving to the new residence that day. His wife had spared him all the details of the transaction and simply told him that they had sold the house and were moving to another that day, so he must remember to come back in the evening to the new address, which she gave him along with instructions on how to get there. Of course, Wiener forgot and, like on every working day, came back to the old house which he found locked. He could not figure why. Then he saw a young girl standing near the gate and asked her if she knew where the Wieners had gone. The girl replied: “Yes, daddy! I will take you there. Mummy had told me to bring you when you returned here from work.” :)

A scientist’s/genius's/polymath's mind will be completely drowned in his/her thoughts & work most of the time. It doesn’t take notice of other things that happen around it & doesn’t think about normal things! So scientists/intellectuals/polymaths behave in weird & stupid ways sometimes! They make lots of mistakes while doing ordinary things. It doesn’t mean that they are stupid or weird. They just don’t care about mundane things & don’t want to waste time by thinking about them & do them very casually as their priorities lie else where. Unless & until they cut off the world around them and completely immerse their minds in their work, they cannot find solutions to the complex & difficult problems they deal with. They have to decrease the cognitive load on their minds by removing small and unimportant things from their minds.

Several of my scientist friends too support me by saying, " If you are not making mistakes, that means your mind is not working at its full capacity!" That might lead to a burn out for some, but a polymath mind relishes it. (1,2)

All this burns my brain a lot. But know what? I love this state of my mind! I can’t live without it! I can’t survive without adding new information every moment of my wakeful life!

I am just addicted to scientific information and knowledge.

And I can remember every bit of scientific information I come across! That is like magic!

Footnotes:

1. I Love My Toddler Essays.
2. Intelligence Redefined