Fireworks in the Brain

I've noticed something startling these past few months:  my brain has been experiencing a sprint of new ideas in almost every area of interest, that I have.  For a long time, I simply noticed this,  and enjoyed it.  I mean, my brain has always been active, but now it's superactive. And creative.  I'm coming up with new ideas, a mile a minute. If thoughts once came like an occasional firecracker in the brain, now it feels like continuous fireworks.

Yesterday, it occurred to me to wonder why this was happening.  I am, after all, 82 years old; isn't the brain supposed to go into a slow decline by this point, with brain cells flicking off into space at an increasingly alarming rate?   Well, evidently not.  So, pondering why, I found myself talking to myself:  "what is different about your life, now, from, say, ten years ago?"  Instantly I knew the answer.  

My beloved wife and I have been watching movies.  No, that's not exactly something new.  I've been a movie buff all my life. What's new is the frequency.  Courtesy of Netflix, we've been watching movies every night. Think what that means:  graphic images flooding the brain for two hours every night. Without fail. And graphic images stimulate, as is common knowledge now, the right side of the brain.  This right side, in most people, is the creative, exploring, designing side of the brain.  It's the side that looks at old things in new ways,  familiar things with newly-found wonder, unexplored mental territory with new curiosity, sees patterns where no patterns were noticed before. The late Norman Cousins, author of Anatomy of an Illness (1979) was one of the first to notice that images could make a big difference in a person's life.  Suffering from what doctors said was a terminal illness, he healed himself by playing Marx Brothers movies day by day.  It was images (and belly laughs) that did it. 

So, watching the movies every night lights up the mind.  I then wondered, is that enough to explain this burst of fireworks in my mind?   It occurred to me, after pondering, that there was something more.  And that was, the choice of movies.   I chose movies I remembered from different eras of my life, and most particularly the young years.  We chose to watch a movie I remember seeing when I was in tenth grade: Action in the North Atlantic, with Raymond Massey and Humphrey Bogart.  And the movie I remember seeing on my eighteenth birthday: Objective Burma, with Errol Flynn.  And so it has gone:  I've delved as deeply into my past as I can remember. For the sake of the curious, I have listed some of the movies at the end of this post.

But what is the point, and what does this have to do with stimulating the mind?  Well, it goes back to a belief of mine about dreams.  In my chequered career I used to do a lot of personal counseling with people in trouble. Some 6000 hours I would guess.   And I particularly delighted in helping them with understanding their dreams.  I noticed that when not much was stressing people out, in their present lives,  their dream-maker seemed to go back during their sleep to Unresolved Issues from their past -- not yet completely digested experiences if you will ––  and try to bring them to some kind of closure and peace. In other words, looking back at the past freed these people up, to do more in the present.  And what was I doing, but going back to the past every night with Netflix?   

When Frank Sinatra died, someone over forty wrote, "We have lost the soundtrack of our lives:  the music to which we fell in love, to which we proposed, to which we tied the markers of key events in our lives."  That's how I think of old movies, in my life at least:  they were the soundtrack of my life.  Going back and viewing this past, via movies, has freed me up to do more in the present.

Of course, I could be all wet. Maybe this new burst of thought and creative energy has more to do with age, the stars in their courses, God's grace descending,  wisdom arising - - who knows?  It still feels like fireworks in the brain. And I do believe it is a continuous diet of graphics and visiting the past that has something to do with it.  But, either way, it is a wonderful time to be alive.

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For the curious: The soundtrack and sighttrack of my past:

During the past six months, we have watched  Gunga Din, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, Sam Jaffe; Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston; Beau Geste, with Gary Cooper; Cabin in the Sky, with Ethel Waters; The Barkleys of Broadway, with Fred Astaire;  It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert; The Adventures of Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn;  Drums Along the Mohawk, with Henry Fonda; Alexander's Ragtime Band, with Don Ameche; Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman; Suspicion, with Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine;  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with James Stewart; Yankee Doodle Dandy, with Jimmy Cagney; Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn;  Dr. No, with Sean Connery; Citizen Kane, with Orson Welles; The Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart, Pete Lorre; The Third Man, with Orson Welles; The Captain's Paradise, with Alec Guinness; The Big Heat, with Glenn Ford; Stormy Weather, with Lena Horne; To Catch a Thief, with Cary Grant, Grace Kelly; On The Waterfront, with Marlon Brando ("I coulda been a contender"), Eva Marie Saint;  Run Silent, Run Deep, with Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster; My Favorite Wife, with Cary Grant, Irene Dunne; The Bridge on the River Kwai, with William Holden; Bad Day at Block Rock, with Spencer Tracy; The Sea Chase, with John Wayne, Lana Turner; River of No Return, with Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe; From Here to Eternity, with Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr; Inherit the Wind, with Spencer Tracy, Frederic March; Let's Make Love, with Marilyn Monroe, Yves Montand; Cool Hand Luke, with Paul Newman, Strother Martin ("What we've got here is failure to communicate."); High Society, with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra; The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft; The Enemy Below, with Robert Mitchum, Curt Jurgens;  The Man Who Would Be King, with Michael Caine, Sean Connery; and every Fred Astaire or Cary Grant movie ever made.

Comments

[gl hoffman]

Hi Dick,
Great piece. It does not surprise me at all to see your creative juices still flowing strong, even at your 'age.'
I would have expected nothing less. For all of us a bit younger, this is all great news, methinks.
Let's all have a productive and creative 2010. And I love your list...I would add just one: the Fountainhead, it always motivates each time I see it.

[Tom]

Thanks, Dick. This is nudging me closer to getting a Roku so my wife and I can choose movies and watch them right away.

I'd probably enjoy re-seeing the cinema of my youth as well. As a whipper-snapper of 55 my list would be different, but we have some in common. (My favorite line from Cool Hand Luke is "Sometimes nothin' is a real cool hand.")

One of the things my wife and I enjoy together is discovering *new* movies, both current and old. For example, today I saw part of a Bollywood musical while eating lunch at an Indian restaurant. Back at my desk, I learned I'd been watching Teesri Manzil (Third Floor), a classic musical/romance/mystery/comedy/thriller from the mid-'60s. I emailed my wife about it, and she wants to learn more about this genre with me. So I know this will be a new journey we'll enjoy together.

Whatever the mechanism, growing new neural pathways is fun!

[Susan Borghese]

Sounds like you've been having a lot of fun!

Could it be that by revisiting movies that fired your brain with enjoyable (Roman Holiday) and powerful (...River Kwai) images, you not only dealt with "unfinished business," but, more important, reconnected with the passions that helped shape your present, optimistic and caring self? Maybe you're fired up and ready to go -- AGAIN -- and this is leading to further synergy of the best-exercised parts of your brain, creating those exhilirating "sparks."

Age may be a factor, but not in the negative sense you imply. An 82-yr-old brain may actually be much better primed to experience and appreciate this sensation than one still forming all those synapses.

[Jason Pelker]

I could definitely see Duck Soup as a medicine in my life.

Anyway, I'm happy to have found your blog, Dick. I read Parachute in college (as many do, or should) and now six years later, I'm working for myself and am well on my way to a fulfilling and interesting career.

I'm definitely due for a reread, but in the meantime, I'm going to gift your book to my friends, though, who could use a bit of your wisdom. Thank you for inspiring me to not settle and also to help others be their best.

[Larry Stevenson]

Hi Dick,

Thanks for explaining the fireworks. In the last 12 weeks I wrote another book, improved my blog, consulted on a TV series, and generate more ideas than my staff wishes to implement. Now I understand.

We also started Netflicks four months ago.

[Harry Touzel]

Hi Dick,
As a reader of Parachute I am pleased to find your blog. At 52 I now have a lifetime of interesting work to look forward to, and an excuse to watch movies (they stimulate my creative juices as you rightly say). Spot on about movies, images and music being the soundtrack of our lives - same for me. All the best with your endeavors.

[PghPioneers]

Dick,

I don't think I need to tell you: There is definitely evidence to support your theory about connecting to the past through movies. Separate from that, just a heavy dose of visual input can stimulate your nighttime dreams, since graphics is the medium for dreams. Dreams then stimulate daytime creativity. I myself frequently awake with fully formed answers to outstanding issues.

Everyone needs to know the power of such creativity stimulants. Do what you can to get the word out in future books.

You continue to be a powerful force in my personal life.

Ed Breaux
Pittsburgh Pioneers
http://www.pghpioneers.com
http://www.EdBreaux.com

[Katherine Dudley Hoehn]

This and your other blog entries are delightful. Thank you for sharing them with us. You are an inspiration and a treasure. Currently unemployed, I am taking full advantage of your wisdom, encouragement and humor.