Mind is both a set-up, i.e. the brain, and an event-space where events are “code” for anything from input stimulation to output thought, database and connecting associations, chemical triggers, nourishing substances, and toxic intruders. It is a universe in itself with rules and obeying or less obeying particles. A democratic universe where it is difficult to determine who is in charge since there is no part that is in charge all the time allowing for surprise, creativity, and randomness that no machine will ever achieve.

That is not to say that it will not get pretty close – and for certain tasks that will suffice. But in a world where authenticity is what is most valued,  a world and a value that mankind created for mankind, in order for that world to successfully exist, it is required that mankind remains atop of the machine, even if only slightly.

To do so, every authentic individual should use and feed their mind carefully – above all else.

As grand as all this sounds, the process does not need to be as dauntingly academic or dense. Mind maintenance can actually be very simple. One of the key talents of the mind is reliance on brain plasticity. This beautiful flexibility of adaptive reordering is like a self-cleaning oven. You just need to turn it on, and the magic begins.

Our homes are some of the most immediate habit-forming traps.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love habits. But if habits are all there is, you cannot help but wonder what else is there to live for.

Do you know how we all say that younger brains learn faster? While this is true, it is not solely because of our brain aging after, but because through living we develop and apply inhibitions that are in indirect correlation with brain plasticity. When young, we have a low level of inhibition. Behavioural, habitual, risk-related, and so forth. The more inhibited or self-inhibited we become, the less our brain develops plastically, the less malleable it becomes. We inadvertently short-circuit our own minds.

Intuitively accurate, now it has been demonstrated that habit and over-habitualization of our lives trigger under-stimulation which essentially makes the brain lazy.

Surprisingly in all this, is that you do not need life-changing experiences to stimulate your brain and have it recharge.

Substantial effort is spent in methods and therapies that clear your brain of thoughts, release it from the stress and anxiety of daily pressure and intangible loads.

Little there is, by contrast, that focuses on how to add healthy stimulation to it to replace the high-pressure kind. In eastern practices stimulation becomes the opposite of relaxation and as such, by default, bad. Relaxation seems to be the one thing that is longed for.

Where I grew up, grandparents and elders used to tell the young to get going, to do things, to go out there and live and experience life. To leave the sitting and doing nothing for when they are dead. Life is movement. Death is stillness. The youth was never told to relax. Did they relax? Sure they did – but never overdid it.

Relaxation in that it stops your mind race is fabulous when your mind over-races. Which unfortunately is the case with so many people in the developed world, so many days of the year.

The problem with that is that relaxation means doing nothing. And I do not mean physically nothing, but mentally nothing. I would argue that too much meditation, too much ‘zen’, rests the brain too much. Puts your mind at too much of a halt.  Like a muscle that forgets to stretch, forgets its own ability to move at large, and limits itself to the slight nuances, stepping not too far from stillness. Stiffness inevitably occurs.