Albert Einstein is the pride of mankind. He was not just a scientist, but also a popularizer of science, and the fluidity of his mind in his old age would make many young students gasp in wonder.
«One day you stop learning and you start dying.»
«I don’t have any special talent, I’m just inquisitive.»
To understand this expression more deeply, you need to know how new neural connections are formed in the brain and nerve cells. If you take two twins of the same age, one is allowed to sit on the couch and do nothing, and the other choose any hobby to his liking, books and offer every day to learn something new, who will have more neural connections? Of course, the second will have more neural connections. The first will use old neural connections and not create new ones. By old age, he will have far fewer of them than the one who reads, learns and searches for something. Every unfamiliar word, new interpretation and even music all create new neural connections and increase their number.
According to Einstein, this is one of the main reasons determining how clear the mind will be in old age:
«I no longer have the body I had in my twenties, but the mind is like that of a teenager. It is what allows me to ignore my flabby body» or «My greatest wealth is my knowledge. Each knowledge forms a new neuron in my brain, in which it is stored. Some people have millions of dollars in their account, but I have millions of neural connections — this is my wealth, which I have earned by a craving for knowledge.»
A craving for knowledge at any age is the first rule for keeping a clear head.
The mathematician is stupid in philosophy and the philosopher in mathematics: two fools?
«All of us humans are brilliant. But if we judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it is stupid.»
Everyone has the unpleasant experience of not understanding the material they are learning, but that doesn’t mean that mental performance isn’t their forte. The fact is that some people are better at the exact sciences and calculations, while others are better at something abstract, fantastical, at the intersection of philosophy. Albert once said:
«All of us are essentially stupid and brilliant at the same time. Take a great mathematician and a great philosopher and make them explain their most complicated concepts to each other. The result is two fools who don’t understand each other.»
Everyone is silly in some ways and clever in others, it all depends on the circumstances.
Someone adores cars and their technical part, someone draws, and someone cooks. All of these are mental activities, something better develops spatial memory, something logic, and something imagination, but every human activity has an intellectual note.
«Anyone is brilliant, it’s just that some people are so lazy that they think they’re stupid after a few attempts.»
Einstein was pretty bad at school and it was only an accidental love of physics that gave us a genius who was able to use his knowledge and imagination to create a dozen completely new concepts in physics. Do what you like and grow in it.
Only a fool is afraid to make mistakes
Making a mistake is one of the main fears that has dissuaded more than one person from learning a new field. Some are afraid of not being able to master a smartphone or of doing something wrong, of breaking something, some are afraid of singing because they are afraid of looking like a fool. Learning is all about making mistakes, you don’t have to be afraid of them.
«Knowledge is experience multiplied by the number of mistakes. The more one has made mistakes, the more one has learned and the more experience one has.»
New experiences rarely run smoothly, I would say never, only on paper do things run smoothly.
«Have you ever ridden a bicycle? What would happen if, after trying it for the first time, you thought you were unfit for the fun stuff?»
