Thursday, January 12, 2012

90% of our Brain is devoted to?

Gossiping !All of us have heard about scientists saying we use only 10% of our brains. So what is the other 90% doing ? Some say it is to connect with our universal and spiritual selves. Others say it’s all about the subconscious problem solving part of the brain.
But the theory I like the most is that 90% of our brain is reserved for an art that in our hurried daily lives we are fast loosing. The art of Gossip.
Apparently we need to gossip to come to terms with the pressures of everyday social interaction. We need to gossip, to put it crudely, to stop killing each other. And a sense of humor is so important to the Art of Gossip. In eastern societies there is an unsaid acceptance of the Gossip culture. Almost an addiction. For how would they survive some of the really harsh conditions with any form of dignity without a bit of Gossip and a sense of humor ?
For those that know and live in North India here are the keywords :
“Kya kar rahe ho aaj sham ko ?”, “Chal aaja, yaar, kuch gup-shup marenge’
“Aaj mehfil kahan hai ?”

Each one an invitation to idle gossip. Idle and free flowing being the key words. To ease out the tensions and pressure of everyday life, and to ease yourself back into harmony with the community, and therefore with yourself and . We have seen it all over, with the men around the Hookah in the middle east. The men gathered drinking in Greece.
In England the community gathering together at the pub.
The ability to gossip is the ability to indulge in a sense of humor. We loose that and we are lost. And I would like to believe that is true. That 90% of our brains are available for a wonderful sense of humor.
But as we physically move away from our roots, as we become more and more involved with the pressures of work, as families become smaller and smaller, and as TV and computers and the internet takes away time from the ultimate leisure activity that 90% of our brains are designed for – Gossip – what is happening to us as social beings ?
As we are finding ourselves more and more isolated, are we becoming more and more intolerant of each other ? Of each other’s points of view ? Are we loosing our identity as assimilated social beings ?
And is it possible that the rise of blogging and chat rooms are the new alternate forms of the ‘Gossip Society ? Is it the new Mehfil? Is it the 90% brain that is driving us there ?
However, surely being together face to face and with the physical intimacy that a warm gossip room brings, also brings with it a sense of responsibility. It is the adult form of play that children and the young of all animal kingdom do – play act war games and battle games and social games. It’s the adult form of what little girls do when they play with dolls and dolls houses.
The adult form is the Gossip room. the Mehfil.
So my question is that, is the anonymity of the blog and the chat room taking away the responsibility that being face to face brings? Are we playing out the adult social games as they were meant to be, or are we indulging in something half baked and therefore possibly dangerous here.
Dangerous? Not if we accept that there is a nature of Gossip in what we are doing. So lets bring back a sense of humour, shall we?
Or 90% of our brains will be destructive instead of constructive and harmonizing.
Till Next then.
CIAO

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