Amazing Brain

A few days ago I was thinking about how amazing the human brain is.  It truly is a remarkable organ.  It is more evidence that God truly exists and created us.  The human body is a marvel of creation.

What made me ponder how amazing the human brain is, you might ask?

As you probably all know, last week Burt Reynolds died.  His death announcement was just another piece of  information my brain received that day.  I was not a Burt Reynolds fan.  I knew of him just because I live in this world and grew up in the 70s and 80s.

The interesting thing is, a specifiic song lyric popped into my head after learning of Burt Reynolds death. "Tell old Burt I've seen all his movies."  And I kept singing it all day.  I remembered exactly what song it was from and who the artist was. "If Hollywood Don't Need You" by Don Williams.

The next day, I remembered more of the song without listening to it.  "If you see Burt Reynolds would you shake his hand for me?  And tell old Burt I've seen all his movies.  I hope you make the big time I hope your dreams come true.  If Hollywood don't need you, honey I still do."

The thing is, I had not listened to that song for at least 15 or 20 years.  I had completely forgotten about it.  And even if someone had mentioned the song title to me I wouldn't have remembered that Burt Reynolds was mentioned in it.  But my brain remembered.  It was stored somewhere in the deep crevices of my brain.  And just the trigger of Burt Reynolds name brought that song to my conscious memory.  I even remembered the tune to a tee. And after singing the same line over and over more of the song came to my conscious memory.

Isn't the brain amazing?

There is something powerful about putting lyrics to music.  This is not the first time I have remembered a long forgotten song because of certain triggers.  Specific times in my life  or certain memories or even specific people, like Burt Reynolds, will bring to my remembrance different songs that are stored in my brain somewhere.  Songs that I have consciously forgotten about.

This is a good reason why we should only expose ourselves to good songs.  Songs with irritating beats or bad lyrics will drag our spirits down instead of lifting us up.  Once you put a song in your brain it is there forever.  Perhaps not consciously but it is definitely stored in your unconscious mind. 

Songs will also drastically affect your mood.  If you're sad or depressed nice mellow uplifting songs can elevate your mood.  Also if you're in a fairly good mood songs with bad messages or up-tempo loud irritating beats can really drag you down quickly.

The brain is an amazing organ.  Once you put something in it, you can never take it out.  It is there forever. It's like putting too much salt in a cake or cookies.  Once you put it in, you cannot get it out.

Be careful what you choose to put in your brain.  Don't poison your brain with toxic songs or images or language or anything bad.  The poison may quickly leave your conscious memory, but it will always be somewhere in your brain.  And it doesn't take much to trigger the memory to enter your conscious mind again.

The cookies or cake with too much salt may look normal and delicious.  Yet one bite will tell you otherwise.  The brain is like a sponge.  It absorbs everything that it is exposed to.  And once it's in your brain you will never get it out.  Just like the salt in the cookies or cake.  Even memories that have been suppressed for decades just take a small trigger to bring back to full conscious memory.

Burt Reynolds death triggered a long suppressed memory in the deep crevices of my brain.  It brought to mind a song lyric and music that I had long forgotten about.  But it's amazing how quickly I remembered it and how well I remembered the lyrics and tune. And not only that but I remembered the song title and artist. Thanks Burt and Don.

The brain is amazing.

That's my two cents.