Can Learning how to Cook, Fix my Language Woes?

That is the question I’m exploring. I’m no expert, just a man with lots of questions, and no answers. There will be no sage advice, I have nothing for you. Probably you will read it anyway 🙂. And if it bores you, blame my cooking skills. 

I started to think about that question while I was at a symposium at Mt. Sac college for those who experienced a brain injury and also the caregivers and therapists that work with them. The doctor that started the event was talking about neuroplasticity. With a bunch of scientific words and graphs he explained how your brain grows new thoughts. Back in the day I would have eaten it up. Today, not so much. Now information overload happens way too soon. So I sort of skipped over it, but then he recommended some things that might help while you’re dealing with a brain injury. The first thing he mentioned was learning something new. Learning something new, as a way to fix some of what was lost?

That idea intrigued me. I realize right away, I haven’t learned anything new since my stroke. My focus was relearning what I’d lost. Re-learning something that I already learned.  As I think about it, even before my stroke I hadn’t tried to learn something new for quite awhile. The old adage, you can’t teach an old dog a new trick rings true for me.

Can you teach an old dog a new trick? Obviously you can. The problem is generally the dog. It only happens when the dog wants it.  The dog (I’m talking about me) was content with what he had. And after his stroke he was desperately trying, to not learn something new, but to reclaim what he had before. 

Back in the day I loved learning new things. My college years were filled with wonder as I explored ideas and learned new skills (like writing). And after that, I started learning a trade, and I learned how to run a business. Geez, then kids happened. What a steep learning curve that was. But after a while, my learning of new things really slowed down. Guess that is common as we age. But man it is important to keep learning. And maybe more important when your brain needs work.

I heard a principle about how we start learning something new and then we stop learning it.  Can’t remember what it was called but the jist of it was, we learn just enough of what we’re learning to function. It makes sense in a complex world, you can’t learn everything. So you learn enough to function and then we stop learning. 

I am sitting next to a computer filled with programs that I know, Excel, Word, Quickbooks and Autocad to name a few. But although I “learned” those programs, I only know a fraction of what those programs can do. I learned just enough to function.

I remember one day when I was at my engineers office to pick something up. As I was waiting, I remember watching one of the draftsmen who was using AutoCad work on a plan. Wow, I thought, how did he do that? With one click he did what would’ve taken me several minutes to do. So I went back to my office and figured out how he did it. Yoo ho, I learn something new. And then I stopped. I stopped learning. Because it was functional, maybe a little more functional, but yeah, functional. 

During a break I talk to the doctor. I asked him, can learning something new, like cooking for example, improve my writing skills? And he said no, not like that. But learning something new will cause new connections and in that way it heals your brain. He gave the example of learning a new route to a familiar destination as a way to strengthen your “map” in your brain. I like that metaphor.

While I was talking to the doctor I tried to express the idea that for me, relearning things is maybe harder than learning new things. I didn’t communicate it very well, my language woes were very apparent that day. He didn’t really respond to what I tried to say. What I wanted to say is maybe it is because the pathways in my brain aren’t completely gone, but are severely broken. And when my brain tries to use those pathways, the words I can remember, interfere with the words that I am trying to remember. I’m wondering if the pathways that used to lead to a destination are actually hindering it? I’m wondering if rather than working on the broken path, finding a new path would be better? 

Hmm, learning something new, what a novel idea!

I’m wondering if there is a difference between re-learning something old and learning something new? I don’t know, but in my life, relearning things is extremely difficult. I’m wondering if learning something new would be easier?

On your computer, have you ever done a disk defrag? It is a way to consolidate the data in your computer. As I recall, a map of your hard drive appears with the fragments of your data immersed around, and the computer arranges them back to where they are next to each other.  Defragmenting my brain is what I need.  

So, can I learn another route to this destination (in this case, writing) to strengthen my “writing map”?  Writing like I used to be able to do, is what I’ve been working on with mixed results. And it is exhausting. Can I find another route to write? Or will the fragments that are still there keep tripping me up?

I have written the word “functional” numerous times in this post. What an apt description of my life, it is functional. It could function better for sure, but it is functional. I’m so thankful for that. But I’m wondering, will my functional life cause me to stop learning? Will I be content with a functional life or do I press on toward improvement.  

I’m leaning toward pressing forward to improvement. So I’ve decided to learn something new. Will learning how to cook fix my brain? Probably not. But probably it will work while I’m fixing my dinner. 

As I was thinking about this, this verse came to mind. 

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.    2Co 5:17  

Old things pass away….new things have come.