Heroes Not Zombies

Habit makes everything look bland; it is sleep inducing. Jumping to a different perspective is a way of waking oneself up again.

Montaigne believed that habits of thought, habits of culture, and social habits all numbed him. He countered this tendency by seeking out new people to talk to, reading about customs and beliefs from other countries and keeping hold of the central principle of wonder – he loved to be amazed, to be astounded, to marvel!

The right hemisphere of the brain has a particular predilection for novelty and for uniqueness. It’s the active agent of our tendency to wonder and to marvel, which is a two way process…if we want to rebalance our cerebral hemispheres (which I think we should) then exercising the right hemisphere is a good way to do that, so we can set off a positive feedback loop. The more we actively wonder, be curious and amazed, the more we are using and developing our right hemisphere, and so, the more readily our whole brain slips into wonder, curiosity and amazement.

It’s hard to see what our own habits of thought and culture are, which is why it’s especially helpful to encounter different ones from our own….another reason to be aware of social media echo chambers.

I’ve been fortunate to have had opportunities to teach in many different countries and one of the greatest gifts of that has been a chance to encounter different cultures and habits. I’ll return to that when we discuss the benefits of travel, but what I found by teaching in different cultures was that I became much more aware of my own favourite habits – which gave me the chance to adopt new ones, drop some old ones, or reaffirm the ones I consciously chose to continue.

It’s another great example of “heroes not zombies”…..waking from the sleep of habit through conscious encounter with the other, with difference.