BitterSweetLife

Recently I was trying to quantify the impact that various books have had on me, seeing as how I’m coming off a bibliophilic spree, and the picture I got was aquatic.

Weird, huh.

I had the thought that some books, some authors, stir up the mental waters (G.K. Chesterton thrashed them, C.S. Lewis created a wave pool) while some merely bounce off the surface like skipping stones (Brian McLaren and Leonard Sweet are convenient examples).

Then, having started thinking about the mind in liquid terms, I concluded that my mind was never a chalkboard. The tabula rasa model never worked. Being a created thing, my brain had leanings and inclinations from the very beginning—like a tide pool with waves lapping at the edges. There were currents and eddies from the get-go.

That’s why the whole books-as-water-bombs concept works (sort of, anyway). The mind always remains somewhat fluid, relatively elastic, surface tension maintained; it may or may not be affected by what comes in. Therefore, the intellectual impact of each intruding author depends on his intrinsic “mass.” Thus, while Tolkien created a strong new current, McLaren was lucky to provoke a few amused bubbles—and the newly gelled mind prepared itself for the next influence to approach the pool where McLaren and Tolkien had respectively dripped and waded. Ultimately, the brain is never flat and dry unless its dead or jaded.

Some implications of this are useful: the mind likes a good case, but is not ultimately linear. We need fresh air and mysteries as much as syllogisms. Our mental currents do not redirect themselves due to logic alone. (As Chesterton says, reason is all the madman has left.) Our true selves want to be like Christ: a consummate “mystic,” retreating into the hills for hours of solitude with the Father, and an unabashed lover of reason, squelching fallacious arguments at will.

The mysterious “elastic” qualities of the mind are a fascinating topic, and there a bunch of books on the topic, several of which I plan to investigate:

The Undiscovered Mind, John Horgan
Meaning, Michael Polanyi
The Mind and the Brain, Jeffrey Schwartz
What Makes Us Think? Jean-Pierre Changeux, Paul Ricoeur

Anyway, hopefully I’ll get to indulge my curiosity, and at the very least come up with a creative new way to rank my reading material.