Flash of inspiration II
Posted by T.T. and P.R. in October 2021
When I was in my early sixties, I made an incredible mistake in my normal daily routine. After running out of tea, it has been my habit to buy a new pack of tea leaves and immediately transfer them into a tea canister. But on this occasion, I poured the whole pack of tea leaves into a teapot. My hands executed the task perfectly so that every single leaf was placed in the teapot and not one escaped the process. Surprisingly, my brain did not notice the error until my hands had completed the task. At that time I didn’t dwell on the matter and I didn’t think it was at all serious, just feeling that perhaps age-related deterioration in my brain was already starting.
I am now in my middle eighties, and errors in my brain function are becoming fairly common. I have found that the teapot event is not a very exceptional case and similar errors occur commonly, although most of them are not so funny. According to medical texts, these kinds of errors are diagnosed as a typical symptom of dementia, and they are classified as disorientation. However, most parts in my brain are surely functioning almost normally. Fortunately, flashes of inspiration can still occur, perhaps even more frequently than before.
Then, as if offering evidence of this, an inspired thought comes into my mind; could a person with dementia actually save our planet? The destruction of brain cells or the damage to blood vessels that may be causes of dementia are random processes that are not affected by poisonous sediments accumulated in the civilization which may cause prejudice. In the dementia-affected brain, there is a possibility of having important inspirations which cannot occur in the normal brain of a civilized society having many prejudices. Today, our cultural background is becoming merged into a commonality, spread across in the world, so that everyone, especially well educated people, could have the same prejudice. It therefore becomes difficult to avoid a prejudice by performing rational inductive thinking.
If my analysis of this inspiration is correct, then every dementia-affected brain could be a gold mine where noble resources are sleeping. Then, similar to the actual gold mines of old, discovering huge treasures like a lucky millionaire in the gold rush days, will be very rare. But today, the number of dementia patients is increasing because their longevity is extended by advanced medical care and social support, but the damaged lesions in an aged brain are incurable so that it could be the era for the notable events to becoming a reality. If such a flash of inspiration finally emerges from a dementia-affected brain and saves our planet from the total destruction of our delicate biosphere, this miraculous event would be the greatest success story in the whole history of humankind.
