The World's Best Investment -- Your Brain

Yep, invest in your BRAIN. I've reworded the article a little bit from The World's Best investment at Urban Survival on 10/25/2005:

The question is "What's the best investment I can possibly make right now?" The answer is a surprisingly simple one: Invest in your brain. Buy brain food. And it's NOT just "edible" foods!

The underlying concept of brain fertilizer is incredibly obvious yet of all the people I know, I doubt there is a handful that takes the methodical approach to the problem. Like your car's engine, your brain needs a certain amount of fuel and some maintenance, to keep operating. So ask yourself "What am I doing every day to feed and keep my brain tuned up on a regular basis?" You can build a fabulous plan into less than an hour a day.

Take your calendar and figure out how much of your day is inputting" (brain feeding, acquiring information, reading, listening) and how much time is "outputting" (writing memos, directing people, doing chores, etc.).

Take your inputting time and review your inputs for quality. Then you can set a budget for brain food. If you had $100 to spend for a whole year, what subscriptions and reports would you buy? Atlantic Monthly? Harper's Magazine? National Geographic? What is your idea of 'brain food?' A few more dollars can get you web bot runs and a few select science journals. But actually, much of the online info is free and then easy to keep up with in a free Bloglines account.

Set aside 15-30 minutes a day for listening to music that works your brain. Not necessarily the cry-in-your-beer country stuff. But something which is largely instrumental and/or classical. The left side of your brain need facts and the right side of the brain needs emotional/musical kinds of inputs. If you have even more money and time, consider some baroque to listen to while reading because it helps to synchronize the brain. See all the web sites that offer superlearning music.

You might think of a copy of the Vortex reader that web bot whiz Cliff invented ( http://www.halfpasthuman.com/ ) because you can then "burn in to your head" most of the classics of literature from Project Gutenberg's amazing library at 800 to 1,000 words per minute without the agony of having to "learn" speed reading. The computer can do it for you.

Most importantly, turn off the television set most of the day to pursue this kind of personal curriculum. Spend maybe 10-15 minutes in the morning and 15-30 minutes at night, usually CNN or History Channel. The better your inputs, the better your outputs. The better your outputs, the healthier and wealthier you are likely to become.

Besides, for less than $200, what else are you going to invest in that won't wear out, you can take with you and which will give lasting pleasure and value? In addition, take that brain outdoors every once in a while to drink in the marvels of the universe in a walk, wander or the ritual called vacation. Brain food which after a few years distills down to that archetypal memory of the perfect beach, the incredible valley of flowers, or that shockingly alive winter sky full of stars?

This is the kind of investment you can take with you. Returns on any other investment option pale when measured this way. The rest is just paper and things you leave behind.

Time magazine just came up with the best novels written since 1923 if you're looking for some more 'brain' food!

In today's WTF department: Exxon Mobil quarterly profit $9.9B, biggest ever - Oct. 27, 2005 Exxon Mobil Corp. posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion Thursday, the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices. Guess they CAN in fact just pull money out of our ass.

No, I didn't get to the FBS last night. I ate sushi and drank beer with a few good friends. It IS my birthday week. I think I can do whatever I want during my birthday month! So, this is a small warm up. Sushi and a few beers. OW! My head. TWO beers makes my head hurt. I hate that. Beer is too brain food. Lots of minerals in beer.

Pumpkin Chowder -- YUMM!

An old Cherokee is telling his grandson about a fight that is going on inside himself.
He said it is between 2 wolves.
One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego....
The other is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith...
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."