Читать книгу Sort Your Brain Out - Джек Льюис, Адриан Вебстер - Страница 17

Throughout most of human history, becoming a set‐piece specialist was absolutely fine. You spent childhood learning the basics, adolescence becoming a cog in some machine or another and adulthood winding that cog via a repertoire of set‐pieces in a job for life, putting food on the table to feed hungry mouths who themselves would, in turn, go through more or less the same life transitions.

The world, however, has changed since those days. The world has always been changing but, as we humans have become more and more adept at controlling and manipulating the environment around us, that rate of change has steadily accelerated. This has certainly been the case since the Industrial Revolution, when machines started getting involved. The changes used to only really be noticeable from one generation to the next. Then, during the 20th century – when great technological leaps impacting daily life started happening more regularly – they became readily apparent from one decade to the next.

Now, in the 21st century, everything has gone and sped up again! New innovations are continually impacting on the way we work, how we socialize, how we raise children, what we do for entertainment and how we think – fast, continuous, unprecedented change that is influencing every aspect of our lives. This increases the environmental pressure on our brains to adapt and keep up with the breakneck pace.

But fear not, your brain is more than up to all this. If there's one thing above all others that is most impressive about your brain, it's the degree to which it can change to adapt to all the new challenges that will inevitably crop up. This is exactly the feature that made us humans the most dominant species on the planet in the first place.

We are incredibly adaptable. Our brains will gradually change to serve us better in any given environment. Our collective ingenuity has led to the development of a variety of tools with which we can sculpt our environment. By creating new environments and carefully choosing which environments we immerse ourselves in on a regular basis, we can in fact change our own brains. It may sound miraculous. It is!