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The Monday Morning Memo

Foolish Things We Believe

May 26, 2003

An email was recently passed along to me by one of my readers that said, “Some months ago you alluded to research being done that would reveal the fact that things 'you heard' were as or more effective than things you saw. In other words, the spoken word is retained more than science gives it credit for. Has there been any more development on this research and can you reveal who is doing the research?” – Lloyd

Time constrains me from answering most email, but I did steal a moment to answer this one:

Dear Lloyd,

Your comment, “more than science gives it credit for,” is intriguing to me. To which scientists are you referring? My experience has been that the only people who pretend sight to be supreme are not scientists at all, but are merely quoting “traditional wisdom.”

Roy H. Williams

Here's an interesting tidbit for you: The human tongue perceives five different tastes, sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami, a Japanese term that translates loosely as meaty' or savory.' And the receptors for all five of these tastes are spread more or less evenly across the tongue. This may come as a surprise to you if you are familiar with the tongue map of virtually every school biology text which shows sweet, salty, sour and bitter to be localized to different regions. Scientists today regard this “tongue map” as one of science's most enduring myths.'

But it's not the only one.

Here are some quotes I pulled off the web in less than a single minute:
“Psychologists believe that we only use perhaps 2 percent of our potential brain power.”
“You probably already know that most of us use only 5 percent of our brain power.”
“We only use about 6 percent of our brain when awake, but 21 percent when sleeping.”

Did you notice how not one of these writers told us where they got their data? In his new book, Synaptic Self, neurologist Joseph LeDoux writes, “Everyone has heard a few things about the wrinkled blob in the noggin  for instance, that we use only 10 percent of it. But who came up with this number? It's hard to imagine how 90 percent of the brain, lacking in value for most of us most of the time, could ever have come into existence. Researchers have been looking into what the brain does for many years now, and from what they have discovered, it doesn't seem that most of it is, in fact, resting idly.”'

Yes, we've been using 100 percent of our brains all along; it's just that we've had our attention directed at all the wrong things.

Have you ever been told that “93% of all human communication is non-verbal”? Or that “One picture is worth a thousand words”? Or that “some people are visual, some are auditory, and some are kinesthetic”? In truth, each of these statements is utterly incongruent with everything that is known about the brain. According to leading neurologists such as Alan Baddeley, Steven Pinker, Ricardo Gattass and Silvia Helena Cardoso, every human is uniquely gifted to attach complex meanings to sound. It's the one area of sensory perception in which we are superior to the animals, thanks to a dramatically oversized auditory association area and a highly developed Wernicke's area and Broca's area. (The brains of deaf people access the visual association area and the somatosensory cortex to supply the signals that are missing from auditory association.)

Traditional wisdom is usually far more tradition than wisdom. Are you ready to kick it to the curb? Ten years ago, gathering the facts was difficult, but now we've got the internet. So the only excuse you have for not knowing is that you really don't care.

But you do care about the truth. Don't you?'

Roy H. Williams

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Random Quote:

“


Lots of people have been asking me the same 3 questions.

QUESTION ONE: “Who were your mentors?”

Mentor is a word I never use. In my nose it smells of apprenticeship, that wafting, submissive aroma that arises from a servant who adores his master. By this definition, I have never had a mentor, but I do have many heroes I study from a distance, and I have a lot of friends who have spoken valuable things into my life.

QUESTION TWO: “What is your writing method?”

1. I descend into the depths of the client/character in whose voice I will be writing. This takes awhile.

2. When I have lost contact with my surroundings and found that character and become that character, I write what that character would say. I do this in the middle of the night because there are fewer interruptions.

3. When the character is finished talking, I rise from those deep waters into the air and sunlight of my surroundings, walk into the kitchen, make a cup of hot tea, and add the juice of a Key Lime. This little ritual helps me find myself. Then I look at the digital clock on the microwave to find out how long I have been away because time does not exist in that alternate realm.

Sometimes, when Pennie is visiting her sisters, I will awaken in the wintertime post-midnight darkness, work for awhile, rise to make tea, and notice that it is not yet light. But when I discover it is the darkness of evening, not morning, and that an entire day has disappeared while I was underwater, I have to reorient my mind.

QUESTION THREE: “Is your health okay?”

“Are you pulling back? Are you stepping away from Wizard Academy and the Wizard of Ads partners? Your recent Monday Morning Memos make feel like you are preparing to say goodbye.”

I fear you have me confused with Mentor R. Williams.

Mentor Ralph Williams (yes, Mentor was his first name) wrote “Drift Away,” one of the gold record hits of the 70’s. Dobie Gray sang it to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1973.

“Day after day I’m more confused, yet I look for the light through the pouring rain. You know that’s a game that I hate to lose. And I’m feeling the strain. Ain’t it a shame.”

“Beginning to think that I’m wasting time. I don’t understand the things I do. The world outside looks so unkind. And I’m counting on you to carry me through.”

When you read these next words, you will likely hear Dobie Gray’s voice in your mind:

“Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.”

This is not my day to be Dobie Gray. I am not feeling blue and I am not preparing to die. But I do appreciate your concern. Thank you for caring.

A few weeks ago I wrote, “The important is rarely urgent, and the urgent is rarely important. Do not become a slave to the merely urgent.”

I’m sure I will shift hears at some point and shoot off in a new direction, but right now I am writing about things that are important, rather than merely urgent. I hope to speak valuable things into your life, just as other people have spoken them into mine.

But first we need to make a deal, okay?

The agreement I need from you is this: If you promise not to think I am feeling blue, stepping back, or preparing to die, I will share some of the valuable things that people have spoken into my life. I will tell you what they said, when they said it, and how I found value in their words.

Does that sound okay to you? If so, raise your hand.

I saw that hand, even though you only raised it in your mind.

Indy says Aroo, and I do, too.

Roy H. Williams

“There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.”
– H.P. Lovecraft”

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