Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a passage from “Life as a Brain Surgeon” by Henry Marsh, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being hardwired or soft wired.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

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Please join us for our next session Friday April 4th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

 Life as a Brain Surgeon by Henry Marsh

Life by its very nature, is reluctant to end. It is as though we are hardwired for hope, to always feel that 
we have a future. The most convincing explanation for the rise of brains in evolution is that brains 
permit movement. To move, we must predict what lies ahead of us. Our brains are devices - for want of 
a better word - for predicting the future. They make a model of the world and of our body, and this 
enables us to navigate the world outside. Perception is expectation. When we see, or feel, or taste or 
hear, our brains, it is thought, only use the information from our eyes, mouth, skin and ears for 
comparison with the model it has already made of the world outside when we were young. If, when 
walking down a staircase, there is one more or less step than we expect, we are momentarily thrown off 
balance. The famous sea squirt, beloved of  popular neuroscience lectures, in its larval stage is motile 
and has a primitive nervous system (called a notochord) so it can navigate the sea - at least, its own very 
corner of it. In its adult stage it fastens limpet-like to a rock and feeds passively, simply depending on 
the influx of seawater through its tubes. It then reabsorbs its nervous system - it is no longer needed 
since the creature no longer needs to move. My wife Kate put this into verse.
          I wish I were a sea squirt,
          If life became a strain,
          I'd veg out on the nearest rock
          And reabsorb my brain.

Credit: Henry Marsh