Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT March 31st 2025

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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

7 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT March 31st 2025”

  1. antoinette56's avatar antoinette56

    Write about being hardwired or softwired.

    Underwire bra.

    Under or overwired?

    I’m overwired, stretched thin as a wire, attached to wires, tangled up in wires.

    I’m underwired – so my children say.

    Wires singing in the wind, pegging down my tent on a pebbly shore, by diamond-bright moon-struck water, beams like wires.

    Other wires, to be inserted into my breast next week. They’ve already been made, are sitting in their steril plastic wraps already, probably in a fridge with a light that only goes on when you open it.

    I will not be the you that opens the fridge, nor the one who opens the package.

    I’ve always loved the wires in the heart, the chordae tendinae, that snap with every valve closure, like a tent snapping in a blind wind.

    Wires surround me, be they nest or stranglehold, a circle or line, a web or a tunnel.

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    • michele348's avatar michele348

      antoinette56… it seems we are all wired together in some form or fashion. Sometimes the purpose is to keep us together, from not straying away. But at times, we get tangled up in the mess of wires… constricting our movement, constricting our thoughts.

      Maybe it’s good to have a wire-cutter handy, in the event we need to show who’s the boss.

      PS. blessings to you next week!

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      Reply
    • Elizabeth's avatar Elizabeth

      Antoinette, it’s amazing how you made me in interested in the many concepts of wires. Who knew that there were so many of them? Also, I also found your piece very much in the shadow of the poem with its intensity and whimsy. Thank you for sharing.

      PS-now I’m a little bit wired myself after reading it.

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      Reply
  2. michele348's avatar michele348

    About being hardwired or softwired~~~

    Life these days feels like a bundle of worms
    squirming around in our brains…
    or at least in my brain.

    Reality is one way today,
    and tomorrow, it flips over on its back
    and evolves into something else.

    How does one stay balanced
    in this jumbled bowl of worms?

    Can one be truly hardwired,
    adhering to only one
    train of thought for the sake of sanity?

    But then again, what is sanity?

    I will remain true to my core values of
    faith, compassion, and love,
    but to survive in these trying days,
    my mind and heart must be nimble,
    must be ready to go with the flow.

    For if I remain fixed in place,
    I am apt to get seasick
    or sick of it all.

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  3. Elizabeth's avatar Elizabeth

    Michele, as usual, you share with us your view of the world and how you cope. Thank you for being so vulnerable and steadfast in your beliefs. I’ve come to rely on you for that.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  4. Elizabeth's avatar Elizabeth

    Hardwired Hannah

    Has her heels dug in

    While soft wired Sally

    Is surprisingly supple

    Crossover Chris

    Carries both characters within

    Don’t we all?

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