Thursday, April 19, 2007

You’ve heard of muscle confusion, I imagine, an idea recently grafted onto the vernacular by the “300 Workout,” the final stop in a punishing regimen used to train the actors in that ridiculous movie. It’s a fascinating idea, and I think there are clear parallels between the benefits of muscle confusion and, until I can think of a better term, cranial confusion.

I’m not talking about walking into old people or willfully shoving both feet through a single pant leg. That’s stupidity. Cranial confusion, if you’ll allow me to go all Merriam-Webster on you, is the measured intake of varied stimuli in a short span of time. Take this discussion we’re having right now, for instance, or, more to the point, all the discussions we haven’t had. I effectively severed an avenue of mental engagement by choosing the silent interim, and I’m certainly none the better for it.

See, if you spend too much time immersed in a single thing, like work or an impending move, you just get dumber. Oh, initially you may feel sharper, more cognizant of all the nuances in your chosen focus, but then you hit the other side of the bell curve, where the grooves of your brain are slowly made smooth by the grind. This is precisely how I’ve been feeling in the past few weeks, and it’s going to stop. Here’s one such mental outlet. Tonight’s discussion ran solely on selfishness. And that’s a sustainable fuel.