My trapped High IQ brain


© Pavel Muravev | Dreamstime.com

Ten days later, the snow is almost all gone. I guess it was just a dream, that 30-odd inches of snow, winter’s last gasp, and now we can get on with spring. The daffodils will pop any day now, and the red-winged blackbirds have already settled in for the season.

And I? I am searching for the road less traveled, as if that will make all the difference in the world, searching for a new way, although the way to where remains a mystery.

The Facebook algorithm is sending me in an odd new direction. A professorial sort looked out at me from a sponsored video Thursday morning.

It turns out that my doomscrolling and lack of focus “aren’t bad habits; they’re a high IQ brain trapped in procrastination it can’t escape.” This poor trapped brain of mine will do “anything to avoid what really mattered” — “but then my friend recommended the neurodivergent reset plan.”

If I would just take a little online test and keep reading, I’m sure at some point they would tell me their limited-time offer to purchase my own personal neurodivergent reset plan at a reasonable price.

It was flattering that they assume I have a “high IQ brain,” although a little alarming to find I am “trapped in a procrastination I can’t escape.” Fortunately I have a high enough IQ not to keep reading until they sell me the neurodivergent reset plan that will finally let me escape what I can’t escape.

I always wanted to have a high IQ brain, and I kind of like the idea of being divergent in some form or fashion — who wants to be “normal”? and define “normal” anyway. Here’s to the ones who “think different,” right? We’re the ones who save the world most of the time.

He’s alive

Writing about Jesus the other day, I said Christians need to stand their ground on the truth of who Jesus is. And I hope you were paying attention when I added, “Part of that truth, of course, is referring to Jesus Christ in the present tense.”

As we approach the annual observance of Christ’s execution and resurrection, there’s an important distinction to be made.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is not a nice story or a myth. The death and resurrection of Jesus is historic fact, witnessed by rather large numbers of people.

In his first recorded letter to believers in Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote, “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time …”

Those hundreds of witnesses never recanted. Paul went on to say, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.”

And so in this coming week we commemorate the historic events at the foundation of the Christian faith. The events were so momentous that they set a movement in motion that has survived more than 2,000 years now.

That first generation of Christians were adamant that they witnessed the risen Christ. Who am I to say they did not see what they testified to, including those who were martyred for refusing to recant their testimony?

We celebrate this holy day every year because He’s alive.

Miracles in our lifetime

How did records happen? The leaps of faith and logic required seem miraculous. What made someone think they could reproduce sound by attaching a needle to a megaphone and applying it to a rotating bit of wax — and then the evolution that replaced the megaphone with an electronic device called a microphone and developed the means to amplify the needle’s vibrations to fill rooms and auditoriums?

I look at the squiggles etched into the vinyl surface and can scarcely imagine how they will be translated into glorious sound. And don’t get me started on how over the years they have miniaturized the process so the sound from hundreds of these 12-inch records can be condensed into a flash drive, also known as a thumb drive because it is about the size of a human’s thumb.

I am in awe of the technology that brought music into my living room 60 years ago. I am only beginning to wrap my head around the technology that has evolved in the ensuing six decades.

The camera I used to take the photo of a record being played can also shoot video, record sound, take dictation, connect me with countless sources of news, information and entertainment, read me a book, play me any recorded music I want to hear, and oh yes, I can make a phone call with it. 

And it weighs about six ounces.

My father was born three years after the first commercial radio station went on the air. I often marveled at the scientific achievements he witnessed in his lifetime, and lately I’ve been pondering what I’ve been experiencing in my own lifetime. Outside of the realm of politics and government — where the goal seems to be to wreak as much death and destruction as humans can muster — a lot of people have been busy making this a much better world than our forebears could imagine.