Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot going on. The World Cup, for one thing, seems to be on 24/7 at my house. Also I’m going on vacation next week. Very excited. And then at the end of the month is my 20-year high school reunion, which believe me you will hear A. LOT. about. Including how I’m getting my outfit from this place . Feel free to let me know which you think would look best on me. It’s the next best thing to going shopping together, which in my world makes us BFFs forever.
Instead of a post today, I have a video that will totally change your life. Click on this link and watch this unbelievable talk by a brain scientist who had a stroke and studied it as it happened. I started watching it hoping that I could follow all the technical stuff I was sure would be included; — not only is there very little of that, but the message itself grew to such a crescendo that I was deeply moved. I was totally riveted for 18 minutes, which is a straight-up miracle given my typical attention span. Watch and prepare to feel smarter, better, and more hopeful in less than 20 minutes.
In case you’re not already convinced, here’s a review from Nick Morgan at Public Words:
Jill Bolte Taylor gives one of the most moving talks I’ve ever seen on TED on the subject of her stroke and recovery.
Taylor, a brain scientist, begins by explaining that she got into the field because her brother was schizophrenic, and she wondered why she could have dreams and realize them in the world, while her brother had dreams that ended as mere delusions. We’re hooked from that moment on; the simple truth of her brother’s suffering and her quest to find some way to help frames the talk beautifully.
Taylor then brings a real brain on stage – a real human brain – and shows us the 2 hemispheres. The right, she says, is in the here and now, the moment, and takes in all the sensory information it is able to embrace our connectedness as a species.
The left hemisphere, on the other hand, is all about the past and future, thinks in language, and identifies us as separate individuals.
Then comes the stroke. Taylor’s description of it is extraordinary – courageous, precise, funny, and heartbreaking. The character of the woman is revealed in these moments that would terrify most of us completely. When she says, a moment later, quite dryly, “I realized I was no longer the choreographer of my own life,” the understatement packs a real wallop.
Had Taylor stopped here, the speech would have been extraordinary enough. But she uses her stroke, what she experienced during it, and her recovery, to make a plea for universal understanding and to educate us all in how we can “slip the surly bonds of earth” and achieve real bliss in the here-and-now. That makes both the speech, and her suffering, transcendent.
I know there’s no substitute for my pithy insights into white middle-class women’s life angst, but seriously.
Best 20 minutes of my week. You won’t regret it.