Skip to main content
How big a number is that? The idiosyncratic pattern of your brain is so complex, so minutely filigreed, and so massively extensive that its uniqueness dwarfs anything you might have in common with someone of your same gender, race, or even your family. Each neuron reaches out and makes at least a thousand connections with other neurons, which means that, even after your brain has gone through a couple of bouts of synaptic pruning during your childhood, you still wind up with one hundred trillion connections in your brain. Since there are approximately four hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and there are a thousand billions in one trillion, your brain has more connections within it than five thousand Milky Ways. This is the true extent of your individuality, the size of your Wyrd. As you walk through life, the world you see is seen by you alone. Your reactions to this world are yours alone. Linger on this truth. You have galaxies within you. These galaxies will shine brightly for only your life span. And, upon your death, once they shine no more, nothing and no one will ever shine in quite the same way again. What a responsibility. What an opportunity. 
The Art Of Dying
What a gift your loves are to the rest of us. Intimidated by the sheer size and complexity of the galaxies within you, we tell you to look away, look outward. We teach you about parallelograms. And grammar, and presidents, and nations. And all the while you feel your loves, your Wyrd, swirling away inside of you, spiraling up and out of you. You can’t contain yourself. To discover your Wyrd, trust in your loves. Thus you are gregarious, while this person over here is shy. You are organized, they are spontaneous. You are competitive, they are altruistic. You aren’t a category. You don’t fit into a category, unless we’re talking about a category of one. Nothing In Common
Myshel has two kids. When he’s been cooking, butter seems to have exploded out of the walls, and strawberries have become lodged in the deepest crevices. He’s disorganized, right? So, he’s the conscientious one, right? Well, again, no, not really. Go up to his room and it’s like the towel fairy snuck in and threw up all over it. The second thing to know about your Wyrd is it can grow up. It can become a more intelligent, more effective, less defensive version of itself. But what it can’t do is change its shape. The neurobiology of this is that your synaptic network becomes stronger in those areas where it is already strong, and weaker in areas where it is already weak. This is why brain scientists describe your brain’s development as creating new buds on existing branches, rather than new branches. Where you have already displayed some natural ease, appetite, and ability, here you will experience the greatest learning and growth. And where you’ve struggled, found little love or joy, here you will grow the least. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it. Just For Today
But apparently the brain scientists haven’t spoken to your teachers or your managers, because at school and work those areas where you struggle are labeled your areas of opportunity or your areas for development. In fact, the opposite is true. Your weaknesses need to be dealt with, but your instinctive loves are where you’ll experience exponential growth. The third thing to know is your Wyrd is your best guide and resource if there is something about yourself that you desperately want to change. Counterintuitively, the secret to curing your anxiety, or your fear of public speaking, or your impatience lies not in investigating these weaknesses, identifying their root causes, and working to fix them. Instead, it lies in investigating your loves. This combination has the potential to be beautiful and powerful. It is the source of all your success, and your savior when the world seems set against you. Oh, and one more thing. The biological reality is quite different. Yes, your traumas and the stories you tell yourself about them may prevent you from seeing the fullness of you, this Wyrd. And yes, healing yourself of these traumas will help you see your Wyrd more clearly. I promise you, yours is worthy and wondrous and capable and weird. Just because no one has yet told you how to find it doesn’t mean it’s not there to be found. Think back for a moment on that someone you know who lived a full life. You get the sense, don’t you, that they were on to something. That they had somehow cut through all the noise, and tuned themselves into a signal only they could hear. And they didn’t do this in spite of their work. Rather, they seemed to be doing it through their work. Their loves and their work were inextricably linked. In their telling, work does not simply mean job. It is not merely manual or knowledge labor. Instead, work is anything of value they created for someone else. But learning is also work. Supporting a loved one in a relationship is work. Parenting your kids is work. Community activism is work. Sharing your faith is work. Anything of value you offer to others is your work. But this antagonism doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. When someone makes something with love, you can feel the emotion woven into the creation. Food made with love tastes better. Words written with love draw us in more completely. Software coded with love feels and functions differently. I have a hat made with love. I bought it from a chap in Ojai, California. Each year he travels to the rodeos in New Mexico and Oklahoma, and when he sees a cowboy hat that intrigues him, he buys it off the fellow’s head, takes it back to Ojai, washes it in nearby Sespe Creek, hangs it to dry on the fence by the creek, and then decorates it with the beads from antique lampshades. You register other people’s emotions more intensely.