This is bullshit. It has become rooted and popular is a testament to the fact that there are lots of slick businessmen who know telling customers what they want to hear makes sells. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a meaningless soup of words. Who knows what constitutes 10% of our brain? As Steven Pinker said: “Humility is very important when we talk about the brain” (may not be verbatim)
Our eyes are the doors to our brain. If we were to increase their workload by nine fold, what would be its effect on them? Don’t you think that would unravel our eyes? The traffic generated in using ‘ten percent of our brain’ has already condemned many of us to eyeglasses. If at all there were a dormant 90% of our brain, the only way to tap into it would be to sprout numerous eyes throughout our skull. Maybe we have to shapeshift into an Argus.
Some suggest the way to unlock the latent 90% of our brain is mental exercise. Are we going to work or to exercise our mind? One of the elementary lessons of life is: it is short and there are choices to be made. Spending more time on leisure means, less time available for work. There is a trade off. Busy people get absent minded because it is difficult for them to simultaneously execute all the stuff vying for their attention. If at all they manage to carry out their huge chunk of task it is by putting more than their whole soul in it. What Woodrow Wilson said is the reality for most of them: “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow” Woodrow Wilson
Scientists who are busy doing research on the frontiers of science live cut out from life. Some are in the lab on Xmas day. You may even find those who can not remember their children’s birthday. When in the shower they are running an equation in their mind. Take them out from their insulated world for an award ceremony, they will make serial faux pas. Do you think it is because they are using only ‘ten percent of their brain’?
Those who believe in this myth are not seeing for themselves and also may not have pushed themselves hard. The key is this- we are a primate, not a superhuman. We have branched off far from our cousins, but not very far.
