Brain Health Hacks

Infinite summer is a website that is a book club centered around reading David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest” (IJ) (and search my blog for the other stuff I have written about DFW if you are interested).

I just wanted to share some of the pieces written about the reading of IJ:

from Infinite summer (Marcus Sakey):

My first read of the novel was by and large a pleasure. I’ll admit that there were moments when I wondered if I could trust Wallace to deliver the goods. And at that time, I thought that the book could have benefited from a sterner editor (although the submitted manuscript was apparently significantly longer.)

Still, I labored through the rough spots, and found more than enough to tickle me and keep me going. But while I don’t want to reveal too much, I will say that when I got to the end, my initial reaction was, “Huh.”

But what Marcus says about the novel after a  bit of time has passed since finishing it, is quite interesting.

Fast-forward two months and ten books, and here’s the thing—I was still thinking about Infinite Jest. In fact, I found myself seeing it more clearly, getting more seduced by it, than when I was actually reading the thing.

With distance what at first seemed sprawling begins to come into a more cohesive, if still massive, picture. Wallace is a writer who does not spare you the full force of his brain; in fact, he demands your effort like a brilliant professor who expects that you show up every week, well-rested, on time, and with the reading done.

But finish the book, let it stew, and it will all come together, I promise. And it’s more than worth the effort. So much so in fact, that about a year later I decided to read it again.

And I really thought Marcus captured something about the novel, that I also felt was  true, in this section.

Fundamentally, IJ is a novel about two things: the pursuit of happiness, and the impossibilities of communication. Wallace explores those themes and their intersections in a hundred different ways. And because he was a genius who didn’t believe there were answers to these questions, he also contradicts himself over and over and over. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that there are no assertions of importance in the text that aren’t contradicted somewhere else.

After a second read, there were many things I understood more clearly. And damn, how I loved it. But could I tell you, unequivocally, “what happened”?

Nope.

It’s not about that. There aren’t easy answers in life, and so Wallace didn’t want them in his work. There aren’t single perspectives in life, and so Wallace didn’t want them in his work. The world can’t be summed up in a sentence, and so Wallace not only didn’t try—he demonstrated some of the reasons why the world is the way it is.

There is also some interesting posts at the sister site of Infinite summer - which is called Infinite Zombies (part book club, part fight club, all infinite jest).

Just so you don’t feel alone about the daunting nature of this novel Daryl Houston shares this:

Usually what you hear about Infinite Jest is that it’s difficult and long and like climbing a mountain and dear sweet lord, those end notes and the esoteric information and the pages-long sentences and…

But then Daryl goes onto to say how encouraged he is by hearing how other readers and bloggers are finding that the ‘going’ is not so bad.

is really encouraging and exciting and even in a way validating. I’ve spent years being defensive about the book, even making pre-judgments about how well it would be received by some person or another and declining to recommend it from time to time on the basis of its difficulty. But reading my fellow bloggers’ comments and tracking #infsum on twitter is really invigorating for me, reminding me that, yes, there are parts of the book that are hard, and it’s a big investment to read the thing, but there’s so much reward too, so much humor and humanity and heart that even those doubtful about their chances of slogging all the way through it are finding it to be doable and maybe even likable.

Watching as people discover that reward in spite of (or because of) some of the difficulty helps me relive the wonderment of my own first reading (which wonderment I had sort of lost sight of). And in a weird way, it makes me proud. What exactly I’m proud of I can’t say. I suppose there’s a temptation, as an early appreciator, to feel like something of a pioneer, but that’s not the target (at least not the main one) of my pride. I can’t really be proud of the book, since it’s not something I had a hand in creating. And it’s presumptuous and a little silly to say that I’m proud of Wallace (though I guess I am). So I can’t put my finger on it. But every time I witness one of these little discoveries, I get a little catch in my chest, a little thrill, sometimes even a little shiver, and it makes me really glad to be playing along.

And finally here is an example of what Daryl was talking about as a new reader discovers Wallace’s IJ is accessible and it is not something to be scared about.

Anne Swenson:

Here it is: I’m scared of this book.

I’ve heard it’s going to clobber me with its heft, it’s going to belittle what pitiful intelligence I thought I had with its towering erudition, it’s going to reduce my pathetic reading ability to the bitter taste of ash and failure by the ferocious power of its subtle complexity I could only pray to ever understand. I’m duly afraid, and I’m glad to read I’m not alone in feeling this way.

DFW is like the ultimate litmus test: have you heard of him? Have you read him? Have you channeled his inimitable writing style to demonstrate the power of post-post-modern American literature? All I knew about the book before I cracked the spine was that it was about tennis and drug addiction, and that Wallace was by all accounts a genius…

So imagine my surprise, then, when I start reading and it’s not bad. It’s not so opaque as to be incomprehensible, only opaque enough to be, you know, interesting. It’s funny. Sure, I’ve highlighted some parts. Dictionary.com may become my home page. But it’s…wow. It’s good. It’s readable. Is it possible that I might even like it?

I’m not even a tenth of the way finished yet, so I’m still a little scared. But I think now that if I do cry while reading, it won’t be because of my own literary incompetence. It will be because of – who would have guessed? – the power of Wallace’s prose. Even in my limited journey I have learned that all the elitist graduate students were right about one thing: Wallace was a genius, and there is no one else who can write quite like him.

We have to break some rules, though, if we’re all going to get through this without ending up like some Brad Pitt mind-trick: we have to talk about it. We have to talk about the Fight Club.

Go give IJ a try.

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• Infinite summer bookclub - David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (brainhealthhacks.com)
• Infinite Summer (kottke.org)

I have talked several times on this blog about the writer David Foster Wallace (too busy to link). If you have any interest in this writer and/or his novel ‘Infinite Jest’ well maybe it is the perfect time to read his epic novel, because the infinite summer website is offering a great deal of help in reading this novel starting tomorrow - from June 21st to September 22nd (hence you will be able to complete the 1,000+ pages of this novel by reading 75 pages a week - 10-11 pages per day).

I can tell you reading the book is an ‘interesting experience’ based on my 2 journeys through it. I plan to start my 3rd, with everybody else, starting tomorrow.

There is all sorts of support, tips, tricks, Google calendar schedule, progress tracker app, flickr pool, guides and everything else at infinite summer - someone is even twittering the entire novel 140 characters at a time.

“Michael made some Infinite Summer bookmarks with the schedule printed right on them. We were totally going to do the same thing, but whatever we would have cooked up would have looked pretty lame compared to those.

In addition to creating a Google Calendar and iCal calendar for the I.S. schedule, James also says he’ll be blogging his reading of the novel at his website.

Ralph created a Google Apps Progress Tracker. “I’m not graphic designer, obviously, so it’s very very plain right now,” he says. “But any and all suggestions welcome.”

At Infinite Zombies, five six seven writers intend to chronicle their reading of the book in a format they describe as “part book club, part Fight Club“.

Carolina created a Flickr pool. Photos are also being posted on the Facebook wall.

The Infinite Summer Ravelry group has hit 50 members. The Goodreads page has 87. The LiveJournal community continues to grow.

Bitch Ph.D says she’s on board. Marc says that, on June 21st, he’s going to turn his weblog into “my own journal of the Infinite Summer project/book club.” Kev and Emily are going to “post our gchat convos while we read infinite jest.

Katie is keeping track of her favorite DFW quotations of a Tumblelog. Someone is tweeting Infinite Jest 140 characters at a time on Twitter.

Meg is trying to talk her wedding guests into reading the novel so everyone will have something to talk about at the reception.”

x

Go give it a whirl - I think it should stimulate your brain - and hence brain health.

I have written previously about it is all about information and energy, when talking about life and the brain.

Well, I came across a poster that provided some raw data regarding this subject at the Canadian Neuroscience meeting.

The lead author was C. Howarth, and the senior author, Attwell. This group was trying to calculate the energy and information cost of Purkinje cells, which are found in the cerebellum. Their conclusion was this:

… for each Purkinje cell (and associated other neurons and glia) approximately 10 to the 11th power molecules of ATP/s are used per 5 kb of retrievable motor information, corresponding to an information storage cost of 1 mW/Gb.

Now off the top of my head I don’t know how this compares with the computers of today, and don’t have the time today to look it up, for I need to head to the last day of the conference. But I sometime find this type of data a good reminder (though I shouldn’t need one) is that our brain is just a processor of information from the outside and inside environment for the purpose of enhancing our survival and propagation.

Maybe someone with more in-depth knowledge of computers/information processing could compare and contrast this above neuronal data with computers.

I wrote a post last week about, what to do with your peak 5 years? In it I wondered if we need to identify when the average person peaks in various endeavors; from sports, musical playing ability, to numerous mental specialties.

If you asked me in my early 20s when does peak in mental abilities occurs I would have said mid to late 20s. Maybe I tied the physical with the mental a little too much (not to mention over the last 20 years we see many athletes peaking in their mid to late 30s). The question is when do we reach our peak mentally?

Hedden and Gabrieli 2004, in a very nice Nature Reviews Neuroscience article, provide an informative graph of a longitudinal study on mental ability as we age (which in this case provide more interesting data than a cross-sectional study).

You can see that perceptual speed has the quickest drop off as we age. An example of perceptual speed would be you are given a large square of numbers (20 X 40) and you are asked to circle all the 6s as fast as you can. You have to scan the numbers quickly, identify all the 6s, and circle them. And yes from 25 onwards it is all downhill. This might have been the raw processing ability I was thinking about when I was in my early 20s, that quickness - mental and physical.

Numeric ability starts dropping around the age of 39. Though mathematics is far beyond ‘numeric ability’ this general math decline goes along with the long held notion in the mathematical world that very few math breakthroughs occur in people beyond their 30s (e.g. mathematics is a young man’s game - see “A Mathematician’s Apology” - highly recommended for anyone thinking of going into math - or just curious - a classic).

But all the other mental tasks plotted in the graph; inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, verbal ability, and verbal memory, continue to increase for people in their 30s and 40s - and peaking in the 50 to 60 year old range.

Now of course these listed mental abilities are not all inclusive, but you get the general idea, which is for many mental abilities the peak might be far later than you normally thought.

Take home message:

If you are in your 20s or 30’s you can look forward to continued improvement in many, but not all, of your mental abilities. For those in your 40s or 50s you still can look forward to your ‘peak’ but you better prepare to take advantage of this apex. As for those in your 60s or later, you need to remember the data from the above graph is the ‘average’ there are still going to be many that peak at a later point in their life. The trick is to make sure you look after yourself (eat right and exercise would be a good start) so you can maintain, or even continue to improve, your mental ability as you age.

And why does knowing when the average peak mental ability occur matter - see - What to do with your peak 5 years?