NEWSFLASH: Recently people have discovered extraordinarily large goldfish in Lake Tahoe.
Some believe that fish will grow to the size of their environment. The thought is that with more room to grow, the bigger the fish get. Even though that’s a great thought and seems intuitive, science tells us otherwise. The reality is that the goldfish are so big in Lake Tahoe because they have time to grow and plenty to eat. Goldfish are indeterminate growers, which means, like most fish, they will grow until they die.
Humans are not indeterminate physical growers.
We do, however, have the potential to be indeterminate mental growers.
“The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You beside – ”
-Emily Dickenson
Though we reach physical maturity at a certain point, it is possible for us to grow mentally until the day we die.
But what if we entertained the idea that our minds could grow only according to the size of the environment in which we put them? How big would your mind be?
I would imagine that the more certain we are about things, the more we limit ourselves. The more closed off we are to new knowledge, the more likely we are to have small minds. It seems to me that the less attached we are to what we know, the bigger our minds will become.
Of course I could be completely wrong about that….