I love the human head! I love how it sits there at the top of the human body, connected by the human neck.
But what I like most about it is that it contains the human brain.
The human brain, the most spectacular little computer ever made, seems to have an infinite capacity and an ability to make amazing connections. It stores everything, from the name of the kid who sat next to you on the bus coming home from your Grade 3 camp, to the colour of the shoelaces worn by the Prime Minister when he was on TV last night (black, in case you missed him).
There are a few problems with the human brain though, and if you are to get maximum performance out of yours, it’s worth being aware of some of those problems.
For one thing the brain loses a lot of stuff by putting it in ‘files’ which you don’t access very often. The files can be recovered, but it’s not easy. Most of the time they’re not worth recovering anyway.
For another, physical illness, mental illness and drugs can all corrupt huge numbers of files, often doing permanent damage.
For another, if the brain is programmed with gobbledegook or nothing but the names of anyone who ever won an Academy Award for hairstyling, it’s at a massive disadvantage. The more powerful the information it has, the more powerfully it can work.
That’s where this book comes in.
As a member of this society you might find it helpful to program yourself with the knowledge that other members will assume you already have.
Without that knowledge you risk being powerless and ignorant: illiterate, for example, in religion, art and literature. A lecturer in Art History at the University of Melbourne told me recently how she frequently gives students a sixteenth century picture of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus, and asks for their comments. Typically, half the students think that it’s just a nice family portrait. They don’t notice that this family is rather different to most.
These students are in an impossible position, because Christianity, love it, hate it or leave it, is the basis of 2000 years of western art.
With knowledge of the Bible, Greek and Roman myths and legends, World War I and World War II, the Great Depression, and the advances in human thought made by people like Einstein and Freud, our society might actually start to make some sense. Art, music and literature can acquire more meaning, greater richness and depth.
By reading The Head Book you are adding powerful new ‘resident memory programs’ to your human brain. And a brain full of knowledge is a very sexy brain indeed!