Our Fifty Thousand Year Old Brain
Have you ever noticed a time when you become forgetful, or that you find it hard to choose among the many choices presented to you? You might say, its just signs of aging, too much masturbation, or whatever reason you can find to joke around your aging poor old brain. But our human brain, by default, can only process a certain number of information at once. To be specific, its around 3–5 items at a time, or 4, according to this study. No wonder phone numbers and credit card numbers are segmented by 4 digits, so its easy to remember.
Our brain’s limited working memory (think of a computer’s RAM several years ago) is actually being considered in designing digital products as well. That’s why a photo gallery’s default view only shows 4 boxes in one row. If you notice a website or a mobile app’s menu, it will only contain up to 5 icons max. A well designed product will take into consideration these facts, and will make it easier for the user to use its product’s main functions. That’s why I find it easier to write on Medium platform, because there is not much noise that will catch my attention while writing, unlike in Wordpress. It just seems as if I’m typewriting on a blank sheet of paper. Same thing with this new email client for mac, Tempo, which brings in a new minimalist approach to email handling. Tempo’s UI is very much the opposite of Outlook, where Microsoft tries to put in as much functionality as it can in an email handling tool. They will all have their reasons why they design their app like that, and their users will just get used to the many nuisance of their tools, just because they have to use it at work. But in reality, their users don’t really feel joy while using their tool, they just merely use it as a means to an end, and that doesn’t make our brain happy. Simplicity brings delight to users. A few options is easier on the human brain. One option is the easiest. That’s why Apple products are successful, because its UI is so simple and intuitive, you don’t need to think too much when you use it. And no one wants to think too much. Its just too stressful for the brain.
According to Fumio Sasaki, on his book, Goodbye Things, our brain is like a 50,000 year old piece of hardware. It can only process a few things at a time. And in order for our brain to function at its optimal level again, after processing so many things since birth, we need to get rid of all extra things that will get its attention. For example, in our home, we need to get rid of things that seem an annoying appearance. Because, any objects that we see will be processed by our brain as information, and our brain is still the same default brain a human species is built in with since the beginning of human evolution. It didn’t have newer version with higher processing speed or higher RAM like the computing devices we have these days. If maybe someday, a chip can be implanted on our brains to make it process things faster, and increase its memory storage, we can certainly cope up with the massive flow of information this digital age creates. Maybe, by then, we can read a book in just 1 minute, and write a summary of what we learned after 1 minute as well. But until then, we have to utilize our old default brain in a way that we acknowledge its limitations, for the sake of our mental health, and overall happiness.
Now, it makes sense why there is such thing as a minimalist movement. Its not just a fad in our current maximalist lifestyle. Its really an essential way for our brains to find time to relax, and not continually process so many things all of the time. That’s why students have few months vacation after the school year — the reason is to relax their brain from intense months of studying. Sadly, you don’t get enough vacation your mind and body needs during your work life. Not all companies are generous of giving you months of paid vacation so far from the country where I live. If you think about it, our brain, which is also a part of our body, is just like any other tool. It wears and tears with constant use. Think about the motor vehicles we use for transportation. It is a must to have a scheduled maintenance (change oil, replace some parts that gets overused, like air filter or tires), because if not, these vehicles will surely break down without proper care. Same goes with our brain. We can’t manually replace the lost nerves or cells inside. It may be possible with today’s technology advancement, but would require too much money for sure. Unlike vehicles, our body can take care of itself. We just need to feed it good healthy food, and give it enough time to rest (sleep and fasting) to trigger its self-cleaning mechanism, called Autophagy. It seems that fasting is for the body cleanup, and sleep is for the mind cleanup.
But then, when we are awake, we also need to surround ourselves with minimal noise, so our brain will function at its best, and we can easily focus on what’s important to us at present. What’s important to us differ from person to person. What’s important for a programmer may be a clean well-structured code for a digital product he’s creating. While for a product manager, its about getting more sales for that digital product. A designer may feel that its important for him that the UI is superb, and that every detail of the user story gets implemented exactly the way he designed it. Whatever is your level of happiness and standards, it is important that we let our brain work on one thing at a time, to get best results. This is what Greg McKeown’s Essentialism movement is about. We only have one precious life, and a very limited time. Let’s not waste it with the non-essentials.
Maximalist lifestyle — means living in excess, not just in physical objects. This can pertain to digital arena as well, like how we consume information (e.g. endless scrolling in social media apps, too many browser tabs opened at the same time, but will read only a few, and mark other pages to read later, being interested in more than one social group or events, only to find out none of them are your true interest, or you don’t really have enough time to attend to such events.) For the physical arena, this can mean buying / consuming things in excess (e.g. buying too many clothes, when there are only 7 days in a week, and you do your laundry every weekend, eating more than 1–2 slices of chicken, even when you are already full.)
Minimalist lifestyle — means living with only what you need. This is different from earning income. You don’t want to earn an income that’s only enough for your needs. Its better to save more than 50% of your income, and with a minimalist mindset, you can, and you will be happier. Being a minimalist is just the opposite of maximalist. So, instead of buying clothes that will fill your closet, just buy enough pieces to wear for 5 working days, and 2 weekend days. Buy just enough food that your family can consume before it expires or gets rotten. Consume news and articles that are only meaningful to what’s important to you right now, and not take everything that’s trending. Plan to eat out at a pricey restaurant once in a while only, or go to a resort once in a few months only. You will get to appreciate and enjoy those rare moments, than if you do it often.
Essentialist lifestyle — having the wisdom to know the difference between the above lifestyles (pretty much like the first few lines of the Serenity Prayer), and choosing to do only what’s essential to you as of the moment.
What I think, is that you will eventually become an Essentialist as well, once you observe a minimalist mindset and lifestyle. You will no longer be enticed with things that will only bring clutter to your home or life. You will undoubtedly remove the unnecessary non-essentials, and minimize, and minimize some more, until you are only left with what is truly essential to your life, your true self and happiness.
