Stretching

In the face of challenging ideas and information, one’s mind should stretch like a ball of freshly-minted rubber bands. But whether one’s mind should expand in the presence of such experiences or not, too frequently the response is the opposite. Rather than becoming more pliable, it behaves like ancient strips of rubber left too long in the sun. Those bands lose their elasticity and they harden, turning into fragile, brittle bands that shatter into shards under the slightest pressure.

Odd, isn’t it, that the way to keep rubber from deteriorating—keeping it in a cool, dark place away from light and oxygen—is precisely the prescription to cause the mind to decay?