Arthur C. Brooks

We're wonderfully made.

But one of the most interesting areas of neuroscience that's come about over the past 10 years is called the theory of hemispheric lateralization.

I know it sounds fancy, but that's what we do in academia to get tenure.

You take a really easy idea and you put fancy words around it.

Here's what it means.

The two sides of your brain do different things.

The right side of your brain is all about the why questions, the mystery, the meaning, the stuff that you can't quite describe, but that moves you.

So when you hear some music and it makes you sad and it makes you wanna cry and you don't know why, that's because the right side of your brain is working.

It's the mystery side, the meaning side.

The left side of your brain is where you deal with complicated problems.

You solve stuff, analysis, the engineering solutions.

And that's what you're using when you're on your phone.

That's when you're using technology.

That's the hustle and grind culture of answering every single question is the left side of the brain.

The left side of the brain, there's no mystery in meaning over there.

It's just how to and what questions all day long.

That's the analytical, right?

That's the problem is when we live in a culture and we use our devices and we live all day long on the wrong side of our brains, we literally can't assess the meaning of our lives because we're not using our brain in the right way.

And if you do, the right side of your brain will light up.

The right side of your brain will become active.