Jemma Spike

every area of our brain is constantly communicating if you were to look inside the brain like you wouldn't see any physical walls dividing the different regions like the functions definitely overlap but yeah there's definitely different things that each lobe does and the frontal lobe especially

especially, we definitely know is deeply responsible for attention, for reasoning, for memory, for identity, and most importantly for this episode, for executive functioning.

So executive functioning basically just means your ability to exert control over your actions and impulses and to just like

Think through your decisions, think through your emotions, think through a situation in front of you and like come up with a clear idea of what is best for you to do and how to execute that.

Now, if that area of your brain is, let's say, injured or not developed or underdeveloped, not at its full capacity yet, the logic basically follows that we would have a lot of difficulty performing those same attention, reasoning, memory, executive functioning functions as well.

And basically, this would explain why, you know, before the age of 25, as this theory goes, before this area of our brain isn't developed, that is why we make stupid decisions.

That is why we text our ex when we know we shouldn't.

That is why we make random spontaneous life choices.

That is why we do highly irrational things.

That is why a man who was 40 dating somebody who was 22 doesn't make sense, which literally, yeah, probably true.

actually absolutely true and I think there's like parts of that theory that are very comforting right because we all do really stupid things in our early 20s like I cannot tell you how many times I have bleached my hair blonde and then dyed it black and then bleached it again and then dyed it black and I've cut my bangs a few too many times without ever really thinking it through and

Those are just some examples.

And you know, the older I've gotten, the more I, you know, those impulses have kind of lessened.

But does that all happen or did that all happen the moment I turned 25?

No.

And that's because the 25 thing, as I've kind of already revealed, is a myth.

And it sometimes becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy where we definitely feel like we now are adults after that age.

But...

Really, that's just the feeling that we are getting from the popularity of this number and from the popularity of this narrative.

The narrative behind it isn't actually true.