just so happens this what a brain's neural pathway looks like.  Now i am most DEFINITELY not any sort of anything close to a brain expert, except for the fact that i have one, and I'm learning how to be a somewhat expert on my own brain cause i'm pretty sure no one else can be. 
   As in, if i don't learn how to understand, be kind to, get to know this brain, it could really be quite a predicament later on. 
    Here's the thing, I've been thinking quite a lot about how different we people are in every way, shape, form, internal, external, up, down, you name it- we are all so very unique.  No one runs the same way or the same speed.  No one sings the same way with the same vibrato.  No one twitches the same way or winks or holds their pencil or... well, no one anythings the same.
     So, all that being said, i've been wondering about the uniqueness of the most detailed, complex, fascinating part of what makes us "us".  And that is what is happening in this mass called brain. 
     Again, no expert here, in fact quite the opposite- but curiosity comes from the brain's neural pathways just as memory and 'facts' do.  So, i suppose curiosity and questions are quite as valid as the information learned from books and computers called research and answers. 
      Just as speed varies among us, the speed by which a neuron travels from one dendrite destination to another varies as well.  Unique in ways we can only barely begin to understand due to technology and brain imaging, the speed of the electrical waves' journey not only varies from person to person but varies according to
time of day
hormonal reactions
stress and adrenaline
dna
what color our walls are painted
the cake we ate at a wedding
the kiss we initiated
the sweat we broke running
ad infinitum...
Maybe i'm hanging out in cuckoo's nest again today, but this huge bunch of questions begs a case: 
    might the knowledge that our minds (that affects every single part of us- emotional, physical, etc.) are so different due to many different factors build empathy and the desire to understand the world around us rather than judge it or criticize it or fear it?  Might we offer a little more patience to someone with the foreknowledge that someone's neurons might be moving at a totally different speed than ours (faster or slower) or a totally different series of life moments that happen to affect the journey those neurons take to avoid perhaps a dangerous looking pathway, or being incited by a certain pathway, or... well, maybe that's all i've got on that.  A little left field, but gist is this:
be patient, be kind, be curious, be alive
in the uniqueness that makes up you and the ones you encounter from this minute to that. 
and honestly, as always, Mr. Fred Rogers (who i dearly miss on PBS both for my boys and myself)
said it best...
"What matters isn’t how a person’s inner life finally puts together the alphabet and numbers of his outer life. What really matters is whether he uses the alphabet for the declaration of a war or the description of a sunrise-his numbers for the final count at Buchenwald or the specifics of a brand-new bridge."
what is essential is indeed invisible to the eye as The Little Prince uttered knowingly to the grown-up pilot who crashed on his little planet.  "What is essential is invisible to the eye."
maybe we react far too much from what we see with our external eye, maybe we can slow down, consider the path one out of a billion neurons might be on, and have a little grace- both for others and also for ourselves.
be gentle today. 
and as always, be curious.