A vigorous mind. What does it really mean to have a vigorous mind? I touched upon this phrase when I announced that we would be publishing the book, A Vigorous Mind, by Ingrid Cummings in January 09. 

I finally starting reading the manuscript. Late, maybe? But not too late to get excited. I’m only sorry that I didn’t bring it home with me since before leaving work on Friday, the pages were full of pink highlighting. 

That’s a very good sign.

I’m not only going to read and promote this book, I’m going to do some of the work.

A Vigorous Mind endorses a generalist perspective of life.  Whereas so much of the culture insists on specialization, Cummings says there’s a place for that. (of course we want our surgeons to be specialists, our tax accountants, our astrologers, too!)

Remember the notion of “liberal arts”? Remember the variety of subjects we were exposed to even as early as grade school? Even if we did go off to excel in a single subject, wouldn’t our brains be better off if we found time and energy to stretch it into additional nooks and crannies?

Apparently, the answer is yes. 

I’ve always thought, personally, that very expert people, say classical musicians, professional athletes, do give up something to maintain their positions on the top of the heap. Sort of like, a workaholic who ends up sacrificing family and relationships to be king of their business castle.

Renaissance people. I always liked the sound of the word  ”renaissance.”  Well rounded, versatile, conversant in multiple arenas of life. That appeals to me. 

ADHD? Dilettante? Maybe. But, Cummings doesn’t necessarily think these are bad things. If developed, these qualities can be upgraded and become useful if not interesting.

We need to find 20 minutes in our day at least twice a week and not more than five to stick our toe in a new pool. Cummings has some practical exercise to first help us eke out what those pools are. There’s a “bliss list” exercise, which I can’t wait to do, and subsequent ones to guide us on our Renaissance journeys.

For example: learn to speak Chinese, read the classics, take singing lessons, go to a cooking class. Here’s where “kaizen*,”  the principle I mentioned in my former post about The VIgorous Mind comes in.

Rather then becoming overwhelmed with more to do, kaizen breaks down the task at hand in small steps, which is actually the meaning of the word. If you want to read the classics, there are steps you can take before diving in i.e. researching the book titles, learning something about the authors, organizing your lists, etc. It’s the process of getting to the actual reading that counts as much as the reading itself.

Kaizen! aha!

The same goes for anything else on your bliss list. Our normal reaction would be, ‘how can I possibly do that? Add another thing to my already crazy busy life?

You can. Kaizen.

Ask Toyota. (And, whatever you do, DO NOT ask General Motors)

I’m cheating a little by giving you my take on Ingrid Cummings’ work at this early stage but as is in my anxious nature, I’m too intrigued to wait. Want to share.

Since I plan, really, on adopting some of the principles from the book, I will follow this post up with some more specific, if not corrected, information.

From the amount of pink highlights I’ve already splashed across the manuscript pages, I’m pretty sure that The Vigorous Mind is going to be a great book. 

Perfect timing for the New Year.

Remind me if I keep you waiting too long for the next installment.

May your minds be vigorous and may all you ADHD folks have new hope!

Now, for our first kaizen lesson, our first step, here are some definitions:

* Continuous improvement by small changes. Kaizen also implies the sharing of the improvements with others.

* Continuous incremental improvement of an activity to eliminate waste.

* A Japanese term referring to continual improvement involving everyone at every level in an organization.

* A Japanese term that means continuous improvement, taken from words ‘Kai’ means continuous and ‘zen’ means improvement.

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