Inspiring words and images James. I've never had a TBI, but as I approach the age of 50, I think about how my brain works now compared to my 20s or 30s. It's less nimble and spongelike, but more willing to take its time learning. Maybe the birdsongs will sink in eventually. Maybe I can learn a musical instrument as a middle aged person. Everything can be trained is a wonderful mantra. Thanks
Thank you Nathaniel. Birdsong is definitely a way to keep the brain working! It’s also just fun to always hear and be able to think in response. Willingness to take one’s time is invaluable. Absolutely learn a musical instrument if you feel driven to. The birds provide you with music, maybe you can set up a piano outside and return the favor.
Well done, James. Incredible photos and inspiring words. I needed to read this yesterday. I was already loving it before getting to the bottom. I learned about neuroplasticity several years ago and it was a revelation. The human body and brain can heal so much more than we sometimes believe capable. I needed this reminder.
Oh, and I understand your hesitation to go autobiographical. There's a time and place, and you are doing it well. I look forward to hearing more about your training!
Thank you, Amanda. Neuroplasticity is a reliable source of hope for all of us in the most trying of times. I understand it most plainly as the brain will respond to new stimuli. If it is exposed to new stimuli often enough, they are no longer new and the brain learns. That has massive implications for anyone with brain trauma, but for those who don't too. Hard stuff gets easier if you just keep doing it and getting better.
Now that I've done a couple autobiographical ones, I want to only do birds for a while. Plus, the longer I go between personal essays the more there will be to write about.
James, I am so glad for you that you decided to follow through with the new doctor, it sounds like it was a positive experience and very helpful. I'm of the frame of mind that learning is a life long endeavor. Keep learning and training your mind to do new things.
Thank you, Pamela. Learning is absolutely lifelong, there is no wrong time to learn something new. It was a very positive experience with the new doctor.
Thanks for sharing James. You make an excellent point about the importance of training and continuous learning. That in itself can be a new motivation and almost becomes self-perpetuating.
The line "if something doesn’t matter to me there’s no reason to work on it" is especially powerful. Too often I find myself stuck and overwhelmed because there is so much that it feels I should be doing. As we move towards the time for New Year's resolutions, I really like the idea of thinking about what parts of myself I want to train and on what things I want to focus my energy. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you, Alice. What you describe is very relatable. Even that word "should"--who says you "should" be doing anything? What matters is whether something matters to you: "parts of myself I want to train." Last year I did a "Goodbye/Hello" exercise about going into a new year after reading a piece from Emma Gannon here. What should be welcomed and what should end? Sounds in line with what you want going into 2025--determining what to train or focus on. I'll likely share a post about Goodbye/Hello for 2025, and encourage you to give it a shot!
I've come to see I only have so much bandwidth and should dole it out selectively. I raced bikes when I was young. I haven't been on a bike since TBI. I'm sure I'd be fine but risk outweighs reward for something that really doesn't matter to me anymore. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts.
Wow, so many things to learn, from you and this article. While you may not think so, you are amazing. I know everyone reacts differently to things that happen to them, I'm not sure I would have been as positive and hard working as you are.
"We must be learning if we are to feel fully
alive, and when life, or love, becomes too
predictable and it seems like there is little left to learn, we become restless--a protest
perhaps, of the plastic brain when it can no
longer perform its essential task."
I just learned so much from this quote, and about myself. We must relearn/train ourselves all the time to prevent us from being restless, stagnant even in our lives to be able to perform those essential tasks, but also for us to grow as a person.
I'm a beginner flyfisher, and would love to help you with your training should you decide to keep pursuing fly-fishing.
Thank you so much. We must always be learning, I have always believed that. That's why I love birds and the outdoors, so much always to learn. Fly fishing too provides so much to learn!
I hope the sport has been enjoyable for you. Because my brain still knows what makes a good fly cast, just can't do it as well, it helps me serve as a resource when I know people who want to learn. "Those who can't do [quite as well as they did], teach." I'll keep pursuing and relearning fly angling and let you know if I end up in Minnesota! What's your go-to species to fish for there? Pike?
Fly fishing I have only caught brown trout. Rod and reel the big thing that everyone goes for is Walleye. Personally, I like to fish for small or largemouth bass. Although pike are certainly fun to catch. Looking forward to next summer to trying my hand at bass with the fly rod.
I figured walleye would take the crown for your locale, but brown trout are more than a great consolation prize. Bass are great, particularly smallies on the fly, but pike, pickerel, and anything Esox is certainly a blast. The first fly rod fish that truly thrilled me was a chain pickerel.
Man… I was already a fan of yours but this adds another layer of respect and admiration. Reframing a TBI as a reason to get better at learning is just beautiful. Great piece brother
Thank you very much Kyle. The necessary tenacity I talk about here seemed right up your alley! Life is all about reframing to see misfortune as opportunity
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experience with us. I love to learn new things everyday and with your post you just taught me something about brain injury... I'll make sure to subscribe to your Substack so that I can learn even more... and at the same time enjoy your beautiful photos. Thank you! ♥️
Thank you Rebecca. A goal of mine is to write essays people can learn from, in whatever way or about anything at all, so your feedback makes me very happy. I look forward to having you as a reader going forward!
I love your bird posts of course but also appreciated this. Nice to get to know you a little better.
I too have mostly shied away from personal posts here, though when I finally took a dive with one recently, it was received well, better than I thought it wold be.
Thank you Kollibri. Personal writing from writers who—like yourself—write more often about other topics provides a welcome change of pace, a look at the person behind the writing they are more likely to write.
Personal writing is sharing, James. Thank you..Traumatic injuries, whether physical, as in your case with TBI or mental, as is the case with PTSD or as is more common today, C-PTSD, do have long-term effects. We are increasing our understanding on the connection between mind and body.
What I have observed is how much stress can hamper healing. The only place where I feel little stress is in the natural world, and in particular among our avian companions. While I love all animals, I am most thankful birds exist. They are magical.
Thank you so much Teyani. It is wonderful the body and the mind can be trained and retrained. It means most things are possible if we want to do what we have to do to bring them about. I know you understand.
I knew I'd like this piece based on the title. Perhaps a bold assumption, but something in it spoke to me about the freedom to choose and make decisions, to move forward on them in a way that, as you pointed out maybe isn't from a specifically positive attitude, but isn't passive - and in that way honors possibility. I really like the last paragraph, and final line: "Kindness, patience, compassion, listening: everything can be trained." As well, beautiful water photos. Those are a treat. Your attitude is catching in a good way. I had a dream last week where I saw a "give no fucks" post-it note in the room I was moving through. And just today I realized that many of the things I aspire to are not really to prove anything to anyone else (like I 'might have' been thinking in the past). Rather, they're just for me - to show myself that I can do them. For the satisfaction of that. While you write about your challenges and how you face them, there is something of satisfaction that I sense from your experience and observations. Perhaps not the kind that makes us jumping for joy, but the kind that proves to ourselves that...everything can be...
Not a bold assumption at all, Emma, and thank you.
It sounds amenable to solely credit positivity for anything, sometimes that is the case but it isn't always. Positivity can have its roots in unhappiness, can be a response to negativity. I once described what impels me to try things and move forward as "rage." Sounds unflattering, and I haven't invoked that word in that context since, but I've come to learn that while it is possible to let rage transmogrify into petulant tantrums it is also possible to let rage move you towards positivity--if the root of rage is negative: rage at negatives can manifest as movement toward positives.
I'm glad the "give no fucks" attitude is catching on for you. I wish I could take full credit for it, I was told about being out of fucks because it was evident I give far too many. Hardship, joy, effort, goals--they begin and end with the self. We have nothing to prove to anybody else. It might not make us jump for joy, but everything indeed, as you say, "can be."
After this doctor told me anything can be trained, I said so that just means I need time, patience, focus, and work ethic? It's freeing to know that, however long or unglamorous the road, everything can be.
What you have brought up about rage, or other seemingly "negative" emotions is. such. gold. It's all relative right? Rage can be an absolute Step Up from grief or despair. There's more energy in rage. More movement. It's why anyone cannot tell anyone else what is right to feel. We reach from where we stand, and I trust - I feel that I must, or am determined to trust - that it is enough. How else do we move, shift, or grow? I think that negative and positive are just placeholders to give us a sense of the spectrum. Or we use them to give the spectrum a context. I see it as a spectrum of empowerment. In despair, we feel utterly power-less. In Joy - there is a lot of empowerment, a sense of things working out and flowing in a way that is to our desire. And in between those? Shades of the same color...it just depends on how much of the light we can let in, and there's no ultimate judgement about how much or how little we allow in any moment. It's our unique, intimate experience of life. How lovely. And the light or whatever is there regardless. We experience the spectrum, but the capacity for it all is what distinguishes us as completely capable.
Five or six years ago, for solstice/christmas I made a set of 'self-reflection' cards for my family and friends - a compilation of the phrases that had helped me move from one dimension of existence, to another (and still do). The things I told myself to soothe and find stability. One of my favorites (of course they are all my favorites, having different applications) is an illustration that says boldly: There is Plenty of Time for All that I Wish to Accomplish. and in small letters it says "I am an eternal being." I can't prove that, of course. But I feel so, so much better when I tune to that. And through it, I have learned how not to rush. And somehow, there is time enough for everything. I wonder, because I don't know in some scientific way - but perhaps in the longest of the long-run, there is plenty of time and space for everything we are designing in our mind of desires. For myself? Why can't I have perfect 20/20 vision? among of host of other things I think about. Form is flexible. The brain is plastic. As I've been drawn to fantasy fiction recently, with magic and dragons and ancient relics...I realize it's because I believe that as humans - we have the ability to be more than we have thought is possible. Everything can be trained. Everything? I believe it. But that's...expansive to the absolute max. I need a larger timeline.
Thanks for the thoughts James. I don't always read your essays on time, but I save them for when I have the time.
There is absolutely more energy and movement in rage. When I feel some latent rage to deal with or satisfy with action, I believe myself to be energized by ire. That energy needs to remain controlled--that's the part that keeps rage from regressing to people's typical idea or that word and its connotations. We do experience a full spectrum of feeling--joy, despair, rage. The trick is to remain in command of those feelings rather than let them commandeer your existence too fully. Better to experience some productive rage after some lethargic despondency, then feel some joy at having used the rage productively.
"There is plenty of time for all that I wish to accomplish" is beautiful. We are too often hasty and rushed. Haste is a detriment to fullness. If you sit down for a good meal somebody spent hours preparing, you don't just scarf it down; you enjoy it.
Speaking of rush and haste, there is never any urgency to read my essays, "on time" doesn't apply--it's there to be read whenever it makes sense for the reader. I'm certainly guilty of not getting to newsletters I want to read for a few days if not longer. My "saved" tab is a godsend for that.
Thank you for this outstanding article, James. Each passage, followed by a beautiful nature photo, is a kind of meditation on your efforts to heal and grow and learn. It is deeply meaningful to understand what you are going through and to share in the journey as a reader and a learner. Thank you, my friend.
Thank you so much Kristin--recognizing my tenacity is high praise! It has proven a useful thing to have. And I wouldn't be where I am without the support I've had from family and friends. My life is already different, and I want different things than I did, but does different have to be bad?
Who knows indeed. Thank you Kristin. Different is often good, and at the very least it’s typically less boring—though that doesn’t mean difference is always comfortable.
Inspiring words and images James. I've never had a TBI, but as I approach the age of 50, I think about how my brain works now compared to my 20s or 30s. It's less nimble and spongelike, but more willing to take its time learning. Maybe the birdsongs will sink in eventually. Maybe I can learn a musical instrument as a middle aged person. Everything can be trained is a wonderful mantra. Thanks
Thank you Nathaniel. Birdsong is definitely a way to keep the brain working! It’s also just fun to always hear and be able to think in response. Willingness to take one’s time is invaluable. Absolutely learn a musical instrument if you feel driven to. The birds provide you with music, maybe you can set up a piano outside and return the favor.
Hmm...I do have a piano...not sure it's outfitted for Pittsburgh weather...lol
Well done, James. Incredible photos and inspiring words. I needed to read this yesterday. I was already loving it before getting to the bottom. I learned about neuroplasticity several years ago and it was a revelation. The human body and brain can heal so much more than we sometimes believe capable. I needed this reminder.
Oh, and I understand your hesitation to go autobiographical. There's a time and place, and you are doing it well. I look forward to hearing more about your training!
Thank you, Amanda. Neuroplasticity is a reliable source of hope for all of us in the most trying of times. I understand it most plainly as the brain will respond to new stimuli. If it is exposed to new stimuli often enough, they are no longer new and the brain learns. That has massive implications for anyone with brain trauma, but for those who don't too. Hard stuff gets easier if you just keep doing it and getting better.
Now that I've done a couple autobiographical ones, I want to only do birds for a while. Plus, the longer I go between personal essays the more there will be to write about.
Your refusal is beautiful, James. Refusing to be bound to a static state of being . . . that’s powerful.
Thank you Ann. I think a streak of refusal is necessary for all of us--medical or otherwise.
To keep imagining something beyond the status quo. . .
James, I am so glad for you that you decided to follow through with the new doctor, it sounds like it was a positive experience and very helpful. I'm of the frame of mind that learning is a life long endeavor. Keep learning and training your mind to do new things.
Thank you, Pamela. Learning is absolutely lifelong, there is no wrong time to learn something new. It was a very positive experience with the new doctor.
Thanks for sharing James. You make an excellent point about the importance of training and continuous learning. That in itself can be a new motivation and almost becomes self-perpetuating.
Thank you Neil. We should always be working to learn, which is why it is so wonderful to engage with Nature as you do and learn from it.
The line "if something doesn’t matter to me there’s no reason to work on it" is especially powerful. Too often I find myself stuck and overwhelmed because there is so much that it feels I should be doing. As we move towards the time for New Year's resolutions, I really like the idea of thinking about what parts of myself I want to train and on what things I want to focus my energy. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you, Alice. What you describe is very relatable. Even that word "should"--who says you "should" be doing anything? What matters is whether something matters to you: "parts of myself I want to train." Last year I did a "Goodbye/Hello" exercise about going into a new year after reading a piece from Emma Gannon here. What should be welcomed and what should end? Sounds in line with what you want going into 2025--determining what to train or focus on. I'll likely share a post about Goodbye/Hello for 2025, and encourage you to give it a shot!
I've come to see I only have so much bandwidth and should dole it out selectively. I raced bikes when I was young. I haven't been on a bike since TBI. I'm sure I'd be fine but risk outweighs reward for something that really doesn't matter to me anymore. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts.
Wow, so many things to learn, from you and this article. While you may not think so, you are amazing. I know everyone reacts differently to things that happen to them, I'm not sure I would have been as positive and hard working as you are.
"We must be learning if we are to feel fully
alive, and when life, or love, becomes too
predictable and it seems like there is little left to learn, we become restless--a protest
perhaps, of the plastic brain when it can no
longer perform its essential task."
I just learned so much from this quote, and about myself. We must relearn/train ourselves all the time to prevent us from being restless, stagnant even in our lives to be able to perform those essential tasks, but also for us to grow as a person.
I'm a beginner flyfisher, and would love to help you with your training should you decide to keep pursuing fly-fishing.
Thank you so much. We must always be learning, I have always believed that. That's why I love birds and the outdoors, so much always to learn. Fly fishing too provides so much to learn!
I hope the sport has been enjoyable for you. Because my brain still knows what makes a good fly cast, just can't do it as well, it helps me serve as a resource when I know people who want to learn. "Those who can't do [quite as well as they did], teach." I'll keep pursuing and relearning fly angling and let you know if I end up in Minnesota! What's your go-to species to fish for there? Pike?
Fly fishing I have only caught brown trout. Rod and reel the big thing that everyone goes for is Walleye. Personally, I like to fish for small or largemouth bass. Although pike are certainly fun to catch. Looking forward to next summer to trying my hand at bass with the fly rod.
I figured walleye would take the crown for your locale, but brown trout are more than a great consolation prize. Bass are great, particularly smallies on the fly, but pike, pickerel, and anything Esox is certainly a blast. The first fly rod fish that truly thrilled me was a chain pickerel.
Man… I was already a fan of yours but this adds another layer of respect and admiration. Reframing a TBI as a reason to get better at learning is just beautiful. Great piece brother
Thank you very much Kyle. The necessary tenacity I talk about here seemed right up your alley! Life is all about reframing to see misfortune as opportunity
Speaking to my soul 👊🏻
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experience with us. I love to learn new things everyday and with your post you just taught me something about brain injury... I'll make sure to subscribe to your Substack so that I can learn even more... and at the same time enjoy your beautiful photos. Thank you! ♥️
Thank you Rebecca. A goal of mine is to write essays people can learn from, in whatever way or about anything at all, so your feedback makes me very happy. I look forward to having you as a reader going forward!
I love your bird posts of course but also appreciated this. Nice to get to know you a little better.
I too have mostly shied away from personal posts here, though when I finally took a dive with one recently, it was received well, better than I thought it wold be.
Thank you Kollibri. Personal writing from writers who—like yourself—write more often about other topics provides a welcome change of pace, a look at the person behind the writing they are more likely to write.
Personal writing is sharing, James. Thank you..Traumatic injuries, whether physical, as in your case with TBI or mental, as is the case with PTSD or as is more common today, C-PTSD, do have long-term effects. We are increasing our understanding on the connection between mind and body.
What I have observed is how much stress can hamper healing. The only place where I feel little stress is in the natural world, and in particular among our avian companions. While I love all animals, I am most thankful birds exist. They are magical.
Thank you Perry. I agree the birds are wonderful agents of healing
The strength in your refusal to accept limits is a testimony to your strength of character.
And isn’t it wonderful that the body can be trained and retrained❣️
Thank you so much Teyani. It is wonderful the body and the mind can be trained and retrained. It means most things are possible if we want to do what we have to do to bring them about. I know you understand.
I knew I'd like this piece based on the title. Perhaps a bold assumption, but something in it spoke to me about the freedom to choose and make decisions, to move forward on them in a way that, as you pointed out maybe isn't from a specifically positive attitude, but isn't passive - and in that way honors possibility. I really like the last paragraph, and final line: "Kindness, patience, compassion, listening: everything can be trained." As well, beautiful water photos. Those are a treat. Your attitude is catching in a good way. I had a dream last week where I saw a "give no fucks" post-it note in the room I was moving through. And just today I realized that many of the things I aspire to are not really to prove anything to anyone else (like I 'might have' been thinking in the past). Rather, they're just for me - to show myself that I can do them. For the satisfaction of that. While you write about your challenges and how you face them, there is something of satisfaction that I sense from your experience and observations. Perhaps not the kind that makes us jumping for joy, but the kind that proves to ourselves that...everything can be...
Not a bold assumption at all, Emma, and thank you.
It sounds amenable to solely credit positivity for anything, sometimes that is the case but it isn't always. Positivity can have its roots in unhappiness, can be a response to negativity. I once described what impels me to try things and move forward as "rage." Sounds unflattering, and I haven't invoked that word in that context since, but I've come to learn that while it is possible to let rage transmogrify into petulant tantrums it is also possible to let rage move you towards positivity--if the root of rage is negative: rage at negatives can manifest as movement toward positives.
I'm glad the "give no fucks" attitude is catching on for you. I wish I could take full credit for it, I was told about being out of fucks because it was evident I give far too many. Hardship, joy, effort, goals--they begin and end with the self. We have nothing to prove to anybody else. It might not make us jump for joy, but everything indeed, as you say, "can be."
After this doctor told me anything can be trained, I said so that just means I need time, patience, focus, and work ethic? It's freeing to know that, however long or unglamorous the road, everything can be.
What you have brought up about rage, or other seemingly "negative" emotions is. such. gold. It's all relative right? Rage can be an absolute Step Up from grief or despair. There's more energy in rage. More movement. It's why anyone cannot tell anyone else what is right to feel. We reach from where we stand, and I trust - I feel that I must, or am determined to trust - that it is enough. How else do we move, shift, or grow? I think that negative and positive are just placeholders to give us a sense of the spectrum. Or we use them to give the spectrum a context. I see it as a spectrum of empowerment. In despair, we feel utterly power-less. In Joy - there is a lot of empowerment, a sense of things working out and flowing in a way that is to our desire. And in between those? Shades of the same color...it just depends on how much of the light we can let in, and there's no ultimate judgement about how much or how little we allow in any moment. It's our unique, intimate experience of life. How lovely. And the light or whatever is there regardless. We experience the spectrum, but the capacity for it all is what distinguishes us as completely capable.
Five or six years ago, for solstice/christmas I made a set of 'self-reflection' cards for my family and friends - a compilation of the phrases that had helped me move from one dimension of existence, to another (and still do). The things I told myself to soothe and find stability. One of my favorites (of course they are all my favorites, having different applications) is an illustration that says boldly: There is Plenty of Time for All that I Wish to Accomplish. and in small letters it says "I am an eternal being." I can't prove that, of course. But I feel so, so much better when I tune to that. And through it, I have learned how not to rush. And somehow, there is time enough for everything. I wonder, because I don't know in some scientific way - but perhaps in the longest of the long-run, there is plenty of time and space for everything we are designing in our mind of desires. For myself? Why can't I have perfect 20/20 vision? among of host of other things I think about. Form is flexible. The brain is plastic. As I've been drawn to fantasy fiction recently, with magic and dragons and ancient relics...I realize it's because I believe that as humans - we have the ability to be more than we have thought is possible. Everything can be trained. Everything? I believe it. But that's...expansive to the absolute max. I need a larger timeline.
Thanks for the thoughts James. I don't always read your essays on time, but I save them for when I have the time.
There is absolutely more energy and movement in rage. When I feel some latent rage to deal with or satisfy with action, I believe myself to be energized by ire. That energy needs to remain controlled--that's the part that keeps rage from regressing to people's typical idea or that word and its connotations. We do experience a full spectrum of feeling--joy, despair, rage. The trick is to remain in command of those feelings rather than let them commandeer your existence too fully. Better to experience some productive rage after some lethargic despondency, then feel some joy at having used the rage productively.
"There is plenty of time for all that I wish to accomplish" is beautiful. We are too often hasty and rushed. Haste is a detriment to fullness. If you sit down for a good meal somebody spent hours preparing, you don't just scarf it down; you enjoy it.
Speaking of rush and haste, there is never any urgency to read my essays, "on time" doesn't apply--it's there to be read whenever it makes sense for the reader. I'm certainly guilty of not getting to newsletters I want to read for a few days if not longer. My "saved" tab is a godsend for that.
“Haste is a detriment to fullness” - great line, great meaning
Thank you for this outstanding article, James. Each passage, followed by a beautiful nature photo, is a kind of meditation on your efforts to heal and grow and learn. It is deeply meaningful to understand what you are going through and to share in the journey as a reader and a learner. Thank you, my friend.
Thank you so much Heidi, I’m glad this provided good images and insights to read. Always happy to know you read Rock & Hawk.
Thank you! TBI is very individual, you are spot on--no two are the same, but they all seem to require the same tenacity in recovery.
Thank you so much Kristin--recognizing my tenacity is high praise! It has proven a useful thing to have. And I wouldn't be where I am without the support I've had from family and friends. My life is already different, and I want different things than I did, but does different have to be bad?
Who knows indeed. Thank you Kristin. Different is often good, and at the very least it’s typically less boring—though that doesn’t mean difference is always comfortable.