Grey (matter) is the new black should you be looking to define your mark in a world wallowing in the happy shallows.
 
The revelation of our time, that our cerebral stuff isn’t sculpted and set early, but bendy and plastic throughout our lives, has opened a new realm of ways to stretch our brain cells out of the grasp of entropy.
 
There are a host of chemical hacks, from psychiatric drugs like Ritalin or Xanax, to street drugs that can force the brain to comply, buttressing the enhancement for as long as they’re taken. But the effects fade or leave the brain hobbled when they’re no longer ingested.
 
There are and will be ever more ingenious brain implant technologies that will change the lives of those bereft of standard functions like sight; and enhance the capabilities of those who dare to go transhuman with a bit of surgery and maybe clock up a super.sense or two.
 
In an embarrassingly old-fashioned position, neither the pharmaceutically-tamed, brain-steroid hack, nor surgical enhancement inspires me the way a naturally brilliant mind seems to.* Just as temporarily performance.enhanced athletes or spectacular silicon.moulded humans don’t delight in the same way either – by personal preference, not dogma.
 
Outpacing the limits of the expected with active effort can reshape our genes, and our evolutionary path as a species. Progress that we have to buy in and retrofit - rather than finding new ways to discover what the core functionality we shipped with can do and make it more robust – seems to render us humans even more vulnerable to staying within a narrowing band of existence. Even now so many of us perch precariously at the mercy of the Internet staying up and oil flowing from the wells.
 

As sexy and immediate as the quick fixes are, the results from natural brain tweaks, exercise, nutrition, learning and play can compete – with maybe a dash of determination & discipline - and win the long game. For those unafraid, I proffer the gatherings of the Brain Grower’s Association to accelerate organic, sustainable development of the cranial contents ..
 
(update: the site’s closed at the mo, but it will be up after I’ve wrapped up writing the book that is devouring my time like a failed dieter). Ping me here if you’re annoyed about it.

* [in those who have regular brain function.. but an incredible blessing of science for those who don't]