If we think of our brains as a map, those early roads are like grooves, tram tracks, easy to fall into.

When we had to survive on our wits, gather and kill our food from scratch and be more at the mercy of our environment than we are today, we probably had enough challenge to keep our brains healthy.

The trouble is if we take no new steps to try a new challenge, our comfort zone doesn't seem just to stay still, but retract.

If you start from a position of I'm a no-hoper, in a paradoxical kind of way you are not risking being vulnerable.

After a stroke we can re-learn how to talk, because by practicing we can establish different pathways in the brain, circumnavigating the damaged part.

As we get older it is our short term memory that fades rather than our long term memory. Perhaps we have evolved like this so that we are able to tell the younger generation about the stories and experiences that have formed us which may be important to subsequent generations if they are to thrive.I worry though, about what might happen to our minds if most of the stories we hear are about greed, war, and atrocity

Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills.