Edward M. Bounds

“Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor in the intellectual faculties of the mind.””

“The connectome that lights up when you’re engaged in a task is called the task-positive network, or TPN. Aptly named, the TPN gets you down to work. You’re deliberately doing something and you are intent on it, unaware of much beyond the bounds of what you’re doing. In this state, you don’t consciously know whether you’re happy or not, which is just as good as being happy, if not better, because you’re not wasting any energy in self-assessment. You may become frustrated with what you’re doing and have moments of anger or dismay, but if you stay in the task, in the TPN, those moments will pass, and the TPN, buoyant connectome that it is, will carry you along. When you’re thinking with the TPN, you’re in the Angel mindset. But you can also get trapped in the TPN, doing a task from which you cannot disengage. This is the hyperfocused state that people with ADHD can fall into. Far from being helpful, it can keep you stuck in one task, unable to shut down the screen, turn off the TV, or move from one paragraph to the next. This is the often unrecognized downside of focus.””

“When we have a child, we take a leap off a cliff into magical air. We never stand on solid ground again. The updrafts and the downdrafts in this air are like none other. We soar, we glide, then we hit turbulence and hold on tight until the storm breaks and a cool morning breeze lifts us onward. We learn fear that we’ve never known, joy that we’ve never felt, and uncertainty that knows no bounds. In that air we know the best in life, even if we collide at times with the worst.””