The “you only use 10% of your brain” statistic showed up on Cracked.com’s most frequently quoted bullshit statistics list. Which is good, because the statistic is nonsense, but also bad, because their explanation of why it’s nonsense is…mostly nonsense. In their explanation, they basically accept the 10% statistic is true, they just say that contrary to popular belief, you can’t actually do any better.

No no no no no.

The 10% statistic is bogus. You, in fact, use almost all of your brain almost all of the time. Depending on what you’re doing, your brain might not be working very hard, but it will be working. If I perform an fMRI on you while you lie there and do nothing, your entire brain will still light up *. If I put you through a sensory deprivation protocol for long enough, you will actually start to hallucinate, because your brain craves input and activity.

Take, for example, the simple task of sipping from a glass. Your prefrontal cortex, probably in response to a “thirsty!” signal from the hypothalamus, decides that you want some water. It (in conjunction with the parietal cortex) plans the sequence of movements needed to pick up the class and drink from it and signals your motor cortex to execute the plan.

Meanwhile, your occipital cortex processes the scene in front of you and, with the help of the temporal cortex, recognizes a particular object as the glass you want to drink from. Your parietal cortex uses the input from visual cortex to triangulate the distance to the glass and calculate the trajectory of your arm and the shape of your hand so that you can pick it up.

After you make contact with the glass, the tactile feedback goes back into your parietal cortex so that you can grip the glass firmly. And then your parietal cortex and premotor/motor cortex work to monitor the proprioceptive feedback from your arm and make needed course corrections so you bring the glass to your lips rather than dumping the contents into your eye (infants are still training this particular neural circuit, which is why they often do whack food into their eyes).

That’s most of your brain right there. So you can sip from a glass.

My kid brother (the baby of the family) graduated from college last weekend.

You know what this means?

This means that the incoming first-year grads, at least some of them, ARE THE SAME AGE AS MY KID BROTHER.

I can’t decide if this is more or less terrifying than when I occasionally freak myself out realizing that I’m nearly a decade older than incoming college freshmen. A DECADE. THE EIGHTIES DID NOT EXIST FOR THESE PEOPLE.

I’m old. Old and still in school. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?????

This is complete and utter blasphemy, considering that I used to live down the street from Babcock ice cream and currently live around the corner from a Rita’s, but I think Ben & Jerry’s is the best ice cream ever.

When I was in high school and still had the metabolism of a hummingbird, I would occasionally eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s in one sitting. And then go have dinner.

I have chowed down happily on Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Phish Food, and many others. My current favorite is Half Baked. Whoever thought to put brownie chunks AND cookie dough chunks into the same ice cream is a genius. I am eating a half-cup of it as we speak (and then I will have dinner).

I thought Ben & Jerry’s could do no wrong until I tried Cheesecake Brownie, the flagship ice cream of the ONE movement to end poverty.

Blegh.

We’ve already established that I enjoy brownie ice cream, and I love cheesecake even more than brownie ice cream. But cheesecake-flavored ice cream is…weirdly sour and unpleasant.

So keep your poverty-fighting and your ice-cream purchasing habits separate and everything will be fine.