Manipulate

That nifty piece of equipment in your head is good at tuning you in. It’s just as excellent at tuning you out. I’m going to use a big word here, so tune in.

Our brains manipulate (man-ip-you-late) the messages we hear, see, taste, smell or touch.

You love vegetables, right? Or maybe not. As a kid, I would do anything to avoid eating pumpkin. My mum used to mash it with potato and call it yellow potato. But I was on to her. I knew it had pumpkin in it.

But, here’s the thing–my brother couldn’t get enough of it. I used to sneak it onto his plate and make it as if I’d eaten it. What I didn’t get until years later was that pumpkin tastes the same no matter who eats it. Pumpkin is pumpkin.   

Our brains tell us that it’s something we don’t like. It could be something we’ve never tasted; if our brains decide it’s not for us, it stays on our plates.

The same thing happens with your sense of smell. If you’ve smelt it before, your brain tells you what it is. If not, you compare it to something you know about. And yes, some smells are pleasant, some aren’t. Our brains manipulate which ones we tune into and which to tune out.