Over many years now I have, again and again, come to appreciate the enabling power of such awareness. But more than that, I believe it is testament to the truth; namely that “facing, enduring and overcoming” or “coping” is precisely what we are made for and are in the process of becoming, well beyond our present imagining. By so doing, we also recognise and acknowledge the great mystery and – in a way – paradox of it all; namely that in treading this common pathway, we have also achieved/are also achieving difference; indeed uniqueness. There never has been and there never will be anyone else, in any age that will – can – share your precise identity. Even in the case of identical twins, there are subtle but important and key distinctions and differences. They may look alike; share similar personality traits and other temperamental and mood-related characteristics. They may think along similar lines and have and display much in common, ideationally and even behaviourally. But – I would ask – does any of this render then less of a person, each unique and secure in his/her own right? Are they somehow less than or short of having a mind and being a spirit, whole and entire? Of course they are not.

All in all then, it is quite impossible for either tongue or pen, to do the remotest justice to any descriptive account of this thrilling and enabling account of the human journey from its very beginning. To even imagine that we are remotely beginning to understand the human brain on the basis of what is contained in these postings, is like relating our verbal account, to a friend perhaps, following a flight over London into Heathrow, “I saw Westminster, the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall”. What in fact you beheld in that no more than cursory glimpse from several thousand feet above, was a complex of historic and thus, easily identifiable building. However, that did not, could not tell you – or anyone else for that matter – anything about the buildings themselves and how and why they came to be built, much less about the myriad historical or present day dramas – lofty and lowly – which have unfolded/are unfolding. How then can we, or should we proceed further to the attainment of, the ‘early rungs’ at any rate, of our appreciation of the marvel of brain? (C)SB.