Nicholson 1

Clare Nicholson
Ms. Gardner
English 10H, Period 2
17 January 2015
Is Bigger Always Better?
It seems that the brain has forever been well known as a symbol for knowledge and
intellect. The Greek goddess Athena was born from the head of Zeus, and she turned out to be
the goddess of wisdom and strategy. How predictable. I, getting above average grades since
Kindergarten, remember being told on numerous counts by my family that I had a big brain
because I thrived in school. It struck me as a funny idea, especially considering that the actual
size of my head has always been rather small in comparison to the supposed largeness of my
brain. But I went along with it anyways. Ultimately, it wasn't until much later in life, as a ninth
grader in tenth grade Biology, that I realized how little the human brain really is: curl up your
fists and put them side by side. Each fist represents the size of about one half of your brain.
Rather small, isnt it? And also, rather amazing, that something so tiny, only about three pounds,
controls everything from the everyday thought process to body movement to pain response. The
brain, being the jewel in the crown of our bodies, could easily be dubbed our most vital organ.
I was told over and over at a very early age to protect that vital organ, and its vessel, my
head - though it the warnings went in one toddler ear and out the other. My mom embarasses
gives me greif to this day with stories of a baby Clare terrifying her parents as she learned how to
walk, hobbling around while looking behind her until, oops, I hit my head on a wall. Or the
ground. Or just about anything you could imagine. You had a permanent bruise on your
forehead from the time you were learning to walk until you were about two, she jokes.

Nicholson 2
At age two, I learned my lesson the hard way for not heeding the warnings. The sharp,
wooden corner of our kitchen island split open my forehead as I scampered through the room,
tripped, stumbled, and fell into it. Four stitches and thirteen years later, Im still reminded of it by
the scar on the right side of my face, but also reminded of my luck. A sharp corner may cut some
skin, even affect the bone, but a blunt thwack on the head could have left me with far worse than
just a shiny patch of indented skin to follow me throughout life.
I remember receiving looks of awe and a comment from a boy with platinum hair and
blue eyes, something along the lines of, Wow, youre really smart, in the third grade as I
brought out my nearly 900-page copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I remember smiles of encouragement from my mom and dad for bringing home progress
reports with Ss and Os, the As and Bs of a students elementary school career.
I remember being able to go to an ice cream party for mastering my multiplication tables
through twelve, and going to multiple root beer float parties as a reward for reading over summer
breaks.
I remember being confident in myself and my intelligence throughout elementary school,
but I also remember the feeling of getting my first B in a class, in 7th grade Algebra I. I felt like
my brain had let me down. Like maybe I never was as smart as I thought. Maybe I wasnt smart
enough to have that big brain after all..
And then occurred the moments when I more than just felt let down by my brain: I hated
it. Being the part of the body that processes emotion, I blamed my brain for the petty pain I felt
when my first ever boyfriend broke up with me. Looking back now, I feel foolish, but then, the
pain and tears felt all too real. It was almost as if, the part of my brain that lacked knowledgewise in school was being compensated for with an excess of emotions.

Nicholson 3
The brain as a symbol, for me, has evolved further since those days. Instead of just the
thing with parts that control everything in my body, the thing that shows how smart I am, the
thing that makes me feel, the thing that lets me walk and talk and live it now all feels so
indefinite. I met someone this summer, a boy a bit older than myself whose hazel eyes captivate
me completely. His name is Cody. I found myself falling hard and fast for his humor, his teddybear hugs and his reckless ways. Cody got to me, and I got to him. But it wasnt long until the
first time I saw him holding his head in his hands, uttering the word no repeatedly under his
breath in response to voices in his head that only he could hear. They made him want to die.
They still do. And on a Saturday morning as I wake up and rays of sunlight filter in through
through the window, I unlock my phone to a message from Cody - while Id drifted off into a
peaceful sleep, comforted by my soft penguin-printed blanket, he suffered from night terror after
night terror.
All I can think about is how it would feel to slit my throat, he sends..
I find it tragically ironic that the brains function is to sustain life, yet it can
simultaneously try to take it away.
Ive witnessed this paradox at work in my dad as well. August 27th of 2014, a week after
the beginning of Fall semester at Casa Grande, I sat in San Joses Good Samaritan Hospital in a
drab room that vaguely smelled of bleach, listening to a radiation oncologist talk to my
unprepared parents about treatment for brain cancer. A random mutation had occurred in my
dads brain tissue months before, and by the time they noticed it, a 2.5x1.25x1 inch tumor had
formed. We didnt have the good fortune of it being benign. Instead, the biopsy showed it to be
Glioblastoma Multiforme, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. Very few of its

Nicholson 4
victims last more than five years. Since then, Ive been forced to sit by as my dads brain, no
matter how it or his skull must be, slowly deteriorates.
So sitting here now, if someone told me that having a big brain meant I was smart, or vice
versa, I might laugh. If only I had that big brain full of infinite knowledge that I thought I once
had. If I did, I might be able to know how to cure cancer or to help the person I love who suffers
daily from depression, anxiety, and paranoid schizophrenia. Maybe I could figure out what to
write for this essay to fully convey how I feel, to convey how real the pain feels caused by the
chemicals being released into my brain as Ive realized over and over that my two-fist-sized
brain just isnt good enough.
My brain may keep me alive, and keep me enrolled in Honors Trigonometry, learning
about solving multivariable systems of equations, but controlling bodily functions and retaining
knowledge are but two of its functions. But when one factors in everything unpredictable about
the brain, what does it become? An opportunity for things to go awry? In that case, maybe I
should be thankful for the petite size of my head and balled up fists.
Maybe having a big brain would give me what I need to succeed, or maybe it would
allow me to feel more pain, or allow more opportunity for a random mutation and tumor growth.
After all, it doesnt seem like having a big head and fists has benefitted either my boyfriend or
my father.
Maybe I should just be thankful for what I have. Maybe
I dont know. I cant make up my mind.