Your Brain is a Hardware Store.

Huh? Bear with me.

Suppose you walked into a hardware store, and were told, "You only have enough resources to buy just the 'core' tools and nothing more. So you can get a hammer and a saw and that's it."

So you get your hammer and your saw. Now, you can do hammering things and sawing things. And you get good at hammering and sawing. Maybe.

You know the old saying, "Give someone a hammer, and everything looks like a nail."

Well, this is how your brain works too. The more thinking tools you have, the more kinds of thinking you can do.

But the less thinking tools you have, the more likely you will keep trying to solve new problems in the same old way. And if hammering and sawing just aren't your thing, maybe that's not going to go so well.

Sometimes a hammer and a saw just don't get the job done. You need a wrench or a drill or some funky woodworking tools.

Well, the arts give our brains lots of opportunities to try all the stuff in the hardware store, not just the hammer and the saw.

And it turns out, usually you have to use more than one tool to get a job done. Ever try to hang a picture with a saw? I hope not.

The more thinking tools you put in your toolbox, the smarter you get. You can do math by drawing. You can write a story using music. And for lots of people, there are neato tools buried down there in the toolbox that turn out to be just the thing that's needed to open the floodgates to understanding something - just like when you find some weird wrench or screwdriver that turns out to be the exact thing you needed to fix your scooter.