STOP

If nature has a design flaw, it’s enthusiasm.

It builds everything in excess.

Each kidney holds about a million nephrons, filtering nearly 180 liters of plasma a day — far more than necessary. The lungs unfold into roughly 70 square meters of alveolar surface, enough for a small apartment, just to make sure we can survive a marathon. The liver can lose most of itself and grow back without complaint.

Part of our development is learning when enough: The brain, for instance, begins life in abundance. In infancy, each neuron forms thousands of connections — some estimates say up to 15,000 synapses per cell. It’s a neural overgrowth that allows flexibility, learning, and adaptation. Then, as we mature, the brain performs an act of restraint: synaptic pruning. Unnecessary connections fade; efficiency takes shape.

We become ourselves by subtraction.

When this pruning process stalls or misfires, the brain remains noisy.

Research into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD increasingly points to this persistence of neural redundancy — networks that are hyperconnected yet inefficient, constantly multitasking, constantly awake.

And maybe that’s the lesson: to learn from the brain and respect the big red STOP sign.

Because an excessive life can still find the limits  — losing 75% of our nephrons before kidney failure, using more than 30% of our alveolar capacity before gasping for air, or exceeding the regenerative grace of the liver.

And that’s the paradox of survival: We’re built with enough redundancy to endure — until we don’t.

Evolution seems to have mastered abundance.

We’re still learning moderation.

🟥 de Silva, P. N. (2018). Do patterns of synaptic pruning underlie psychoses, autism, and ADHD? BJPsych Advances, 24(3), 157–164.