“To check that they had not merely discovered that creative people are more likely to choose to live abroad, Dr Maddux and Dr Galinsky identified and measured personality traits, such as openness to new experiences, that are known to predict creativity. They then used statistical controls to filter out such factors. Even after that had been done, the statistical relationship between living abroad and creativity remained, indicating that it is something from the experience of living in foreign parts that helps foster creativity.”

“Statistical controls”. Hmm. I’m actually confused and curious now…

Your phrase “the Stimulated Neophile” could be a blog or book title. Must commit to memory.

On further neurological benefits of new experiences, here is a relevant para:

As Jonah Lehrer reports in his intriguing book Proust Was a Neuroscientist, bird brains have also proved crucial in groundbreaking brain science. Neuro-anatomists first directly observed the once-thought impossible, the formation of new brain cells in bird brains. In a wonderful connection with Charles Darwin’s la-la theory (that language evolved from bird song) it seems that to sing their complex melodies, male birds need to make new brain cells every day. And this need is influenced by environmental factors. Birds stuck in sterile lab environments have no need to and don’t make new brain cells. This work has been replicated in primate brains and, by extension, applies to us. A whole new field of neurogenesis is emerging, and among its initial areas of interest is a new class of antidepressant drugs aimed at improving neurogenesis. It seems that new brain cells, some of which come from new experiences and needing to learn new things, can make us happier! We are built to be happier when we are stimulated neophiles.

Since it’s more likely that it was Francis Bacon, rather than Shakespeare, who wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare (conventional history always gets things wrong, didn’t you know?), it’s not therefore necessary to spread a rumour that Shakespeare was secretly French, or secretly anything else.

Given that Francis Bacon as a young man, lived abroad (was an ex-pat) in France for three years, which gave him the unique insights and wisdom contained in “Shakespeare’s” plays; and that only someone called Bacon could invent a character called HAMlet, it should put to rest all doubts that Francis Bacon was the genius who wrote “Shakespeare’s” plays.

Shakespeare is more challenging. Would you agree to conspire in spreading a rumor that he was, in fact, secretly French?

So, what is one to think?