The brain is too complex to understand. I learned this a long time ago, certainly before I was seven years old. From then until now, I've worked diligently to re-assure myself in that fact.
However, it is noteworthy, if not understandable, to seek out the understanding in yourself. I think that's why I wanted to learn about biology in college. I think that's why I started developing microscopes. I think that by the time I die in fifty-so years, if we understand 10% of the human brain, I'd be astounded. 2060 isn't self-driving cars to me, it's understanding the product of the last 14,000,000,000 years. I keep thinking about the divide between quanta and macro-scale physics, and how analogous it is to the understanding of ourselves. I feel as though we can rather simply comprehend the various neurological quanta - in the transmitters and cells that comprise a brain. But extrapolating to the 100,000,000,000 neurons in a brain seems impossible. It seems blindingly clear how and why an apple falls from a tree, but to understand and aptly describe each subatomic particle involved, and the fundamental forces of electricity, magnetism, gravity, weak and strong at work there, is a task existing outside of today's technical possibility. Not only that, the theories themselves don't even play well together.
By the time I die, I'd feel satisfied if we knew how even 10,000,000,000 cells interact, coordinate, communicate, and act together to recall an image of my mind, of the time I woke up, at 4AM, near the top of Mt. Whitney. These processes seem too difficult to comprehend, 10% is ambitious, but realistic. I think I want to be a part of that, and I think that's why I do what I do.