Year and years ago I used to be able to pull words from my gray matter like a magician pulls rabbits out of his hat. Always the perfect word for the situation. In milliseconds I could come up with a razor sharp wit and put verbal bullies in their place. I once had a supervisor in near tears and running to his boss. Mattered not to me as he was a boob and nobody liked him anyway. Needless to say I don't like stupid people especially when my own skin is involved. But, where the hell was I? Oh yea, the loss of mental acuity. After spending 16 years stuffing my brain with information, somewhere along the trip some evil event happens. As if some invisible hole has been drilled somewhere in the back of the skull. Quickly painlessly the hole magically appeared. And you can't even tell it's there. So slowly without notice that mass of facts drips like a Chinese water torture out the back of your head never to return. It's not as if you notice this phenomena being so slow and painless. And it's not like stepping into a room only to realize you forgot why you went there in the first place. It's devilishly worse. Trying to remember an instructor of a few years back even though I've worked with him on numerous jobs and seen him several times since yet there I stand a total blank. Digging deep in the recesses of my mind trying desperately to not look the fool. I'll fake it. You know give that warm and cordial greeting. Great to see you again, haven't seen you in quite some time. Ah, it worked I've fooled him into thinking. But then as you are about to retire for the night and that area between sleep and awake slowly slips away his name comes to you and you rise up from the covers and shout "That's his name! Damn just couldn't think of it"
Buuut, then there's a book or a paper that you know you've read. The cover is part of the room decore you've passed it for years then in a moment of bordom you pick it up open and it's as if someone changed the words. Nothing formilar. Logic dictates that the words are the same but the mind changed. And just as you think it's coming back to you the mind goes on a tangent. You put the book down and wonder why you came in the room in the first place.
9 comments:
Funny but my wife was mentioning this morning the same thing. It happens! You made me remember I had a thing for the English language and dictionary when I was a kid. in the 5th grade I thought the longest word was antidisestablishmentarianism but my teacher told me it was Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis a lung disease and I never forgot it!
You're absolutely right about words and. . . .forgot what I was going to say.
You know Holte, I do that a lot or I walk in a room and say what the hell did I come in here for? Eventually you get it!
I've noticed the same thing. I've been trying to convince myself that I simply wasn't as eloquent as I remember.
I'm pretty excited about reaching complete senility myself, it must be pretty peaceful there.
As for words, never tried to learn tons of them, we only need about two hundred words to communicate well with each other.
Wordsmiths are just so full of shit.
I like to spend half an hour looking for a tool I was just using, ha ha ha
Memory plays all sorts of tricks. There are a few people whose name I always have a terrible time recalling. I can see the person's face in my mind's eye, but the name escapes me. It's been that way for a long time. I've occasionally had similar problems recalling the exact title of a particular book or article I've read, although I can recall plenty of the gist and content.
But really, I think what's most remarkable about human memory is that it works as well as it does.
If I only had a something....
Where did I leave the remote>?
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