I found this amusing article by Colin Taylor on Helium, a creative writing site. Perfect for the weekend.
"I keep meaning to ask my Doctor about Alzheimer's disease,
but I keep forgetting the name of it.
The truth is that I rarely see my doctor because I usually
forget his name. If I remember his name, I forget to make an appointment. If I
make an appointment, I forget when it is. If I get as far as making an
appointment and remembering when it is, I will definitely turn up but am
equally certain to forget to mention Alzheimer's disease.
There must be tens of thousands of 50+ males in my position.
They say that there is a difference between Alzheimer's and natural forgetfulness caused by ageing. Obviously I can't remember what it is, or the
name of the test that can be used to differentiate between them - but I know I
haven't taken it. My wife has bought me some whatever-they-are tablets to
counter loss of memory by preventing the arteries in the brain from hardening.
Sometimes I remember to take one.
My powers are unlimited. I can forget anything. I can't
remember what I bought yesterday. I can't remember what I was doing the day
before yesterday. I can't remember the names of the people I met last week,
what we said to each other, nor what most of them look like. I even forget the
names of people I know well, unless we've been in regular contact for over five
years. I look in the wardrobe and see clothes I'd forgotten are mine.
Jackets are a problem. Once upon a time, jackets were
predictable. The sort of jacket that had lapels also had two waist-level
pockets outside, one external breast pocket on the left hand side and one,
probably two breast pockets inside. The result was that you knew where
everything was kept regardless which jacket you were wearing. You had a pocket
for your wallet, a pocket for your diary, pens, keys, comb, huge handkerchief,
other personal items, etc. Changing jacket was a simple process of decanting all
the objects into the appropriate slot on the new jacket and off you go.
But now there are new jackets of unpredictable design that
have no lapels. Pockets are few and can be anywhere on the shoulder, under the
armpit, anywhere. I discovered what I thought was a tear in one such
windcheater-style jacket that turned out to be a useless, vertical-entry pocket
likely to shed its contents without prior notice. Changing jackets is now a
major endeavour taking twenty minutes and results in jacket contents (including
personal items) being spread over a variety of locations, such as the bedside
table, the front room table, the kitchen work surfaces, the floor of any room and the glove compartment of the car
(seemed a safer place for the wallet than the vertical, easy-to-empty pocket in
the jacket worn yesterday).
Errands are a problem. For every five items on a shopping list,
at least one will be forgotten. One out of every three errands will be
forgotten anyway, causing stressful and time-consuming returns to previously
shopped locations. But the words I fear most are: “Could you drop in at the
local shop on your way”. The ninth circle of hell is never, ever being able to remember to
drop in at the local shop, or the off-licence, or the newsagents on the way.
It's a contradiction in terms. ‘On the way’ is a journey, not a destination. I
remember as I walk into the house, and have to start a second journey to recoup
the missed errand, or just as I drive into the estate and need to detour back
round the link road, or even at the very moment I pass the local shop, just too
late to brake.
The strange thing about it is that I have much more success
if, on hearing the dreaded words, I tell myself to forget to drop in ‘on the
way’. It's some sort of double negative effect. If I catch site of the local
shop, or whatever, some sort of mental ‘Boolean’ flag pops up and says: ‘You're
not supposed to be going in there’. So of course I do. Well, nine times out of ten - nothing's perfect.
Work is a big problem. Nothing can be worse for the
forgetful 50+ than to be put in a situation where you need to do lots of
things. Without a ‘To Do’ list, I'm totally lost. Even then there are problems
when I review the list and see a mixture of names of people I have forgotten,
phone numbers I don't recognise and acronyms I cannot decipher.
I start tasks early and forget to finish them, or I postpone
them and forget to start. Trying for promotion is a waste of time. How can I
put together a convincing CV when I can't remember what I was doing two years
ago in any depth at all? The fact that I can remember what I was doing 22 years
ago with crystal clarity is of no assistance.
More subtly, work actually promotes forgetfulness. Things at
work change so fast there is actually no point in remembering anything. We now
have a work culture where information outdates at an astounding rate. Knowing
things is dangerous. Conveying knowledge to others is potential misconduct, as
it may be based on out-of-date information. There's no point in even trying to
remember the names of things. Whatever happened to the Department of Education
and Science, ITBs, O-Levels, the typewriter, the telegram, Railtrack, British
Steel, audio tapes, the Fairs Cup,
the Marathon Bar? Forget information overload. Forget everything. Remembering
is as futile as turning on BBC2 on a Sunday afternoon and expecting to see the
cricket.
But work does not give me any idea who to blame for my
inadequacies. Of course, there are probably reasons to do with me that make me forget things, for
example: loss of brain capacity due to excessive use of alcohol (very
likely),
loss of brain capacity because of excessive sexual activity (very
unlikely),
loss of brain capacity owing to substance abuse (well, not these
days),
psychological stress or personality disorder (Huh?),
having a University education (absent-minded professor syndrome).
In the end, I blame none of these. I blame my computer. I do not blame it because it is a symbol of the pressures of
modern life but because it is so blatantly, obviously better than me. My
computer remembers everything and forgets nothing. It does not lose papers by
mistakenly clipping them to other papers or get them mixed up. It never throws important
documents in the bin unless I tell it to and even then will ask me if I really
mean to be so stupid. It never misfiles things unless I do, always remembers
where it has put things and can find them if I forget. It is far more efficient
than I am and far more able.
As well as reading and writing, it can play music,
draw and play games better than I can. It never makes a mistake unless a human
does, following the 'garbage in, garbage out' principle, whereas I just forget
to put out the garbage.
It can multitask and multi-ask endlessly but I get confused
if I am asked to do just two things at once. My brain desperately needs an
upgrade that can never be provided. My computer has random access memory and I
have random access to my memory. I cannot remain switched on for more than an
hour before conking out. My computer can programme itself, diagnose itself and
heal itself. If it crashes, it recovers. It is so superior to me that it undermines
me and demoralises me. And I perform worse as a result."
Thanks a lot to Colin Taylor
Image: http://brainu.org
I found this amusing article by Colin Taylor on Helium, a creative writing site. Perfect for the weekend.
"I keep meaning to ask my Doctor about Alzheimer's disease, but I keep forgetting the name of it.
The truth is that I rarely see my doctor because I usually forget his name. If I remember his name, I forget to make an appointment. If I make an appointment, I forget when it is. If I get as far as making an appointment and remembering when it is, I will definitely turn up but am equally certain to forget to mention Alzheimer's disease.
There must be tens of thousands of 50+ males in my position. They say that there is a difference between Alzheimer's and natural forgetfulness caused by ageing. Obviously I can't remember what it is, or the name of the test that can be used to differentiate between them - but I know I haven't taken it. My wife has bought me some whatever-they-are tablets to counter loss of memory by preventing the arteries in the brain from hardening. Sometimes I remember to take one.
My powers are unlimited. I can forget anything. I can't remember what I bought yesterday. I can't remember what I was doing the day before yesterday. I can't remember the names of the people I met last week, what we said to each other, nor what most of them look like. I even forget the names of people I know well, unless we've been in regular contact for over five years. I look in the wardrobe and see clothes I'd forgotten are mine.
Jackets are a problem. Once upon a time, jackets were predictable. The sort of jacket that had lapels also had two waist-level pockets outside, one external breast pocket on the left hand side and one, probably two breast pockets inside. The result was that you knew where everything was kept regardless which jacket you were wearing. You had a pocket for your wallet, a pocket for your diary, pens, keys, comb, huge handkerchief, other personal items, etc. Changing jacket was a simple process of decanting all the objects into the appropriate slot on the new jacket and off you go.
But now there are new jackets of unpredictable design that have no lapels. Pockets are few and can be anywhere on the shoulder, under the armpit, anywhere. I discovered what I thought was a tear in one such windcheater-style jacket that turned out to be a useless, vertical-entry pocket likely to shed its contents without prior notice. Changing jackets is now a major endeavour taking twenty minutes and results in jacket contents (including personal items) being spread over a variety of locations, such as the bedside table, the front room table, the kitchen work surfaces, the floor of any room and the glove compartment of the car (seemed a safer place for the wallet than the vertical, easy-to-empty pocket in the jacket worn yesterday).
Errands are a problem. For every five items on a shopping list, at least one will be forgotten. One out of every three errands will be forgotten anyway, causing stressful and time-consuming returns to previously shopped locations. But the words I fear most are: “Could you drop in at the local shop on your way”. The ninth circle of hell is never, ever being able to remember to drop in at the local shop, or the off-licence, or the newsagents on the way. It's a contradiction in terms. ‘On the way’ is a journey, not a destination. I remember as I walk into the house, and have to start a second journey to recoup the missed errand, or just as I drive into the estate and need to detour back round the link road, or even at the very moment I pass the local shop, just too late to brake.
The strange thing about it is that I have much more success if, on hearing the dreaded words, I tell myself to forget to drop in ‘on the way’. It's some sort of double negative effect. If I catch site of the local shop, or whatever, some sort of mental ‘Boolean’ flag pops up and says: ‘You're not supposed to be going in there’. So of course I do. Well, nine times out of ten - nothing's perfect.
Work is a big problem. Nothing can be worse for the forgetful 50+ than to be put in a situation where you need to do lots of things. Without a ‘To Do’ list, I'm totally lost. Even then there are problems when I review the list and see a mixture of names of people I have forgotten, phone numbers I don't recognise and acronyms I cannot decipher.
I start tasks early and forget to finish them, or I postpone them and forget to start. Trying for promotion is a waste of time. How can I put together a convincing CV when I can't remember what I was doing two years ago in any depth at all? The fact that I can remember what I was doing 22 years ago with crystal clarity is of no assistance.
More subtly, work actually promotes forgetfulness. Things at work change so fast there is actually no point in remembering anything. We now have a work culture where information outdates at an astounding rate. Knowing things is dangerous. Conveying knowledge to others is potential misconduct, as it may be based on out-of-date information. There's no point in even trying to remember the names of things. Whatever happened to the Department of Education and Science, ITBs, O-Levels, the typewriter, the telegram, Railtrack, British Steel, audio tapes, the Fairs Cup, the Marathon Bar? Forget information overload. Forget everything. Remembering is as futile as turning on BBC2 on a Sunday afternoon and expecting to see the cricket.
But work does not give me any idea who to blame for my inadequacies. Of course, there are probably reasons to do with me that make me forget things, for example: loss of brain capacity due to excessive use of alcohol (very likely), loss of brain capacity because of excessive sexual activity (very unlikely), loss of brain capacity owing to substance abuse (well, not these days), psychological stress or personality disorder (Huh?), having a University education (absent-minded professor syndrome).
In the end, I blame none of these. I blame my computer. I do not blame it because it is a symbol of the pressures of modern life but because it is so blatantly, obviously better than me. My computer remembers everything and forgets nothing. It does not lose papers by mistakenly clipping them to other papers or get them mixed up. It never throws important documents in the bin unless I tell it to and even then will ask me if I really mean to be so stupid. It never misfiles things unless I do, always remembers where it has put things and can find them if I forget. It is far more efficient than I am and far more able.
As well as reading and writing, it can play music, draw and play games better than I can. It never makes a mistake unless a human does, following the 'garbage in, garbage out' principle, whereas I just forget to put out the garbage.
It can multitask and multi-ask endlessly but I get confused if I am asked to do just two things at once. My brain desperately needs an upgrade that can never be provided. My computer has random access memory and I have random access to my memory. I cannot remain switched on for more than an hour before conking out. My computer can programme itself, diagnose itself and heal itself. If it crashes, it recovers. It is so superior to me that it undermines me and demoralises me. And I perform worse as a result."
Thanks a lot to Colin Taylor
Image: http://brainu.org