The Older Mind

For those of you of a certain age, you surely have experienced the "404 page not found" error: your brain was found but failed to return the desired information - for something you know should be there. A name, a fact, an event, the answer to Alex whats-his-name's Final Jeopardy answer, your spouse's mother's first name, your anniversary, the reason you went to the basement, etc.  And when this happens you hear a tiny voice from that brain questioning whether your mental faculties are intact.

I am here to reassure you that you are just fine, that is, unless you fail to remember the three words, "chair, banana, sunrise" for 30 seconds on your next visit to the doctor. If that happens, invest in a sippy cup.

First. Remember that you are no longer young enough to know everything, so relax and accept it. Resistance is futile.

Second. Over your lifetime, you have stored away a massive amount of data, much of it squirreled away in dark recesses of your brain. The data retrieval process is triggered in the hippocampus and requires many, many neuron firings to reach. Some of this data has the archive bit set and that adds even more time to the search. Just the amount of searchable data reduces response time.  Ya canna' change the laws of physics.

So you are a "Big Data" host, something the 20-somethings have not yet achieved.  They have loads of empty storage and they can go straight to the salient fact. These youthful specimens retrieve data at warp speed, but there is so much they don't know and even more that they don't know they don't know.  (Don't get too cocky. That's true for you too.) There are so many back-alleys and side-streets in your cerebellum that your search may take a detour down a relevant (or irrelevant) mental mine shaft that may cause a further delay. So that fact you should know, you do know.  It just may take a while to materialize. Most often this happens in the middle of the night.  Highly illogical.

Here are some middle-of-the-night mind-worms for you. "Who played Davy Crockett on Disney's Wonderful World of Color".  "What is paprika?, Alex". "What Minnesota Supreme Court judge made his name in football". "Which Bobby: Vee , Vinton, Darin, Rydell, Goldsboro ..  played Lakeside? Or was it another Bobby?". "Dilithium crystals".

So the older mind is really a fuller mind. It's my story and I'm sticking to it. Unfortunately there is no empty trash or empty junk operation so the clutter continues. To boldly go.

Live long and prosper.  Who was it that always said that?

I prefer "Live well and prosper" btw.

Copyright © 2019 Dave Hoplin