Finite Bandwidth
Do you remember the time you needed your phone and remembered it was in the kitchen and when you went there you forgot what you were doing in that room? So, you went back to where you started and remembered, "Phone." You remember that. But not the phone while you were in the kitchen. What is the nature of the mind that makes it work this way? Why would evolution bring us to this place? Why are some file folders not accessible at a particular time and other times, no problemo? What was the name of Monica's older boyfriend in "Friends"? Um, he was in a show about Hawaii, and had that car... What is that guy's name? You know who he is...
On average, a thousand containers a year fall off ships and sink into the ocean. 1,382 were lost in 2020. These are forty feet long, weigh almost 30 tons when loaded. Steel. Large. Is this how the brain works? Chunks sunk randomly? Big items. Like your wife's birthday, your keys, your husband's middle name or where he went to college... Later, you can remember them. Just not right this second. They sank.
Brain scientists are utilizing fMRI scanning to see how the wiring in the head operates in real time and drawing a compelling new atlas of pathways AND confounding lots of accepted science regarding the architecture of thinking. For all the strides recently made in apportioning classes of brain function to areas within the skull, the latest research shows many of these are myths. Left brain and right brain, rational thought vs. creative thought, speech centers, visual processing... I'm not a doctor, and the latest neuroscience can't be summarized in this paragraph... And the mind is 100 billion neurons, give or take, with trillions of connections. That we can ever find our phones is statistically unlikely. But we do, usually...
But, I lost my train of thought... Remember the Lost Boys? Have you lost your mind? Sorry, I lost my cool... Have you lost a family member or good friend this past year? Hello, hello, I'm losing you. This notion of "unknown location" is pervasive in our language and, I believe, tied to the way our brains function. Scientists are quick to affirm the normalcy of forgetting, primarily blaming it on attention. Yet the anxiety associated with trying to remember is real. We "try to remember" as though we are lifting a dumbell. This isn't muscular. Nor is it location based. Youngsters don't obsess over "spacing" information. They calmly whip out a phone and find out. Too many of us stress over the ongoing forgetfulness that is a normal part of reality, petrified of losing our minds or our sharpness, of aging and the host of neurological maladies that may occur. But worrying will take your attention away, and attention is the key to smoothing the natural processing of being present and focused. It's normal, my friends, to forget. Remembering anything is miraculous. Make peace with uncertainty.
The latest theories regard memory as not a host of file folders but an ongoing assemblage of sparks, a constant activity of reassembling. This redefines perception as well. The thing you "see" is 20% visual input and 80% mental processing, but we will have to chat about that next time. Today is the time to accept the containers overboard in our heads. We have these computers in our skulls of staggering complexity and plasticity. Try to stay out of their way with our anxious, fearful selves. Let go. Being lost is normal. Fits and starts are somewhat factory settings. Syncopation is the proper rhythm of our funky selves. Maybe janky brain function is the locus of innovation. Imperfect memory is the space for creativity.
But that evolutionary issue is curious. Maybe as we age, we, as elders of the village, need conceptualization more than specifics, context more than data. Maybe we are just living too long. Maybe I actually know the answer and have forgotten the words to communicate it. I'll just make metaphors till you get it or I disappear.
I often think of working creatively as remembering stuff that was put in and processed by forces we don't control, forgotten until the fermentation is complete and then dredged from past time and inexorable daily tides of perception. Buried treasure. Brought to light. Now. Pretty sure.
Buy art. It's fixed to the wall. It leverages that 20% to control your brain. In a good way... Thank me later.
Rock steady, B Mac
