Failing Memory
I hate the feeling when I can’t quite remember something. Not knowing the answer to something is quite frustrating, but worse still is knowing that I do know the answer, but I can’t pull it out of my head right now. Everyone gets this – typically, it seems, with song lyrics; we all know songs well enough to sing along, but who can easily recall all Twelve Days of Christmas on demand?
As an aside, when I looked up that Wikipedia article, I also found a rather comical page that claims that the song is actually a collection of religious symbols. Fortunately, Snopes leaped to the rescue to disprove that theory – but it just goes to show the kind of crap that exists on the Internet, masquerading as legitimate fact.
Hey now – that wasn’t supposed to be self-referential!
Back on to my original topic though… now what was it? Oh yes, memory and the failings thereof. I should really count myself lucky – I don’t suffer from any serious medical condition that affects my mind, so these little slips of the brain are minor and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
In fact, far more frustrating is the way memories fade with time, because this happens to all memories, and it’s not just a momentary failure to recall. When I think back to my school days, I can remember the “Fancy Dress” day were the most gorgeous girl in the school came as the Genie in A Bottle, and the one where I went dressed as James Bond, but for the life of me I couldn’t say if those were the same event, or two different years.
Similarly, I know if I’ve read books before, but I could never tell you when or where, and while I know that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world (on land), I couldn’t tell you when I learnt that fact – or the name of the tallest on in the sea, for that matter.
It’s these little details that make me wish I was still in contact with old friends and colleagues sometimes; being able to sit and recall old times would perhaps help fill in the missing details – certainly, I know I remember some details that other people would not recall, so surely they’d know the details I’ve forgotten… Perhaps too, this new project of mine of writing a blog will help – I know I plan to document some of the obscure technical references as they come up, and perhaps the little details will stick in my head enough to provide a trigger for the memories of what I actually did on the first of January 2009.
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