Memory

What is it about us that make us forget things so quickly? Are our short term memories being slowly bombarded with so much information so quickly that it is imploding on itself so that anything we just thought about is instantly washed away with the next wave of useless knowledge? Maybe it is just me. I find myself forgetting things mere moments after I think of them. This is why I must do things when I think of them. It doesn’t help that I am all about the procrastination.

What is worse is when you remember that you were supposed to do something. It always comes at the least convenient time, like, say when you are heading to work and you get like 7 blocks from your house/apt., too far to turn back, but close enough to feel guilty about not doing it. At least if you were to remember when you reach your destination you could say, “well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Or you remember at 1am, just fell asleep after watching one of those really bad movies on TBS or the USA network that you are not sure why you stayed up to watch it in the first place but had to watch the end because, hey, you watched this much already and you need to see how the guy with the prop knife and patch-stitched ski mask gets impaled with a nail gun that stuck him to the tree that is about to go through an automated wood-chipper that is conveniently located in a dark, in-the-middle-of-nowhere factory that the brunette just happened to run too after her boyfriend got it in the gut. And suddenly she’s all Xena the Warrior Princess and drop kicks the “scary” bad buy just in time so she could reach that nail gun.

Now, where was I? Oh right, memory, or lack there off. So yeah, you remember this thing at 1am and bam, you are awake for another 2 hours because it happens to be an important thing but like I said before, you can’t do anything about it now, but come the morning, you best not forget. So you stay up telling yourself not to forget to do that in the morning. Come morning, you are so tired and four hours of sleep separated you from what you had to remember, next thing you know, you are 7 blocks from your house/apt.

The weird things is, I can remember just about every hole on every golf course I have ever played, but tell me you have a tee time on such and such golf course and it takes me an hour to remember which one that is. I remember faces, I remember names, but faces with the names together, forget about it, no chance. I could see someone everyday for 2 years, not see them for about a month, then see them and blank, nothing. Ever find yourself in this position? So frustrating. A little tip I picked up from my Pop, go through the alphabet, thinking of names that start with those letters and usually it will hit you.

I remember being in my PSYC101 class several years ago (didn’t do to well in that class, shocking, I know) but we did one activity to explain why phone numbers are usually only 7 digits long. Apparently most humans can only remember a sequence of up to 7 digits and it significantly drops off after 10. Or try that game where you start a sentence and pass it down a line and see what you have by the end. If that is not proof that short term memory is about as big as (geek alert) the RAM on a 286 DOS based computer system. Actually, to continue that thread, people are a lot like computer systems, but maybe I will leave that for another time. Maybe someone can explain to me why I do better on the first game of Memory then any subsequent games? You know ‘Memory’, that game with the cards that you flip over and they have pictures or shapes or symbols on them. Back in the day they were actually cardboard cards, now all you have to do is click on the screen, isn’t technology wonderful?

Alright, I’ve forgotten everything else I was going to say about this topic so I will have to leave it for another time. Now go do whatever it is you are thinking about right at this moment, before you forget.