Memory Loss C/D?

(not a bully fyi)

hey z s, i was thinking about your post a day or two ago, i wondered if this might be a cool thing for you to read: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html?_r=0
i haven't read it but remember hearing about the book maybe a year ago. the guy is writing about how we used to be able to memorise a lot, phone numbers, directions, but how now we needn't, because we can outsource certain things to phones, &c. he set himself the task of actively improving his memory, i think with exercises & just general smarts obtained by guys who win remembering competitions, & did well/became the best/proved it could be done, &c. i don't know, i wondered if reading a kind of pop-science book about memory which maybe offers some flashy improve your remembering! type exercises might be useful, like mainly just diverting but also with the potential to bestow you w/ some sense of control over something that's bugging you.

I have a feeling that this sort of failure of memory is what people really are talking about when they talk about how life starts to whoosh by as they enter middle age.

There was an interesting piece in the New Yorker a while back about the work of David Eagleman:

One of the seats of emotion and memory in the brain is the amygdala, he explained. When something threatens your life, this area seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. "This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older," Eagleman said—why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we're dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/25/110425fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all

Lately time has been just rushing past unbelievably fast for me and it's true that every week is now basically the same, very few new experiences to take in.

(sorry to post something which totally has nothing to do with Z S's post, which sounds like a heavy thing to deal with. sorry Z S)

heh, i forgot that i had revived this thread a couple years ago, ba-dum-dum ting.

update: i finally managed to attempt to do something about it earlier this summer. i scheduled an appointment with a neurologist (which began bizarrely as they mixed up my paperwork with another man with my name, who apparently recently moved away or died or moved away and died. lots of weird eye contact with recordkeeping division staff). the neurologist asked me what i was doing there but didn't really have any advice or plan of action. i decided to just pretend like i was a neurologist and requested an MRI and "neurological baseline testing", a term i made up on the spot. half an hour later i had referrals for an MRI and "neurological baseline testing", so either i guessed really well or my neurologist isn't a neurologist, either.

i'm supposed to complete both tests and then schedule another appt. with my fake neurologist. i managed to complete the MRI (another bizarre appointment, as i waited around the completely empty registration desk for 15 minutes past my appointment and thought everyone was perhaps fired. after asking around and finally locating anyone who could help me, deep within the bowels of the neurology department, i was chastised by the staff for not boldly walking through the door labeled "DO NOT ENTER" on my own volition in order to locate them). the "nuerological baseline testing" has been a disaster. i was supposed to call a specific phone # to schedule an appointment. i called the number about 10-15 times over the course of 3 weeks and left numerous messages, but no one ever called back. i visited the department in person, twice, in the middle of the day, and no one was ever there. i walked across the hall to the adjacent department to ask if everyone in the psychology dept was fired (i didn't really ask that), but they just picked up the phone and shook their head and pointed at the door. i got really angry at the absence of god and even moved their waiting room couch so that it sat directly in front of the empty registration desk (a bottom-10 low for me) but that didn't fix things, either, for some reason. finally, a week later, i called yet again and someone picked up. i asked if i could make an appointment but she told me i had the wrong department. i was advised to call the original fake neurologist back and ask him to make the appointment for me (?).

in conclusion, never go to kings county hospital in brooklyn

i'm into the idea of being my own fake neurologist now, though. i might make up some memory tests that all involve completing classic videogames, somehow, and then i'll ruthlessly follow a memorytesting regimen over the next few years, beating these games over and over and remembering the classic details of these classic games as i go. once i'm done with that i'll call Acme MRI company (or wherever i got the MRI from) and ask them to give me results using as many acronyms as possible, and preferably without providing the units for any numbers. i'll go ahead and get the MRI results for the dead guy with my exact name, too. then i'll go looking for an appropriate thread on ILX and remember that i had already posted about it, sort of, way back in 2015

jeez man

i was on a run of losing things at the beginning of summer -- my dead uncle's hat, pocket radio, etc. No idea if it was a meaningful pattern or not.

the art of losing isn't hard to master

i got really angry at the absence of god and even moved their waiting room couch so that it sat directly in front of the empty registration desk (a bottom-10 low for me) but that didn't fix things, either, for some reason.
<3

i forgot about everything that happened upthread

here is a cool quote from chris marker, the reason i revived:

“Memory is not the opposite of forgetting but its lining.”