From all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most – Mark Twain, American writer and humorist (1835-1910)
I fear that I am losing my mind. But really, it would not be such a precious thing to lose, as it only causes me pain – L.A. Meyer, author of historical series (1942-2014)
Okay, most of my friends who are about my age or older confess how hard it is to remember all the names of people we know or people we have known for our entire lives. That can be pretty embarrassing if suddenly you can’t remember your neighbor’s son’s name who went off to college and now lives somewhere in Montana. Even though you’ve seen the child grow up if you haven’t seen them in the last few years the name just won’t come up. One of the means of bringing a name up they say is to run through the alphabet. Like “Adam, Bart, Charles…” and so on. They say this really works and if you just do it in your head who will know?
A Google search reported from AI says, “While the brain’s cognitive abilities can begin to subtly decline in the 30’s and 40’s, significant slowing of mental processing speed generally doesn’t occur until after age 60, according to studies. This decline is gradual and can be influenced by various factors, including genetics, lifestyle, and overall health.
It also said reaction time and multitasking abilities slow down. However, I was told once multitasking is not really possible. I asked AI and she said, “No human can truly multitask. We may think we are multitasking when we are actually switching back and forth between different jobs or activities. AI thinks trying to multitask repeatedly is inefficient, leads to decreased productivity, increase in errors, and even cognitive decline.
Okay, that doesn’t really bother me because I move slower these days and frankly, I don’t want to hurry. I always say if I have to hurry then I’m just not going to do it, or I do it later. There’s a term for going slower doing your task called “monotasking.”
I looked at my contacts on my phone. I thought I might count how many names are listed. I quickly scrolled down the list and my goodness by the time I got to the “Ds” I gave up counting. Surely there’s at least a thousand or more in there. How could anyone remember all those names? We can’t.
Several days a week I go to the YMCA for exercise. In the next block east of me a lovely nicely dressed little lady walks to the Post Office. Every time I see her, I know that I’ve met her, but I don’t remember her name, so I wave from the car window, and she waves back. Last week I was walking to the car and met up with her. She asked about Wilhelmina, my cat. She has a lovely smile and bright eyes. She takes her walk to the Post Office every day. I bit the bullet, “I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.” She gave her name, readily confessed she too forgets names, it’s just the name game.
Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
