A Brief Conversation With My Brain

 

One of the most fascinating aspects of the human experience is our propensity to learn. From the moment a baby’s eyes open (or even before according to some) their brain is inundated with sensory input that sets them on a path of lifetime of learning. The complexity of day-to-day life entails that we must learn to adapt and sometimes conform to the world around us. Watching children learn is truly a parent’s eye-opening experience. To see the light snap on when a child makes a thought connection and the problem that was once incomprehensible to them suddenly evolves into a solution.

I remember seeing this happening with my own children as they grew up, but perhaps I didn’t appreciate it as much because I was still in the trials of learning to be a parent. Trying to be a role model when you have no idea what you are doing can sometimes be overwhelming. Now, as a grandparent, perhaps that one degree of separation makes it all more evident to me when I see my grandkids learning so much in a short period of time. To listen to their speech pattern evolve from squeaks and giggles into well structured sentences or questions over a few short years is astounding. It is interesting to see how their thought processes maneuver through this very strange world we live in, especially through the last two years when normal socialization has been thrown out the window with the bathwater.

 An example of this was when my daughter-in-law related to me how when our 6-year-old grand-daughter was listening to the radio and Harry Nilsson’s song, “One” came on. For those unfamiliar with the song, part of the lyric is “one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do”. When the song was over, she quizzingly looked at her Mom and said, “Why is one the loneliest number when it has zero and two to keep it company?” Pretty hard to argue against that logic. I just hope she doesn’t get exposed to America’s “A Horse With No Name” and try to make sense of the lyrics of that song. “In the desert you can remember your name, cause they’re ain’t no one for to give you no pain”. Trying to parse that one would likely make the poor girl’s head explode, like it does mine.

Learning is a lifetime thing; every new experience brings something different to the table. However, as you get older the bloom definitely comes off the rose. Its not that there is less and less to learn, it is just the brain gets picky on what should be kept and filed away and what needs to be dumped. Too much clutter slows the machine down. Time to defrag, as my wife would say.

I recently had a long conversation with my brain about the state of my learning ability when I tried to concentrate on working through an especially tangled economic report and got nowhere fast.

“Hey! Excuse me Brain, can I have a word with you about this retention thing I’m having?”

“What now? Can’t you see I’m busy keeping you alive? You think its easy getting all the organs pumpin’ and dumpin’ in harmony? One misstep and you don’t want to know…”

“No, no, no. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate all your efforts, especially the pumpin’ and dumpin’ part, but I’ve got to learn this bit of information and right now and for the life of me, I just can’t absorb it!”

“Are you trying to tell me how to do my job? Do you know how much stupid, useless information you’ve shoveled in here over the years? Music trivia? Plots of movies and novels? Conjugations! Why the heck would anyone want to remember how to conjugate ‘to love’ in Latin? No one speaks Latin anymore! Ever heard of delete?”

“I don’t know… It just pops right into my head, ‘amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis amant’. Almost like a nursery rhyme. Why do I remember something I learned over 50 years ago and not the numbers I just read 2 minutes ago?”

“Mysteries of life, buddy. Listen I was just chatting with the hippocampus and we’re both a little peeved about all this data input. Take a look at yourself, you’ve practically got one foot in the grave as it is, don’t you think you’ve learned enough? I’ve got no problem with you taking stuff in, just don’t expect me to store it anywhere. I’ve run out of space. I’ve got your stupid memories up the ying-yang.”

“Come on, please? Just one more bit of data? Just this once?”

“Let me tell you something. You know that time you walked into the kitchen, and you immediately forgot what you were looking for? That was me just letting you know who’s in charge around here. You won’t like it at all if I decide to go on strike and shut everything down, and it won’t be for a noon-time nap. Capche?”

“Ok, ok. Sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll be more selective”

“You better be. By the way now that I’ve got you here, your liver wants a word with you too.”

So that’s the state of the nation. Its satisfying to watch the young learn so much in such a short period of time. Me on the other hand, not so much. It’s one thing to teach an old dog new tricks, but quite another to expect him to remember them.