1/27/09
heptapod.org would like to sincerely apologize to our Asian readers for not acknowledging Chinese New Year and the Year of the Ox when this entry was originally published on 1/26/09.

The staff sincerely regrets the error.

Lately I've become fascinated by memory. Last week I rambled eloquent about paramnesia and cryptomnesia, how I question the nature of reality and how easily I translate my forgetfulness into something completely fantastic like multiple worlds, parallel dimensions and other nonsense.

Coming home on Monday I had a moment which piqued my interest once again. Since last week I've been trying to find my fucking driver's license. I tore apart the living room to no avail. This involved opening most books, shaking them and hoping it'd fall out. This felt like a really bad case of presque vu or tip-of-the-tongue. Man, I hate that feeling. Eventually a vague memory of "All my car-related documents are in my backpack". I grabbed my backpack and rifled through it twice without finding my driver's license.

Damn.

Now I was planning to get a replacement license sometime this week and groaning at the fact that I'd have to shell out for it. At least I still have my Colorado ID card which easily can be traded, inshallah, for a new license even though it means I no longer have two forms of photo ID. After I put a fiver in my tank and was heading back home the memory hit me.

The driver's license is in my personal hydration unit or CamelBak. Here are the thought processes at work! First and foremost I was heading west on Bijou from Academy which is my usual cycling route. The first memory was pretty vivid with my CamelBak laying atop the washing machine and I had bumped my bike upstairs to ride down to the library for one reason or another. I laughed because when I most needed my driver's license, which was last Tuesday, when I applied at a local business, the CamelBak was in my car the entire time but I never thought to look in it! Now I did get my DL# by calling my car insurance agent who happily read it off to me.

Anyway all the little paths and deductions made fascinated me and even with my little 'eureka' moment I was wondering how the hell I was able to remember that now instead of last week. One thing I don't want to lose is my memory. I spent my entire life filling it up and it's important to me. Heck memory makes me seem smarter than I really am! Best analogy, even though it's self-depricating, is I'm running a Pentium 133mhz processor with 4 gigabytes of memory. Man that's going to read as being really, really dated in five years. Now my memory exercised on a regular basis by remembering telephone numbers rather than keeping them in a phone book or an electronic device in addition to actually writing out email addresses instead of relying upon those autocomplete features with most email clients and freemail accounts.

I even turn it into a little game where I try to beat the auto-complete script by writing out the full address rather than having it pop up when I'm halfway to reaching the @ symbol.

So far it's faster than me.

Perhaps one day.

Overall I'm an absent-minded person. Sure I can argue that my mind is always elsewhere and the mundane tends to elude my grasp since the rest of my mind's fingers are busily twinkling amongst themselves for whatever mental folly deigns to haunt me that day.

One of the most egregious lapses of memory is from a couple years ago. I went to pick up pizza for myself and raddidge, came home and put my wallet atop the cat food on the shelf. Once I had gotten all the food ready to eat I automatically touched my left thigh and discovered the familiar bump wasn't there.

Anyway after rummaging through my car and hopefully driving back to Boriello Brothers, who were closed by then, the wallet had been discovered exactly where I put it and forgot it.

Atop the cat food.

I wish I understood the whole process of memory and recollection.

On the gripping hand, Lee has told me that she's famous for being able to remember where stuff was put like television remotes. Reckon everyone's good at remembering different stuff and folks end up complimenting themselves. Nice thing is that there is no envy nor resentment when there are compliments. Plus compliment is such a nicer word than opposite since the latter implies some manner of antipathy. Everyone likes compliments.

While I was browsing The Anomalist I clicked my way through to this article which strongly tangents the concept of "spivak's razor", memory and perception. From a lack of control, which usually implies a lack of knowledge, comes pareidolia which pushes one down the slippery slope of anxiety, conspiracies and paranoia.

One thing I must learn is personal self control because I consider myself to be exceedingly susceptible to such shenanigans due to my predilection towards anxiety and stress as a way of life. At best I am blunt and completely lacking any finesse when it comes to interpersonal interaction on the level of co-workers and acquaintances.

Since I did not drive my car at all on Sunday I've decided through editorial fiat that I'm going to use the cycling icon for the 1/26/09 entry.

Also 1/26/09 was Chinese New Year's which means I was remiss in using the appropriate Chinese character for the Ox nor was the entry colored red for the holiday!!!