Forgetfulness

I did not post on Friday. Forgetfulness? I suppose, combined with Life imposing other things onto my daily calendar.

It happens. In his poem, “Forgetfulness,” Billy Collins is focused on how memory weakens with age. I can identify.

My habit of rereading novels that I enjoyed in my youth and finding them to be new material is said by Collins in this way:

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

It’s “normal” when you get to a certain age to be more forgetful. (What age? It depends on the individual.) I accept that, but I try very hard to concentrate and bring back that forgotten thing. “Don’t tell me,” I tell my wife when I can’t recall a name or word. I want to force my brain to make that connection again. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes.

As Collins says, “Whatever it is you are struggling to remember / it is not poised on the tip of your tongue.” Where is it? Like the lost car keys, it is somewhere, and I feel that I should be able to find it. The poet is not as hopeful.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,

And Billy ends with my greatest fear about my memory and my aging brain:

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

https://youtu.be/n-a8ELOVig4?si=BVFkfirb-Sr9HWCd

Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday.
-- Christopher Hitchens

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #ChristopherHitchens #Forgetfulness #Memory

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Sunrise #SacandagaLake #Adirondacks #NewYork

I looked at the time on the stove, and thought "Wow! It is much earlier than I thought!"

Then I remembered that it does not switch time automatically.  

#DaylightSavingTime #forgetfulness

A quotation from Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Beyond Good and Evil], Aphorism 217 (1886) [tr. Zimmern (1906)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/nietzsche-friedrich/…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #nietzsche #blessing #blunder #error #forgetful #forgetfulness #forgetting #fretting #getover #mistake #notworryabout #setaside #shame #stupidity #unremembered #worry

I'm not terrible at remembering things, but I sometimes forget. 😭

I tried using applications to remind myself of things I need to do.

But then, I'd forget to use those apps.

#forgetfulness #reminder

I have been missing a word out of my vocabulary for 3 weeks. It has been nagging at me since the conversation I had 3 weeks ago where I couldn't remember it, and has been bothering me since.
Finally free and at peace.
Kombucha.
I was explaining my favorite non-alcohol drink, I have when out at a local bar, and could only get as far as ...
"you know, that tea, black tea. Its fermented. I love one with rhubarb and hibiscus".
Made harder as trying to explain to someone who has English as a second language, and does not live in the UK.
Is there anything more nagging than a forgotten word?

#forgetfulness

A moment ago, I thought, "I better remember tomorrow that it is Festivus." Then, I decided to put it on my calendar as a yearly event. That way, I won't forget.

 Who am I kidding? I'll be reminded in the morning, and then I'll forget within five minutes.

#Festivus #forgetfulness