## 14 The mysteries of my memory I wanted to write something about my memory but...I have forgotten what, why ? ... That's why I write it in draft post, to come back later and forget what I wanted to say. That's the perfect example of the mysteries of my memory. For a lot of things I have pictures in my head, and for example I can identify pretty much every car in the world with a few details. I don't know why, because it doesn't work for other things. I can't remember the names of birds, even though my father knew them and I've read a lot of books on the subject. And in my job, there are many things I can forget, even if I see or use them twice a week. Worse than that, I'm very bad at face recognition, worse than the police IA. I often forget the face or name that corresponds to people I have seen before. I remember one time a guy was talking to me. He knew me from school, but I was able to remember his name even though he knew exactly who I was. But sometimes it comes back to me. It's a strange labyrinth with cells I can't open. ``` ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████▀▀▓▓▓▀▀▀▀▀▀█████████████████████████ ███████████████████████████████▀▀▓▓▒▒▓▓▓█▀▄▓▀▓▓░▒█████▓▓▓▓▓█████████████████████ █████████████████████████▓▓▓▓▓▄░▓█▓▀▓▓▓▒▒▓▄▓▓▓▓▄▒▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓██████████████████ ████████████████████▀▌▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▌▓▓▓▓██▓▓▄▀██████▓▓███▓▓▓▓█▓▓▒▀▓▓▌███████████████ ██████████████████▒▄▀▓▓▓▓▓▓███▓▓▓▓▓▓█████▓▓▓█████▓▌▓████▓██████▓▓▓▓█████████████ ████████████████▀▒▄▓▓█▓▓▓██████████▓▓▓▓▓███▓▓▓████▌▒████▓████████▓▓▄▒███████████ ██████████████▓▓▓▓▓▓█▒██████████████▓▓▓█████▌▓████▓░▓▓▓███▓▓██████▓▓▓▓▓█████████ ███████████▓▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓███▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓████▓▓▓█▓██▓▓███▓▓░▓███▓██▓▓██████▓▓▓▓▓▓███████ █████████▀░▄▓▀ ▀▀▓▓▓▓▀▀▓░▀▀▀▀▀▓▓▀▀▓▓▓▓▀▀▀▓▓▓▀▀▀▀▓▓▌ ▀▀▀▀▓▓▀▀▓▓▓▀▀▓█▓▓▓▓▌▒▓██████ ████████▀▄▓▓▀ ▒▓▓░ ▒░ ▄▒▓▓░ ▐▓▓░ ▐▓▀ ▄▒▒▄ ▐▌ ▒▒ ▒▄ ▐▓▀░▄▓▓▓█▓▓█▓▓██████ ███████▒▓▓▓▓▌░ ▐░░▓▀░░ ▐▒ ░░▒▓ ▐ ▀░ ░ ▐▓▓▓▓░ ▐ ▀▀ ░▓▓▌ ▓▓▓▓██▓▓█▓▒██████ ██████░▓▓▓██▌░ ▓▓░ ▐▓▌ ░▌ ░▓▓▓▓ ░░ ░ ░ ▀▀▌ ░▒ ▄ ▀▓▓▓ ░▓▓▌▀▓▓▓▓▀████████ ██████░▓▓███▒▓▄▓▓▄▄▄▓▓▄▄▌▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▒▓▄▄▄▓▓▄▄▓▓▄▄▄▄▄▒▓▒░░▀▄▄▄▓▀▓▌▄▓▓▓▀▓▄▓▓▓█████████ █████▓█▒▓████▓▓███████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▓██▓▓▓▓▓███████████████ █████▓█▌▓██████▓▓▓██████▓▓▓▓███████████████████████▓▓███▓▓▓▓▓▓██████████████████ █████▓▓▓▓▓███▌████▓████████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▀▓▓▓▓▓▀▀▒▓▓▓▓▓▓█▓▓▓▓██████████████████ █████▌▓██▓▓██████████████████████████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▓▓▓████▓██████████████████ ██████▀██▓██▌█████████████████████████████████▓▓▓▓███▓███████▓██████████████████ ██████▓▓▌▓███████▓██▓▓▓▓████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▀▀▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓███▓████▓▓████████████████████ ███████▌▓▓▓██████████████████▓▓▓▓▓███████▓▓▓▓█▓▓█▓▓▓▓███▓▓██████████████████████ ████████▓█▒▓▓▓█████████████▓▓▓▓▓▓██▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓███████████████████████████████████ ███████████▓▓▓▓▓██████████████████▓███▓▓▀▓██████████████████████████████████████ ████████████▓▓█████████████████▓▓██▓▓▓▓▓████████████████████████████████████████ █████████████▓▓███████████████▓▓▌▓██████████████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█▓█▓▓███████████████████████████████████████████████ █████████████████▓▓▓▓███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ``` It's not about my age. I was like that when I was young. Sometimes it was very difficult to learn a poem or a text...and sometimes it was so easy. Like a door blocking something in my brain. I have seen the same thing with other people. My mother-in-law, for example, had some problems with memory, but sometimes she was able to tell us some details from her youth .... that she couldn't have told us 1 hour before. I'm not a computer or a machine that can store a lot of data on the hard disk. I know many things, but I don't know where they are stored at the moment. Am I sick? Am I senile? No...or not at the moment, because everything seems to work. It was OK during my last audit when I had to "save" my colleagues asked by the auditor. I knew everything about my calculations, etc...except for 10 minutes when I was in panic mode on a spreadsheet...Just because I looked the wrong part. Tired ? Perhaps after 5 hours. The auditor was not so good also on certain parts. For someone like me who loves history and old things, it's strange sometimes. I'm not good with years and dates, but I'm better with chronology or geographical data. It's the same with car history or computer history. I could tell you the history of some car brands or computers, but I cannot give you specific dates. If you ask me about the history of this blog, I can't tell you the date of the first post. I remember exactly how I did it, when, where, and roughly the month and year. I also remember discussing it with a fellow blogger. I don't have such problems remembering birthdays and important dates about my wife, my parents, etc. Some people say that's a male problem. I am not sure about that. But my wife is certainly better at that, at history of music, painting... and worse at other subjects. I wanted to write something about my memory, but... I forgot what, why? ... That's why I write it in the draft post, to come back later and forget what I wanted to say. That's the perfect example of the mysteries o f my memory. Is there something about the things we like and don't like? That's certainly a key...and I remember in school I had more trouble learning when I didn't like the teacher. I had a very bad year in college and fell off my pedestal. The more I disliked, the worse I did. Fortunately, I found my way...late. And if I don't like writing code and command lines, maybe that's why it's so hard for me to remember. But I have no problem writing algorithms or quite complex mathematical formulas. The good news is that I remember what I wanted to write about at the beginning of this post. It seems coherent and logical for something written in a few minutes, just a few days before posting it to the blog. And if you ask me, I can tell you everything about where I wrote it, when, in what state of mind... or not, because it's too personal. 2Dɛ => mailto:icemanfr@sdf.org Comments by mail or by a reply on your blog