Lost remote controls, forgotten PIN codes – a cause for concern? Not for Miriam Collée. She knows what it's good for.
On the way to work I remembered: the lawn sprinkler! I hadn't turned it off. If it would continue until this evening, we could create a mud bath in the garden. What to do? Call a neighbor. Can you ask a 71-year-old to climb over a 1.20 meter high garden gate and turn off a tap? No matter, emergency. I frantically rummaged in my pocket for my cell phone – and found: the remote control for the electric shutters. We had been looking for them all weekend, our bedroom had been pitch dark for three days.
My brain has turned into a coarse mesh
I had vehemently denied being involved in her disappearance – here she was. Before I found out whether I should be happy about it or should be annoyed by the missing cell phone instead, I heard: "Next stop: Rödingsmarkt". I had missed my stop.
I am a bowl. My brain has turned into a coarse-meshed network in which only pike or catfish-sized information remains. Small fish such as burglar-proof hiding of safe keys or PIN codes, which I have noted as a bouncing pattern on the keyboard, slip through there.
So far I had accepted my flakiness as a charming ailment that made my fellow men and me laugh. For example if I put the garbage bag in my daughter's satchel while her gym bag is already in the bin. When I throw a leg with a swing over the bicycle bar to impress the young, good-looking fundraiser in front of the supermarket, but stupidly forgot to unlock the bicycle lock. When I come back from the toilet to the table with the toilet paper in my restaurant ("What on earth do you want with it?").
The fuller the hard drive, the slower the computer
But when it jeopardizes the peace of all family life, things get critical. We missed flights because I packed expired Chinese work visas (same format, same color) instead of passports. And in Costa Rica we had to cancel a booked rental car tour and switch to public buses because I had forgotten my driver's license at home.
Well, Costa Rican bus rides aren't really smooth. My husband contracted a herniated disc on the unsprung rear axle between San José and Tortuguero, our daughters spat in time with the potholes. My conscience probably hurt similarly to his back, and then there was the question: where does it all go? If I stand in the basement at 44 and wonder what I actually wanted there, where do I stand at 60? At crossroads? Looking for the note on which I wrote down where I live?
Scientifically speaking, my brain has passed its zenith at 30, from there it goes downhill continuously. That sounds worse than it is. Researchers at the University of Tübingen have found that contrary to popular belief, the performance of the brain in no way deteriorates in old age. It works slower, but only because we store more knowledge over the years. The fuller the hard drive, the slower the computer. Strictly speaking, flakiness is not a failure at all, but a blessing. Because for the brain it is vital to forget things. It sorts information according to its importance and throws out expendable items from the system in order to keep the storage capacity constant.
This thought calms me down a lot. I would just like to talk to my brain about setting priorities.
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