where is my mind?

[darren_stranger]

i'm forever looking up words in the dictionary - new words i've come across, old ones that i suspect might not mean quite what i thought, or words i've used for ages without ever really knowing their exact meaning.

Lately, i've been noticing that i'm looking up the same words over and over, which worries me. It's one thing to look up words like "puissance", which i've never seen before, but when i find myself looking up "onanism" for maybe the third time this year or, this morning, realising i don't remember what "cusp" means, the more sieve-like my memory seems to be.

It's a worry. Seriously, while i've never subscribed to that elitist wankery that equates intelligence with having an extensive vocabulary of obscure words to flash in people's faces, i'm sure i used to have a much better ability to grasp and remember what things mean for my own understanding. More to the point, perhaps, i'm sure i also used to be able to follow complicated or philosophical discussions more easily too, and i'm starting to think that i have a serious IQ leakage going on somewhere.

Not that i'm imagining premature dementia or other degenerative conditions, but i often find myself wondering if i've killed off a lot of my brain matter through too many years of alcohol, television and pop music, or just let it atrophy through chronic underuse.

(and yes, i did have to stop myself looking up 'atrophy' to check that it was a verb, though that's just because i'm thinking about words and being paranoid).

Or maybe i'm just getting old and can't get by on six hours' sleep a night any more.

Comments

[gothsuck.livejournal.com]

Mate - I am the same. Sometimes the words can just flow out like a steady stream of alcohol infused shit. BUT sometimes I am doubting, losing the track & losing the meaning of things.
Ashamedly I think it is from underuse, too many years of abuse & age.
Bugger it! But hey we wouldnt be who we are if we didnt have our little quirks now - would we.
:) Take care.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

How to keep our quirks, vices *and* our brains - maybe that's the question. Don't know if i'm really becoming more vague or if it just seems that way ("the older i get, the better i was").

Either way, it might be a good time to start trying to use my brain a bit more, get my head out of the tv set/stereo, and (gasp, horror) see if can't develop some social skills that don't come out of a bottle.

Can't hurt, can it?

[gothsuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah I have tried to start exercising more as my mind is more alert then. Also I have stopped reading novels. I just couldnt concentrate & they just started to bore me. There are only so many vampire & horror stories you can take. I am know starting to read philosophy & Have bought some Crowley. This has MADE me more interested & thinking in a different way - esp when it comes to my emotions.

I have a feeling when you get to your 30's things arent as NEW & EXCITING as they used to be - so I think we get bored & lazy (no offence but this is in relation to how I think) - so I have started trying new things to spark my interest again.
Also Yoga. I am not that good at it yet - as my mind just WONT stop or shut up - but it helps.

Nothing can hurt when you are trying your best.

[trayce.livejournal.com]

I'm getting things like that - for me its my concentration levels that have withered away. I am finding it very difficult to read anymore. I'm trying to read "Death Sentence" by Don Watson at present which is a great book, but I find myself reading the same page/paragraph over and over and it just doesn't sink in. Its as if my minds too vague or full of noise to absorb what I'm reading.

It is so annoying!

So I've started to buy and play mind/board games (Go, crosswords, even pictionary etc) and I'm going to force myself to read more in the hope I'll sharpen back up.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Mmmm.. i'm thinking i need to find some brain-teasing activities just to get my grey matter working again and flush out some of the cobwebs.

i'm also seriously questioning whether constantly walking around with a head full of pop music is really a good thing too.

[hbdeath.livejournal.com]

Depends on how good or bad the pop music is, surely?

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

*cough*

Perhaps i am in a paranoid mood today, but while reading my Friends List after writing that, it occurred to me that i should point out that, umm, i wrote that before reading my Friends List.

*cough*

[baralier.livejournal.com]

Subscribe to dictionary_wotd.

Funny: "puissance" I know but I couldn't tell you what "onanism" means.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Will investigate, thanks.

i'd never heard 'puissance' before, until i read a China Mieville book recently which seemed to use it every other page. 'Onanism' is a word that just seems to have come up (so to speak) quite often lately, yet i'd always have forgotten what it meant by the next time.

[dukeofmelbourne.livejournal.com]

The Appalling Vagueness Horror. Yes.

I recommend 800mg Piracetam and 2.25mg Hydergine (that's half-a-pill) daily.
Which should cost you between A$1 and A$2 a day.

But the symptoms you describe are more likely to be situational that pharmacological in origin . . . the "society" we live under gives us less and less time to think about anything. In the same way that, when you're paying at the supermarket, they will inevitably force the (useless, annoying) receipt into your hand mixed up with your actual change . . . Similarly, filling your brain with trivia (stuff that seems important but isn't) overloads your capacity to think for yourself . . . and, dare I say it, to contemplate {self-actualization/resistance/dissent} . . .

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Yeah, maybe it's less to do with IQ leakage than lack of time to stop and think, plus trivia overfill (largely self-inflicted with pop culture and music).

Lack of conversation following ability (beyond shallow alcohol and caffeine fuelled social chitchat) could be more lack of practice than anything.

Either way, it still can't hurt to aim for a bit more thinking and less drinking (and maybe a good night's sleep wouldn't go astray).