In recent days I have had a couple of discussions about “getting old” – and more specifically about a slight feeling of disbelief about how old we actually are. Is “oldness” a state of mind – quite separate from “age” which is clearly a measure of time?
Cognition
What Is Not Real?
Has there ever been a work of fiction that didn’t – in some way – draw on reality? This is, of course, sort of the reverse of my previous thoughts on whether our memory of reality is accurate or intermingled with its own fictions. In some cases the “fictional” world is created within a reasonably accurate representation of a specific environment. In others a “new world” is imagined in which the characters interact – often in a very similar way to what we are used to.
Why A Madeleine!
Having written A Different Sort Of Madeleine I realised that my readers (always assuming I have any….) will have been completely thrown by the fact that it was written on the assumption that I had earlier posted a piece about madeleines. It turns out that I must have dreamt it!!
A Different Sort Of Madeleine
This is not the first attempt to put this into words. Usually, my blog posts are triggered by a thought that develops easily into a stream of ideas that are (hopefully) connected and lucid and coherent. Most times the writing is easy – perhaps too easy – as that doesn’t always lend itself to reviewing to ensure that it is expressed in the correct way. This one is a bit different….
Time To Talk
Today is “Time to Talk” Day (as well as World Cancer Day) and I think that writing something on the topic is near to essential for me. It is shocking to think that the figures show that 1 in 4 people will be afflicted with Mental Health issues in their lifetime. Once upon a time that sort of thing was taboo to talk about – not now, when it seems to affect everyone – one way or another.
Remembrance of Things Past Volume One: Swann’s Way
I started to read this book several years ago – and ever since Monty Python’s “Summarising Proust” sketch I guess the novels have been on my “ought to read” list.
Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty
I hadn’t come across this phrase until today, however it was coined (as I understand it) late last year when Facebook chose to ‘push’ their “Year in Review” feature to users by choosing a picture to illustrate the year and surrounding it with (generally) happy and joyous borders and the words “its been a great year”. Now – it doesn’t take much intelligence to realise that while – yes – most years are great in some respect – for some people the year will only hold bad memories whilst, for most, there will have been some low spots in an otherwise good year.
The Art of Communication
The more ‘knowledgeable’ I get the more I seemingly abandon the idea of certainty. Is there anything that is 100% certain? It would be possible to ask the opposite question (0% certain) but that gets into a different rabbit hole about how we can ‘identify’ what we don’t know. My early blogging, before I started this site, was focussed mainly on systems thinking as applied to my area of work – this is a bit of a return to that type of topic.
A New Music Memory
I have written before (in Music Memories) about the different ways in which various pieces of music trigger very specific recall about some past event. Just the other day I had an experience which both reinforced my previous ideas and caused me to think about a new aspect of this.
The Reality Of The Past
There are a number of “recurring themes” within my writing in this blog – no surprise there as my thoughts on particular topics are developed – and one of them is the subject of memories – an interesting topic in and of itself, but my particular area of thought is with regard to how real our memories are – both in terms of what (we think) we remember and also what we have banished or simply forgotten.