Bamboo

We were talking about bamboo in the warehouse today.

I recently mistook sugarcane for bamboo. My neural connections are being pruned at a rapid rate--to use a metaphor sometimes applied to the developing mind of an infant--and the sugarcane mistake was yet another example of this "pruning" and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to share the bamboo mistake with the others participating in the bamboo discussion. But I kept silent. Just sniffled, felt my nose itch and rubbed at it as I considered again whether I was experiencing a cold or allergies. It mattered for several reasons, but the symptoms were confounding the damn diagnosis. Rule out Common Cold. Rule out Allergies.

We ruled out bamboo as a material that could improve the warehouse in both function and design. Unfunc means unfunctional, in made-up design idiom. What means ugly and unfunctional again? Ugunfunc? unfuncug?

The reasons why bamboo wouldn't work out in the warehouse were elusive to me, yet obvious. But unexplainable. I doubted myself as my fingers ached. I am frequently confused, forgetful. The obvious isn't as reliable as I used to believe it to be. I was flailing a bit. I occasionally or often flail a bit, as I have developed no system for remembering things beyond relying on the now elusive yet once-perceived-as-highly-functional neural connections.

Writing things down seemed like the only way, in the limited universe of my limited brain. Put a system in place now, I told myself, before it gets worse. And stick to it. I know you don't believe it on some level, I said to myself, because the ability to remember correctly has been a part of your experience of the world for so long. Now you have to doubt yourself. Get used to it. It may be your salvation.

I thought of some benefits to the loss of cognitive reliability, and the recognition and acceptance of it:

1. Self-doubt can lead to considering more possibilities--and considering other possiblities can create new cognitive connections; although, it seems, those connections are often not as strong as one expects them to be, based on past experiences of the strength of connections. By "one" I mean "me" and by "me" I mean the King of Balls.

2. For individuals lucky enough to have their self-concept not inextricably wrapped up with their perceived memory and "sharpness," it can lead to asking other people or the internet for information and occasionally widening one's scope of knowledge by acquiring information--again, probably with a weaker ability to remember the connection than once was readily available to the now inadequate mind. Or not inadequate, but better at different things? Who knows? Let's come up with some possibilities to make ourselves feel better, shall we?

Other people know things I don't. But the bamboo--what of it? Who thought it would work in the warehouse and is it there yet? Why is it a topic, and where did it come from?


I am the King of Balls.