Keeping Track

On occasion, my mother, who is 'getting up there', will mutter distractedly that she has 'so many things to keep track of'. This is usually uttered when she is trying to remember something that she wanted to tell me. I have to hide a smile, because I think that she doesn't actually have all that many things to remember. I tend to forget that things which I might remember easily, she might not, leading to the feeling that she can't just 'recall' it from long-term storage; instead, if she wants to tell me about it, she has to keep it in active memory.

I thought about that phrase while reading the Post today. One of the articles was about something that I found intriguing, and something that I don't often think about. It occurred to me that while I doubted I'd want to routinely think about this topic, I didn't want it to slide completely off the table, down onto the floor, and off behind the refrigerator, either. I wanted to be aware of the topic, but not easily conversant with it. So many things to remember, you understand. Some time ago, I bought a piece of software called Personal Knowbase, a kind of database, to help me keep track of pieces of info that don't remain in active memory but are recalled often enough that I didn't want to have to hunt for them. For a while, I tried writing down a synopsis of interesting articles, so that later I'd remember having seen them (so that I didn't have the Alzheimers effect of looking at an article as if I'd never seen the topic before, when in fact I'd seen one on it two months before). That didn't work (I got lazy), but the desire is still there. What I need is an auxiliary memory.

I think they call that a 'secretary'.

Oh, in case you're curious: the intriguing article was about the Quadrennial Defense Review. And its already rolling toward the edge of the table: I thought the Q stood for Quarterly. And I just read the article !