On Thought Contiguity

"Contiguity of thought" is a process by which we remember certain things, one of several processes, actually, but the one I'd like to focus on for a moment.

Most people are familiar with "continuity." It's continuous. One after the other. 17 follows 16. A, then B, then C perhaps.

Contiguity isn't so much linear as next to. Apartment 17 is next to apartment 19. And you remember it because it has that green door jam that looks Christmas-y next to apartment 21's red welcome mat.

"Because it's next to that other thing" is rather sadly how I remember a lot of details, actually.

For example, today at work I heard "Groove Thing" on the radio, so I thought of where I typically here "Groove Thing," which would be one particular dance number in An Extremely Goofy Movie.

Suddenly I'm thinking about A Goofy Movie, disco, Goofy's second wife the librarian, P.J. becoming a beatnik, "Whatever happened to Roxanne?" and marveling that Goofy had the life experience to know to bribe the bouncer and DJ to get his request played in a club immediately. Suddenly I'm thinking of how to better my life through experience and confidence.

And I'm also humming a Powerline song, but that's beside the point, almost.

On External Memory

I promise if you understood this show's premise, this image
wouldn't seem incredibly out of context.
(Still totally sexist, though.)

I used to just think I had a shitty memory and was really inconsiderate of other people. I'd forget names, faces, places, events, ideas … really it was the last one that bothered me the most because somehow I'd remember that there was some thought missing, but not the knowledge of what that thought's nature was.

For days I'd be saddled with that disquieting feeling, knowing that something was missing but no idea as to what, until finally I'd remember the original thought but continue to sense as though I hadn't. It was awful.

Then I got an iPhone and realized I could record and send any idea I needed to a any given moment and forward it to myself in eight different ways. Oh, and phone numbers? Birthdays? Addresses, cardinal directions, freaking maps, suddenly my brain made sense.

I was remembering thought directories.

All my brain processes were tied up in where it was storing information for quick-recall, I just didn't devote enough hard drive space to storing those tidbits. With an external device to store those things for me whenever I need them, I learned I was actually a caring and considerate human being. Go figure.

Of course I can't carry my phone with me on the floor at work anymore, so I'm back to losing about three different blog ideas each day, but today I managed to make it to a Post-It note before I forgot a possibly revolutionary way of thinking about sociological behavior by expanding the autism spectrum to include normative, hyper-emotional and sociopathic behavior matched to the colors of the rainbow.

Oh, and I think I met the woman on whom Adam Sandler based his "Eleanor" voice in Eight Crazy Nights.