John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Mental Molding

Mental Molting or Convergence?

Once upon a time I had a well trained mind. Disciplined; respectful; dutiful; useful and predictable.

It used to be when I was given a new topic for consideration my mind would race breathlessly to pull up as much relevant information as possible and have it ready to stand at attention and be manipulated or marshaled as needed to impress or persuade.

Not so much anymore.

I don’t know if it is some glorious harmonizing of the totality of our mental capacities that now–as my mind ripens with age– allows me to hear a new topic for consideration and, for several minutes immediately following, hear the stark sound of crickets. And then follow up with the expressionless expression exuded by Jack Nicholson’s character in the final scene of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as we realize he’s been lobotomized. Maybe it is some form of intellectual convergence at work. But I suspect it’s something different and inglorious.

Like pruning or mental molting. New topics I hear these days stimulate either nothing or something random I later try to make a logical excuse for popping into my mind.

For example, I was discussing the news website Digg.com. After listening for several minutes about it all I could think of was the lyric “Dig this!” from The Main Ingredient singing “Everybody Plays the Fool.”

And now I’m trying to introduce the song as a logical and relevant part of our discussion about Digg.com.

So, if you can relate, Dig this!

And let’s hope others only think we’re “playing the fool.”

Yeah. It’s just an act. Funny, huh?