When you\u2019re a kid you want to know everything. \u201cWhy is the sky blue? How do airplanes fly? Why? Why? Why?\u201d Not true when you are an old coot. You don\u2019t want to know anything. Anything new that is. \u201cWhat kind of gas mileage do you get on that?\u201d someone will ask me, pointing to my two-seater at the gas pump. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I reply; (\u201cI don\u2019t want to know!\u201d I say to myself. I\u2019m sure it would be disappointing). When I was young and wanted to know everything I checked the mileage every time I filled-up. It was always less than I hoped for. It was a downer. I finally gave it up. If someone persists in asking, I tell them\u2019 \u201cIt gets forty miles to the gallon, but I haven\u2019t checked it lately,\u201d They don\u2019t hear me say under my breath, \u201cI never check it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I live in a \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d world. It\u2019s nice here. You should try it. What\u2019s the weather supposed to be this weekend? I don\u2019t\u2019 know. I don\u2019t want to know. I\u2019ll be able to adapt to it; I\u2019ve done it for more than 70 years; our species has done it for hundreds of thousands of years. I avoid weather forecasts. They\u2019re wrong a lot of the time, at least the ones five days in advance. People cancel events on a bad forecast – a snowstorm that misses us – a thunderstorm that mysteriously never materializes. Why dread things in advance? Especially if there is a good chance the prediction will never come true.<\/p>\n
Now, there is a new forecast mechanism under development. It won\u2019t predict the weather; it is supposed to measure how well the hippocampus (hippocampi, to be accurate, since there are two) sections in our brain are functioning. It\u2019s an important mechanism, dealing with short-term memory, among other things. If it gets messed up, we start forgetting what we are doing, or are about to do. That, \u201cWhat did I come into the kitchen to get,\u201d sort of thing. Of course our hippocampi get messed up all through our lives. We overload those portions of our brains when we try to do, or think about, too many things at one time. The portals are narrow, and just like traffic that backs up on the highway when three lanes get compressed into two, so do the short term memory lanes in our brain.<\/p>\n
This new forecasting mechanism will continuously monitor our hippocampi functionality using an App on a smart phone or a wristband device. It will predict that we are headed for Alzheimer\u2019s or some other senility affliction. We\u2019ll know, but since there is no cure, why go to all the trouble to measure it and give ourselves a bleak view of the future, ruining our present.<\/p>\n
Us old coots don\u2019t need a device to measure this; we do it all the time, have been at it since we first noticed memory lapses in our early 50\u2019s. Every occurrence sent us into a panic. \u201cAm I losing it?\u201d We\u2019d ask ourselves. Finally, we settled in and accepted the truth; we are deteriorating, physically and mentally. In addition, we have a legion of people that monitor our failing memories: spouses, children, grandchildren, neighbors, strangers and the severest and most brutal of all, our friends. Who, love nothing better than to witness a fellow old coot make a mental misstep and pounce on it. It\u2019s a, \u201cBetter him than me,\u201d kind of thing, until it\u2019s our turn in the barrel.<\/p>\n
We know we\u2019re headed deeper into the murk. The science guys can keep their monitoring apps and wristband devices. When they find a cure for the defect they are monitoring they can come around and try to sell us the mechanisms. We won\u2019t buy them, but they can try. We\u2019ll respond with our 3rd most favorite \u201cold coot\u201d reply, \u201cLeave me alone!\u201d <\/p>\n