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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> Jesus, what a head full of old useless things I have.
>
> " Nam memini etiam quae nolo, oblivisci non possum quae volo "
>        Cicero in De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum
>       "Teach me not the art of remembering,but the art of forgetting;For, I
> remember things that I do not wish to remember but, I cannot forget things 
> I would wish to forget".

Remember how it was held that we only use a tiny percentage of our brain? 
That our brain was capable of a hundred miles an hour while we moved at 
pedestrian speed? Observing my parents and other senior geezers, reading 
about Alzheimer's and having swam in the Anthony Robbins' neuro-linguistic 
programming waters a bit--yeah, I took the stroll over the hot coals--it 
seems to me that maybe, just maybe, we do have limited space upstairs. The 
comparison to computer memory is inescapable. But I am optimistic about my 
pessimism. I think that strengthening useful neural pathways is the 
antidote to diminished short-term memory and dementia. So I try to focus on 
the now and repeating the message until it sticks. Does that weaken old 
pathways or kill them? Dunno. Being unable to remember what happened 
yesterday elicits smiles, or worse. But who will fault us for not 
remembering what happened forty or sixty years ago?