Paul McGowan writes:
I hate it. As I age my memory gets worse and it was never great in the first place. At least I don’t remember it being great.
Some things, like circuits and emotional responses, are permanently etched. Others, like day-to-day tasks, people’s names, numbers, are lost before lunch.
I am certain we’re all different, yet all the same. And I don’t mean to be confusing. I have observed that while each of us is unique, we share many similar traits, like emotional memory. I can’t remember the substance of a particular disagreement but I can remember the emotional response to it.
The same seems true for me with the stereo system. I had reason to go into Music Room One and audition a new BHK preamp, one on its way to a reviewer. There was something wrong and I knew it immediately—yet I hadn’t placed the new preamp in the system yet!
Damn! Someone had horked the LANRover prototype and reconnected the system without it. I knew instantly.
Here’s the thing. My memory’s not good enough to have suggested the sound was missing this or that specific thing. What I missed was the emotional response I had expected. With the LANRover in the system there’s a magic to the sound and it makes me smile. Without it, I do not get the same emotional charge.
I think most of us are quite like this. We more easily remember an emotional response to something than we do the specifics of what triggered the emotion.
Now, on to tracking down the criminal that made off with the LANRover.
