I’m an Idiot Who ALWAYS Loses My Keys: Here’s Why According To Neuroscience
(and what I’m trying to avoid future key cutter visits)
I hate hearing “have you tried the last place you remember?” If I remembered the last place, then I wouldn’t be in this conundrum.
It’s because I have the worst memory on this damn planet. I lose keys like golden retrievers shed hair. Feels like I’ve replaced more wallets than skin cells. I’m a walking disaster waiting to lose another life-essential item.
(recently lost my car key 4 days before moving interstate. Shoutout to Ben the Property Manager for letting me leave my keyless car in his visitor parking)
But I’ll remember an obscure fact, stat or concept from childhood. Or rattle off the mechanics of cortical remapping from a thesis wrote 10+ years ago. I don’t get it.
Or at least, I didn’t. Until I better-understood memory. How it works. Where memories live in the brain. (Not only the hippocampus ya dingus. I get it you watched one episode of The Mind, Explained on Netflix and now you’re a Neuroscientist).
I’ll save you the read now; it’s all because of attention and evolution. That’s it. If you want to get off this train do so. Otherwise, buckle up, you’re about to get learned.
