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Tuesday, June 08, 2004 · posted at 7:57 AM

Swiss cheesed. I feel myself getting dumber. Eloquent huh? My inability to make that sentence... sound pretty... is only further evidence of my declining intelligence.

I've found myself giving the wrong change to the cashier, mispronouncing words, spacing on words, and memory loss in the areas of key terms, important vocabulary, old Tinseltown actors, and historical events (the Magna Carta!).

I've increasingly found it difficult to express myself - both verbally and in the written form. I search my brain for the right words, hell I search thesaurus.com for the right word and it still doesn't come to me. Once feared for my quick wit (if only by one person), I now push the time limit of the 5-second comeback rule (with my comebacks faltering to the "I'm rubber, you're glue!" variety).

Sometimes I don’t even make sense with my words. For now, I can blame this on the 6 o'clock hour, but what of tomorrow, and every day beyond that?

What the hell happened?

In looking for possible causations, I have come across two correlations, and in accordance with Grand Answer #2 (or is it #1... there's that impeccable memory again), it's most likely a combination of both.

Discontinued education.
Who would have thought - school helps you learn. Since graduating from college, the inundation of knowledge has slowed to a trickle and only in the areas of parenting, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (which from my personal anecdotal experience very well may be contagious), and leadership/personality styles. Suppose diffusion or suppose we only learn a small percentage of the material we are exposed to. My knowledge intake is now just a miniscule fraction of what it was during college. Sure I may have read, memorized and regurgitated (short term memory at its finest), but some of it actually stuck! And college actually allowed you to pick courses/topics you were interested in, thus increasing the motivation to learn. I’ve wavered on my opinion of school – I love school, I hate school, why did I leave school, I’m never going back to school... But really, when you’re stuck in the cul-de-sac of jobs, writing papers and cramming for midterms looks more and more like a welcome substitution.

The dreaded nine to five. A multi-faceted problem due to the following factors:

Repetitious work with no room to grow or expand in fields other than the one directly related to the project at hand.

The conventional schedule killing any iota of creativity left. Chained to a desk, all potentially profound thoughts are inhibited. And apparently if you do have some great idea at work, it’s company property. Way to encourage thinking!

Self-inflicted solitude. Conversations with co-workers are on an as-needed basis and as succinct as possible. There will be no cooing over baby pictures, no in-depth discussion of any kind of surgery with the word “removal” in it, no talk about grooming practices. “Sit down, shut up and get out” is the pervasive motto of each day.

Lack of outside stimulus. My insta-reply email buddy is no longer available at whim to discuss Hegel’s dialectics, poverty as the driving force for all societal injustices, or more importantly, snap judgments on Nick Cage’s 19-year old fiancé. A crackdown on poor work ethics and fear of an e-mail/internet cop has hindered recent efforts to communicate.

Is stupidity a chronic problem? Reversible? Is reading every tome written by Fyodor Dostoevsky the answer? Or is this merely the inevitable - that one’s intellectual zenith is achieved in college and it’s all moronic from here on out? Is IQ destined to keep slip-sliding away? Or is this just the revealing of my own true level of intelligence, or lack there of. Help.

Me lose brain? Uh-oh. Hahaha. Why I laugh?



	Tuesday, June 08, 2004 · posted at 7:57 AM Swiss cheesed. I feel myself getting dumber. Eloquent huh? My inability to make that sentence... sound pretty... is only further evidence of my declining intelligence. I've found myself giving the wrong change to the cashier, mispronouncing words, spacing on words, and memory loss in the areas of key terms, important vocabulary, old Tinseltown actors, and historical events (the Magna Carta!). I've increasingly found it difficult to express myself - both verbally and in the written form. I search my brain for the right words, hell I search thesaurus.com for the right word and it still doesn't come to me. Once feared for my quick wit (if only by one person), I now push the time limit of the 5-second comeback rule (with my comebacks faltering to the "I'm rubber, you're glue!" variety). Sometimes I don’t even make sense with my words. For now, I can blame this on the 6 o'clock hour, but what of tomorrow, and every day beyond that? What the hell happened? In looking for possible causations, I have come across two correlations, and in accordance with Grand Answer #2 (or is it #1... there's that impeccable memory again), it's most likely a combination of both. Discontinued education. Who would have thought - school helps you learn. Since graduating from college, the inundation of knowledge has slowed to a trickle and only in the areas of parenting, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (which from my personal anecdotal experience very well may be contagious), and leadership/personality styles. Suppose diffusion or suppose we only learn a small percentage of the material we are exposed to. My knowledge intake is now just a miniscule fraction of what it was during college. Sure I may have read, memorized and regurgitated (short term memory at its finest), but some of it actually stuck! And college actually allowed you to pick courses/topics you were interested in, thus increasing the motivation to learn. I’ve wavered on my opinion of school – I love school, I hate school, why did I leave school, I’m never going back to school... But really, when you’re stuck in the cul-de-sac of jobs, writing papers and cramming for midterms looks more and more like a welcome substitution. The dreaded nine to five. A multi-faceted problem due to the following factors: Repetitious work with no room to grow or expand in fields other than the one directly related to the project at hand. The conventional schedule killing any iota of creativity left. Chained to a desk, all potentially profound thoughts are inhibited. And apparently if you do have some great idea at work, it’s company property. Way to encourage thinking! Self-inflicted solitude. Conversations with co-workers are on an as-needed basis and as succinct as possible. There will be no cooing over baby pictures, no in-depth discussion of any kind of surgery with the word “removal” in it, no talk about grooming practices. “Sit down, shut up and get out” is the pervasive motto of each day. Lack of outside stimulus. My insta-reply email buddy is no longer available at whim to discuss Hegel’s dialectics, poverty as the driving force for all societal injustices, or more importantly, snap judgments on Nick Cage’s 19-year old fiancé. A crackdown on poor work ethics and fear of an e-mail/internet cop has hindered recent efforts to communicate. Is stupidity a chronic problem? Reversible? Is reading every tome written by Fyodor Dostoevsky the answer? Or is this merely the inevitable - that one’s intellectual zenith is achieved in college and it’s all moronic from here on out? Is IQ destined to keep slip-sliding away? Or is this just the revealing of my own true level of intelligence, or lack there of. Help. Me lose brain? Uh-oh. Hahaha. Why I laugh?	Recent Posts Ears closed shut. I found the most heinous misspe... Prozac nation. Garden State, Zach Braff's Reality ... Clairvoyant. There is this woman at my work... She... Kudos, it’s not just a snack food. The word kudos... Dialogue from the game Catch Phrase: Karen: Item ... Periodic Table of Sloth. I don't understand how t... Len: I have this theory, all right. Everybody does... ...she's one of these really great-looking people ... Laundry quarters. Change is usually something so g... Evolution of the lazy writer.When I was younger, i... Morning news babie goose ryan bluemouse daves son dawntaught desiree diorama emily escadawg galveric high entropy invisible cube jepgato kyellow lilly mhuang mogbert nudream starfish + coffee verbivore Archives March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 January 2007 March 2007 April 2007 November 2008

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