Saturday, Dec. 09, 2006

The Road Map of my Brain is all U-Turns


When I was in middle and high school, I found the Dune series, by Frank Herbert. The movie, with Kyle McLachlan and Patrick Stewart and Sting (?!), came out in 1984, which was right around the time period I referenced above. And, as bad as the movie was -- I knew even then that it sucked rocks -- I adored it. I've seen it probably a hundred times. I've read the books at least twenty times a piece (the first 5, anyway), and even went so far as to memorize parts of the books. For example:

"It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion."

From memory, y'all. Twenty years, that's been in my head. Along with this one:

"I must not fear, fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I must face my fear, I must permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

That second one is the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear. And, call me a geek if you like, but I've used that Litany for myself many, many times over the years, since I've had it stuck in my brain. That's probably why I still know it -- something about it resonates with me. Whenever I think it to myself, I have this incredibly intense mental image of me standing in the middle of a plain, naked, unrelieved gray plane. Nothing around me, as far as the eye can see... except this giant flaming black wall of fear that advances towards me. And I stand there, facing it, holding my ground as it advances towards me. My image's lips move along as I recite the Litany in my mind, and when it gets to the line "I must permit it to pass over me and through me...", the wall reaches me and flows past, and while it hurts like a sumbitch, I'm still standing. And then, as the Litany goes, I turn to watch the fear leave me, receding, going away. And all that's left is me. I'm still there, the fear is gone, and everything else has burned away. I like that image, that concept, even if I can't always make it work.

And, surfing around to verify my memory of the Litany, I found this. How cool is that?

It's amazing to me, how the brain works. What we remember, what we forget, what stays with us. I have this really weird memory for numbers and letters -- spelling, grammar, birthdays and, like, library call numbers and stuff. I don't know, where it comes from or why. It just is.

At work, we have several "recipes" for various reagents we make up on a daily or weekly basis. Once I learn the amounts, 20 milliliters of this, 36 milligrams of that, I don't have to look at the recipe anymore. I memorized, like, 15 of them in a week when I started, and I will keep the recipe book out, just in case, but it's to the point where my coworkers will quiz me just to see if they can stump me. They'll pull out some arcane, little-used reagent page and start asking me, "So, if I were to make a half batch of QRS reagent, how much buffer would I need?"

"14.25 milliliters."

"Damn it! How do you DO that?!"

"I don't know. I just do."

It's fun with sports, too. When I was a kid and actively collected football cards, I'd memorize everyone's birthdates, focusing on my favorites, of course. Dan Marino was born on September 15, 1961, in case you were curious. Joe Montana's birthday is June 11, 1956. And, for someone a little more contemporary, "Big" Ben Roethlisberger was born March 2, 1982. He's also 6'5" tall and 241 lbs, to support that whole "Big" part of his name. He's pretty hulking for a quarterback. Though, the fact that he's only 24, and that I have an odd, protective instinct towards my boys, makes me want to call him Little Ben, wrap him up in a blanket and put him in my pocket.

So, not only is my brain quirky, but I'm just a bonafide weirdo. Which, if you've been reading this journal for, oh, more than 10 seconds, you'd done figured out already.

And, with a lack of a clean, witty conclusion, I'll just end the entry here before I embarrass myself more than I just did. Hopefully, Big Ben isn't a blog reader, or I might have to crawl under a rock...

saturncat at 10:25 p.m.

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