In a recent post, I mentioned my Brain Filter. And I feel this needs clarification, and if anyone wants to chime in, well, that's what The Corner is all about, so hop on!
See, I believe that everyone has what I refer to as a Brain Filter. It's different for everyone, although people can have similar or even identical Filters. Here's how it works:
We're bombarded with information constantly. And some of it is information we know we want to retain, so we make the conscious effort to remember it. And some of it goes in one ear and out the other, despite our efforts. With me, it's names. If I'm introduced to someone, I will immediately forget their name. Immediately. It's like I was never told their name. It's a real flaw in my brain.
But then there's the Brain Filter. And this is unconscious, unbidden, and uncontrollable. It holds onto information for no real reason. It may be names, it may be equations, it may be dates, it may be restaurants we ate at once, when we were eight and on vacation in South Carolina. But it gets stuck in the Brain Filter and stays there.
For me, as I mentioned, it's stories and story elements, but it's also trivial information that I happen to have come across once, in passing, years ago. For real, when I did pest control, I always had the radio on, and sometimes you'd get a newscaster who filled up some time with one of those trivial "Betcha Didn't Know" little facts that make you go "huh, didn't know that." Well, that kind of thing sticks with me forever.
Fortunately for me, Mrs. Hat often wonders about things out loud, and they happen to be things that stuck in my Brain Filter, and I will blurt out the answer. She used to say, "How do you know that?!" and I would just say, "I heard it somewhere." It's happened so often, she doesn't even ask anymore. She just knows that I Know Stuff.
Because of my Brain Filter.
