The Amazing Brain

I have a friend at work named Kenny. I like him very much and always look so forward to the days he helps in our math lab. He's charming, funny, cute, and smart. But I'm not so sure Kenny remembers who I am from day to day. He had a traumatic brain injury 20 years ago that resulted in severe short-term memory loss. When he woke up from his coma, he only spoke Spanish, the language he learned as a missionary. His parents needed an interpreter to speak to their own son. And he completely lost his sense of taste.

Apart from the, "Wow, that's so sad!" factor, I find this endlessly fascinating. Your brain and your memories are who you are. If you suffer brain trauma, it can change the way you perceive each of your senses, your pain tolerance, anger threshold, personality. Everything that makes you you. I'm sure that your actual soul is still intact somewhere, but your earthly body is your brain, really.

I was always a strong-willed child, and that has never changed. Even after having four children, I have never experienced a single labor pain. For some reason, I never went into labor and had them all by C-section. I was even on pitocin for a day and a half with Elvira with nary a measurable contraction. A midwife told me I was so stubborn I was willing my body not to experience the joys of labor. I was just listening to the woman delivering down the hall and hearing her scream her lungs out. That was a pretty powerful incentive, I guess. Didn't sound all that fulfilling, when you came right down to it!

I have also discovered that if I really don't want to remember something, I can will myself to forget it. Not completely, because there are little flashes that come through. It's as if I had a dream I can't completely forget, but can't remember any details of. I've only done that once that I am aware of, but maybe there were other times where I was much more successful. I forget.

I don't recommend this approach, unless absolutely necessary. Sooner or later, unless you can completely erase it from your long-term memory (which would be pretty difficult, I would think), it will come back to you. Then you will remember with great clarity why you wanted to forget it in the first place, and it will be as fresh as if you were just experiencing it. It's better to deal with things as they happen. It's rarely as bad as you anticipate it will be. And if it's worse, this too shall pass.

When I worked in advertising, I was a media planner/buyer. That means that I figured out how much our client needed to spend to get his message out and then got to spend the millions of dollars we decided. It was like playing Monopoly with someone else's money. But in order to work up a media plan, I first had to do a lot of research. Did you know that there are huge volumes of data that track which lawn mowers men aged 35-49 with a college degree are most likely to buy? Well, there are, and from that information you can predict which power tools they are more likely to buy. Which television shows do they watch? I can find that out. Then I can figure out which television markets these people live in and air a chain-saw commercial during the midnight movie airing of "Friday the 13th" in Buffalo, NY.

Spending the money was fun, but doing the research was right up my alley. I like to see what makes people tick, and even more than that what makes me tick. How did I end up the person that I am, at the moment? Because the only thing constant is change. Ten years from now, God willing, I will be doing things that were influenced by what I'm doing now.

I didn't know I was interested in all of this when I was in school. Should I go back and get my master's degree in Mass Communications? How about Psychology? How about both? Is manipulating consumers' minds immoral? Good business? Both? Is it even truly possible, or just an advertiser's goal?

I, for one, will be watching the Super Bowl ads on Sunday, in between making a huge German meal for Holly. She's bringing the brotchen and dessert, me the goulash, spaetzle, and red cabbage. Then we'll play games and make lots of new memories.