One day as I woke up, I was thinking of two English words, but I couldn’t remember the words. I was frustrated and afraid. I turned 80 years old a month ago. Am I losing my memory that fast?
Alerted, I told myself that I need to keep the habit of continuous reading and writing to keep my mind sharp. Then I turned to a good role at the Health and Fitness Center at the Washtenaw Community College (abbreviated as WCC). He is one of my good friends at WCC. His name is York, an 85 years old gentleman at WCC. Every time, as I was taking a workout break at WCC cafe, York was reading. He reads a wide range of materials; subjects range from finance to politics to restaurant chains all over the world including Taipei. At 85, his mind is as sharp as a razor blade. He makes friends easily with new and old acquaintances at WCC.
I admire his curiosity and his attitude of being a beginner’s mind (This is a Buddhist term, meaning always being as curious as a child; and not being carried away with the mindset of ego or comparison or envies of other people’s accomplishments). On one occasion, we had conversations either at the cafe or at the men's locker room. We talked about recorder concerts. Initially, he didn’t know what the recorder was. Then he said that he found the picture of the recorder through google search. He and his wife even came to our two concerts last year. Most recorders are small in sizes. However, Contra Base Recorder is huge and very unusual in shape and size. One of my recorder friends carried a Contra Base Recorder in the concert. At the end of the concert, I saw York speak to that Contra Base Recorder player for approximately 10-20 minutes, indicative of his curiosity.
One day, York and I discussed the benefits of sauna. I cited published results on the benefits of sauna, and told York that to get the best health benefits,, a person needs to be in the sauna at least 30 minutes and above.
“Why? “. York asked.
“ Because, the body will produce BDNF after 30 minutes in the Sauna Room and BDNF is good for health, especially for brain health. “. I said.
“ What is BDNF ?” he asked.
“ It means Brain Derived Neurophic Factor. A long name but can be found in the Google search.” I said.
York’s specialty is in finance and business. He had.been a very successful business person. Of course, he did not know what was BDNF.
However, to my surprise, he told me what is BDNF few days later. . He said that he found the answer through Google search and the help of AI. He told me that he would see his doctor soon. At the appointment, he would even discuss BDNF with his doctor. I told him about my doubt that his doctor would discuss it with him; because they probably have either not been interested in BDNF or have never heard about it from their medical school textbook.
So what are the words that I suddenly forgot to recall ? They were ‘gig’ and ‘perk’. They are not common words I often use: but they were definitely part of vocabulary. Finally I recovered these two words through the help of AI. Even though I had recovered these two words, the incident frustrated me a lot. I often pride myself with great memory; but now, I am not quite sure.
But, my friend, York, gives me a lot of hope. Through reading, listening, and always inquiring with a beginner’s mind, I think I can slow down my decline of memory.
