My Brain Version 1.0: Too Late for a Software Update?

Hmmm, have I waited too
long to update my overtaxed, original issue brain?

I have arrived at the conclusion
that my brain software is dangerously antiquated and in need of an emergency
update. The neurons are still firing but the sequence does not match the new
technology math of 2020.

My brain was educated
and programmed in the era when electric typewriters were leading edge technology
and telephones were squat, black boxes with rotary dials. There are days when I
feel like a caveman transported forward in time as I try to navigate the do-it-yourself
or die tryingonline applications
that are an integral part of my job.

I have not yet mastered
the proper use of laptop touchpads. At least once a day, I accidentally drag
and drop a file into the wrong folder or drag and drop a folder into another
folder without realizing it. My constant lament is: Where did that bleeping folder go?

I have an ongoing battle
with my TV remote. The damn thing has at least 45 individual buttons of which I
need only 5 and understand less than 10. At least once a week, I accidentally
hit one of the 35 surplus buttons by accident. This leads to another repeated
lament: Which g-damn button did I push
when I accidentally sat on the remote?

I have figured out the Aspect Ratio button by trial and error.
The other 34 remain a mystery to me on a par with Who built Stonehenge?

New
and improved in
technology terms makes me cringe. Version
7.2! I’m still trying to master Version 3.5! And no, I don’t want to be
automatically updated to the 7.2. (Oh wait, 7.3 just became available.) I’m
sticking with 3.5 until it self-destructs or they find Jimmy Hoffa’s body –
whichever comes first.

My brain still prefers
the finish one job before moving on to
the next methodology. It grudgingly allows for a reasonable amount of
multi-tasking, but goes into meltdown when there are more plates spinning than
I can count in the High School French I barely remember.

All of the above are now
daily occurrences. But the real grind-to-a-halt moment occurs when basic
operating principles are unhinged. When faced with a new task, my brain wants
to see the 2 + 2 = 4 equation behind it. It allows for some ambiguity –
accepting that 2 + 2 = 5 when certain complex interactions are involved.

But I hit a wall when
the equation is 2 + 2 = 7 because the new technology operates 2-1/2 times
faster which makes it (theoretically) possible to do 9 hours of work in a 7
hour day which speeds up the rotation of the earth as it tries to keep up which
in turn makes the impossible plausible and arguably possible in the new math of
the digital age.

The reality is that my
brain is still operating on Version 1.0 – the version I was born with 62 years
ago. In metaphorical terms, that is the equivalent of the rotary dial, black
box telephone that my brain still remembers with wistful nostalgia.

Alas, it is too late for
a brain software update. There is just not enough random operating memory
available in the 100 billion neurons that do not fire as reliably as they once
did.

~  Now Available Online
from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of
Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also
the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which
was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s
website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

~ Subscribe to Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make
Me Go Hmmm at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing
are provided in the Subscribe to this Blog: How To instructions page in the
right sidebar. If
you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly
to my page for postings once a week.