Wet and windy driving conditions (North West of England), endless long strait roads over flat fens (Norfolk), my favourite service station temporally rendered a building site (southbound Westmorland Services) all pale into insignificance in the face of a FAST INTERNET CONNECTION. Oh Joy, indeed.
But the subject on my mind this evening is memory, short term memory and the loss of it which comes with advancing years. I visited an elderly woman this afternoon who struggled to remember what she had just said and what she wanted to say right now. This happens to the best of us however at a certain point in ones life I can see how very frightening this can be. The question I am left with now is how much we/society equate loss of short term memory with dementia, especially in the elderly. Just a thought, a thought with a ladle full of compassion along with it.
Many thanks to Chris and his wife in Preston Lancashire where I’m staying before going on to Manchester tomorrow for a day retreat in the center of town. Hopefully by the end of Sunday I’ll be back in Northumberland again attempting to reconnect with tasks as yet not tackled. These involve activating long term memory, which I don’t have a problem with!
Hope you are now back in Northumberland and recovered from the trip.
Your post raises all sorts of questions about what it means to be a person; desire for material objects (fast internet), desire for our faculties, the toll (or not) that time takes upon us / through us…
But I recall the statement about old age not being for the faint hearted.
My mother (who has to my knowledge no knowledge of Buddhist practice) has had long term ill health with much pain. She recently decribed beutifully how she rides the pain. Mindfull she is.