I'm back, but I still haven't found what I am looking for.

I've had a funny half year, after losing a pet and then some big changes for my family, somehow I really lost my way and track of time. The last few weeks have been focused on making some organisational changes in my home; moving furniture, repurposing storage, failed DIY and generally trying new arrangements. As well as repeatedly thumping my computer which is being REALLY slow.

Unlocking brain power

Now I am watching a film called Limitless in which a man takes a new drug that brings him absolute clarity, his deductive reasoning increases more than tenfold. I've yet to see the part where he finds the drawbacks but he is able to connect ideas, memories and patterns from his life to create new solutions, and a lot of money, and it is making me think.

I know I am smart, I was always smart, but I've been a bit unlucky having worked for companies that either went broke or had some other issues, so I have never really had a chance to prove myself. I've also been somewhat let down by my health which is a nuisance and doesn't really help.

I am very aware of things around me, like the guy in the film. I'm good at putting ideas together and creating new ideas from them but I am not so good at how to connect to the right people to put them into practice. I've been burned a few times; shared an idea, heard nothing back then one day the idea is on the shelves. Twenty years ago at university I wrote an essay predicting that the music business would come to see the live experience as its primary income stream, and now with the rise of filesharing my theory is proving quite accurate. There are even businesses based on people sharing the experience.

I know that in the right situations I am quick thinking, able to spot trends, aware of potential pitfalls and capable of asking all the questions that get the information needed at that moment. A little bit like the man in the film who's brain starts working at full capacity.

But somehow I can't get that on a CV and prove to a decent employer that I am the person they need.

I know that 'the right situations' are ones where I am stimulated, required to stretch my mind, a little under pressure and where I have some incentive to solve the issues at hand. I.e. situations that are not a lot like most of the paid employment I have had.

It is partly bad luck that I found jobs in the wrong places, partly a distinct lack of self belief and the confidence required to get my foot through the right door (I am most definitely an introvert), and partly a serious distaste for the mundane and repetitive. Not that I can't knuckle down, I've cleared rooms piled high with junk and turned them into orderly and accurately mapped file storage spaces, but when you keep being asked to do those tasks but have the brain power for so much more it gets to be entirely disheartening.

I've always had the sense that the solution for me is just a tiny bit beyond my reach, that if I could turn a little quicker that idea I glimpsed would come into full focus or that if I could just connect couple of dots I would have all the answers.

So the little pills the man in the film takes to make all that happen sound very appealing. Except now the film is over, I really don't want to deal with some of those consequences.

It's the little things

I like this

It is a part of why I like to pass on information I find, you never know how sharing something might make a difference to someone's life and all it costs is a little time. The rewards could be lifelong.

When and where writing happens

Hello and welcome to act two!

My good friend Maxi recently posed the question "Does a change of scene help your writing?" I wasn't sure how to answer, I don't tend to try it out. I like my cosy sitting room with a netbook perched on my knee.

Then last night, while in a hotel on a rare night away from home, my brain decided that it works best at 2am after the lights go out! I wasn't best pleased. Caffeine may have played a part as much as the location, since I have been decaf all the way for about five years but there was only full caffeine tea available yesterday.

Taking notes

So as I settled into the nice comfy pile of hotel pillows my mind decided it was the perfect time and place to start writing. It becomes a terrible dilemma. Do you turn on the light and jot down some notes, or dictate to a handy mobile phone? Or do you try to remember what the great idea is as you go to sleep? My mind decided it needed to make a note. Cue scramble for the unfamiliar light switch, a pen and paper and some notes in scrawl that would make a doctor blush. Off goes the light and settle back down. And another idea strikes. Another scramble and more scribbling. Settle down again, and guess what? After about six of these note making fumbles I gave up and made some hot chocolate - what a blessing hotel kettles are. Finally, at nearly 4am, I got to sleep.

I could have tried to sleep and hope I would remember, but I have made that mistake before. About a year ago, after some weeks of struggle, I was lying in bed when suddenly a MacGuffin sprang fully formed to my mind. I was so pleased that this straightforward solution answered so many story problems I was convinced it would still be there in the morning.

How wrong I was. I still can't remember what it was and that story has not progressed.

What I need in this age of technology, is a sound activated dictation machine that then prints out a perfect rendition of the words I speak. I think it can be done with a lot of cash but the cheaper options I have tried have let me down.

So last night I got four hours sleep. Not enough! But I do have about eight pages of notes that I might just be able to decipher and get a chapter or two out of!

Do you get midnight inspiration? Do you keep a pad by the bed? Or are you on the crest of the technology wave and downloading your thoughts direct to an implant in your hand?

Health

It seems at the moment that I spend half my time in a hospital of some sort or another. Visiting relatives, having appointments of my own and having a pet as an in patient at the vet.
In all the human hospitals I've been overwhelmed by the temperature! I understand that convalescing patients need to be warm but the corridors don't need to be set to 'roast' surely? I would think that having public, non-clinical areas so warm might actually harbour bugs rather then be helpful and it must cost a fortune to heat hallways that are mainly used by visitors who have just come in from the cold so are all wrapped up anyway!
And the NHS needs to save more money than I can count!
I wonder if anyone who has the power to make decisions ever actually walks down these corridors?

Subtitles or signed

How do you think?
I know a lot of people think as though they are watching a video of the actions they are thinking about.
Stephen Hawking clearly thinks in numbers.
I know of one person who has a mental Roladex (TM) in her head and when she wants to retrieve an idea she simply flicks though the cards.
Me? Every thought I have is subtitled. The words hover there in front of my mind's eye (as a result I often watch telly with the subtitles on and then wonder why it looks weird if I watch someone else's TV). And, like live subtitles, if a word feels wrong I will edit it as I go, kind of like word processing! As you can see from my blog though, my retrieval system is pretty haphazard. It can be effective, if I visualise a word I can often recall various associations with it -  a mental thesaurus if you like.
So how about you? How do you process the world in your mind? How do you dig up memories, facts and faces?