Sitting at the dinner table yesterday with my 22-year-old son, I mentioned the spider meme ( https://lindaghill.com/2016/10/12/one-liner-wednesday-i-thought-we-were-roommates/ ) I came across months ago that I found very funny, and he laughed at me. When I asked why, he said I was too old to be saying words like “meme.” So today I decided to look up the origin of the word.
Turns out it was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his book, “The Selfish Gene” in 1976, but he shortened it from the Ancient Greek word, mimeme, meaning “imitated thing.” (Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins#Fathering_the_meme ) HA! I can now say to my son. Though if I’m too old to say the word, how old does that make me? Still feeling a little weird about that.
Getting older is weird though. We have memories which give us the wisdom not to repeat our mistakes (with any luck) and yet our memory, or our capacity to remember, decreases with the shrinking of our brains. As much as I don’t like this, it’s inevitable. I either accept it or I fight it – fighting it takes so much more energy.
Having said that, I can fight it to some extent by continuing to learn and challenge myself. I wonder, often, if people who refuse to change their mindsets, form new opinions, or think they already know everything worth knowing lose their memories faster. I had an aunt who was very set in her ways. When she made a decision, she stuck with it no matter what. It might have been that she just hated making decisions so she got them over and done with as quickly as possible. But her decisions also were very predictable, because she never changed her preferences. She was stuck in a certain time, probably her childhood or early adulthood. I’m not sure I was born when she stopped trying new things. I always knew her as completely focused on the way things should be.
And, of course, the memories she shared never changed. The stories we all hear from our older family members are inevitably told as though they’ve never been told before. The polite thing to do is sound surprised, no matter how many times we’ve heard them. I wonder if people who are closed-minded have a narrower memory. Something my ever-learning mind will likely look into one day.
Now that I’ve veered totally off-course from my original intent for this post, I’ll have to go back and change the title. Coming up with titles for posts is hard, isn’t it?
Stream of Consciousness is for everyone! Click the link to see how you can join in today: https://lindaghill.com/2016/11/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-1216/
November 16, 2016 at 3:37 pm
A lot more people should observe the “don’t use a word if you don’t know what it means” rule, it would lead to a far more articulate and educated population, purely from the research involved.
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November 16, 2016 at 9:07 pm
Indubitably.
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November 13, 2016 at 5:58 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed this 🙂
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November 13, 2016 at 7:42 pm
Thank you. 🙂
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November 13, 2016 at 8:25 am
Great post, Linda. You are spot on.
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November 13, 2016 at 7:44 pm
Thank you, Eugenia. 🙂
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November 13, 2016 at 12:20 am
What a coincidence – my SoCS started off about memes too and then I ended up ranting about the language that kids speak nowadays. My son updates his whatsapp dp with memes regularly and I spend a better part of that day figuring out what on earth he means!
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November 13, 2016 at 7:48 pm
Haha! Indeed. I regularly Google acronyms after a frustrating few minutes of trying to figure them out for myself.
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November 12, 2016 at 10:06 pm
Your aunt makes me think of my father ! He was like her and on top he started every sentence with «at my time» as if he was already dead ! I swore to myself to never use this sentence ! In fact all what it meant was «when I was young»
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November 13, 2016 at 7:49 pm
What’s also funny is the certain things we remember about all those stories we hear again and again. 🙂
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November 12, 2016 at 8:51 pm
I enjoyed this Linda, finding out stuff and with an air smugness informing your children of their obvious error is such a delight…lol
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November 13, 2016 at 7:50 pm
It really is!! 😀
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November 12, 2016 at 3:54 pm
I wrote on memes today, too…
For sure, listen to the old folks, and write their stories down.
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November 13, 2016 at 7:51 pm
Writing them down is important. I wish I had written a few down that I know I’ve forgotten. And oh, the recipes!!
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November 13, 2016 at 8:30 pm
Mary’s favorite recipe is her mother’s kugelis recipe (it’s a Lithuanian dish, kind of like potato pancakes in loaf form). It’s on an index card in her Mom’s handwriting. Evidently it’s one of those dishes where every woman has their own recipe, and everyone thinks their mother’s is the best. It’s almost like looking into her mother’s soul.
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November 13, 2016 at 9:49 pm
Exactly. They become like some sort of secret genetic inheritance.
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November 14, 2016 at 10:11 am
Right. You want to understand people, look at what they eat.
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November 12, 2016 at 3:09 pm
I write the first sentence/line. Then maybe the title or maybe not. Titles are like the first line/sentence. They jump out or they hide, and I have to force them onto the screen. Often the title has nothing to do with the story. That’s how I amuse myself these days. Sad is it not.
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November 13, 2016 at 7:53 pm
Exactly. They either jump out or hide. And when they hide, they hide well.
Amusement is so hard to come by these days. Whatever it is, don’t knock it. 😉 😀
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November 15, 2016 at 8:31 am
Guess there are kinkier ways to self-amuse.
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November 15, 2016 at 9:12 am
😉
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November 12, 2016 at 2:42 pm
I would be interested too to know if narrow-minded people have a rubbish memory! 🙂
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November 13, 2016 at 7:54 pm
If I ever come across a statistic, I’ll let you know. 😀
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November 12, 2016 at 2:32 pm
I’m afraid I use “cool” a lot. Horrible, but even though I’m old, I hope I’m a bit cool.
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November 13, 2016 at 8:27 am
I like the word “cool”, as well so let’s keep on using it. 😀
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November 13, 2016 at 7:44 pm
Sounds cool to me. 😉 😀
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November 13, 2016 at 7:55 pm
You are cool. You’re cool for using the word cool. …and so am I. 😉 😀
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November 12, 2016 at 2:28 pm
Wait! what?
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November 13, 2016 at 7:55 pm
😀 😉
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November 13, 2016 at 8:25 pm
Ha ha ha.
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November 12, 2016 at 2:03 pm
Of course I meant busy mind! But my phone has a mind all of it’s own!!!
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November 12, 2016 at 2:02 pm
A bust mind is a healthy mind! Well your son have you plenty to think about!! I love it that now you can clobber him with the facts! 😊
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November 13, 2016 at 7:56 pm
No better way to clobber your older kids! Haha! ❤
(My phone has a mind of its own too. Damned phone. 😛 )
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November 12, 2016 at 1:52 pm
Great post, Linda. I hate thinking up titles. I used to write one, then veer off from it during the post. Now I just wait until the post is finished to come up with a title. The challenge now – remembering to write the title before posting *laughs*
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November 13, 2016 at 7:57 pm
Ha! Yeah, I’ve done that a few times.
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November 12, 2016 at 1:50 pm
When you get older, you find that some of the so-called “change” was tried 100, 200, 1000 years prior. I used to serve on a committee that helped advise a state agency and the governor.
One of the men on the committee, a long-time member there from the very first, had to be 80 years old. We’d come up with what we thought was a great suggestion. In his gruff, no-nonsense voice he’s say, “We tried that before 30 years ago. Then we changed it to what we’re doing now.” Or he’d tell us that it was one of the things that had been tried 10 years ago and was a disaster.
At first, I considered his repeated warnings an inconvenience. Then, over time, all the things he warned us about came true. I began to listen to him first. It kept us from trying to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. 🙂
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November 18, 2016 at 1:41 pm
There’s a lot of merit to learning from history. Thanks for sharing your story. 🙂
I just found your comment in my spam. I think I need to go through it more often.
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November 18, 2016 at 6:15 pm
Thanks for reminding me to go throiugh my sp*m folder, too. 🙂
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November 18, 2016 at 10:30 pm
No problem. 🙂
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November 12, 2016 at 1:44 pm
YES, titles are hard! Sometimes I start with a title, sometimes I add one at the end, and sometimes I think I know where I’m going but end up somewhere entirely different so my first title’s no good. Glad to know I’m not the only one out there!
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November 13, 2016 at 7:58 pm
Oh, you are SO not alone, Laura. 😀
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