You’ve heard the joke: someone says memory is the second thing to go. The person on the receiving end of that statement responds with “what’s the first thing?” . Then the response to that response is “Hmm. I can’t remember”.

Losing one’s memory is no joking matter, of course. Losing one’s sense of humor is also no joking matter. Lose that, and you have a major deficiency as far as coping goes. We all have to cope now and then. Without a sense of humor, you have a serious deficiency. You are left with nothing but seriousness. So, try to see the humor in our human folly. The folly is always there to be seen or heard.

Not that all folly is funny. Some of it is quite disconcerting. Possibly frightening. But the casual and fleeting good times provide a sort of equilibrium between the peaks and valleys. with the sedating, hypnotic and altogether forgettable middle being the flat roads of most days, full of immensely forgettable moments.

Allow me to utilize a sporting metaphor: for certain there will be curve balls, change-ups and heaters thrown at us. At times even some nasty chin music. Brushed back. Whoa! That was close! Other times you get beaned. The noodle gets knocked on hard. All at once that smack to the brain bucket is something one would rather forget about, but maybe it was too much of a whack and that bad memory is determined to hang around and around.  Time, of course, will eventually make it forgotten, but that loss is usually many, many decades down that flat road portion of life, with little of interest on either side of it. Which is why the better and badder stuff have more room to occupy in your head.

We hope to keep our mental and physical health fit as long as possible. And that valuable sense of humor. Which, in Monde 2025, can be much the challenge. Lots of cringe-worthy situations out there. Coping mechanisms needed! Read a book that transports you. Listen to music that does the same, with sound waves soothing the psyche. Or other indulgences in the creative world of art. Or indulgence with nature. That walk in the woods. Stroll the shoreline. Stop and smell those roses. Or indulge nature in laid back, very chill recreational ways, now very less edgy a business with pot dispensaries formalizing the once much more hush hush and carefully executed experience of just wanting to score that nickel bag. And THC dispensaries are getting larger in number. But they’ll never outnumber liquor stores. Well, never say never?

We are in a moment in which an approach-avoidance of the daily “news” is probably making for a brisk business in the world of shrinks. You know, wig-tappers. Right. This condition is on a continuum that includes the bad news junkies causing self-inflicted gaper’s block as their brain gradually self-destructs and control of the wheel is lost, or a fastidious and rigid resolve to not look at it anymore, The memory bank may currently need some deleting of one of the most forgettable and regrettable moments in human history. Ugh. But how? Everyday there is more gunk. Until there is a crummy waking landscape full of gunk scattered in otherwise littered empty lots.Who’s going to clean up this mess?!

Depending on one’s age, there’s not even the ability to understand reality (that being very young or very old). Until then, reality has plenty of other space to park itself in the middle ground as we grow up, and older and ever older.

Oh bloody damn hell! Keep the faith and pass the gravy. Or the bottle or that joint or whatever gets you through the night. Time, if nothing else, will see this madness rendered non-existent. This too shall pass. The author’s name of that phrase escapes me. Memory, you know? The second thing to go.