While trying to write this week’s letter, I hit a glitch with Substack. “Have you tried restarting your computer?” my son asked. Sure, I can do that. Nothing changed. He then suggested clearing the cache of my browser. This particular phrase, like many computer-based phrases that are thrust at me, baffles. “Clear your cache!” “Did you clear your cache?” my sons often ask. They are greeted with a blank look from me. A cache is defined by Oxford as “a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place.” Weapons. Jewels. Drugs. Money. To clear those carefully stashed items away seems foolish. Why would I?
After I restarted my computer, I received an unobtrusive message stating in tiny print that my browser requires an upgrade to my operating system. Fear and dread ensue. Things could go horribly wrong and this could turn into a black day. What might happen if I try to do that? What if it turns out that my older computer cannot take the upgrade? I know that is a thing. Then what?? The way ahead is very murky. I don’t want to try it. I especially don’t want to do it on my own. What if I hit a bump in that road? Then this other problem will look like a walk in the park, not the prettiest of parks but still, a park.
Some of these phrases and dilemmas, however, inspire completely different lines of thought in me. Clearing the cache, as you probably know, only means deleting temporary files stored by apps and websites on my device. They are taking up space and cluttering things up. Still, it seems dicey. What if the wrong things are deleted? I’m assured not, but still. I feel certain that I have been told all of these things many times before, but somehow it does not stick. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to clear the cache of one’s brain, said brain being rather old and jammed full of all sorts of would-be temporary files that I have not needed for a very long time but that cannot be simply swept away.
I feel quite certain that this is the case. Do I really need, for example, to store the address of Childhood Homes Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4? Or the names of Mean Vicky on Wengler Street or of the problematic neighbor boys Frank, Bimbo, and Eugene on Washington? Do I actually need to continue filing away all of those perceived slights and insults that have accumulated in my brain since I started kindergarten? I don’t even want those, yet there they sit!
But let’s forget all of those for a moment (not forever, because that is, seemingly, not possible). What about all of the forgotten information that is most assuredly still taking up oodles of space in my brain, even though I am not aware of it, don’t want to find it, and would never in a million years need it? So very many images, numbers, and random bits of information—many of them outdated and/or useless and/or actually harmful to my happiness—sit there, feet up on the coffee table, sipping their drinks and comfortably taking up my precious storage space, while I struggle to remember what is meant by phrases like “clearing the cache.”
If only one could clear the cache of one’s brain and heart without losing anything important or worthwhile. How I wish I could clear off the shelves in my mind and empty out those ridiculous fat folders filled with useless nonsense. And then, too, how grand it might be to upgrade one’s operating system! Oh sure, each new upgrade contains bugs and idiosyncrasies; that goes without saying. Doesn’t it? Didn’t I just say, above, that upgrading filled me with dread? And now here I am suggesting I’d like to do it to my brain?! Well, no matter. It’s not possible anyway.
A cluttered brain is what I have. I did just drag all of the photos plastered all over my computer’s desktop into a nice neat folder. That tiny act gives my eyes and thus, brain, a little bit of relief. But open up that folder and look out! It is jammed full of random photos and other stuff. Just like the 73-year-old brain.
“It's interesting to see that people had so much clutter even thousands of years ago. The only way to get rid of it all was to bury it, and then some archaeologist went and dug it all up.” - Karl Pilkington
“A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind.” - Joseph Weizenbaum
“Out of clutter, find simplicity.” - Albert Einstein
“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.” - Joseph Campbell
Check out Ampersand Cards for my cards and art. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to share. And if someone shared this one with you, click the button below to subscribe for free. You'll find all my poems here. Finally, if you’d like to keep up with my 365 Day Index Card art practice, click here.
Thanks for listening,
Kay
P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the "merry thoughts."
Good as always!
Thanks very much!