#forgetfulness

[feral-ballad]

Donika Kelly, from Bestiary: Poems; “Santa Rosa”

[sluggoonthestreet]

Of the 3,627 nuts he buried last fall, Kevin has found four.

[incognitopolls]

How prone are you to losing personal items? (e.g. keys, bags, headphones, papers, etc)

I lose things constantly

I lose things often

I lose things every now and then

I lose things infrequently

I lose things very rarely

Other/I'm not sure

Voting ended onAug 29, 2025

This is asking about frequency, not variety. If you lose even just one thing constantly, choose "constantly."

"Losing" here means not remembering where you've left something and thus needing to search for it (regardless of whether you find it again). Do not count times that you can't find something because someone else has moved it.

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[cat-cosplay]

Every time.

[apoemaday]

Forgetfulness

by Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

[thefloralmenace]

I've seen people resonating with my Emergency Lab Pants project (providing a box of loaner pants for college science labs to accommodate people who forget to wear long pants) in the tags again, especially with the phrase "You can't disincentivize forgetting things."

I want to go into a bit more detail on that because I'm sure there are people who would argue harsh policies (like getting a zero for lab if you show up in shorts) do reduce overall incidences of noncompliance, even when no one would ever not comply with the policy on purpose (i.e. noncompliance only happens when people forget), but I want to explain what's happening there.

You are not disincentivizing forgetting. You are not forcing people to remember. You are forcing people with memory issues/anxiety to come up with adaptations that result in them achieving the desired result, whether they remember or not. Ex: being sure they show up to lab wearing long pants.

Prior to my box of emergency lab pants, I was so worried about accidentally forgetting that I established a lab uniform for myself. I wore the same shirt and long pants every Tuesday for lab. I laid out all my clothes a week at a time and put that outfit on every Tuesday. I was supplementing my memory with routine. No thinking, no remembering: just get dressed.

When I was a kid in elementary school, you'd get yelled at for forgetting a book you needed for next period from the cubby in your homeroom even though all the classrooms were connected so that you were always literally feet from your cubby. Like you could go back and get the book in under 60 seconds, but no: You'd get the speech on how you were irresponsible, and sometimes they'd force you to share a book with someone or work without it to "teach you a lesson." I was a sensitive child with an imperfect memory, so what did I do? I carried all my books with me all day and never used my cubby while my classmates just picked up the relevant materials between classes. That behavior lasted all through high school. Got made fun of for constantly carrying every textbook, but guess who never got in trouble for being forgetful or "unprepared"?

I never got a better memory. I just realized people didn't actually care if I remembered; they only cared if I showed up the way they wanted with the stuff they wanted, so I came up with adaptations so that I couldn't forget.

Which begs the question: Why create harsh punishments that force people with imperfect memories to invent these adaptations on a sink or swim basis rather than teaching people coping strategies for when they need to remember things? Like carry everything with you. Or if you need to bring an item you don't ususlly bring with you somewhere, shove it in the bag you always carry. Or leave yourself notes on the door knob of the door you have to exit through to go outside. Or set a reminder on your phone for one minute after your alarm, so you know you'll be holding your phone when the reminder goes off, ensuring you'll see it.

OR, as with my Emergency Lab Pants, just accommodate for when people inevitably do forget instead of riding the whole function of an event/program on a bunch of different people's memories?

[forgottenbones]