If one ever searched for a perfect candidate for the professorate of absent-mindedness they would come up with me at the top of the list. My picture should be in the dictionary next to the definition. I should be awarded the honorary title just based on the first thirty years of my life. When you combine that with my amazing powers of observation (not) and the incredible ability to be oblivious to my surroundings it's a wonder I survived into adulthood. Particularly considering all the experiments I did when studying electricity through home-made lamps and assorted lethal devices around the age of ten.
That's all normal (for me) but it is amazing that I also happen to be an inexhaustible fountain of useless knowledge. Have a topic? I probably know some completely weird and useless factoid about it. When I was in grade school I used to win quiz contests with one half of my brain focused on some incredibly stupid and dangerous experiment and the other half wondering if the cute boy from the other team likes me. I can name authors of books I never read, Latin names for plants I've never seen and quote from movies nobody cares about. All this before my first morning coffee.
I'm often asked "How do you know all this".
I don't know. Really, it all just accumulates in my brain pushing out useful information, like simple regular expressions, the last location of my car keys and the fact that I promised to finish up a certain project. And that's just an example from today's afternoon, morning was more exhaustive.
It's not easy to reconcile these things. How can I remember lyrics to songs I haven't heard in fifteen years but not remember a simple algorithm I've used many times in the last three years? I can name the capital of Manchuria but didn't notice a coworker came by and left a note on my desk while I was sitting there (no headphones involved). I can say "happy new year" in Cantonese but forget my mom's birthday.
One of the childhood stories my mom loves to tell everyone involves me at around the age of twelve, a small storage area and a vacuum cleaner she sent me for. I went there, didn't see it, came back, "no, no, it's there, look again". I looked.. didn't find it, she came with me, the damn thing was right in the middle of the room and only a blind person could miss it. I'm not blind, I'm just incredibly oblivious to my surroundings.
There might be some medical term for this - but for once, I don't know what it could be. Maybe it's part of the Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder.
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Great story! NADD is a fine meme going 'round, but what you have, my friend, is plain ole regular ADD. Enjoy it, treat it, whatever, but to the extent that there's such a thing as ADD, you've got it. IMHO, of course!
#I think the disorder you're thinking of is Asperger's which is a high level form of autism. It is often misdiagnosed as ADD, but unless it's an exceedingly mild case, I don't have that.. I'm just weird, I guess.
#Oh my goodness! I have *exactly* the same thing! Ask me when the French Revolution was, how much disk space is left on the database server or how much I get paid monthly and I don't know. Ask me what vitamin comes from sunlight, whether all polar bears are left-handed or something similarly useless and I'm there! How bizarre...
#I had a similar "vacuum" moment when I was 11 or so. It was Christmas, and my sister and I had both been wanting new bikes. Presents came and went, no bikes. Oh well.
So we're having breakfast, and my Dad says "I left a battery charger plugged in in the shed, could you go out there and unplug it." I say "sure," go out to the shed, unplug the charger, and come back in.
Dad says "Did you do it?" "Yeah." "Go back and make sure." So I go back out there, wondering what kind of idiot Dad thinks I am for not knowing whether or not I pulled the plug out of the wall. I verify that yes, the plug is out, and go back to the house. "Well?" "Yes, it's unplugged." "Let me go out there with you."
So Dad and I both go down to the shed, he swings open the door, and says "What did you have to climb over to get to the power cord?" Sure enough, I'd squeezed past two brand new bikes twice on my way to mess with that damned plug.
It's a wonder I'm still alive.
(first-time caller)
#You may be on to something here. I have a similar 'disorder'. I have the bizzarre ability to remember the year a song was in the charts - any popular song from about 1980 onward. Even songs I don't like. I think my mind is indexed by music. I too am a programmer. Maybe this is a common trait amongst us. Who knows? Who cares? What was I saying again?
#People with Asperger's may be total experts on a single subject, like British train schedules. Lots of trivia about a wide range of stuff is not Asperger's, I don't think. Also I think people with Asperger's have a lot of trouble connecting to other people.
But ADD certainly covers absent-mindedness (mentioned in your very first sentence) as well as things like obliviousness, forgetting car keys and trouble finishing projects.
Maybe there's a term for "knowing lots of random factoids" and if so I have it also -- but I think it may be just a fairly minor side effect of ADD. If you pay attention to everything in the universe (even just a little bit) then you end up picking up a lot of disconnected but maybe interesting bits of information.
Anyway, have fun.
#It seems to be really common, and the opposite, when you are unable to remember things that you are sure you already know, or just a stupid thingy comes on and on instead the thing you are looking for.
Anyway i dont have to worry about where are my car keys as far as I gave away that pile of junk ;)
#I have wondered nearly all my life why simple,
dumb detail of almost every topic on the planet stay imbedded in my brain.
As a matter of fact I have stocked up on literally files of what are labeled "Useless, but fascinating facts".
As a result, quite a long time ago I organized an on-line trivia group which just keeps growing.
If anyone's interested in becoming part of it and joining in the fun, just E Mail me.
Seeing a post about useless knowledge and obliviousness over at kasia in a nutshell inspired me to comment there with my all-time-favorite "Wade would lose his head if it wasn't attached moment," which I'll echo here for posterity. Setting the...
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February 12, 2004 12:13 PM
Like most geeks, as children we were all probably curious at one time or another (and oblivious to the world as well) as to the objects which surrounded us. My thing when I was a child was with electronics (I...
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February 12, 2004 04:46 PM
Query: Stop reading right now. Look at your desktop. How many tasks are you working besides reading this weblog? More than 10? You've got N.A.D.D. Right now I'm reading Email, checking keywords for the company site, updating the company site...
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February 17, 2004 09:52 AM
I was reading Kasia's hall of comment-spam shame and was further amused to find her story about "nerd attention deficit disorder." My high school history teacher, who was a Jeopardy! champion at some point, explained this differently. "I have a...
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March 8, 2004 10:07 AM