Fall. Weather’s close to perfect and people are looking for excuses to get outside. Some rake needlessly. Others check the mail more frequently and still others find themselves taking an early stab at the new year’s resolution. 

A more active neighbourhood means more opportunities for neighbours to stop and chat and maybe even introduce themselves — all good until you run into that same neighbour a few days later and find yourself unable to recall their name. 

You know the information is in your brain somewhere, but no matter how you come at it, how hard you concentrate, it is persistently, stubbornly unretrievable. Why? 

Some scientists believe this brand of passing intel to be stored in short term memory, in which case, it has very likely been purged by the time you get to wanting to retrieve it. 

Others believe that it is stored in the working memory and therefore there somewhere and in full detail, but just very difficult to retrieve via yet-to-have-fired-and-wired, back-road, neuronal terrain.

The manner in which information is transferred from short term to working or long-term memory may be slightly off topic however, at least for us. All we really need to know for the sake of this post is that people have a much easier time locating stored information (regardless of where said information might have been stored) if at the time the intel was shared, they were actually paying attention. 

No matter how you swing it, forgetting the neighbour’s name is no big deal. The lapse is only alarming if it turns out to be a symptom of an overall lack of mindfulness, at which point, we start to speculate on the opportunity costs associated with such a mindset — on the sum impact of multiple forfeit kinships, connections, and learning opportunities on a life over time. And what we are left with, a version of Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, is not encouraging. 

The fact is, the more mindful we are, the more we retain. The more we retain, the more we bring to the table when it comes to both societal contribution and to our creative work especially when it comes to self-reflection or flow (both tending to occur more frequently and with greater intensity alongside improvements in retention). 

So how to retain more so that we engage more?

Start with an assessment:

What was the last book you read? And what did you learn from it? 

Recall your last conversation. What did you learn from that? 

When was the last time you asked a really good question? 

Challenging, right? But why?

Because you haven’t read a book for a while? Or had a worthwhile conversation? 

Or more plausibly — in the end, you just weren’t all that engaged.

I used to mention in conversation that fall was my favourite season but stopped once I realized that the feeling was reciprocal. That everyone’s favourite season seemed to be fall (at least where I live). Fair enough. Temperature’s ideal. The trees, crazy beautiful. But I also wonder about a much subtler draw — 

I think the fall “gets” us in ways the other seasons do not. For, in it, we see ourselves, our potential, the visual embodiment of that which we long for most but from which we so often get distracted – the cerebral fireworks that flow from a productive, creative and curious mind. 

Has the autumn been woven into the Canadian picture to remind us that we can yet bloom before our own winters? Probably not. We are too small. Too insignificant to make that sort of claim. But can we still learn from that which does not necessarily seek to instruct? 

I think, yeah. 

Winter: the season for prioritizing, applying self-discipline, and cutting back where necessary. 

Spring: where the real work happens — the great awakening, the sowing of seeds. 

Summer: through thick and thin, the fostering of growth. 

Fall: The face of our genius. The ongoing culmination of our creativity. The flourishing of accumulating wisdom. Our life’s work. 

We are lucky in that the fall is so incredibly loud. It is a magnified version of that which we are capable of achieving: self-actualization. 

As such, fall is a gift. A freebee which we get to enjoy but for which we put in little effort. It is a template. The other seasons, the roadmap. 

Forget the neighbour’s name? No worries. The point simply is to buckle down, sow the seeds, stay the course and to be the kind of person to remember the neighbour’s name. 

And in so being, to make it impossible for the neighbour to forget yours. 

JM