{"id":152997,"date":"2025-01-03T04:12:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T17:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=152997"},"modified":"2025-01-04T13:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T02:25:11","slug":"committee-for-lorne-and-i-know-your-name-so-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/news\/committee-for-lorne-and-i-know-your-name-so-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Committee for Lorne: And I Know Your Name So Well\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u2013> B\u2013> C\u2013> D\u2013> … X\u2013> Y\u2013> Z<\/em><\/p>\n

Don’t worry about it too much, but this frenetic summer, we will all forget peoples’ names … again.\u00a0 This will mainly happen if your age clock has ticked past 75 … though the anxiety of placing names to faces can [and does] bedevil us all, and at any age.<\/p>\n

Forgetting names \u2014 even the names of those you know well \u2014 can be both embarrassing and stressful.\u00a0 But take heart … it’s OK.\u00a0 It afflicts us all, commonly when we are relaxed and, dare I say it, is aggravated when we are a mite mellow.<\/p>\n

A near-to-full life-long memory drive, a lengthening ‘sort-time’, the lack of an evolutionary external hard drive [a serious design fault from the ‘divine watchmaker’], and the sepia shading that mists our later years … all impact our mechanisms for rapid, on-the-spot recall.<\/p>\n

Uh-oh … here comes \u2014 Blank!<\/p>\n

What are<\/u> their names? \u2026 Blank!<\/p>\n

Damn it, I know them so<\/u> well! \u2026 Blank!<\/p>\n

And so, while trying to sustain a relaxed “of-course-I-know-who-you-are” conversation with two smiling, friendly people you haven’t seen since last summer, you feverishly delve into the neural tangles of the Filofax that inhabits your left temporal lobe and start with “A”…<\/p>\n

Alistair, Andrew, Angus, Anthony … Abigail, Amelia, Angela, Astrid … on through all 26 letters [even “Q”, “X”, and “Z”] … and still the name doesn’t come!<\/p>\n

Click, click, click goes the Filofax as “A” gives way to “B” and “C”, then on past the usually-reliable “J” and “M” to “P”… but still nothing.<\/p>\n

Near panic sets in when, arriving at “R”, “S”, and “T”, they fail, too.\u00a0 Meanwhile, as the conversation fades to a background hum, the frantic memory-search supervenes all.<\/p>\n

Later, at home, when tilling the tomato patch, emptying the dishwasher, or feeding the dog, the light bulb of lost recall blinks on!<\/p>\n

Fred and Freya!<\/p>\n

Of course,<\/u> it was Fred and Freya!\u00a0 How could I ever have forgotten them? \u2026 at least, that is, till tomorrow when the whole charade will likely start again.<\/p>\n

By the time we reach our 70s, our cerebral hard drives have been under the combined assault of volume and storage for nearly eight decades.\u00a0 As more of us live into our 80s, the creeping fear that ‘losing it’ will hitch a free ride likely nags at us all.\u00a0 As we age, the “D” word can loom into view \u2014 in the distance at first, but always there \u2014 dusting the horizon like a Lorne sea mist hovers over Bass Strait \u2014 watching and waiting the right moment to roll in and obscure.\u00a0 Nothing prods that fear like anomic aphasia [anomia] \u2014 the formal name for the condition where the brain forgets names.<\/p>\n

To be frank, it rarely is<\/u> the dreaded ‘D’.\u00a0 Rather, as the gentle mists of life in retirement replace the incisive, immediate, click-click mentality demanded by a working lifetime in business, a career, or a profession, our brains gratefully slip back to relax and rest in a lower gear.<\/p>\n

Retirement rocks!\u00a0 The need to be constantly ‘on’ can be joyfully shrugged off at the edge of the bowls green, left on the putting greens at the Country Club, lulled by the comfort of a winter glass at the A-team, or salved by the peaceful solitude of a sausage sizzle deep in the forest by a frog pond.<\/p>\n

If the worst moment of the day is an errant bowl into the gutter, a missed putt, or a ten-minute ‘kip’ to the mesmerising sound of croaking frogs, you have genuinely embraced life in the slow[er] lane.\u00a0 Be grateful as your mental foot slips off the accelerator and your relaxing brain gratefully sheds its need for urgency.\u00a0 If a failure to recall a name is your greatest worry, you have nothing to worry about.\u00a0 You are in a very populous club!<\/p>\n

Summer, when the weather is balmy and the evenings long, becomes Lorne’s annual ‘reconnect time’… but it is<\/u> a six-week memory test for faces-seldom-seen.\u00a0 If, like me, you have a lifetime’ fail’ in the link-a-face-to-a-name game [some play that game well, but I do not], summer can herald a difficult time.<\/p>\n

Forgetting someone’s name can be both embarrassing and aggravating, frequently leading to the ‘tip of the tongue syndrome’.<\/p>\n

There is only one answer: shamelessly, blatantly confess your recall incompetence, then self-[re]introduce.<\/p>\n

Use only a Christian name \u2014 one name is enough.\u00a0 While it can be devilishly difficult to do … especially when it is to someone you know well … think of this: it may well be quietly appreciated, given that he or she may also be struggling to recall your name!\u00a0 Step confidently forward, take a breath, and go for it:<\/p>\n

‘Hullo, my name is XXXX, and although I fear that I know you well, my memory for names is fast failing me …’<\/em><\/p>\n

Allow a hint of expectancy to hang in the air to hopefully encourage their rejoinder:<\/p>\n

‘Oh, yes, XXXX, and as I was struggling too, my thanks \u2014 Oh, and by the way, we are Fred and Freya’<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Many studies have examined the reasons behind the mental block to name recall that is so common in us all.\u00a0 An explanatory from Colby College, Maine [ https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/2rmcfcj9<\/a> ] states: “… if you recognise the face but cannot recall the name, you are not alone; it is a common everyday experience.\u00a0 It is a common form of paramnesia [a disorder of memory] that often occurs when we see the person outside or away from their usual context”.<\/em><\/p>\n

To remember a face is a matter of recognition<\/em>.\u00a0 To remember a name is a matter of recall<\/em>.\u00a0 The brain has a two-tier memory system that differentiates between familiarity and recall.\u00a0 Oddly, as names are usually unique to individuals, they are less easily recalled than their occupation or place of residence might be. \u00a0A thing of wonder, the brain!<\/p>\n

So … when that oh-so-familiar face appears at the A-team, hails you with the wave of a long-lost-friend, then starts to hip and shoulder a path towards you, don’t panic.<\/p>\n

Take a big breath and prepare to re-introduce:<\/p>\n

‘Hullo, my name is XXXX … and I am terribly sorry, but your name has just slipped out of my left frontotemporal lobe, so can you help me?’<\/em><\/p>\n

John Agar<\/p>\n

Feature Writer<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A word from the chairman<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Happy New Year!<\/p>\n

I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable New Year and got a chance to see our amazing fireworks display. (If you didn\u2019t you can\u2019t blame me as, due to copy deadlines, I am writing this on December 18th, but I am confident all will be well).<\/p>\n

The SMART goals we set for the Committee for Lorne for 2024 (and my score for our<\/strong> achievement) included:<\/p>\n