With work my clairvoyancy had many examples from working out of the Abbotsford in Edinburgh or even away back to the 1980's when the Talbot or the St Paul's Tavern were the dinner time destinations. The best had to be when I randomly chose Jan 13th in October as the date when we would break all records for deals done. We averaged 600-700 and Ion that day we did 973, a spike that was never repeated but won me a pint from the pal who bet me. It was always so bizarre how lucky I seemed to be at random guessing.
I would be given a prompt and then supply an answer. I didn't think it that clever, I just thought it simple. I think it was Herbert Simon who put it a tad more articulately, 'the situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory, and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition'.
I was of course not old enough to realise that not everyone had the same ability to utilise their intuition. For many reasons we are all unique. I listen to myself too much and others are grateful not to listen to smug bastard me. I now regard my intuition as a bit more precious, especially as it diminishes. I say diminishes but I am aware that I'm on the first floor, the cancer assessment ward, and it's about a feeding tube fitment.
I also realise it's because I have cancer and it needs treatment. My intuition tells me I'm in good hands and that, when they say, it's going to be brutal, I know it will be.
I keep smiling saying thanks and feeling ridiculously blessed. My brain deep down and my immediate impulsive self can't help but admire and be grateful to all the professionals who are phenomenal at what they do, not least in dealing with plums like me.
What then kicks in is my timetable says I'm on radiotherapy every afternoon which is excellent. I can feed myself up every morning and put lead bars in my pockets to ensure I pass the weight tests.
After the horror of the trauma I can walk out into the autumnal setting of inverleith park and the water of leith, sobbing away to myself before then heading to a bench to gather my spaghetti heid.
The definition of sunburn worked well in my head. The fact that 30 days later you have sunburn on the same section you got burnt the day before strikes me as yes, it's getting worse before it gets better. Rational thinkers don't always get it, but this pain will get worse even when they stop the radiotherapy. The best thing I can do is hope my body has the resources to deal with it.
I won't speculate how I might feel as it seems rather pointless. Living in the moment has always been an ambition and when pain is on the way there's little point in adding anticipation into the mix.
I'd rather ponder how the psychology I studied and economics have developed in the last 40 years since St Andrews and got told I couldn't do joint honours as I was in the faculty of science. Truth be told I was happy to concentrate on the Fanzine and the band by then. Trying to get into the faculty of arts sounded like hard work. I digress again, but "Thinking, Fast and Slow" has rekindled my interest in the brain.
It's ignited my whole Alzheimer's head and also the left handed capacity for early onset (or not at all) seems to process well with the notion of fast intuitive thinking and the slower process approach. We've long established puzzles as a way of slowing down the progression of dementia, which is a beautifully bastardised simplification of the system 2 brain function. I'd love to ask the author, DK, how that theory of the system 2 slow was so easily turned into system 1 fast fact.
It's gets abbreviated further in the three word world of marketing.
Puzzles prevent dementia
I know I've lost any audience a while back but this absolutely has me chuckling at the irony. A theoretical study of how to utilise and stimulate the brain gets quickly turned into an assumption so therefore no stimulation.
Before Jackie fell asleep I was describing how her learning the words for a new choir song was such a good example of system 2 slow thinking and how in time it would become elevated to system 1 instinct in the same way that yes sir, I can boogie is.
When you first hear a song and the lyrics you know you like it but you know there's more. You play it again and listen to the lyrics, you often make your own lyrics up. You then see the lyrics and have to unlearn your lyrics.
At Smiths gigs many people sang the "it's the bond, the bond the bond that keeps us together", even though the video showed it was a Bomb.
Rose last night in the "Since Yesterday" film talked about the love song that was actually about nuclear war. Life Support's the Penny Drops as the mushroom rises was another early 80's nuclear holocaust song, although I'd argue it was a lovely song about how often with boys the penny dropped as the mushroom was rising. Not for the first time they'd done the wrong thing and it was irretrievable.
As I went to give other examples to Jackie I heard the snoring and looked up to see the eyes well closed, or should I say super closed. Closed, sleeping, repelling anymore nonsense talk.
I then went on to discuss how this cancer Camino was really stimulating for me. I'm learning new things all the time. I'm learning them slowly so that I'm receptive enough to learn. We can't all be fast learners and I've always been a doggedly slow learner, but I am a learner for life. I never believed in cramming for exams as I thought it pointless. I wanted to either learn or not. I wanted the exam to be a true test of what I knew. This theory is extremely flawed if you want good grades but useful for learning.
I got a B in my higher maths despite being good at maths. My teacher was gutted as I was going to be her first A. I didn't have the heart to tell her I'd been coaching my bouroughmuir pals in both ograde and higher and so I left after the obligatory 30 minutes of the 2nd paper so I could get up to their school and find out how they'd got on. At the time I thought I could get an A in 6th year studies but instead I left for uni and had to sit a crash course A level in the first 4 weeks.
I do love a bit of self absorbed nonsense talk. It's guaranteed to make this public diary private. In fact going back to this fight where we want to examine things as quick as possible to get to self "established fact" regularly demonstrates how brain training should be livelong but is so short lived.
I learnt a lot from that about both exams and learning. They were extremely flawed as my pals with A in SYS were in the class longer than me. Very unfair assessment techniques clearly, well so I established as a fast fact for me.
I was so lucky about learning back then and later in life but I have noticed that I've allowed dominant system 1 fast thinking to become normalised in me, and possibly much earlier than I realised as I review this. I think this is why the Camino and also the current cancer Camino have proved so invigorating.
It's quite simply challenging. Caitlin in her learning talked about learning and performance modes. I like that thinking. It's slow and fast, according to Daniel Kahneman's book.
It's addressing the whole brain issues I've been suffering as I've been looking for fast solutions which leads me to more navel gazing and less memory not more.
So we are slowing down in our assessment. I used to be at my best when I sat around the board table and said nothing. Two ears and one mouth, use in proportion. I've lost that. I've slipped into that "listen to me, I've got something to say, it's on the tip of my tongue, and it won't go away.....ITS MY NONSENSE, MY PRETTY LITTLE NONSENSE, past tense, no splinters sitting on a ...." A great song I sing to myself.
Enough. Back to the treatment today from the dental hygienist who was superb. My teeth got a proper cleaning as I've been building the plaque since the tonsils came out.
I would argue I've been scared to brush on case something came loose. It finished with a banoffie pie varnish on my teeth. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink for 30 minutes so happily I can now say I've sat here long enough.
Time for a drink, of water.
Such a good feeling an hour or so later when you've wandered down the water of Leith into the area now called the Shore.
It has it's own signpost so is clearly not the one of my youth. In the late 60's we would bus across town to school in ferry road. It was a popular thing in our family as we all went to Holy Cross. They were just words but now I read them it is a strange name for a school. Surely ferry road or craighall road primary would help with navigation. The only signal holy cross is helping is navigating those who don't like Catholics to find us. I think a local school makes more sense but although not every parent makes a choice about school, mine did.
I like Leith. My football team play here and now I'm older I don't have the fear of childhood bogey men.
It also has Tapa. My favourite place to come for lunch or dinner. It's nearly lunchtime so I'll take on a few more rays on the bench and let my mind soak up more nonsense.
On the Camino a calm comes over me. I hear the birds here, the traffic, the wind, the river and there's a lot of different stimulation for the eyes too. I look at the current and my mind wanders off like the leaves on the water. It's just moving gently along.
While my mind might be wandering picking up bits and bobs, soaking like a sponge the beauty in this setting, I'm just sat at a bench having the best of best times.
I've just had my mouth prepared and passed for for treatment and it's another tick in a very long sheet full of boxes.
This is ducks in a row time.
Tapa and a bottle of Mencia could be less than an hour away but I'm enjoying every mouthful before I get there.
So today has been earmarked as a drinking day and in order to square my nonsense head I'll justify it as only an alcoholic would. I've been pretty good all week. Driving on Sunday to Arran meant I was going to have next to nothing and 3 pints of Guinness watching the match and then with dinner was fair enough. I had at least 8 pints of water so Sunday passes the 6 unit test. Monday I went mad and had a bottle of Estrella and a glass of wine before retreating behind the holiday parapet and making a pot of tea. Job done and 4 more gets me up to 10. Tuesday was drive back so tea on arrival and a 1 unit stubby gets me to 11. So yesterday we went to the film. Glass of wine and a bottle of Estrella gets me to 15 and a bottle of wine and 2 pints at Summerhall sees me around 30, another 3 pints in Swanys and I'm at 36 oops. 2 days to go so I've room for two 17 unit days and I'm bang on 70.
When I first told them I was 100-220 units a week some of the professionals panicked. I said it's mostly 100-120 but there are the odd weeks where we go mental. Luckily they're decades apart and I've not had 50 units in a day for ages. My 25 pint days are largely behind me but 3 bottles of wine watching a box set until 5am is still plausible if there is cheese on the fridge.
So it's Thursday and I'm reading the census data via a paper, always dangerous. Assuming the paper will publish the data correctly is like expecting change to be exact. Nobody really means to short or long change you but it happens.
The Scottish census stats (2011 to 2022) are about my generation and our daughters. 851,100 people now own their own home (that'll be my generation, up 28.8% on the 660,643, 11 years earlier). 11 years on and our daughters generation are probably the reason behind the 9.5% increase to 323,000 people renting.
Not surprising is 30,800 or 14.5% less people living in care homes. That's not because more people are being looked after it's because of the care home cull I wrote about on April 2020. A cynic would say that part of the COVID dividend enabled us to knock down many care homes and build student flats. In Edinburgh along perffermill road was a 60-80 bed care home I looked at for my Mum in 2018. It is no longer a care home.
Today's walk will let me ruminate on that.
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