Thought bottlenecks

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: "Joe, you've been delinquent in posting to your blog. It's been over a week!"

Joe: Officer Blogget, It's not my fault. It’s not that I didn’t want to post, but I've been experiencing a "thought bottleneck", sump'm awful. It’s the opposite of "writer's block". I don’t know which is worse.

Officer Blodgett, Blog Police: "What in the world are you talking about? What do you mean? What's the difference?"

Joe: " Well Officer, a long time ago, I bought into the "muse" idea in my creative writing class, which set me up for writer's block. I used to sit in front of my computer, staring at the screen and waiting for the muse to open the door to my creative unconscious for all this great stuff to come out. But the only action I ever got was MS Windows automatically "saving" my blank Word page! Other than that, nothing! No ideas. It was time to quit when I started obsessing on, "I need a cigarette". I don't smoke!

My muse abandoned me! I was "a-mused"--literally--and not amused!

But this time, it was the exact opposite. I had too many ideas! I either can't remember them all, or I can't type them up fast enough to post on my blog.

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: (Taps his night stick on the computer and looks at his watch impatiently.) I haven't got all night and I'm still not hearing a good reason.

Joe: Just a few moments more, Officer. There's not that much more to tell.

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: Where were you the afternoon of Saturday?

Joe: Ummmm...I happened to pass the psychic development institute in our area (a big field of interest in my neck of the woods) and noticed they had a free psychic faire. So I stopped in on a lark and got Ellen, who practiced giving me a reading. She explained,

"Joe, thoughts are energy. You are energy! If you don't write your ideas and insights shortly after you have them, you risk the energy of your thoughts bottlenecking and falling back into your leg, slipping along the leg meridian. It'll coagulate there."

Then she squinted at me as though peering into me and passed her hands within inches of my head.

"I'm feeling your energy aura around your head and upper torso. As I suspected. Your thought energy is bottlenecked at your 3rd cervical vertebrae and it's starting to migrate downward."

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: Gimme a break Joe, I don't have all night. Are you telling me you really believe this?

Joe: I really didn't know what to believe. I felt trapped in my own private X-File:

"But Mulder, what's the evidence? Just saying this is so doesn't make it true! Believing this without evidence is just plain delusional."

"Scully, quit clinging to the rationality of your scientific paradigms. Be in wonder! Just open your mind and entertain the 'possibility of all possibilities'!"

"Mulder, I'm trying to, but..."

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: Look Joe, I said I don't have all night. You just started this blog and you're not getting off on the right. (Pointing his night stick into Joe's face). Mister, don't give this me quiche kinda explanation, give me eat and pitatis!

Joe: Well, after I wished Ellen a great rest of her life, I researched "thought bottlenecking" on the web. There was a ton of hard research on it! It's a great blogger malady!

Yeah...did you know that at every moment, the brain processes millions, maybe billions, of bits of information. Nature keeps keeps unaware of most of it, otherwise we’d be bonkers with constant data overload. But the thoughts we are aware of, go into our short-term memory banks, a memory cache in the brain’s buffer.

Thoughts are like dreams. If we don't talk about them or write them down, they accumulate in short-term memory until they expire or exceed my short-term memory capacity. Then, they just vanish!

That was my "thought bottleneck" problem!

I get all these ideas I want to write about. I'll write about this, no I'll write about that. While I'm deciding, they're all going into my short-term memory, when I can't do anything about them, like when I'm driving to work or working out at the gym. Then, they disappear.

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: "Fine, fine, fine. So, what did you do about it? Tell me here or tell me at the station!"

Joe: Officer, I tried taking a pad and pencil with me, but it didn't work. I pert near killed myself taking notes while commuting to work at 80 mph. I've seen women whiz passed me on the highway, putting on make-up in the rear-view mirror. But, I don't multi-task that well.

And I tried taking notes when I'm running the treadmill at the gym, but my pencil lead tears the sweat blotches on my paper.

So, unless I write them down, my thoughts and ideas exceed my short term memory's capacity or they fall into my leg and vanish.

That's why I didn't post all week!

Officer Blogget, Blog Police: So you do believe the stuff about memories falling into your leg!...gullible bloggers (mumble, mumble).

Joe: I don't think I've really lost all my ideas. Larry, my personal fitness trainer, amateur psychoanalyst, and all-'round guru assured me, "Don't worry, Joe. 'When the student is ready, the teacher will come.' There is a wisdom in the body and in the unconscious mind; they never forget anything. When you need them, your inner wisdom will bring your ideas back up for you."
Officer Blogget, Blog Police: (Looking impassively at Joe) "Hmmm...me thinks thou protesteth too much!"

Joe: "OK, Officer, you got me...I was lazy."

Joe