Forgetfulness

For somewhere between five or seven months I've noticed that my memory is failing me, short term and long term. My wife as well as my friends have mentioned that I probably don't sleep enough. Sometimes I'll be reading and I can't even make sense of the words on the page, as if I couldn't remember the signified of the signifiers. Other times my inability to remember results in a strange kind of euphoria and I am able to feel more than perceive.

This not infrequent experience reminds me of something I read in and interview that Borges gave. He talked about not knowing German well enough to understand the poetry that he read in German. He did however understand enough of the language get the feeling of the poetry, which he thought was more important.

Together with my forgetfulness, I often wake up in places, at first unfamiliar, then context begins slowly to form in my mind and I understand. I read about a man who forgot the previous five years of his life through some freak happening in his brain. If that happened to me, I wouldn't know my beloved wife or my two daughters, or anything related to my field of study. I miss them, maybe I should get some sleep.