Monday, July 8, 2019

Cognitive Load

I read The Rosie Project the other night--a lightweight romance about a scientist on the spectrum who organizes his life in logical ways--including creating a questionnaire to find a wife.
Good for mindless distraction after a day of heavy cognitive lifting. 
That was the one thing in the book that struck me--the way the scientist factors cognitive load into his equation of daily living--how much sleep and food he needs.

It reminds me of how tired I was the first few months at BOOK's, and how my workmate Mr Linens helpfully resassured me that it was because I was having to make decisions all the time.
He wouldn't use the term cognitive load, but he knew how it works.

Starving for Books

My brain was tired after I volunteered yesterday for the first time at the Women's Prison Book Project
It was easy and fun work, filling handwritten requests for books (three per person) from women in prison from the donated books on hand. 

Often you have to make do, mix and match. 
Someone wanted esoteric books on UFOs and the like, but we only had something on angels. Not what she wanted, I sensed, but better than nothing, when you're sitting in prison.

One letter really got to me:
"Dear Good People," it read. 
"We don't have a library because there's no librarian. We are starving for books. Thanks for your kindness and generosity."
I was really hungry after the 3-hour shift. The WPBP is hosted by an alternative lefty bookstore that is near my first place of work in town, an alternative lefty restaraunt--Seward Café.
I went there for blueberry buckwheat pancakes after, to restore my brain's depleted glucose [not scientifically verified].

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