There are many different ways a brain begins to age and loose functionality. Just because you forgot your car keys when you went to use the car doesn’t mean your brain is senile. Another example is what they call ‘aphasia’. Aphasia is a neurological disorder caused by brain damage—most commonly from a stroke, tumor, or injury—that impairs a person’s ability to process language, speak, read, write, and understand speech. It affects communication but does not impact intelligence. Then there’s the old standby, loss of hearing. Everyone assumes deafness is dumbness. Common to everyone but increases with age, is the common experience of ‘why did I come into this room?’

Living in the midst of these mannerisms but knowing he can still think and deal with multi-dimensional tasks, mariner has created a grouping of these difficulties into a behavior called ‘Driving the Bus’. The ‘bus’ is a metaphor for the human body. When any brain action involves the five senses, it is driving the bus. Forgetfulness or the ability to remain focused or the disruption caused by habits are the three most common examples, given physical disorders like vision, hearing, etc.

Mariner had an experience today when executing one of his daily responsibilities: getting daily mail from the post office. He gathered the mail ready to be mailed, got into his car, drove to the post office, picked up the incoming mail, drove home before he noticed he forgot to mail the outgoing mail. Not only that, he came into the house still wearing the vehicle-based sunglasses – a repeating error worthy of a few curse words.

One can perceive that all these behaviors interfere with ‘driving the bus’. Still, as the driver of everything the brain does, things still are functional in general; one can’t forget to pee or form scabs on injuries or recognize clickbait. Even with a forgetful bus, our brains are better focused than any elected official. Here is a test: Do you know when you are responding to clickbait?

So remember, when we old folks sit unresponsive in a room full of talkers, we ain’t stupid, our bus just isn’t the latest model.

Ancient Mariner