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| HEB at Hancock Center in Austin, TX-photo by Sabrina LeBoeuf |
This morning I had reason to visit an HEB supermarket here in Austin. For those outside of Texas, HEB is one of the main supermarket chains here. I went to the HEB at the Hancock Center location. This used to be the HEB I visited most frequently when I lived in The Cherrywood area of Austin, just a short walk on the other side of Interstate 35. So when I entered it this morning I immediately sensed something was amiss.
It turns out the entire interior had been renovated. The different food departments had been switched around, for example the fruits and vegetable section was on the opposite side of the store from where it once was. I know what you’re saying, “Who gives a shit?” I understand but this is not about the renovation of the store but rather about how the mind works. Because I was going to this store, there was some process in my brain that searched for my memories and experiences with this particular HEB location. It’s like the communication in my mind went something like this, “All right everyone he’s approaching the Hancock HEB, engage recall NFT569 in Temporal sector 37B.” Then all of those memories were uploaded to my frontal lobe. But when I crossed that HEB threshold, what I had expected wasn’t what my eyes saw. There was friction within the synapses of the brain causing confusion. I immediately said to myself this isn’t right and then said they must have changed things around. I had to think for a few seconds to remember how the old layout of the store actually looked. I ended up asking one of the HEB workers if they had changed around the store, which I knew at this point they had. He said they had and are at the end of a two year renovation. The idea is to make all HEB stores, where possible, to look exactly alike on the inside with the idea being anyone can walk in any HEB store and know where the different departments are located. I could care less about that. Actually I would prefer some variety but what does interest me is how our minds work.
There are all kinds of processes that the mind uses to store our memories, experiences and information we’ve learned throughout our lives. And the mind uses many processes to recall that information. Of course people are different and have different learning capacities etc. Memories can be flawed. And there are debilitating diseases and injuries that affect one's brain power. I’m learning French right now and am having difficulty with not just remembering vocabulary but also with pronunciation. My mind wants to pronounce that “e” at the end of a word like you would in Spanish. It’s hard to break that connection. When I knew I was going to that HEB store I didn’t consciously think about what it looked like inside. Those thoughts didn’t enter my mind. I was just thinking about what items I was going to purchase. Yet those memories were there inside my mind and brought up somewhere between my conscious and sub-conscious on its own. I guess I’m glad that my mind still works well enough to where I can recall this information. As you get older those brain processes become compromised, especially our memories. There have been countless times where I’ve tried to remember things and have tried to enlist help from someone and the best I could do was, “You know that actor in that movie where he does that thing.” Terrible. Anyway I am fascinated with these little things that I experience at times.
