My Moriarty

Studies involving cognitive deficits in MS indicate a retrieval deficit combined with an underlying storage deficit in the semantic memory. Moreover, results specific to language function show both slowness in performance and a significantly increased rate of error over non-MS subjects.

Another way of putting this would be to say that if one has holes in his bucket, his bucket tends to leak. Rather, it is guaranteed to do so. Until such a time comes when the holes are patched, the bucket will leak. Sadly, we have no way at present of patching MS holes in the brain.

Learning a new language, therefore, becomes something of an exercise in futility. I may read a sentence in Indonesian, look up the words I do not know, insert the same into my immediate comprehension of the sentence, but that is often as far as it goes. Chances are good to perfect that the next time I see the same words, I will have forgotten their meanings, and find myself consulting the dictionary once again.

Begin from the beginning is good advice in general, but not something to be done on a perpetual basis.

Why then do I persist? Stubbornness, in a word. Or perhaps I have too much time on my hands. Or perhaps I believe deep down that I can think my way out of these holes. Perhaps deep down I refuse to acknowledge the very idea that I have permanent brain damage.

I remember a movie from a long time ago (They Might Be Giants) wherein George C. Scott played an intelligent, inventive man who also just happened to have schizophrenia and was convinced that he was Sherlock Holmes. He spent his time pursuing a certain Professor Moriarty, a sort of embodiment of all that is evil, destructive, amoral. Everything seemed to contain a clue--the daily newspaper, if you read it just right--a road sign--a scrap of paper on the sidewalk--a sideways glance from a stranger, and so on.

Scott dressed like Holmes, wore the coat and the hat; he smoked a pipe; and while meditating on the motives of his evil prey, he would play the violin, just as Holmes had. But the thing is, he did not have a clue about how to play the instrument. It was the act itself that mattered, the holding of it, the bowing of it, an actualization applied toward legitimizing the charade.

Directly questioned about this at one point by a female companion he had named Watson, Scott broke down and in a moment of frustration (not to mention clarity), threw down the bow and shouted Well I don't know how to play the damn thing!

And yet he soon returned to doing so.

So it happens as well that I return to the study of a second language. It is the carrying of the book, the turning of the pages, the attempts of my tongue to actually produce the thing, no matter how dissonant the result, that finally matters.

Moriarty, I fear you not!