Memory Palace

I read a book called Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, a book on the memory of individuals across the world.  It is one of the books I actually FINISHED (I tend to start reading a book and then lose focus on finishing the book) and an informative one at that.  I have truly believed that my memory is horrendous and many of my friends have teased me about my memory to a point where I got sick of it and wanted to find a way to improve it.  I picked up this book and boy, I have learned much about the potential of my human and everyone else’s.  This TED talk by Joshua Foer explains the basic concepts of memory and the feats that inidividuals have achieved who claimed to have average memory.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html

I adapted some techniques for memorizing lists or anything else and it does indeed work!  However, being who I am (I am in no way trying to degrade myself - it is a fact that I am attempting to change this year), I do not finish or follow through what I say I will do.  I used the techniques for some times and then I found my way back to my lazy, relying-on-my-smartphone, ways and lost my motivation for improving my memory.  I finally got back into it again, by purchasing Lumosity, a brain-training game program that works on different parts of a person’s brain such as short term, long term, spatial, working, flexibility, and many other parts.  

However, one of the reasons why I am posting about this is this: one line that Joshua Foer said, “How much we are willing to lose from our already short lives by losing ourselves in our blackberries, iphones by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking to us by being so lazy that we are not willing to process deeply?”

That is the foundation of our memory - to pay attention, focus deeply on what is going on, what the individual is saying, and recall details.  It is something our society has adapted - to “multitask”… to distribute our focus among many different tasks.  Our minds have grown and evolved, no doubt about it and our minds have adapted to be able to multitask - but do we all do it well and efficiently?  I have been one to try and not use my phone when I am engaging with people in an environment where a lot is happening.  I want to show my attention to those individuals, even though they may not do the same for me - it doesn’t matter because I want to be in that moment… I just hope they would see that too.  I am NEVER saying that THEY aren’t paying attention to anything - again I do the same thing - I am saying it can seem that way.

Memory is something of importance to me and I am looking at many ways to improve it!