Memorizing, quoting, and other demonstrations of superior memory ... bah!

photo credit

I am constantly impressed to see an actor on the spur of the moment do the opening monologue of a Shakespearean play. Or, someone quote a famous poem, perhaps even a short story. All from memory! Incredible. Can I do that? Uh, ... no. I have tried, I promise, though probably not hard enough. I remember phrases, clauses, and elements. I'm more a generalist, seeking to put together life's jigsaw puzzles. Did I mention I love puzzles? --- Squirrel! --- Sorry, got distracted.

That said, I'm still trying. My bucket list includes the final dialogue from Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and a few poems (such as "The Raven"), and maybe some song lyrics (which for some reason I cannot retain, yup, even songs I've listened to a billion times). Oddly, I can quote Star Wars without pause. Eh, the human mind is a strange thing, which is possibly why we don't fully understand it yet.

Anyway, memorizing is an amazing feat. I've watched people demonstrate truly incredible, photographic, recall. Things like instantly memorizing a complete chessboard with something on each square, or a long list of names, and especially impressive was taking the orders of a long table of customers without using a notepad (oh, and some customers changed their orders after everyone had finished). There's all sorts of tools to use, and methods that work, but the main component seems to be attentiveness. For some strange reason paying attention matters. Yeah, odd isn't it? Apparently it doesn't happen by osmosis--I tried that too, by sleeping on my textbooks, but it didn't work.

- M