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 I
was visiting with some friends and we got into a deep conversation
about religion. They were quoting scripture from the Bible by book,
chapter and verse. Absolutely no one believes in God or the Bible
more than I do. But……this poor head has only so many bits and bytes
in it before it crashes. My mind went from the discussion we were
having about St. Peter and went to wonderment on how can people
remember all that. Word for word…...where it is…. who wrote it……what
part of the story it emphasizes…...who has a brain big enough for
all that?
Hmmmm. I still have nightmares about tests back in school. I would
study, cram, pull all-nighters and still have a test-blackout or
total mental block when the teacher passed out that test. I knew the
subject. I watched my fellow students as they wrote, calculated,
carried the aughts, or otherwise answered all the questions. I would
sit there sick at my stomach, wishing I could just disappear.
Playing the piano was no better. Although never a prize student, I
loved playing. I had a terrible time memorizing my pieces for
recitals or competition. It wasn’t the fear of getting up in front
of people. Nope. My brain just shut down. I’d look at all those
ivory and ebony keys and wonder what the heck I was going to do with
them. I had a wonderful teacher. She’s still a good friend today.
(Hi Lucy!). She was so patient with me but totally ran out of ideas
on how to get me to memorize properly. She tried rote, spaced
repetition, active recall, and chocolate. Nothing worked.
Oscar Wilde said, “Memory is the diary that we all carry about with
us.”
I have vivid recollections way back into my childhood. I recall when
my baby cousin, Suzie, was born. She’s only three years younger than
me, but I remember the spanking Dad gave me when I wanted to go see
her. Dad had said no and I took it upon myself to walk to her house.
We lived out in the country. I was all the way out to the road,
walking in the ditch when my father caught up with me and carried me
kicking and screaming back to the house. Oh, yes. That was a big
memory of learning not to defy my dad. As Forrest Gump would say,
“…….and that’s all I have to say about that.”
Billy Joel, “As long as there are memories, yesterday remains.”
Writer, Sugata Mitra, “Textbook intelligence is not true
intelligence. It only marks a man good at memorization.”
Well, I’m pretty sure if a person is my surgeon, pilot, or professor
that I want them to BE good at memorization. They better know what
button to push, how to read an Xray, or teach me absolute facts and
figures. Let’s not give memorization a bad rap just because there
are some of us not so good at it.
Let those of us who are not good at memorization but full of
memories be the writers and tellers of tales. We can entertain you,
calm you, and enlighten you after a hard day of flying, teaching or
surgeries. We all have our place on this great Planet Earth.
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I have learned there are different kinds of memorization people.
Let’s get back to quoting the Bible. I can tell you….in my own
words…...parables Jesus told…...I can captivate you with the 10
plagues God brought upon Egypt…I can inform you about the eight
people on the ark and make you question if dinosaurs were on board.
But within my articulating the stories, I fill in sounds, gestures,
voice changes, and facial expressions rather than book, chapter, and
verse. I knew a priest once that told Biblical stories this way and
he totally enthralled me. He always ended up with piously saying,
“If you are interested……look it up in the Book”.
Upjoke, “The oldest computer can be traced back to Adam and Eve. It
was an apple but with extremely limited memory. Just one byte and
then everything crashed.”
My Mac could sing every lyric to any rock and roll song written in
the 50’s or 60’s. I would sing along with him loud and proud. Only
difference was he was correct. I made up the words as I went along.
We didn’t care. He was also good at tests, memorizations, and
psychology. Opposites attract.
Reddit, “Memorization is a tool; it is the active, mechanical act of
storing data, facts, or lines in your head like a computer or
textbook. Memories are a treasure; they are the emotional echoes of
moments you lived, and…unlike raw data…actually internalize into
your character.”
I can read a book of poetry and can be floating on a cloud in awe,
melancholy, or calm. But…I cannot quote it back to you. I have
friends that immediately memorize the lines and can recite it back
so beautifully that it makes me weep. Dang it. I write poetry and
can’t memorize my own poems! How unfair is that?
My father-in-law used to scold me and say that my inability for
memorization was a form of self-hypnotism and lack of
self-confidence. Maybe so. I sure would like to go somewhere that
they could slap some self-confidence into this head.
There’s an old adage, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I
remember, involve me and I learn.” It certainly sounds wise and
clever. Not actually true for me, though. If that were true, I’d be
a concert pianist, or an accountant, or an actress!!!!!
I’m not even good at memorizing faces. It takes me forever to put a
name and a face together. It’s not Alzheimer’s Disease. I’ve always
been this way. Heavy sigh.
So, in conclusion, I just want to give a shoutout to all you who
remember your childhood phone number but can’t remember the password
you just created. You’re my people.
L. Maxine McQueen
may be contacted at
maxmac.1@juno.com
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