I love telling a particular joke to my students whenever I'm advising them to study adequately. The joke revolves around the law of use and disuse of organs according to Jean Lamarck. Some like to call it “Lamarckism.” In layman’s language, Lamarck’s theory explains that an organ put into regular use will naturally improve in efficiency, and this improved efficiency can be passed on to future generations. On the other hand, an otherwise important and useful organ that is underused or not used at all will degenerate, and the degenerated organ is what future generations will inherit.
I simply relay this theory to my students and relate it to the danger of not putting their brains to adequate use, assuming Lamarckism is indeed true. It takes them a few seconds to get the joke, but you can imagine their amusement by the time it dawns on them.
Recently, something happened, or let me say, is happening to me,that makes me think strongly about the law of use and disuse of organs. I started memorizing a book about two months ago. I had very low enthusiasm at first until I discovered that memorizing this book holds the key to promotion from one class to the next in the certification program I’m currently running. In other words, if I wish to get the certificate eventually, I’ll need to memorize whatever is recommended by my teachers.
Initially, I laboured heavily just to memorize four lines per day. With time, memorizing became much easier, to my surprise. It’s barely two months now, and the sheer number of pages I’ve memorized surprises me. I was later told by my seniors in the program that the more effort one makes to memorize, the easier it becomes. Some said they went from memorizing two to three lines per day to one or two full pages daily.
When it comes to physical tasks, I understand and firmly believe in the saying that practice makes perfect. I consider it normal that one will improve naturally with constant practice. I never really thought deeply about this applying to mental tasks such as memorizing texts. But now, I think I understand it better.
There is something almost physical about mental exercise. The brain may not grow muscles like the arms or legs, but it certainly responds to repeated strain. The first few days of memorization felt like dragging a heavy object uphill. I would read the same lines repeatedly and still stumble while reciting them minutes later. Sometimes I would close the book confidently, only to realize that half the passage had evaporated from my head before I even stood up from my seat.
The same brain that struggled to hold four lines suddenly began arranging pages comfortably. Passages that once looked impossibly long started appearing shorter. I also noticed that my concentration improved in other areas. Reading became more focused. Recalling information during conversations became easier. Even my general alertness changed slightly.
People often speak about intelligence as though it is a fixed gift distributed unfairly at birth. While natural differences certainly exist, I suspect many minds remain underdeveloped simply because they are rarely stretched beyond comfort. We casually accept mental laziness in ways we would never accept physical laziness. Someone who cannot jog for two minutes understands immediately that their body needs exercise. But someone who struggles to focus on a page for ten minutes rarely sees it the same way.
The modern world does not help matters either. Almost everything now competes to reduce attention span. Short videos, endless scrolling, notifications every few seconds, and the habit of consuming information in fragments all train the mind to avoid sustained effort. Deep reading begins to feel uncomfortable. Memorization starts sounding ancient. Reflection becomes tiring.
Meanwhile, the brain quietly adapts to whatever it repeatedly experiences. That adaptation is what fascinates me most. The mind appears to shape itself around its habits. Use sharpens it. Neglect dulls it. Perhaps that is why elderly scholars who spent decades reading and memorizing can still recall astonishing details effortlessly, while much younger people struggle to remember phone numbers they dial daily. Maybe memory is not disappearing as much as it is being abandoned.
I still joke with my students about Lamarckism, especially if I'm taking them for the first time, and they still laugh after a short delay. But lately, each time I make that joke, a part of me takes it more seriously than before, not because I suddenly believe unused brains will physically shrink across generations, but because I now understand how easily the mind adjusts downward when denied meaningful work.
I'm now focused on increasing the number of pages I memorize per day.
Wish me luck!
