So, you’re approaching this cute girl in a bar, and you ask her for her name. Two minutes in, and you’re like: “Fuck me if I know what’s her name. It’d be too awkward to ask her again, though.” How many times have you met someone and forgot their name? On how many occasions have you forgotten what to buy in a store? What about your passwords? Sadly, that’s just the way our brains work. Our memory is fallible, and it deteriorates as we age. So, next time, instead of writing shit down on a piece of paper, help yourself and try to memorize it. Don’t give in to the fear of forgetting it.
Our memory is shit, and you can either accept that or you can do something about it (chances are you don't give a shit about it for as long as you remember how to jerk yourself off). All memory is built on one of two basic mechanisms, first being repetition, and the other being asphyxiation… No, wait, that’s not right. Assassination. Nope. Association!
When you attempt to memorize, say, a phrase, you’re most likely going to repeat it in your head until you engrave those words in your skull. This is a lengthy, time-consuming process. And it’s inefficient since memory built on such principle is rarely ever-lasting. You either have to repeat it endlessly and keep reminding yourself of it every now and then, or you forget it. Just think of some song lyrics from a decade ago. Even though you knew all the words back then, today, as it is, you’re a lyricless little bitch.
Repetition is not all bad, though. In certain instances, from my perspective, it pans out to be quite an efficient mnemonic tool. Think vocabulary, for example. When I come across a new word, I’ll rarely commit to memorizing it in any fashion that’s not related to repetition. In other words, I’ll repeat the fuck out of it, until it becomes a part of my lexicon. The more you use this newly-acquired word, the more you commit it to your lexicon. And no matter how vast your lexicon is, it can always be improved, by adding new words to this lexicon.
Alright, asshole, you shat all over repetition. Now what? Bear with me for a second (in other words, lemme waste your time for a bit longer). Association is the mother of all memory. Without it, things get forgotten, no matter how many times you repeat them. Our brains recognize patterns and images much better than abstract objects. And words, no matter how logical, are, in the end, abstracts, artificial constructs… However, if we transform them into images, our noggins can memorize them much more efficiently. Combine naturally-excelling spatial memory (of places you’ve been to) with these pictures and you’ve got yourself a recipe for flawless memory (or less shitty one, at worst).
Let’s run a short experiment, in order to show you how efficient association is. Before we embark on this journey, I’d like to ask you to keep two things in mind: i) make your images as dynamic and lively as you can, and ii) make your images as grotesque as you can. Why? Well, our skulls like to be mindfucked, and they thrive on shit that stands out. Let me show you.
This is a list we’ve got to memorize:
How do you approach this problem? Do you repeat these things in your head over and over, or do you use an ancient method known as the memory palace AKA method of loci to “download” this data, and “install” it in your brain? The latter, duh.
First, imagine a place well-known to you. It may be your house, classroom, office, anything. What’s important is that you can visualize every single detail regarding that location. First on the list is cheese, so what you wanna do is drop that shit at your front door. But if you simply place a wheel of cheese on your doorstep, I’m afraid it won’t do. So, you imagine a bathtub with melted cheese, and in it? But ass naked Donald Trump. Good luck getting that image out of your head. Secondly, you enter your house/flat, and you head straight to your kitchen. You open the fridge, and there you put four green ninja turtles, shaped like cucumbers. You close the fridge, only to head straight to your bedroom, and in your bed? A wolf-looking mean ol’ lady talking to someone on a mobile phone. Then you turn around, only to see your boss sitting in the lap of a shemale with big tits (it’s been over five years since I made a permanent connection between an email and a shemale through this image, so it’s only fair that I extend this suffering to others). Finally, you go to your desk, and you catch your best friend swiping your monitor with a broom, reminding you that you should delete your browser history before your wife gets home. There ya go. Take a stroll through this place once again in five minutes, then in a day, and in a week, and each time you'll find those items that you put there. So, I guess it's a combo of association and repetition.
The process itself seems mental, I know. But it does work miracles. And this is only a glimpse of what it can do. At first, it takes minutes to commit shit to your memory, but if you're persistent, it will become easier, and before you know it, you'll be able to memorize entire "Hamlet". More on how to memorize speeches, poems, and chemical formulas soon. In the meantime, tell me about your experience regarding the memory palace.
