This Might Be Interesting...or Maybe Not
I'm reading a book right now (The Know-It-All) about a guy who read the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica - just for kicks. Well, he also has some inferiority issues regarding his father and brother-in-law, but it was, mainly, just for kicks. He's admitting, quite readily, that he's not retaining nearly as much information as he would have liked, and this brought up an interesting topic, concerning how we remember shit we read.
Do we have a better shot at remembering something we understand? Like if I read an article about some obscure legal matter, will I be less likely to remember it than, say, an article about Kobe Bryant's shooting technique? Or maybe it has to do with interest; you have a better chance of remembering if you're interested in the subject - the more interested, the better I imagine. So if I read an article about something I understand and I'm interested in it, I'll remember it better?
I have no idea.
But I do know that I'm not remembering nearly as much as I did when I was younger. I would read a book when I was 13, some Fantasy book about dragons and shit, and I'd remember everything - plots, names, events, etc. I would watch the news and remember all the stories and relevant details, and now I listen to the news and can't remember what station I was watching ten minutes later. My brain must be decreasing in ability or something, 'cause I clearly suck more than I used to.
Of course, that might be my fault. I was brilliant when I was 13, and then I stopped caring about learning and education for a good six years. I'm paying the price now as I feel like a dummmmer more often than I'd like. I spent six long years playing guitar, pretending to learn, reading only what classes assigned as homework, and playing Final Fantasy video games over and over again. I used to read a book a week, and BIG books, too, 1000 page tomes written by some author who enjoys producing treatises within the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. Now, I keep telling myself I don't have that much time to read, which is clearly a lie. But I'm doing better than high school, where I literally read 30 books in four years, which is awful for me. Going from a book every week/week and a half to one book every seven weeks? That's terrrrble.
But at least I'm makig progress, now. Hopefully, I can regain my brilliant prepubescent form, and remember what I read and hear, instead of barely engaging my brain when I read/hear things.
Getting old just makes you dumb, I guess. This chronology seems counterintuitive. Hmmm...Screw adulthood.
Do we have a better shot at remembering something we understand? Like if I read an article about some obscure legal matter, will I be less likely to remember it than, say, an article about Kobe Bryant's shooting technique? Or maybe it has to do with interest; you have a better chance of remembering if you're interested in the subject - the more interested, the better I imagine. So if I read an article about something I understand and I'm interested in it, I'll remember it better?
I have no idea.
But I do know that I'm not remembering nearly as much as I did when I was younger. I would read a book when I was 13, some Fantasy book about dragons and shit, and I'd remember everything - plots, names, events, etc. I would watch the news and remember all the stories and relevant details, and now I listen to the news and can't remember what station I was watching ten minutes later. My brain must be decreasing in ability or something, 'cause I clearly suck more than I used to.
Of course, that might be my fault. I was brilliant when I was 13, and then I stopped caring about learning and education for a good six years. I'm paying the price now as I feel like a dummmmer more often than I'd like. I spent six long years playing guitar, pretending to learn, reading only what classes assigned as homework, and playing Final Fantasy video games over and over again. I used to read a book a week, and BIG books, too, 1000 page tomes written by some author who enjoys producing treatises within the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. Now, I keep telling myself I don't have that much time to read, which is clearly a lie. But I'm doing better than high school, where I literally read 30 books in four years, which is awful for me. Going from a book every week/week and a half to one book every seven weeks? That's terrrrble.
But at least I'm makig progress, now. Hopefully, I can regain my brilliant prepubescent form, and remember what I read and hear, instead of barely engaging my brain when I read/hear things.
Getting old just makes you dumb, I guess. This chronology seems counterintuitive. Hmmm...Screw adulthood.
1 erotic poetry prompts:
You know, I noticed a large degradation on my capabilities years ago during the teenage years. I always attributed it to the sheer abandon with which I dedicated myself to killing braincells when I was like 15. Maybe I was wrong. . .
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