Remember that time about four years ago when you were tying your shoe and the shoelace broke? Or how about the time, that same year, when you were stuck in traffic behind the same car for an hour and you thought you’d never forget its license plate number? No..?
Remember that moment, about four years ago when you heard the Twin Towers were gone? I do, quite well. You might even remember what you were wearing at the time; which I do not. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what I wore yesterday. This is a memory gap that causes me some anxiety, as I occasionally get an uneasy feeling that I may have been wearing the same clothes for several consecutive days. And of course, you can’t trust anyone to tell you these things. A bizarre and comical quirk of human nature is that, for whatever reason, most people are reluctant to inform their neighbors of bits of twig in their hair, spinach between the teeth, or the conspicuous presence on the face of an errant nasal escapee.
(That last bit was just a fancy attempt to avoid using the word “booger”, which, now that I think of it, was rather out of character for me.)
So why is it that we remember some things for our entire lives while other things are forgotten almost immediately? Why can’t I remember my eighth birthday, but can still remember what our home telephone number was at the time? And why do some things that seem worth remembering at the time fade into oblivion while things I wish I could forget are seared into my cerebrum forever? The motivation behind this question is best illustrated by two similar experiences.
In college, I had a particularly difficult time with Finance 302. I came to hate that class. I would study nearly everyday, and when exams came around I couldn’t remember anything I had read. It was terrible.
Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Gum had a jingle they used to play in their television commercials (which you are now humming as you read this). I came to hate that jingle. I would hear it nearly everyday, but if there were an exam in which I was asked to write the lyrics to the Juciy Fruit jingle, I could do it. It’s terrible.
I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if we could remember everything – every word we’ve heard or spoken, every e-mail we’ve ever written, every bowel movement – all as if they had just happened. Some people seem to have this ability to remember everything (my wife would have me believe she does). It seems like this would be an immensely useful evolutionary advantage if for no other reason than to cut down on the amount of smalltalk between acquaintances.
“Hey, remember that time when I ate that really big sandwich?”
“Yes.”
“Er… Of course you do.”
…
“Well, I’ll see you later then.”
Also, the game show Jeopardy probably would not exist.
In the interest of science, I’ve decided to try to fool my brain into memorizing a really mundane event, like clipping my toenails or washing my car, and see if I can still remember it twenty years from now. Or maybe I’ve already done that, and just don’t remember.
Bye for now.