The other day, some students and I got together online to discuss how we memorize things. In this particular group, all of us were performers, and our ostensible goal was to become better at memorizing the materials we must perform. But the issue is of interest to everyone, performer or not. In fact, memory isn’t even about memory itself.
Here’s an example. I’ve always “had a terrible memory for faces and names,” although I have a first-class memory for facts, numbers, concepts, and choice nuggets from Wikipedia. Depending on context, I can sound as if “I know a lot,” although at the same time “I don’t even know your name,” which means “I don’t know anything, do I!”
What gives? Well, between my innate introversion and the way I was socialized as a child (a big subject that I won’t talk about right now, !ay caramba!), every time I meet a person for the first time I dissociate for a few seconds. I blank out. I have a minor psychotic episode. I go on mental vacation. I run away. The person says his or her name, and I simply don’t hear it because I’m not there. It’s not true that I have a terrible memory for faces and names. I can look at a thousand faces of famous people and name hundreds and hundreds of them. Eleanor Roosevelt. Walt Disney. Otto von Bismarck. Pelé. Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, the Maharaja of Mysore (maybe, maybe not).
My point is that, behind memory, there lie deep psychological mechanisms, some shared by all individuals, some unique to each individual. Don’t work on improving your memory; work on improving those psychological mechanisms that have been sabotaging your memory.
I’ll use a poem of mine to illustrate my point, and to give you some nifty tools. Keep in mind that (1) this isn’t about memorizing, (2) this isn’t about performing, (3) this isn’t about my poem, (4) this is a list with four items.
What on earth is this poem about? Don’t worry, be happy. I don’t mean that the poem is about not worrying and being happy. I mean that tool #1, the best tool, the most helpful tool is for you not to worry when faced with a task. If you’re worrying, you aren’t paying attention to the task; instead, you’re paying attention to your worry. Let your understanding of the poem arise by itself; let it come to you if and when it comes to you. Don’t make a pact with the Devil just to understand this poem! But if you really must understand the poem, dial 1-800-BEELZEBUB (charges may apply).
The poem has eighteen lines, in three blocks of six lines. We isolate the first block, and we break it up according to its punctuation and its “swing,” as it were. The information immediately becomes easier to absorb and digest (and understand and remember). Tool #2: the display of information affects how you receive the information. You can solve many problems by rearranging information, by moving things around, by “putting space” in between things. The “space” allows your “mind” to “breathe.” (Quote marks were on sale, and “I couldn’t resist” the bargain.)
What is difficult to say is difficult to remember. You won’t remember a line in a poem by repeatedly mangling it. “You’ll remember the mangling, not the poem!” Leave memorization aside, and instead examine the words and sounds and gestures that are difficult for you. Zero in on a trouble spot. Let’s suppose that the line “Vestiges of stranger peoples” provokes you a little. What exactly are “vestiges”? And how exactly do you pronounce the word? Look it up on the Internet, or ask a friend with a PhD in linguistics. Or fret terribly and judge the poet harshly and say, “Forget it!” Your memory will take that as a command. Tool #3: Take it easy, step by step, word by word, sound by sound, nanotask by nanotask.
You don’t have to enjoy a task in order to perform it well; you can enjoy “yourself” rather than the task. My poem is just an example of a task and how to approach it. If you dislike the poem, or if you despise it, or if you desperately dislike and despise it—hey, this is called “alliteration,” the process of repeating a sound for poetic and musical reasons. Des-dis-des, desss-disss-desss, like the sssserpent in Mowgli. (Kaa. But you knew hisssss name, of coursssssse!) Find the musical patterns, the colorsssss, the things repeated and varied, and you’ll memorize the poem (and the song and the choreography and the equation and the algorithm and the shopping list) more easily. “Fleeting tenuous tangent” has four tee sounds, for instance. “As to appear nearly one” repeats the sound “ear,” app-EAR n-EAR-ly one. My poem has a bunch of such patterns. Tool #4: Enjoy “yoursssssself.”
Pattern recognition is a vital skill, which we spend our lives learning and refining. The newborn is practically a pattern-recognition machine, cataloguing similarities and differences: “humans and non-humans,” “parents and non-parents,” “nipple, like a nipple, unlike a nipple spit it out bleargh.” The baby invests a tremendous amount of attention in her pattern recognition. And the baby learns sensorially first, and intellectually second. The world is a kaleidoscopic maze of interlocked patterns. Your job is to (1) enjoy the kaleidoscope with all your senses, and (2) not get dizzy as the kaleidoscope turns. Then you’ll remember the similarities and differences, “by heart.” Tool #5: By memory, by heart, by lungs, by arms and hands and legs and feet. Toes too. They are nipple-like.
If you know where you’re going, you travel easy. Learn your journey in steps, backward from the destination to the departure. My poem has 18 verses. Start by saying the last verse (18) all by itself. Then say the last two verses (17, 18). Then say the last three verses (16, 17, 18). Keep going in the same fashion all the way to the first verse.
18. less than line, a single point.
17. for a fleeting tenuous tangent—
18. less than line, a single point.
16. and to hope, despite design,
17. for a fleeting tenuous tangent—
18. less than line, a single point.
15. to get lost, to find yourself,
16. and to hope, despite design,
17. for a fleeting tenuous tangent—
18. less than line, a single point.
By the time you finish the exercise, you’ll have said the last verse a total of eighteen times, and you’ll know it as well as your own first name and your left big toe. You’ll also know the verse before it really well, and the one before it too, and the one before it too also. And when you declaim the poem from the beginning, every verse gives you more confidence than the verse before, “since you know exactly where you’re going.” It feels good to feel good, doesn’t it? Tool #6: Forward and backward, backward and forward. The alphabet starts with Zee.
You recite that poem line by line, from the end to the beginning. How long does it take? Depending on your speed, about two minutes. You’ll get bored! Distracted! Annoyed! Check emails, click likes, chew gum! You won’t remember the poem, but the chewing gum. Stay with the poem for two minutes. For two minutes, stay with the poem. Stay for two minutes with the poem. Every word meaningful, every verse invested with your attention and your care. Then you’ll remember your care and your attention, and you’ll love yourself for being such a caring and attentive person, and—sure, you’ll know the poem inside out. Tool #7: Love. L-O-V-E. Noun and verb, reflexive and personal.
“In grammar, a reflexive verb is, loosely, a verb whose direct object is the same as its subject.”
©2020, Pedro de Alcantara