A couple of thousand years ago, Socrates was lamenting the fact that writing things down was an intellectual crutch that was making the youth lazy. Or it might have been Plato – I really can’t remember because I failed to write it down.
It seems that as every year passes, I am able to hold less and less in my head, and rely more and more on writing things in a notebook. I have attributed this to the same reason my computer slows down after a few years – more and more bits of (mostly useless) information is taking valuable disc space away from what I need to remember most recently.
Case in point – I went to the grocery store looking for five items last week. The first four, I recalled without difficulty. The fifth item, however, completely eluded me to the point where I was wandering up and down the aisles with my mouth open, and eyes squinted hoping that item number five would magically jump off the shelf and into my basket.
I left the store with four items.
On the way home, there was a radio trivia contest asking about the actor that played the role of Skipper on Gilligan’s Island in the 70s. Any thinking person would tell you that it’s the legendary Alan Hale. Likewise, if you want to know Marsha Brady’s first boyfriend’s name (Harvey), I’m the guy you want to call.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I could take out a Craig’s List ad as the phone-a-friend guy for “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” contestants for anything that happened twenty or thirty years ago. Just don’t ask me who won the 2010 World Series. I remember watching the game, I just didn’t write down the winner.
I first started thinking about this blog post in the car, and had something really clever to say. Unfortunately, I couldn’t write it down, so you might have to check back every few days to see if I’ve remembered.
Note to self: Take more notes.