Our Memory is a GUI

Everything that goes through any of our senses is stored in our memory as a mental picture.

It uses our occipital cortex. So, don’t scratch the top of your head if you can’t recall. It happens behind your head!

Just google “visual memory” and countless search pages will show up with miracle recipes on how to improve it.

This is totally uninteresting to me. However, I often take a quick look at all those self-help things, then discard 99% of them.

What is interesting is how our brain works, and thorough studies, serious stuff won’t appear on the first search page. Go further.

I find it fascinating that our memory transforms everything into a mental image. Vivid, exaggerated, lurid, hilarious… Unexpected ways are to be expected!

One of the most important aspects of it, is that if you aren’t actively participating in memorizing, your “file” (memory) will be lost somewhere into some random place you can’t easily recall, or can’t recall at all. Unlike computers, we have no indexing and search option available to find where our file is.

Actively participating means “abstracting” the (usually) boring stuff. You’ll need to find ways to get mnemotechnic in remembering things. It will take some time and practice, but it is worth the sweat!

If you just absorb, you are not memorizing. You are listening, watching, smelling… but not memorizing.

When memorizing, don’t lay on a couch and repeat ad nauseam the same thing, hoping it will get into your memory. You have to add emotion to it to work properly.
Being on a couch is not what I call an emotional trigger (unless you get laid, but that’s another story).

Stand up. Read aloud. Repeat each syllable many times. Let the music come.

Don’t worry, your music will anyway be associated with a mental image. Not a mere image, but a mental one. Those are discrete things!

I hope that by now, you start figuring out why I called this post “our memory is a GUI”. Yes, it is a graphical user interface. Touch this icon / click on it, and it will react.
An icon is an object which has properties. Exactly like our memory.

I am still studying this overlooked aspect of our memorizing process, so expect an update or another post as soon as I have new and relevant content.

Meanwhile, know that nobody has a bad memory. If you want to have a really hard time remembering faces, events, sounds, etc, keep saying to yourself that your memory is poor, or bad, or that you suck.

I encourage you to do your own search. I want us to discuss and debate around this topic.

Well. I’m going to find ways to memorize five high-level programming languages. I’ll focus primarily on Objective-C.

The meaning, the syntax, the words or signs used all have some potential for visual memorizing. What can I do with @synthesize ? Split it into syllables and repeat them until I find a way to relate what is on my screen to what it means. Make music out of it (“synth” could already be “synthesizer”. Or maybe should I try to merge “sin”, “in”, “the”, “size and visualize a huge cock)?

I told you that the more exaggerated, gory or porn, the better and easier to remember. Summarize it into a vivid mental image (not an image like a photo) and link it to its meaning (meanings aren’t obvious in programming). That is why Stanford has a “programming abstractions” course, in my opinion.

Again, don’t merely absorb, but stand up (to stay alert) and actively participate in memorizing.

In those big “memory contests”, they give you energizing beverages. It is not a coincidence, is it?

 

If you needed more time, where would you take from?

If you needed more time, where would you take from?.

There are clear time-wasters in our daily lives:

•Facebook
•Twitter
•Checking e-mails 30 times a day

Just 3 of them. I’ll gladly drop any of.

Actually, I dropped everything but Twitter.

I freed at least 5 hours a day.

However, I’ll never give up on reading Seth Godin’s blog and books about art and artmaking.

If you could make anyone in the world stop talking…

No politics or economics here. We have enough of it, don’t we?

I would like to show outrage. A mouthful of tar black vomit right in the face in those people which are everywhere, everytime, who capitalize on their rockstar status to allow themselves to talk more than the average-low about how awesome they are…

If only they could be ignored. No more interviews, no more videos, no more them.

Want names? Obviously, I’m speaking about musicians. [Hint: trained monkeys.]

As for the person I would like to talk for 24 hours more… Well, she is dead. It is my swedish grandmother. She was a coloratura soprano singer. I’ll give my nuts to hear her sing and talk again. Her companion was a church organ player, violinist and double bassist, I also wish he was there.

Enough pathos for today.

The Daily Post

Topic #294:

If you could make anyone in the world stop talking for 24 hours, who would it be? And why?

And if you could make anyone talk more for 24 hours?

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Creative Visuals coming your way!

Since my last post, I’ve been discussing the pros and cons of the video résumé.

People from very diverse fields gave their insight and opinion.

Before going further…

Consider this: the way you look, the way you talk, care about your kids, are all parts of your résumé. Please don’t forget that.

What matters is WHO you are as an individual. Forget about endless lists of what you did. It really doesn’t matter.

The past is gone. Do not try to replicate it, too. It is the “safest path to frustration and failure”. This is a weird sentence I coined during a discussion.

So, we gathered, discussed and came to several conclusions and ideas:

-Your résumé has to be thought. You cannot throw out a total improvisation.
You will be lost if you have no clue where you are, where you want to be and how to follow the roadmap YOU create.

Be creative and realistic.

Do you remember when I wrote that honest signals cannot be faked?

-A video résumé is not easy to do, but easier than you may think (the old model is awkward and totally supreme mega boring.)

You have to come to the highest level of clarity about yourself.

You’re not hiding behind a page, you’re in front of the video camera and there is where magic can happen! It’s your chance to get what you deserve: being seen and heard! It’s like public speaking.

Do not hesitate to “practice”. I highly recommend it. Record as many videos as possible… Compare. What’s cool? What sucks?

Do not worry about editing your video.
Worrying can cripple your work (which is actually your ART!)

-Imagine that you are asked to answer a questionnaire. Just that. Better than the old stuff, eh?

Now imagine that you have to reply to it with a video… And that you have 120 seconds. (120 seconds = 6 questions. Don’t fret, it’s OK.)

Words: 7%
Intonation: 38%
Gesture: 55%

Those are the % of the message you send.

The % of what matters the most to a employer/biz owner (they are not all greedy morons…) are different, and there is no rule for it!

Do not forget this. Never.

-What about something so compelling that you will astound everyone with how much of your (true) self you’ve put in?

Make a “whole package”. A résumé and a portfolio!

Sounds good to you?

It sounds fabulous to me.

Think about this. Think deeply.
Don’t feel like shit if you don’t come up with your best piece of art ever in the first place. It never happens overnight!

Discussions are still going on, and more is brought to the table everyday.

I believe that time is the father of all truth. We’ll see what happens next!

It always happens for a reason.

In this case, it’s because we’ve made a conscious choice of making it happen!

I promise you all the inside scoop and the juicy details in the next post. Stay tuned.