In some cases, there is nothing horrible in forgetting.
Once, Bernard Shaw got on a train in London but had forgotten the ticket at home. On the way, the inspector detected that the writer is traveling without a ticket, but recognizing his prominent compatriot, he promised not to impose fine to him. Show, however, was concerned. “Thank you, of course, but my problem is different, having no ticket with me I will not remember where I was planning to go.” Alexander Borodin, who has reached the world eminence in music and science (chemistry), is also known for his absent-mindedness. Once, when he was traveling abroad with his wife, he could not answer the question of border-guard about what his wife’s name is. The border-guard began to look at Borodin with suspicion when his wife entered the room. The composer ran to her and exclaimed, “Katya, for the love of God, tell him what your name is.”
Maybe they are myths, but quite instructive in the sense that people focus on remembering and reproducing some aspect of the information and fail equally to distribute their attention on all the phenomena, temporarily or permanently forgetting some things. Moreover, remembering everything is a pathology, which is called “hypermnesia”, when a person literally and in every detail remembers what has ever happened to him. People with no such pathology have the feature of forgetting, which sometimes prevents, but without it, the brain will become a senseless waste bin. Certainly, the forgetting mechanism helps us also not to be honest to ourselves, the so-called “relieving the conscience” and not to remember the episodes of life, which do not characterize us well, or, at least, remember them not exactly in a way as they have occurred.
This “absent-mindedness,” of course, is applauded, remembering such things are necessary, but the question is different that we should not fall into the extremes self-reproach. The memory, indeed, could and should be developed. Some people say that it is necessary to drink water mixed with honey or to take some pills (“pills for memory”), I do not particularly believe in it. As in the physical muscles of a person so as here too, it is possible to inject some medicine so that they swell, but it does not bring any results, except for the outer effect. So is the memory, it is a special “muscle” that needs to be constantly “trained.” There is a colossal volume of literature about it. Interestingly, the visual memory is better “trained” that of the hearing, for the simple reason that the nerves passing from the eyes to the brain are 20 times thicker than the nerves that our ears connect with the brain.
Incidentally, one of the exercises is called the “method of Aivazovsky,” by the name of the artist’s name: close your eyes and try to mentally recreate the image of the object as detailed as possible. In Aivazovsky’s case, it was, of course, the sea with its varied colors and forms of the waves. There are thousands of exercises to train visual, auditory and touch senses, which are available on the Internet. Importantly that like for any other “exercise”, the essential thing here is the daily effort, energy. Let’s adapt to the idea that some things, anyway, will not work out, some things will be forgotten, but regardless of this good or bad outcome, the brain will be “in a good shape”. To the point, the age does not matter, the brain can become “rusty” at the age of 30 and “not rusty” at the age of 90. In fact, about the Internet. Today, you can find any information there, as well, of course, any garbage. But the people’s goal is not to have brain containing as much information as possible and equal to the computer, but to use this brain in a creative way. Thus, do not be sad if you have forgotten something, it’s not a big tragedy… A few days ago, I could not remember when it was the last time that I needed my passport. Later, I remembered that recently we were having a referendum in our country.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN,
“Aravot” daily
