Languages Are Something Of A Mess. They

Monotony Collapses Time. Novelty Unfolds It.

To Attain The Rank Of Grand Master Of Memory, You Must Be Able To Perform Three Seemingly Superhuman Feats. You Have To Memorize 1,000 Digits In Under An Hour, The Precise Order Of 10 Shuffled Decks Of Playing Cards In The Same Amount Of Time, And One Shuffled Deck In Less Than Two Minutes. There Are 36 Grand Masters Of Memory In The World.

Once I'd Reached The Point Where I Could Squirrel Away More Than 30 Digits A Minute In Memory Palaces, I Still Only Sporadically Used The Techniques To Memorize The Phone Numbers Of People I Actually Wanted To Call. I Found It Was Just Too Simple To Punch Them Into My Cell Phone.

If You Were A Medieval Scholar Reading A Book, You Knew That There Was A Reasonable Likelihood You'd Never See That Particular Text Again, And So A High Premium Was Placed On Remembering What You Read. You Couldn't Just Pull A Book Off The Shelf To Consult It For A Quote Or An Idea.

How Much Are We Willing To Lose From Our Already Short Lives By Losing Ourselves In Our Blackberries, Our Iphones, By Not Paying Attention To The Human Being Across From Us Who Is Talking With Us, By Being So Lazy That We're Not Willing To Process Deeply?