Memory Is Like A Spiderweb That Catches

'moonwalking With Einstein' Refers To A Memory Device I Used When I Memorized A Deck Of Playing Cards At The U.s. Memory Championship. When I Competed In 2006, I Set A New U.s. Record By Memorizing A Deck Of Cards In One Minute And 40 Seconds. That Record Has Since Fallen.

Over The Last Few Millennia We've Invented A Series Of Technologies - From The Alphabet To The Scroll To The Codex, The Printing Press, Photography, The Computer, The Smartphone - That Have Made It Progressively Easier And Easier For Us To Externalize Our Memories, For Us To Essentially Outsource This Fundamental Human Capacity.

The Art And Science Of Memory Is About Developing The Capacity To Quickly Create Images That Link Disparate Ideas. Creativity Is The Ability To Form Similar Connections Between Disparate Images And To Create Something New And Hurl It Into The Future So It Becomes A Poem, Or A Building, Or A Dance, Or A Novel. Creativity Is, In A Sense, Future Memory.

Memory Is Like A Spiderweb That Catches New Information. The More It Catches, The Bigger It Grows. And The Bigger It Grows, The More It Catches.

Part Of Being Creative Is Not Being Super-duper Focused.