There are things that make their way right way through my brain, and others that seem to get stuck and left as a blurry thought that can’t be decoded. I always thought that I had a selective memory, and that the even when criteria for this selection was unknown, I had to trust my instincts and my sub-conscious. So I just ignored the fact that I was memorizing how many times Katherine Hepburn had won the Academy Award but I could hardly remember the National Anthem.

Everything made sense when I was asked  to memorize a poem. This poem was a selection of random words that sounded poetic for whoever wrote it, but that made no sense at all.

I explained to them that I wasn’t going to learn that poem, and that I would certainly not perform it in front of an audience. The result? Improvisation. After reading the poem for more than 50 times, I couldn’t remember more than 3 out of 10 of the words that were in it.

What was going on in my brain wasn’t only  natural selection, that told me that this poem wasn’t worth being memorized by anyone, but rather the desperate search for a context to place those words in.  When there is no context, it’s up to us to make one up and tie the words together, but if we’re not willing to do so, those words will be easily forgotten.

We can all improve our memory skills, even when we have the excuse that our selective brain won’t “waste space” on things that don’t seem to interest us. By using this technique, we can memorize even the most absurd poem.

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