Our Memory

Laptop sent for repair and spend days using pen paper for notes taking. In fact, I find life a little bit slower without the laptop. Maybe I had all the time to talk, write, think and reflect. I guess that is good once awhile. It's like detoxing for the eyes and mind. Anyway, this week I departed from KL on Wednesday afternoon. Sitting in the taxi and my mind started to wander again. Below lies the thoughts I had.

There are times we remember things effortlessly. Some other times we attempt to remember something with effort. Most of the time we do not attempt to remember. Probably we assume these things are insignificant.

Sometime we try very very hard to remember but spend a lot of effort to recall. Instead some things are easily recall without much effort to remember. Here is a list to think about;

1) Songs or music - Easily memorize and recall.
2) Lyrics - Effort to memorize and recall. Most likely forget when time passes.
3) Scent / smell - Easily memorize and recall. It can bring you back to the actual mood when u first instance you experienced it.
4) Telephone numbers - No attempt to memorize even important person. Why? See item 5.
5) Phone numbers keystroke(Digit keypads) - Some effort to memorize. After that easily to recall.
6) Bad things your partner did - Easily memorized and can be simply recalled.
7) Colors - Effort to memorize and recalled with or without effort. For example color RED. What is the first thing you remember about red?
8) Instruction to do something - Effort to memorized and effort to recall depending on person and application. For instance a 60 year retired school teacher will take the whole day to setup a DVD player.
9) The last time having voluntary sex with a love one - no effort to remember but can recall generally but not specific. For example like last week / month / year or worst decade.
10) The last time having voluntary sex with a stranger - same as item 9 i think.

I believe there are categories of things, events, people or even formula that our mind/brain selectively remember. Even consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously we select.