| Published on 28-03-2007 In General |
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Written by
Iraianbu IAS |
Memory is a poor substitute for intelligence. It does not have the slightest semblance to ingenuity. It helps in flaunting the spurious and foiling the obvious. Exhibiting power of memory and protrusion of muscles are similar gestures and both are superficial. It magnifies the encoder and mesmerizes the decoder. Glib talkers use memory as a tool to impress, influence and imposture. Mediocrity masquerades with memory to feign mastery.
Learning by rote helped in oral transmission before the advent of paper. Grasping with mind was felt convenient than writing with hand. Palm leaves were not an easy medium like parchment to scribble and script. We carry the boat after reaching the shore.
Memory blocks expertise and portrays a proxy projection of command and comprehension. It is wrongly epitomized as the end of knowledge and erroneously termed as the terminus of learning. Many great men did not strain to remember even their personal phone numbers. Their absent mindedness is not an accident by chance but a preference by choice. They were very close no mind. They were worldly foolish and universally wise. Some of them were academic dropouts but students of the University of Universe.
Memory gives complacency. What one recites after recapitulation is not the pearls of wisdom but droppings of the wise. Borrowed knowledge is artificial and ornamental, lacking in freshness and fragrance. Verbose reciting is verbatim vomiting and is a great sign of incomprehension. Anyone can reproduce after repeated reading. Reputation is built by innovation and not by repetition. Mavericks alone moulded civilization to monumental dimensions.
Memory leads to prejudice. Conditioned conduct is inflicted as the mind keeps on rewinding. Remembrance denotes past. Some harbour so much nostalgia that they have hallucinations of their previous births. Relationship is spun with fibres of contemporary issues and animosity is woven with threads of antiquity. One never ‘keeps the wounds green’ and allows them to heal. Our memory mostly preserves trash and proscribes treasure. We save skeletons and spend spirit. Our brain turns to be a garage for garbage. Men with less care to reminiscence remain young in words and deeds, as they live moment to moment.
Learning commences where memory ends.
It is not the be all and end all. It is not the landing spot but a boarding point. Inventions did not come out of recollection. They were the results of interpretation. Every phenomenon in nature was observed, analysed and understood to produce the best. Exploration and inquiry, the essential traits, are missing links of memory.
Our education system and examination exercise have become barometers to measure the pressure of students in tackling a volley of bouncers in the form of questions and queries. Meaningless slogging means so much in curriculum. Even in mathematics, the problems could be predicted and learnt by heart. Without referring to the original works of Shakespeare one could distinguish with distinction in English. At times, the volume of answer takes predominance over substance. Parroting is the best form of performance and apt answers are photocopies produced with hands. The best machine gets the first place. Proficiency never matters where efficiency alone is evaluated.
The more a person is for memory, the less he tends to be original. Remembering becomes an addiction beyond reclamation. It brings cheers on the stage and ovation from the crowd. Applause for a wrong cause tranquilizes more than approbation received for a genuine endeavour. It requires tremendous courage to travel on the correct path despite obstacles and opposition for probing the truth.
When memory fails, intuition works. When accumulated knowledge fades, acumen shines. Creativity comes by dropping the hitherto existing concepts and mechanisms.
Memory per se is not bad. However, it should be invisible like the sugar in caramel and not apparent like cherry on the ice cream. Mind is a great filter. It, on its own, retains the essential to leave out the superfluous. No one remembers one’s address by effort. Retention should be the outcome of understanding. Herbs and drugs can hardly improve the power to grasp. If it is so, buffaloes, which graze them more, should be scholars and scientists par excellence. Important events and enlightening information listened to with interest remain forever. An attentive mind can have a grip over facts and figures without any ordeal of memorizing. One who knows the nuances of memory will not be for it. He would not be against memory but would be above memory. |
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