/reader

 

originally published on: instagram

as we get older we tend to be more conservative in terms of the things we would attempt to do, so our world gradually shrinks because we tend to stay in our safe and comfortable zone, experiencing less and less as we prefer the sameness of our routines. but for this trip i deliberately wanted to break out: haven’t drove in a foreign country since 2019 but we wanted to experience something different. am glad we did so, and i love that she supports my weird endeavours even though she tends to be skeptical. what a wonderful place to spend our 110 months together, how lucky i am to be able to build memories with her, that i can still delight her by bringing her to experience a new place, that we can still attempt to find some joy and brightness in chaotic times. we both don’t take peace and health for granted so we try to cherish the present and do everything we want to do while we can. after living for more than 4 decades of life i realised how difficult it is to find someone who is not only on the same page when we met but also still moving in a similar direction after nine-ish years together. it is so precious to grow together, to have someone to share and endure the messiness, heartbreaks and surprises of living. happy 110 months: i just like being with you so much i want to go everywhere and spend everytime with you.

(here she is with vest she sewed!)

My poor ability to rote memorise permeated into other parts of me. I began to believe I have poor learning skills, so for long spurts in my life I gave up on learning anything. It also fuelled a large part of my low self-esteem because I started getting terrible grades at school.

Thankfully due to the rise of the internet in my teens I realised I could learn something quickly if I was deeply curious. I picked up photoshop, web design, and coding on my own and didn’t seem to have issues remembering steps to do something. I think it is mostly because a lot of it can be inferred from logic before it becomes part of our long-term memory.

I guess I tend to assume I have a poor all-round memory because I have a poor working memory. Yet when I was bored in secondary school I would keep myself awake by writing down lyrics of chinese songs in traditional chinese. In Singapore we learn simplified chinese, but cantopop and manga exposed me to the traditional version. On top of remembering the aural form of the lyrics, I could also write them.

It has been around 20 years since, and I can probably still remember at least half of them. A random song I haven’t heard in years can pop up on the radio and I would still be able to sing along. I can still write out chinese lyrics of hundreds of songs. As a big fan of Faye Wong, I can recite her discography in chronological order complete with the order of the tracks. Isn’t my memory strange?

There is something about conscious and repeated exposure that injects these effortlessly into my memory, but somehow it fails me if I try to remember something deliberately. I think a large part of it is due to adhd. I just cannot sustain enough attention to memorise anything consciously, except when I am in a hyperfocused state. Hyperfocus brings me the attention span not available to me in my daily life. But it is not a state I can consciously switch on. It comes and goes like a ghost I cannot chase.

I just wish I knew all of these when I was much younger so I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my life. I am probably 100x much better at studying now compared to when I was a teenager. Personally I think it is too much to ask of a teenager to ace multiple exams over multiple years that would define their life significantly at a period when they are typically in turmoil for various reasons. We designed society to be convenient for the economy instead of what actually makes sense.

Going down the rabbit hole I picked up Moonwalking with Einstein, a book where journalist Joshua Foer sought to demonstrate that anyone can having amazing memory after training with mnemonic techniques. I am not very convinced: he may have survivor’s bias – just because he can train himself to be a memory athlete doesn’t mean anybody can. Mnemonic techniques typically require good visualisation skills, which not everybody has.

But unlike my past self I now believe that it can be at least improved, because the brain is the ultimate learning engine. New neuronal connections are formed each time we are exposed to new stimuli. Like strength training a muscle, the brain can be exercised to gain improvements. Yes there is probably a threshold, but I would wager that most of us are nowhere near that threshold. Constant new learning experiences are not something most of us have as adults.

This has taught me is that in general we are too quick to believe in self-limiting narratives for ourselves. We should try to investigate if these limits are true. My working memory is poor as of now, but is it something that can be improved? I kept thinking that my memory as a whole is bad because I have accumulated too many traumatic memories (yes I see the irony) with regards to my working memory, forgetting that there are strange large repositories of things I actually can remember. Like lyrics. The spelling of a ton of words. The writing of numerous chinese characters. Phone numbers and addresses from few decades ago. Lots of random facts I’ve accumulated by reading a lot.

I hope it doesn’t come across as bragging. I am trying to express how blind we can be to parts of our selves, unconsciously choosing to have a narrow yet magnified focus on a particular part. The way this society operates (and its emphasis on rote learning) has made me feel bad about myself for most of my life. I wonder if I can slowly change that impression. 

Well, I once believed I was born physically weak. Making the conscious decision to strength-train has changed that perception. I wonder how many of these beliefs I can flip.