“We can never remember the things we always forget.” – Men Without Hats

Even the best among you can’t expect to remember every thing. A good rule of thumb is: if it seems like it’s worth notice, it’s worth remembering. And you’re not going to remember it by tilting lampshades and wrapping an elastic around your pinky — chances are you won’t retain that golden grain of sand that could grow into a shining golden pearl unless you record it. “Creation is repetition” (me, 2018), the thinking of the same thing a lot of times in a row. One way is to jot down keywords all over your body and face. Another is to make a habit of writing those keywords down on paper and reading them later to make them better.

I’ll allow that you’re not entirely without creditable genius. Some of the times you can follow a thought successfully, that’s not under debate : of course you have occasionally concocted a thesis which you then pursued on concludo finendo based on memory alone. But what your vaunted memory is conveniently keeping from you is the innumerable failures, the many great thoughts of monumental potential that blew away like vapor rings from a good quality industrial humidifier at the beach. They’re just gone, no sense even looking for them.

In a way it’s a good thing there’s nothing new under the sun. Let us be relieved ideas are finite: that means so many good ones are not actually lost, but just lost from you. Because you didn’t write it down.

“We can always remember the things we never forget.” – Men Without Hats