If you do not inform your brain that it must remember something, it may just forget it forever...

When I was in Grade 8 I started really reading the bible. I got to the part where Jesus told the Apostles they would remember what he told them (more than all the books in the world), and I took it personally.

Since then whatever I read I remember, and whatever I hear I remember.

I do so because I back then started reading the bible and remembering everything I read, believing God had ordained that. This brings up an interesting concept.

I often cannot find what I need on Google, Google is limited and cannot answer much of the world's questions, or give many fake answers. People who take photographs or think there is a record of some fact often do not remember it as well as those who think their memory is the only record. This does not happen to me.

If I photograph a scene or I write down an event or I think something is on Google (or my own private database because Google sucks at search), I actually tend to remember it quite well, if not even better. I think this goes back to the bible and the fact I turned my brain into an all reading encyclopedia, after believing the biblical promise to the apostles applies to me.

Once I learnt shorthand, I began remembering not just good summaries, and paraphrases of meaning which kept the nuances of the original, and the odd exact phrase, I have an even more exact memory. It is how I train my brain. I think this is what is missing in these research essays: we choose what we remember and how we remember. This is why it can be difficult to remember if you brushed your teeth or put your vehicle in reverse to exit parking. Imagine if you told your brain to remember everything.

Disclaimer: testing suggests I have a 'perfect verbal memory', so it might just be that.

A video on memory and the internet: