An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States
When I first began my time I saw the world differently. I believed people were good at heart despite bad things some might say or do, and I believed that the world as a whole was a kind place. I trusted people. Of course, I was naive back then.
Continue reading “SUNDAY: “Christopher, I Know I’ll Die In Prison””
Those of us pulling long sentences endure the pain of missing out on life’s milestones. You’re always watching from afar as nieces and nephews grow up, friends and loved ones marry, and even your own children growing old. The list is long.
Continue reading “SATURDAY: If I Could Save Time In A Bottle”
When I was growing up I couldn’t remember much in school. It seemed no matter how hard I studied, I’d retain a fraction of what I learned. I suppose it will come as no surprise to hear that I dreaded tests.
When I grew older I became very absentminded. I constantly forgot where I put things. I’d forget where I put my wallet or car keys, or to do a specific task that I wanted or needed to do. One year I parked in Washington D.C. for a day of museums and sightseeing only to wander the Capitol for an hour, trying to remember where I had parked the car.
Then one day I read a book review about a book called Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer. In it, the author had set out to see if it was possible for the average individual to improve memory to levels that memory champions enjoyed.
Over the course of a year, the world reigning memory champion mentored the author in techniques that today’s modern world has forgotten. Then after a year of practicing, he entered himself into the U.S. Memory Championship and won. He also set a then U.S.A. record in ‘Speed Cards’ for memorizing an entire deck in order in exactly 1 minute.
I promptly ordered Moonwalking With Einstein. I figured that if this guy could go from Average Joe to Memory Champion by learning some old memory ‘tricks,’ then I sure as hell could cure my absentmindedness.
What I didn’t realize then was that Moonwalking With Einstein was about to change my life. I was so energized after reading this book that I ordered another book, this one titled How to Remember Anything by Dean Vaughn. The book teaches techniques helping you to remember anything. If any of you reading this have a terrible memory, this book is for you.
After reading the book, I spent 2 hours a day for the next 3 months practicing and unlearning the terrible way we learned to remember things growing up.
In school, most of us learned to remember information by reading, taking notes, rereading, and taking more notes. Then we would reread our notes and maybe reread our books again. The night before tests you probably reviewed questions in your text books, and tried to remember everything by repeating it over and over again in your head. This is the “rote” method, and it’s the worst possible way to learn and retain information.
Back when the world didn’t have Google, handheld devices or even books, you had to remember everything. Everyone did. When books finally came about, only the rich and religious scholars were privy to them.
Have you ever seen a picture of a page from a very old book? We’re talking 1300’s old. There’s ornate pictures and scribblings filling the borders of pages around text. Oftentimes these images are overlaid within the text itself. What are these images for anyway? Why would someone spend so much time and energy drawing in a book?
The answer: they’re memory cues that the reader created in order to efficiently and accurately memorize the text. Through these images, you are able to visualize, hear, see, and mentally smell the information you want to remember. By doing so, you are activating several regions of the brain simultaneously, and the more senses involved when memorizing, the easier it is to recall information. It’s just the nature of how we’re wired. It’s something ancient societies understood well.
Rather than explain every memory method, and there are many, I can drive home the point by telling you a little about my memory now versus before. The difference is astounding.
I can now remember, in exact sequence, thousands of digits (before I could only memorize a handful, maybe 20 or 30 if given enough time); lists that are hundreds and hundreds of things long (before I was lucky to memorize a grocery list); entire chunks of data, like say, entire books of the Bible or other meaningful information like names, phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, etc., of everyone I know (whereas, before I was lucky to remember 7 pieces of pertinent data at any one time); and, even entire decks of cards amongst everything and anything else. Incidentally, my personal best is 14 decks memorized in one hour. Why 14? It was all the decks I owned at the time.
Before I go, I’m leaving you with 4 videos. I recorded them a couple years ago for family, but today I’ll share them with you. In the first two, I’m memorizing a deck of cards. In the last two, I’m recalling them in sequence.
Recall that in Moonwalking With Einstein, the author set a then U.S.A. record of 1 minute memorizing a deck correctly in sequence. It takes me about 53 seconds in these videos. No tricks. No gimmicks.
My personal best is 28 seconds.
The world record is mind boggling faster–google it. Not bad for a guy who once wandered Washington, D.C. wondering where he parked his car, don’t you think? And yes, I will compete in the U.S. Memory Championship the first chance I get.
*You can do anything you set your mind to. Believe in yourself. It’s that simple.
—Christopher—
I spend my days here working as a dog handler and trainer in the Staff Dog program. On any given day I am in contact with these wonderful creatures, even during days when my clientele are absent. It is a blessing, and I have always thought this. Who am I to deserve such kindness?
Every morning when the sun crests, a nurse is here to take our temperatures with a hand held laser thermometer. With each zap her voice chimes out “97.1” or “97.4” or “97.5”, etc. as she tells each person their result. By now guys have fallen into this morning routine without hesitation, and within 15 minutes everyone will be back to doing whatever it was they were doing. It’s almost my turn. Surprisingly, the line conversation is upbeat this morning.
