Two Amazing Tales of Memory

Two Amazing Tales of Memory

People are blessed with different abilities, which makes every individual unique in his or her own way. One of the abilities is the power to memory. We have those classified as short-memory and long-memory individuals. In life, people with long-memory capacity feels lucky as they can be able to remember things for a long period compared to those people with a short memory. Having a long memory is good, but it may cause serious effects on an individual. The author of “Two Amazing Tales of Memory” had tried to illustrate the idea of extreme effects of memory to an individual. To understand this, the essay below presents the concept of memory by analyzing the effects that memory has on an individual. This will be based on Mr. S’s memory, as presented in the passage.

In the passage, Mr. S is presented as a man with the ability to clearly remember things accurately and at ease. He did this by the use of Mnemonic strategies that boost memory. Due to this, his mind was able to picture things that he had seen and be able to see the same picture anytime he wanted. However, this ability came with a cost as Mr. S was always distracted because he could always remember any word he had seen or heard at any time (Valerie, 2006). These images he created in his mind would set off his brain into thoughts and limit his ability to focus. Al a result, he had serious memory problems that prevented him from reading, in conversation, which made him lose serious court cases. Therefore, memories are good, but they can cause harm to an individual as well.

Having a good memory does not mean you understand better. Mr. S is a good reader and can remember whatever he has learned in the correct order off-head. However, when he cannot say what the story that he has just read and memorized is all about. “When Mr. S reads a book, he can give the exact words like a series of images right in the back of his mind. By being able to recall such images, he could manage to repeat back to back words as they are in the text. However, he could not tell what the story was all about.’’ (Valerie, 2006) Therefore, this is a support that Mr. S could repeat each word or tell about images in his mind but struggled to explain what the text is about.

Memory distracts individuals from the due course. The individual with this type of memory continuously makes imaginary images on their mind of what they expect. When these images do match their expectations, their level of focusing is tainted. Mr. S would make images of what he would expect in the courtroom.  However, when he arrived into the court found things being different from his expectations. “before going to the court, he would vividly try to picture what he would expect to find in court. This would turn out to be the opposite of what he imagined.” (Valerie, 2006) This would reduce his level of concentration, which would actually cause him to lose various case trials.

People with good memory have a problem with staying on one topic. Mr. S would continuously picture his words that he kept saying. He would then start talking f these pictures, which would be hardly be understood by other people of what he is talking about. “Mr. S would create pictures of unrelated words which would be difficult to understand. To distract his thoughts, he would start talking of these images.’’ (Valerie, 2006)  Thus Mr. S was hurt by his efforts to try to remain in one topic.

In conclusion, a good memory is good but can as well hurt because you cannot forget easily what you have seen or heard. In the passage “Two Amazing Stories of Memory”, Mr. S is presented as a man of a good memory. However, this kind of memory is making him suffer from a variety of problems related to his ability to remember. He hardly stays in one topic, he remembers much but understands little, and he is continuously distracted from the main cause. From this analysis, the essay has vividly supported the idea that good memory can affecttu individuals.

Reference list

Valerie, Rodgers. “TWO AMAZING TALES OF MEMORY.” Connection.Ebscohost.Com, 2006, connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/20594133/two-amazing-tales-memory. Accessed 1 Mar. 2020.

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