The best thing about the internet is that I don’t have to know anything anymore.
There was a time, up until about fifteen years ago where I really needed to know stuff in order to get along in the world. During social engagements I’d rattle off facts and stats about a topic that I knew something about. Appearing smart by knowing information was important. If I didn’t know as much about a subject as I wanted to, in the moment I just might make up some shit about it. I’m not proud of this but it happened.
Once Wikipedia came to prominence I realized nearly everything I had stashed in my memory was inaccurate. Hell, I just learned that I’ve been screwing up longitude and latitude my whole life. Ultimately I gave up committing anything rote to memory. There’s no need to when I have direct access to any information I need right in my pocket. I’d rather look it up than scan the annals of my mind, anyway. Maybe I’m lazy. Or just maybe I’ve stumbled across something brilliant.
Nah, it’s not brilliant. But it’s a good idea, I think.
I believe that I only have so much room in my head. If there’s figures and facts and data swirling around in there it’s not going to leave much space for creativity. See, I believe we have a finite amount of brain power. Now that I’ve abandoned the idea of needing to save data in the short or long term memory slots, that space is now available for other things.
As far as I can tell most of my thoughts are either about fact recall or problem solving or creating new stuff. I’m on a warpath to get rid of fact recall.
I’ve been reading a lot about mindfulness meditation. Basically it’s learning how to get quiet and tune into the mind and body while moving around your day. And with technology I can do this without worry. For example I have no idea what my schedule consists of tomorrow. My calendar is synced up on my phone and computer and will tell me in the morning. If I need to prepare for a meeting I have a thing that pops up to remind me.
This leaves me with all sorts of additional time to devote to creating blog posts or thinking about future projects in my business.
Not that this post is any indication of my creative genius. It sucks. I’m not happy with it. In my mind this whole idea was going to make for a great read. It sort of didn’t. I can own it.
But now I’ll rack my brain to come up with something better tomorrow. And I’ll have the free space to do it!
