If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.Jane Austen (1775 - 1817), Mansfield Park.
Memory is the recalling and recapitulating capacity of a person. The brain and the computer work in similar fashion to store day to day happenings, incidents and visuals. When a person’s brain is fresh he is able to store more information and remember the matter for long. Everyone, starting from a child to an elderly person has an emotional overload that in the modern language is sometimes called –‘tension.’ And this leads to some degree of pre-occupation. Pre-occupation destroys the momentary pleasures that are etched in our daily memory diary and we tend to become forgetful. As the Italian poet and critic, Cesare Pavese said, “We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”
Elderly people’s loss of memory power is related to physiological changes in the brain due to hardening of arteries due to age. Forgetfulness is a common occurrence in today’s fast-paced life. Forgetting birthdays, wedding anniversaries or an important meeting time is common among those who tend to multi-task and burn their candles from both ends.
Lack of focus and concentration among students is not uncommon. This too a large extent is due to the playful nature of children, distraction by television or computer games or the Internet. Lack of interest in a subject can be another reason. How can we improve this apathy?
