On a Freakonomics podcast titled, “Don’t neglect the thing that makes you weird” Ken Jennings is a guest host. Who is this guest? Ken Jennings won 74 consecutive games of Jeopardy, and has a knack for remembering trivia. He says he remembers things by filing memories by place, not by time or people. He has what he refers to as a “spacial” memory or a geographic brain. When he remembers things, he remembers the location he learned the fact or where it occurred, instead of who told him.

Many people claim to not have a good memory. However, people who claim to have a bad memory just don’t find as many things interesting as those who claim to have a good memory. We remember things we find interesting. This is why people are good at remembering songs lyrics, but not the stuff on tests. When you don’t remember stuff, it’s because you don’t care or because it hasn’t been explained to you right. People are also not good at knowing what they know. We assume we don’t know something, but then when we think about it, we do know. Ken says that most of life is about knowing how to react, not necessarily about what we know.

So, the next time you are frustrated that you don’t remember as much as someone else, just remember that everyone has different interests. We can’t all remember everything, but we all can remember what interests us.

 

To listen to the whole podcast, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc8XGnXFezo.