Keeping Memories

Needless to say, once the schism took place, there was no going back. No society has ever voluntarily renounced writing. On the contrary, it would seem that the ability to record information about immediately sets off an explosion of new information, records, and stories that would be impossible to stuff back into human brains. For human beings, to think is to talk, and to talk is to write, and to write is to create repositories of memories outside of our own. ~ Page 38Laziness and distrust, as much as ambition and confidence, are the true source of human innovation. It is true today in a place like Silicon Valley, and it was true at least seven thousand years ago when, ion the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, a bored and suspicious farmer or a carpenter found a clever shortcut and changed the trajectory of history.

No long after the Agricultural Revolution reached southern Mesopotamia, farmers and craftsmen began using markers to keep count of their inventories. No doubt this was in part to keep track of stored goods to pay workers and customers, but just was in part to keep track of stored goods to pay workers and customers, but just as likely it was to keep from being cheated or robbed. These early businessmen made markers that represented individual units. And in order to make these markers as simple to produce as possible, they used the cheapest and most flexible material at hand: dirt.

Or more precisely, small tablets of dried mud. These clay tablets fulfilled their purpose exactly: They cost nothing, were easy to make, were easy to store, and were sturdy enough to remain storied….. page 42

More than forty centuries after the Sumerians created true writing, Sir Francis Bacon used that craft to write one of the best known (and least understood) aphorisms: “Knowledge if power.” ~ Page 45

…….as much as anyone who ever lived, he understood that real power – the kind that rules nations, changes the lives of millions, and turns the trajectory of history – was also the product of knowledge. Power was the payoff for having one’s brain packed with rules and laws and secrets and a deep understanding of the lessons of history. ~ Page 46

Even to the people who study it, the art of memory can sometimes seem impossible. Certainly it was incredibly difficult, which probably helps explain why the art of memory largely was abandoned and forgotten once paper, and then printing, became cheap….. Page 76