The Conquer

I had read something a number of days ago about how the ability to search out information online is now impairing our ability to remember it when it is already stored in our memory. That is to say that you are less able to recall the name of a film's star because you so readily look it up on the internet without spending even a few moments trying to remember. Well, that spurred me into action, as an article about the paucity of US passport holders did when I was in college.

I resolved that I would no longer seek out information on the computer without giving my brain as long as I could spare it to remember the information if I was sure I had known it in the past. Well, it didn't take very long before a piece of information I knew that I had known eluded me at a time when I wanted to know it. You will recall that just a couple of days ago I alluded to this incident. I was coming back from the library with a book on the Spanish Civil War. I had decided on reading it after already reading Elmore Leonard's 'Cuba Libre' and one other book.

I had just finished this second book, written by Ernest Hemingway and pertaining to the Spanish Civil War, a couple of weeks prior. I had it in my possession for some six weeks, and thought about it much of that time when I was not actively reading it. I just couldn't remember the title. Well, as badly as I wanted to know right away, I decided to hand this one to my brain. As long as it needed I would give it. I didn't anticipated suffering from the wait, so I figured this was just the place to start in reasserting my capacity for recall.

It certainly didn't come right away. It didn't come within an hour or that day. It didn't come the following morning or afternoon, and I began to despair of ever remembering it without outside help, which I declined as I had sworn I would. I feared that I would run across the title by chance before my memory would give it to me, but still my resolve did not weaken. Sometimes I struggled very consciously to remember, and other times I eased up in hopes that it would just pop in there if I relaxed. Then it happened. I suddenly remembered that it was 'For Whom The Bell Tolled', and such an exuberant thrill I could hardly recall ever experiencing. It was worth it.