They say (don’t ask me who “they” are...just trust me) that the brain can EITHER be creative, OR engage in recall processes. Not both.
They also say that a person only has so much mental energy in a day. And once your mental energy starts flagging, quality diminishes.
Obviously life involves creative processes like solving problems or thinking of new things AND remembering all the many things we need to remember in order to make it through life.
But it seems to ME (not the experts anymore) that man has gotten pretty good at building tools to solve the memory issue. And I’m not just talking about the incredible amount of data you can store on your device. Even just the pen and paper allowed incredible amounts of information to be put down for later retrieval.
Its like eternal life for information (as long as the technology exists).
But it also seems to me that life has gotten far more complicated in this age. It is decidedly NOT simple. So if we are faced with a complicated world in which the memory/recall function can be taken care of by our tools, shouldn’t we “spend” all or our limited mental energy engaging creatively? Or does that just intensify the problem? Perhaps we make our life more complicated by ceasing to remember. Or perhaps by being too creative.
All I know is that I ain’t so good at remembering all the details in my life--so I am going to make lists every evening for the next day and I am going to keep numerous lists for every project I have, so when I am not working on it, it doesn’t have to occupy my mind and when I AM working on it, I can focus on being creative and solving problems.
I hope someday that I can be released from solving problems and just reminisce like an old-timer.
a) it is hard to figure out how to post on here b) tell megan we are all waiting with baited breath for the rest of her post on meal planning c) do you ever feel like you come back to a project, that you listed out extensively so that it would not take up brain space, and instead of picking up where you left off, you have to re-immerse in the lists for a long time to get back to where you were at, OR you are bored and want to reinvent it all rather than obeying the lists? (the latter is something I really struggle with).