Build a Library - 15, 16 & 17
It will be Your Resource in the Future
Unless you have a photographic memory, I think you should begin building a library of books. I read a lot, but my memory for detail is not great. I remember concepts and authors and I tend to reason analytically, but once I have answered my mind’s questions and gained a “satisfactory interpretation” of a passage, I release – into the fog – many of the details that got me there.
Here’s how my brain works.
First, I’ve got a sense of direction. I can get you anywhere in town and know when I’m heading north, south, east or west, but I will not be able to tell you most of the street names. So if someone says, “There is a new Italian restaurant that just opened.” When I ask them where it is, if they say, “It’s on Beecher Street.” I’m going to ask, “Which one is Beecher Street? What end of town are we talking about? Is it near the Industrial Park? Is it across from O’Leary’s Pub?” and so on.
Some might accuse me of having a lazy mind. I figure, “There’s a bunch going on up there.” Then there’s that detail about Albert Einstein. He didn’t know his phone number, but he knew where he could find it!
I don’t make light of details. Details are important, important to get me to my mental destinations, but I will not easily keep them in my head once I’ve arrived. I consider it my weakness, but it will probably become yours as well as you age. It is kind of a universal thing in the end.
Second, it is true that when I was younger I remembered details a bit more than I do now. I’m 58. Yet, all my life, my mind has been a hound dog mind and not a beaver mind. If you give both a stick each will attack it differently. A beaver tends to concentrate and chew and would likely be a better toe-to-toe street evangelist or debater. Whereas a hound dog is hardly satisfied chewing at one spot. A hound dog mauls the stick with his teeth, and rarely on the same end for long. You will also notice a hound dog stop and stare off (as if day-dreaming) in the middle of his gnawing. I call it reflection. In any case, debating is best done on paper for the hound dog. It allows him to look things up and organize his thoughts. He needs time to thumb through his books and notes. I’ve always admired people with beaver minds, but I’m not one of them.
I'd like to think that my hound dog mind is as virtuous as you make it sound, Chase. I can only say that I admire the beaver mind and when I measure myself against a person with one, I feel a little weak. I do take solace that God has made us different. And there is a part of me that thinks those beavers ought to spend more time gnawing the whole stick.
And you’d agree neither is better than the other, technically? I’d venture, generally, (and akin to some previous posts to be well read and diversified) an elder particularly needs more of a hound dog mind that can even meta-analyze concepts and arguments--the world at large. This way of thinking strikes me more as developing wisdom, recalling and uncovering overarching principles and truths running through every area and subject in different and similar ways. A beaver mind is critical to have at times, agreed. But I think one must be tactful in deciding what stick to munch on for so long.