Memorizing stuff for fun and/or profit

[Vort]

Anyone like memorizing stuff? Things like states and state capitals, presidents, prophets/apostles, the periodic table of elements, or whatever. If so, what kinds of things do you enjoy memorizing? Have you realized any benefits beyond self-satisfaction?

[Carborendum]

13 hours ago, Vort said:

Anyone like memorizing stuff? Things like states and state capitals, presidents, prophets/apostles, the periodic table of elements, or whatever. If so, what kinds of things do you enjoy memorizing? Have you realized any benefits beyond self-satisfaction?

Yes.  I know.  Big surprise.

I memorize words.

• Scriptures
• Plays/Movies
• Songs
• Vocabulary
• Languages
• Quotable quotes

With languages, I realized that memorizing is not the same as fluency.  I've memorized many individual words in Korean, Hebrew, Greek, Russian, German. But I'm far from fluent in any of them.

Songs are simply enjoyable to sing at any time I want.  And because the Lord blessed me with a nice voice, others around me enjoy listening to me sing.  Some songs are just plain fun songs (Harold Hill: 76 Trombones).  As a freshman in college, a group of about 6 of us all knew that song by heart.  And we spontaneously sang it all together to the point we drew a crowd.  After we were done, we got a rewarding applause.

Movies are fun to quote for both comedic and dramatic effect.  When a lot of people know the same movies, it is kinda fun to share quotes.

Plays similar to movies.  And musicals, of course are about the songs.  But when we get to classical things like Shakespeare, they become more like scriptures or quotable quotes.  We quote them to invoke ideas etc.

Scriptures may be like the quotable quotes -- especially things like proverbs.  But I also memorize scriptures for better understanding and scriptural knowledge.  Similarly, I have read and re-read many Gen Conf addresses.  And if it really hits home to me, I tend to remember various phrases. I find that when I'm considering certain things, some of these words are triggered in my memory to help me consider the proper gospel principles.  They have become the voice in my head.

*****

With engineering stuff, it is amazing how much I have NOT memorized.  I remember concepts and rules, and I remember roughly where some data is contained in the various codes I reference.  But I've actually memorized only a few data points.

I find that strange.  As a child I memorized virtually everything -- simply by being exposed to data.

• I still remember the license plate to my dad's car (which came in handy when we were stopped at the border). 
• I still remember most of the symbols from the first four lines of the periodic table -- mostly in order.
• I memorized pi to 100 digits (I had to make an effort to memorize that many numbers).  I only remember about 15 digits now.

But lately, I simply don't memorize things unless I consciously make an effort to do so.  And that is much less frequent than during my younger years.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Carborendum

[LDSGator]

13 hours ago, Vort said:

Anyone like memorizing stuff? Things like states and state capitals, presidents, prophets/apostles, the periodic table of elements, or whatever. If so, what kinds of things do you enjoy memorizing? Have you realized any benefits beyond self-satisfaction?

Music lyrics and baseball stats. It was a lot cooler before Google because I had friends who would ask me about baseball stuff. 

[zil2]

38 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I memorize words.

• Scriptures
• Plays/Movies
• Songs
• Vocabulary
• Languages
• Quotable quotes

Hmm.  That seems like an awfully short list of words to memorize.  And unless you've got someone sitting next to you telling you which keyboard keys to press, I'm thinking you've memorized a lot more than those...

[Guest Godless]

4 hours ago, LDSGator said:

Music lyrics and baseball stats. It was a lot cooler before Google because I had friends who would ask me about baseball stuff. 

Music lyrics and sports trivia for me. Numbers get jumbled in my brain, so memorizing exact stats is difficult. For example, I can't tell you exactly what Bill Belichick's career record is with and without Tom Brady, but I know for a fact that there's a night and day difference between the two qualifiers, especially if you include his time in Cleveland.

[LDSGator]

6 minutes ago, Godless said:

Music lyrics

I got into Kiss and the Ramones as a kid because their lyrics were easy to memorize. 

[askandanswer]

Over decades of singing them, I've memorised a lot of hymns. I'm often still surprised and slightly puzzled that people who I know have been church members all their lives still use hymn books. 

[Guest Godless]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

I got into Kiss and the Ramones as a kid because their lyrics were easy to memorize. 

It's gotten harder for me as I've started getting more into death metal, but I try my best.