Why Designed to Forget
A little on the exploration goals
Welcome to another Sunday post where I share… wait, why are we here? What’s this “Designed to Forget” thing, and why that name?
Over the last four years, I’ve had an opportunity to lean into writing professionally as a technical writer at one of the juggernauts in the world. The position found me at a good point in my life when I wanted to try something different, but stay close to technology and the—sometimes grueling—mental intellect required for it.
Intellectual tasks don’t come easy to me, but it’s been a north star in my life that I’ve felt the urge to dominate—or mostly bulldoze my way through. That mental intellect has been a lifelong challenge of mine. It was noticed at a young age that I was nowhere near the expected level of skill compared to my peers. I entered the first grade not being able to count or read, and we discovered an intellectual disability that I didn’t understand. I’m not sure anyone around me understood it.
Forgetting
Our brains our processing something like 75 gigabytes (GB) of information a day through all of our gadgets. The volume is difficult to wrap the head around, but imagine recalling the content within hundreds of books. It’s not practical for the brain to soak up everything we throw at it.
But what’s the baseline for recall?
Being unable to recall information we know we should be able to recall can feel pretty frustrating. It’s one thing to forget where you placed your keys. That’s expected to happen when your brain is juggling a lot of things at once. If you unlock your door, you may observe your kid running through the house with a butter knife. As you panic to catch the little rascal, you quickly set your keys down on the bedroom side table and run after him. By the time you’ve wiggled the dinnerware away from his greedy little fingers, your partner walks in telling you a story about nearly burning down the house while trying to fix the heater. It’s at this point, you recall having more cold groceries in the car, but can’t remember where you put the keys.
What if you’re given the experiment to read a block of text—maybe one page—that contains 350 words. After you finish reading the page, you’re asked 10 questions about the content. Some questions stay at the higher level, while others dig into the details. Can you recall the overall theme of the page? How about the color Hero B wore?
I tried it during a therapy session in 2023 (or was it 2022?), and came in way below the baseline.
Exploring
Growing up, I didn’t have the desire for self-improvement like I eventually grew into. These days I find myself wanted to explore and try things way more. A few years ago the feeling it, “let’s try working smarter, and not being so much of a bulldozing machine.”
If we are designed to forget, and some of us forget way more than others, let’s scratch the self-improvement itch with others and:
Explore and test memory more with researchers
Explore and surface behaviors to assist others
Explore character traits to focus on—more than raw intellect power
Explore other intellectual disabilities to understand them more and identify common wins
Explore how artificial intelligence can help make life even more accessible to those with disabilities
Explore making it feel normal to forget
How do we lean into our character traits, build systems around life, and not feel like we need superhuman intelligence.
Timing
Over the next year, I’m leaning into writing and exploring the intellectual side of the house, and sharing stories that I uncover from those that found a way to adapt and overcome. Knowing that we’re designed to forget, and some forget way more than others, what systems can we put in place to help make it feel OK.
I put off reading until way later in life because I didn’t have the encouragement, and felt it was useless. I was going to forget 100% of it anyway, so why bother? Well, I see that tide completely changing based on the things I’ve started to do around my reading experience.
That might be a good topic for next Sunday! Thanks for joining me today. Have an outstanding day, and follow along the writing journey if any of this resonates!