“Train Your Memory”: Umberto Eco’s Letter to His Nephew, Which Everyone Should Read

Umberto Eco wrote this letter to his school nephew. Read it if you have children who were born in the age of the Internet and have no idea how we lived without a worldwide web before, as much as adults who can't imagine their lives without the Internet:

"My dear nephew,

I would not want this Christmas letter to give you advice on love for your fellow man, for your country, and for the world in which we live, or anything like that. Anyway, you wouldn't listen to her and, at the time of her implementation, (you as an adult and I have long since moved to other lands) the value system will probably be changed so much that my recommendations would seem outdated.

So I'd like to dwell on one recommendation that you'll be able to implement right now while browsing the iPad, which I won't make the mistake of slandering, not just because it seems a softened grandfather, but also because I also use an iPad.

But that's not what I wanted to tell you, but about the disease that has hit your generation and even children older than you, who are probably already students now: memory loss.

It is true that if you feel like finding out who Charlemagne was or where Kuala Lumpur is, all you have to do is press a few buttons, and the Internet will respond immediately. Do this when you need to, but after looking for an answer, try to remember, so that you don't have to look for the same answer a second time when you need a project at school, for example.

The risk is that, because you know that you can immediately find the answer to any question on your computer, you lose the joy of storing that information. It's as if, after finding out that to get to Cutare or Cutărică Street some buses or subways allow you to travel effortlessly (of course it is a very convenient means and you have to use it whenever you hurry) you think that in this way you are not forced to walk at all.

But if you don't walk enough, you become "a person with disabilities," as a person in a wheelchair is called today. Okay, I know you're doing sports and you know how to use your body, but let's get back to the brain.

Memory is a muscle like the legs, if you don't put it to work it becomes lazy, and you become (mentally) a person with disabilities, that is (saying things by name) an idiot. And in addition, as there is a risk for everyone to develop Alzheimer's disease in old age, one of the ways to avoid this unpleasant incident is to constantly train your memory.

So here's the diet I suggest. He learns a poem every morning. And eventually, challenge your friends to see who remembers the best. If you don't like poetry, compete with football teams, but keep in mind that it is not enough to know which footballers currently play for AS Roma, learn the names of the players of other teams and possibly the names of the older players.

Do memory contests, possibly with the books you've read. See if your friends remember the names of the three musketeers plus D'Artagnan (Grimaud, Bazin, Mousqueton, and Planchet). And if you don't want to read "The Three Musketeers" (and you don't even know what you're missing), compete with one of the stories you've read.

It sounds like a game (and it is), but you will see how your memory will be filled with characters, stories, memories of all kinds. You may have wondered why computers were originally called "electronic brains": because they were designed on the model of the human brain, but our brain has more connections than a computer, it is a kind of carrier computer that grows and strengthens. as you use it, while the computer you have on your desktop, the more you use it, the faster it loses speed and after a few years, you have to replace it with a faster one.

Instead, you can use your brain up to the age of 90, and at the age of 90 (if you have cared for it properly) it will remember more than you remember today. It's free.

Then there is the historical memory, which does not refer to the events that took place during your life, but to what happened before you were born.

At present, the school (in addition to your readings) should teach you to memorize everything that happened before your birth, but it is clear that it does not succeed because more research shows that today's young people, including students. , if they are born, let's say, in 1990 I don't know what happened in 1980 (not to mention what happened 50 years ago).

But why is it so important to know what happened in the past? Because many times the past helps you to understand the present and in any case, as with football teams, it helps you to enrich your memory.

It is important to note that you can do this not only with the help of books and magazines but also by using the Internet. Which you need to use not only to communicate with your friends but to enter into a dialogue with the history of the world.

The time will come when you will grow old and feel as if you have lived a thousand lives, because it will be as if you participated in the battle of Waterloo, witnessed the assassination of Julius Caesar, or were a few steps by Berthold Schwarz as he mixed substances in a mortar hoping to produce gold and accidentally discovering gunpowder, jumping into the air (and he did well).

Other friends of yours, who did not train their memory, but lived only one life, theirs, and I suspect it was a rather sad life and devoid of great emotions. "