Brainersize

The other day when I was talking with Ecologista she told me something that really struck me. Way back before writing was invented, and all of the histories were orally passed down from father to son (and mother to daughter), people had much better memories. They had to to in order to preserve their histories. Since we don't have to memorize all those things today, our memories don't work as well. That would explain why I'm so terrible with names. When I was a kid I memorized several scriptures (because I had too) but lately I just haven't memorized anything.

There has been a lot of talk about how fat Americans are getting. Technology is making our lives so much easier that we don't naturally work out our bodies, and all the leftover energy is just working out our bellies. We need to go out of our way to exercise the body. It would seem that thanks to technology our brains are also getting fat and lazy, and we need to go out of the way to exercise the brain, or brainersize. I have a feeling that just as exercise has two fundamental parts: cardio and resistance training, brainersize has two analogous parts: reading and memorizing.

Fortunately I have been doing a lot of reading lately. So far I've read the following books this year (some were audio books):

• The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley
• The Five Secrets a Millionaire Taught Me for Women by Richard Paul Evans
• Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson
• The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
• Tribes by Seth Godin

I'm also in the middle of reading:

• 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller
• Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin
  

And I have a list of a few scriptures that I'm going to start memorizing.