Brainmachine 101 – Unleash the Power of Memorizing … Part 3

You think you know it all, don’t you? Part 1 and Part 2 of the  Brainmachine 101 might have mislead you into believing you can already rule the world … or get laid.

But (yes, there is a BUT!) there is one more thingy to consider…

The Ugliest – How to unlearn’n’forget

Probably you don’t have difficulties forgetting things (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading Brainmachine 101 shitty witty tips, would you?), but (yes, another butt’s but)…

Unlearning? Doh …wtf?

First, let me redefine DOH WTF for you: Declaring Obdurate Helluva War To #Fail.

Second, why should you forget or unlearn something? I’m sure you’re more than happy to forget the Godzilla you once dated or annoying facts about the loan. Unlearning is beneficial for your brainmachine, because it prevents #F2O syndrome. #F2O syndrome is caused by a nasty disease with a very complex Latin name “fail too often” and it’s defined as “doing the same mistakes/stupidities in the same way over and over again”. No #F2O for you, k?

Third, let me explain why it is important to distinguish between unlearning and forgetting. Obviously, they are not the same. If you forget something, you end up with not knowing what you once knew, but if you unlearn something, you still know it, but you are aware it’s not the right thing to do (anymore). Kinda. What I wanted to say is … huh, I forgot. I’m lost.

Unlearning… un… what?

There are three atrocious monsters you can destroy by unlearning: a beast called Un-geek, another one with strange nickname Un-habit and the most ferocious villain Un-thoughtway.

Un-geek

Once upon a time there was a prince. No, he wasn’t. Once upon a time there were Swedish defense forces with a strong belief that Soviet submarines are spying on them and testing some super-duper stealth techniques to eventually take them over. Guys responsible for detect-submarine-or-detect-nothing devices were used to distinguish noises and to tell, whether there is (or isn’t) something fishy in the sea. And there WAS really something fishy going on. Swedish government was so close to believing Soviets are organizing a war against Sweden, that they authorized the use of really hard-core firepower for (one) “submarine” hunt. Funny thing though, after that mayham they couldn’t find anything – neither whole submarine nor its parts. Then one day this dude, Tero Harkonen, Swedish seal expert claimed that there is a possibility of guys listening to young seals rap music. Of course government denied everything. Only after another political party took over the control people started to listen to dudes like Tero.

See what happens, if you think you know it all? Being a geek can be a good thing, but it can make you hunt submarines that don’t exist (at least not always). :lol:

Un-habit

Bad habits are just… baaaad. Do you want to get rid of them? Unlearn them. Yeah, simple, I know. Afraid of heights, spiders, little green beings also called Walking mint bonbons? Do you want to stop drinking, smoking, smacking people? Stay with me.

Un-thoughtway

You don’t need a vehicle to end up on highway of thoughts like “I suck. I’m such a failure. My bad karma run over my dogma.” One moment of distraction (nice looking gal/dude) and you end up on this highway to Hell. Turn off the engine, we’ll make a detour. On foot.

OMG, what to do, what to do?!

Please, put down the gun. Just don’t panic, k?

The hit list (for unlearning)

The most obvious thing – don’t go hunting submarines, silly you. Un-geek once in a while, it’ll do you good.

Second most obvious thing – don’t be satisfied with quick solutions. Don’t be afraid to learn something new (e.g. to cook). Good is not good enough. There is one exception though. I’m good enough. Don’t argue.

Third most obvious thing – play with buttons. Remember Dee Dee (Dexter’s sis from cartoon Dexter’s Lab)? Bee Dee Dee. Say “What does this button do?” while pressing red, blue and green buttons. See what happens. Don’t worry, Dexter will fix everything. Right? Right?!

Unfortunately, this hit list is not very efficient for elimination of thought zombies.

Thought zombies

Whoa, thought zombies? You’re not in a horror movie. You ARE the horror movie and your brainmachine is the lair of thought zombies. Thought zombies are hatched from braincells with #F2O syndrome combined with bad habits. If you take an unpleasant event, add emotional charge to it, you get persistent memory. Thought zombies are helluva persistent suckers.

How could you possibly destroy them? Well, because I’m a very simple person, I try to live up to the KISS principle. Foolish, I know, but here it is … KISS principle applied to the zombie hunt.

Kamikaze Idiotic Simple Solutions (KISS)

Three basic approaches to seek’n’destroy thought zombies:

  • real life hangman
  • melancohol
  • extreme makeover

They are very simple, indeed, and can be expressed in terms of mathematic equations. Very simple ones, really. Don’t give up on me just yet.

Real life hangman

Definition
Real Life Hangman: a phrase, “take your toys and go find a tree before I say Popocatepetl”

Equation
Rope + Person = Person- – AND others get all your toys!

End result
#fail

Melancohol

Definition
Melancohol: noun, alcohol (lots of it) mixed with sadness and unreasonable amounts of melancholy

Equation(s)
Drinking + Person = BrainCells- –
Person – n * BrainCell = Vegetable

End result
#fail

Extreme Makeover

Definition
Extreme Makeover: phrase/noun, lobotomy combined with “don’t give a f***” and a shotgun

Equation
Person + Extreme Makeover = Serial Killer

End result
#fail

It seems to me that KISS approach is not the best approach to problem solving. Because I’m a very important person (LOL), I have quite good connections to highly appreciated authorities in the area of making people wiser and happier. I consulted Master Yoda about this little KISS problem and this is what he (it?) said … “Use the force, stupid!”

Master Yoda’s tricks

Here are the tricks I was able to extract from Yoda after a series of some Chuck-Norris-would-be-proud kicks in the ass.

Don’t pull the trigger.

I don’t have a gun.

Yes, you do. I saw it only few minutes ago (see Un-thoughtway). Nevermind, because in this case the trigger is the situation (object, person) that makes you do bad things to yourself (yeah, the bad habit thingy). If you avoid situation or get rid of object that triggers undesired behaviour, you’re halfway to Heaven (or Hell – whatever you prefer). If you’d like to quit smoking, don’t order samples of new brands of cigarettes on eBay. If you’d like to stop drinking, don’t buy books like “How to brew beer at home for Dummies”.

I refuse the mere notion of sparkica being a trigger for your bad habits. No way. Go find yourself someone/something else to blame.

Extinction is BAD! Not.

Today even the birds are politically engaged using slogans like “Extinction is bad, you suck, you humans are destroying everything, you’ll make every species extinct. Extinction is bad.” Guess what? Not all extinction types are bad. If you can make your problem behavior go extinct, you rule! Don’t let anyone spoil the extinction party!

Self + Monitor

If you are reading this, you probably have two things: (your)self and a monitor. Like I care. You should. But not for the monitor in front of you! You should (take) care about yourself by monitoring all the quirky moody behavioral modes. Pay attention — pay it carefully and systematically, otherwise you may end up being a textbook example of a chaos. The really messy one.

After further thirty minutes of pulling Yoda’s eyebrows, he (it) made another disclosure about common mistakes people do. Yes, you included. Not me, though.

Whata mistaka 2 maka

Top three mistakes you can make:

  1. Thinking you always #fail and that it makes no sense (whatsoever) to even try anything. Please, at least let others convince you into that, why take them the pleasure?
  2. After spilling a cup of coffee over your brand new laptop you roar “My life is ruined! Forever!!!” Your life ain’t ruined, laptop’s is.
  3. I’m looking funny at you (actually, I really am) and you think I hate you … because you’re ugly! You’re not ugly, well, not as ugly as I am. I think you hate me because I’m ugly.

Whata mistaka 2 maka 2

Another top three mistakes you can make:

  1. You regulary practice musterbation, because you are convinced this is a new way of you-know-what. For your infromation —  it’s not. Musterbation is a combination of Should, Must and Ought rules you force upon yourself – setting perfectionist deadlines, goals and impossible demands that are usually impossible to reach. And then you punish yourself for not meeting them. Errr… wrong way, dude. Musterbation is forbidden, k?
  2. You believe that every successful date/meeting (with you) is a set-up. In 95% it probably is, but we should have faith in that remaining 5%, k?
  3. White and black are the only colors you know – either you are the ruler of the world or a total failure. There’s nothing in between. Let me tell you something. There is always something in between. Your nose, for example.

What can you learn from these mistakes? That your grandgrandgrand…..grandgrand dad was an ape? And his date with your grandgrandgrand…..grandgrand mom was a set-up? Sure. If you want to.

What I want you to do is to take RISC! No, this has nothing to do with the sexual intercourse without preservatives (condoms?). RISC is a four stage cycle: Relax – Imagine – Stop – Can.
For example, first you have to relax so you can focus on next steps. Then you should imagine something positive, like you being in possesion of a Ferrari (you’re right, you’ve heard that one before). If you suddenly feel the urge to buy a yellow Ferrari, yell “Stop!” in your head. You don’t want a YELLOW Ferrari and you don’t need a drink to imagine a RED Ferrari. Ok, you’re ready to go and steal one. You can do it. :lol:

Yoda’s last words…

…right before he (it) kicked my ass after he lost all his eyebrows:

Let me tell you something, punk! Take every failure (#fail) as a lesson in the School of Life – learn from everything single thing either good or bad.
Now here’s a lesson for you!!!

Baaab! Kaboom! #%#” **?#! Bam!

Brainmachine 101 – Unleash the Power of Memorizing … Part 2

Let me recap for you: So far you’ve met the good and the bad (Part 1).
In other words
: your brainmachine is gorgeous, but your memory sucks and you have some inexplicable irrational tendency to take over the world … or just get laid.

It is time to present… the ugly. No, it’s not me, it’s the training part of memorization mumbo-jumbo. Lame, I know.

The Ugly – How to learn’n’memorize

Prerequisites for the ugly part are a brainmachine (preferably your own), a piece of cheesy thing called memory (usually included in the brainmachine) and a list. We also have the fishy part – preparation for the training.

Have you ever played the game Simon says? If you have, good for you, you must have been born under a lucky star. If you haven’t, no worries, it’s a childish game anyway. There is only one rule in this game: do whatever Simon says. Beware: there are many guys named Simon and we don’t wanna end up doing everything every Simon-guy on the planet Earth says, therefore we’ll obey dude with a very odd name – Gninrael.

Gninrael says: be the new kids (on the block).
Revelation: be like a new kid in town – discover, ask questions, observe, pay attention.
Off the record: you don’t have to dig deep into your collection of music to find this or this.

Gninrael says: doubt but don’t you dare doubt me! And leave the salmon out!
Revelation: don’t believe everything you hear or see, even if it’s on tv. Actually, especially if it’s on tv. You can always read The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams.
Off the record: don’t you dare doubt sparkica and her cunning plan of making the memorization machine out of you!

Gninrael says: regulary practice holymollysticism, but you better leave Molly out of this business.
Revelation:
take a holistic approach to learning. Learn with all your senses, learn about everything you find interesting – weird creatures, horror movies and lightsabres included. Engage the body, the mind and the spirit.
Off the record: key words are feel – imagine – think – practice. Feel the joy of driving a Ferrari, imagine being an owner of a Ferrari, think you own the Ferrari and practice car stealing. :lol:

End of the game. Did you know that Gninrael’s real name is learninG? :D

Are you ready?
Ready for what?
For THE list. You can’t avoid it! It’s here. Bam! Right in between your eyes.

GONE IN 3.1 SEC LIST

Sunglasses
Mosquito
Miss Piggy
Relativity
Tractor
Violin
Bumble bee

Stop starring at the list. Now! Do you hear me?!

By now you probably think I’ve gone mad in 3.1 seconds and you’re asking yourself  “Wtf is this list good for?“. Patience, my young apprentice. Everything will be clear. In a while. Maybe.

TERROMemorize me

How on earth could you possibly remember things like Miss Piggy and relativity… together? I suppose you could hire someone to memorize this shit instead of you. But this is expensive, right? Better way to do it is to learn some techniques to aid you. Go on, don’t hesitate to keep on reading. It won’t hurt (too much), I promise.

Dude, where’s my car?

Guess what? With this technique you can find car keys even if you don’t have a car. The trick is visualization and taking a virtual walk (no shoes needed). Visualize path or road you take often. Ok? Now try to identify as many stops on this road as there are items on the list you have to memorize. Stops can be either rooms in your house (flat) or towns (villages, crossings, bars, cathouses)  on your way to work. Associate every item with one of the stops and voila! When you have to recall the items, just take a walk. A virtual one. Unfortunately, no calories are burned during this process.

What have car keys to do with this method? If you misplaced something (including your child or partner) and you can’t remember where you left it (him, her), you can use a variation of this method.
Step 1, recall your last whereabouts. Ask yourself where exactly did you stand and what did you do at that moment.
Step 2, go to that point and repeat Step 1. Do this step1-step2 thingy until you find what you’re looking for. Don’t blame it on me if you end up by and with your drop-dead sexy neighbour (or neighbour’s car keys). :lol:

Werewolf meets Bush meets E.T.

Still with me? Good. Don’t let the werewolf (or Bush) scare you off. What have Werewolf, Bush and E.T. in common? Me. And this post. And presentation at Barcamp. Don’t call the lunatic asylum just yet. You see, if you’d like to memorize things harder/better/faster/stronger, use persons, creatures, things you seldom (never?) encounter . If you’re lucky, you can see E.T. in Maribor. Yeah, it’s me. Undercover. Let me tell you a secret. I have a hunch Werewolf, Bush and E.T. have regular virtual meetings in someone’s brainmachine. But you didn’t hear that from me, k?

Synesthetic drugs

I know, I know, I’m such a bad person, encouraging you to do synesthetic drugs. Please drop the drug part. What I mean is you should use your senses in different and unusual way. Try to smell (the color)  green or taste yellow. What does it taste like? Does it taste like lemon, is it sour, is it oily and thick? I have one small request, though. Don’t lick anything funky-funny while repairing your car.

Stop, stop, stoooooop!

It’s time for little exercise. How could you memorize following items (Sunglasses -> Mosquito -> Miss Piggy -> Relativity) from our list using the techniques I’ve described?
What list? Which techniques? Now, now… don’t try this cheap trick on me, it doesn’t work.

Here is my story (but you should make your own!):
I’ve put on my strawberry flavored sunglasses in Maribor, a mosquito hitchhiked me in Celje, near Trojane we met Miss Piggy (indulging in HUUUGE donuts) and just in front of IJS in Ljubljana we bumped into Einstein explaining relativity to a Playboy Bunny. Go figure.

Can you see what I see?

Before I continue, I have to check your vision. Ready? Can you see …
… bunch of dudes? No? Walk in a bar. Better?
… /me on a sandy beach chasing dragons? No? I can. Try harder!
… a pillow under your keyboard and some crazy people in pillow fight? No? Check again (or use youtube).

Well, I have to say it. You might have very poor vision. Take two pills of imagination, three pills of silliness and five pills of science fiction mixed with fantasy ever day. Roger that? Ok, I’ll let you continue just in case you really saw /me chasing dragons on the sandy beach a minute ago.

Panem et circenses

Errrrr…. what? English please!
Sorry, my bad. I’ll start again.

Bread and circuses

To really excel in memorizing you have to eat a lot of bread and play a lion-food-part at a circus. No, but seriously, you have to be able to visualize (almost) everything no matter how odd, bizarre or peculiar it might be! Do you hear me? Everything! However, if you intend to visualize me, do it with some proper clothing, thank you very much.

You probably know that I know that you always utterly admired Indiana Jones. If you didn’t know, you sure know now. You don’t have to admit it, I just know things like this. Well, I have good news and bad news. Bad news: you won’t get the main role in next sequel of Indiana Jones. Good news: you can be Indiana Jones in your head. Go on an adventure asap! Go chase pretty women, sleazy guys with mean guns and go find the Holy Grail. But do it in your head, we don’t want Harrison Ford to sue our asses off. I don’t really care about your ass, but anyway, you got the point.

Woohoo!

Woohoo what?!

It’s time to remember the rest of our list: Tractor -> Violin ->Bumble bee.
Here’s the story…

After Einstein explained relativity to the Playboy Bunny, she jumped into a HUUUGE RED tractor. Then she started to play a violin made of ice and bumble bee started dancing tango.

Hungry for more?

More games no bread

Oops, no bread, but I do have some more tips on memorizing. Stop yawning, it’s not gonna be THAT boring!

1st tip: pin down that bastard! Hey, easy now, we won’t hurt anyone, ok? Just try to connect something you’re trying to memorize with something you already know: Mad Max with Mel Gibson and Mel Gibson with Apocalypto and Apocalypto with … dunno, chocholate? :D

2nd tip: use super-duper Spiderman’s web! You don’t have to beat that poor guy and take his fancy spiderweb-kit away. Instead you can make connections between things, put them in a web of associations.

3rd tip: make it BIG, EXAGGERATED and UNREASONABLE – create impossible, weird images in your head. E.g. Gargantuan whale came into your tiny office and asked with a gentle, high-pitched voice: “Dude, where’s my car?”

4th tip: use the action (reaction) in your images, make things jump, run, roll over, hump your leg …

5th tip: don’t just use one thing/person/creature, make up gazillions and gazillions and gazillions of them!

The story. Again. But a bit different.

Einstein was so exhausted after explaining the relativity to a hot sexy Playboy bunny, that he dropped dead and vanished in a sec. She was puzzled, she didn’t know what to do, so she jumped into a seven stories high red tractor with pink flowers on it and started the engine. Suddently, she was overhelmed by the sadness and she grabbed a violin made of ice (someone told her it’s made of diamonds, hehe). Thousands and thousands of bumble bees appeared out of nowhere and they started dancing tango.

Sleazy cheesy question

Can you recall all the words from the list? :D

… to be continued … again …