The Past and The Present


I have been thinking more about AJ and her amazing memory. She told NPR that around the age of 10 she became aware that she was "hoarding memories" and how the memories would buzz around in her head until she wrote them down, at which point they would rest. For her, literacy was her lifeline. Had she not had the ability to write down all the stuff floating in her head, she most likely would have been driven mad. So it was lucky for her that she was born in the time and place in which she was. What would have happened to her if she had been born 500, 1000, 2000, 8000 years ago? How would she have handled this phenomenal gift if she had been born in a time and a place that did not encourage mass literacy? What outlet would she have found? If she had lived in another time, another place, would AJ have been called a prophet? A saint? A god enfleshed? Or would she have been persecuted for possessing something so terrifyingly impossible? How many other people have lived who, like her, posses some extraordinary ability which exists beyond the reach of the rest of humanity, which almost doesn't seem possible and the ramifications of which no one else may comprehend?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Your timely entry touches on my uncanny ability to form letters with my eyebrows at a rate faster than the human eye can consciously detect. Already the villagers are storming my hilltop manor with pitchforks and torches-- yet are they not all wearing the exact jeans I've "told" them to each time I interact with them in their humble shops?
Anonymous said…
I too always wonder about what geniuses we have / are missing out on because we think they are "crazy".

Also this reminds me of the article in the Tribune today about Saudi Arabian women and how the opression of women in the Middle East is beginning to affect their economies, as they are only drawing on half of their potential labor force.

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