Do You Remember What You Read?
You read a book and love it, you highlight several of its most brilliant passages, and you feel that this process has changed you in some way. Maybe it has even changed your life a little bit. Then you move on to other books, the weeks pass, the months flow, and one day you realize that you remember little of that magnificent book. You recall that you loved it, and some of its key themes and propositions. If it was a novel, you might remember the rough outline and what happened in a few key scenes, but everything else is blurry, faded, or completely gone. You begin to question whether the book really changed your life as you so heartily felt at the time—whether it left you anything of value other than a warm, fuzzy feeling. But you have other good books to work through now, and even that doubt is soon buried in oblivion. And so you keep going, and the same thing happens again and again.
Just kidding, you're not really going to die. Sooner or later I am, though, and this is a real situation I experienced firsthand for decades. I don't know how many people will relate to this sense of having most of what you read slip through your fingers, but it was the norm for me for most of my life. Perhaps it is something only people with SDAM experience, and everyone else has no such problems. I hope to hear feedback either way (if you register for the newsletter here you can shoot me an email).
