Storing, mapping and making use of all the learning opportunities life throws in your face is a devilishly tricky discipline.
There are three major components to memory: Encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Writing about things that matter to me, is my way to make sure I frequently train encoding, storage and retrieval of the most important data.
By writing book reviews, I try to make sure the most important pieces are retrieved, pinned to my existing cognitive map with as many wires as possible, before being stored again.
By meditating on things that matter, I seek to prepare my mind for working with them every day.
By attacking specific topics, including the research necessary, I attempt to deepen my understanding.
Even with the addition of a regular writing practice, it stuns me how much is not truly learned. Wasted away, to be recalled only in fragments.
Still I persist. By building out a larger and larger map, I hope to more frequently surface things that I thought were lost. By making a huge associative array, perhaps new learning will be easier over time.