The culture’s apparent fixation with memory (and its related technology) crossed over some line this past weekend with a column by David Brooks in the New York Times:

Since the dawn of humanity, people have had to worry about how to get from here to there. Precious brainpower has been used storing directions, and memorizing turns. I myself have been trapped at dinner parties at which conversation was devoted exclusively to the topic of commuter routes.

My G.P.S. goddess liberated me from this drudgery. She enabled me to externalize geographic information from my own brain to a satellite brain, and you know how it felt? It felt like nirvana.

Through that experience I discovered the Sacred Order of the External Mind. I realized I could outsource those mental tasks I didnt want to perform. Life is a math problem, and I had a calculator.

David Brooks? What? Exactly. When Brooks is writing about how he’s given over some portion of his brain to the technological cloud, something has shifted. I mean, he doesn’t exactly seem like a modern guy — only two years ago he was writing about the horrors of married people who keep separate checking accounts. So to see him writing about “The Sacred Order of External Mind”, well, let’s just say what was once the stuff of cyberpunk is now cocktail party currency for Patio Man.

-Greg Dahlmann

photo: NYT