Kissing could have begun as a way of sniffing out who's who. From a whiff to a kiss was just a short trip across the face.
Joshua FoerAll across Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, we find cultures that didn't know about mouth kissing until their first contact with European explorers. And the attraction was not always immediately apparent. Most considered the act of exchanging saliva revolting.
Joshua FoerThe art and science of memory is about developing the capacity to quickly create images that link disparate ideas. Creativity is the ability to form similar connections between disparate images and to create something new and hurl it into the future so it becomes a poem, or a building, or a dance, or a novel. Creativity is, in a sense, future memory.
Joshua FoerThe way to get better at a skill is to force yourself to practice just beyond your limits.
Joshua FoerOur lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by … not paying attention?
Joshua FoerIf you want to make information stick, it's best to learn it, go away from it for a while, come back to it later, leave it behind again, and once again return to it - to engage with it deeply across time. Our memories naturally degrade, but each time you return to a memory, you reactivate its neural network and help to lock it in.
Joshua Foer