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.

The more we remember, the better we are at processing the world. And the better we are at processing the world, the more we can remember about it.

Monotony collapses time. Novelty unfolds it.

Our ability to find humor in the world, to make connections between previously unconnected notions, to create new ideas, to share in a common culture: All these essentially human acts depend on memory.

Woodworking requires a completely different kind of thinking and problem-solving ability than writing. With writing, you take a set of facts and ideas, and you reason your way forward to a story that pulls them together. With woodworking, you start with an end product in mind, and reason your way backward to the raw wood.

The fact that books today are mostly a string of words makes it easier to forget the text. With the impact of the iPad and the future of the book being up for re-imagination, I wonder whether we'll rediscover the importance of making texts richer visually.

Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by … not paying attention?