Did you want that ironed?

There is no washers or dyers where I live, my laundry is done in a small sink and hung on the roof to dry. Sometimes I take laundry to the Thai ladies down the road who have set up their own little business outside in (what we would call) a garage.

We always exchange pleasant smiles and chat for a little while when I drop off laundry. They never ask for a name, or write down any instructions or information about what items I've left with them. Some how, four or five days later when I return to pick up my things, they always know right where all my clothes are and who I am. That fascinates me! With all the people they do laundry for, how do they keep everything straight without writing things down?

It was Plato who warned us that writing everything down would eventually causes people to lose the keen ability to remember and store data internally! He was convinced that shifting from oral communications, to recording data in writing would cause us to be less interactive with one another and weaken our memory. I think Plato was correct!

During Plato's time, oral communications were considered a superior means of transferring or recording most everything from a simple poem or greetings from a relative, to elaborate dissertations. Large portions of information were committed to memory and then passed on to the next listener. We on the other hand, have become very dependent on our notes etc. to remember even the simplest facts!