#MemoryChallenge — Psalm 50/51 [or how I hacked my attention-span deficient GenZ brain]
Why a memory challenge?
My biological age is 43 but for reasons that will remain secret my mental age is 18. I have many shared experiences with the millenials (a.k.a. GenY) and with GenX but my thought process is most similar to that of GenZ.
More precisely, my brain operates in short bursts of highly efficient analysis. A good analogy would be a rifle that overheats quickly, but uses ammo which is highly armor-piercing. As far as accuracy, the first 1–2 shots tend to be satisfactory. (I don’t know the exact weaponry terms, sorry.)
Knowing this, I decided to tackle the challenge of memorising Psalm 50 [Orthodox] or 51 [NIV]. Why this very same psalm has different numbers is something I’m not going to get involved in. [Yet!]
This article is intended for English-speaking audience, so I will go with the NIV. Here it is copy-pasted from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=NIV as of the time of writing this story: 0950 AM 7 June 2023 in The Hague, Netherlands.
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, isb]” style=”font-size: 0.625em; line-height: normal; position: relative; vertical-align: text-top; top: auto; display: inline;”>[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
First impression: “Power Overwhelming”
[ I haven’t played StarCraft 2 much but in StarCraft 1 the Protoss Archon would say “Power Overwhelming” when you click on them ]. Credit: PhillGonzo @ DevianArt.
That’s basically it — lots of power in that psalm but at the same time I feel overwhelmed. That couldn’t have been the original intention; if I am overwhelmed I will be too intimidated and will be reluctant to put in the effort to memorize.
Analysis
1. Text formatting
Gotta start somewhere. Super Mario Bros!
A quick glance at the text and its formatting makes the following elements stand out:
- Short title in bold
- A few paragraphs of uneven length
- Numbers in front of what appear to be sentences, but…
- Not every sentence has a number
These things complicate my ability to quickly ingest what is happening, much less memorize it. Remember, I am focusing exclusively on the cognitive process of memorizing the psalm and there will be no theological statements in this article.
2. The title
Focusing on the title, I have highlighted various elements that stood out:
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
Here is each element and a brief commentary how it struck me:
- director of music — interesting why this was included. [ I guess psalms are like songs? ]
- David — I know the story about David vs. Goliath. Maybe I have heard that David later became a king.
- Prophet Nathan — first time I hear there was such a prophet. Prophets tell the future, so this Nathan guy must have wanted to say something to David. [ If my name were Nathan or had a friend called Nathan I might be inclined to research further. ]
- “Committed adultery with Bethseba”. I have no idea who Bethesba is and unless I was very interested in this stuff I wouldn’t care to find out or even bother to remember the name. I know adultery is bad so I’m starting to put together a connection between a prophet and consequences for actions…
So far so good! I am intrigued to at least continue reading.
3. Uneven paragraphs, uneven stanzas
There are 6 paragraphs in the NIV text. Not only are they different length, they contain different number of numbered stanzas. Without even having read it [ I’m cheating here, I’ve read it many times in Bulgarian ], paragraph 5 (stanzas 13–17) appears much harder to memorize than paragraph 1 for example.
I need to break down the task into manageable sub-tasks, but doing so by paragraphs doesn’t seem like a good idea. I’m going to do a quick count of what is happening in the very first paragraph:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
- 2 numbered stanzas, 2 sentences. OK.
- First sentence is 20 words and is a complex sentence. 20 words is not too bad but on the easy end of the spectrum either.
- Second sentence is compound, half the size, and the “and” splits it nicely in the middle. Far easier to remember.
The Problem
I have barely scanned the text of the psalm and I’m already willing to dismiss it as something too difficult to memorize so I will NOT EVEN BOTHER to make it part of my frequently accessed library. [ In computer science terms this is referred to as “near cache”. ]
I’m not going to discuss why I would want to memorize this text in the first place as that would violate the no-theological-discussions constraint. But for whatever reason I want to, so I will have to come up with some “temporary workaround” a.k.a. “h4ck”.
I will try to continue the definition of the hack in a fugure article. Thanks for reading!