Chapter 2: Smell and Taste hotdogs, they drove home; at an intersection, the driver of another car failed to stop and slammed into them. The other driver was killed instantly; my friend and his father were hospitalized for several months. Since the accident, my friend said, every time he smelled a hot dog and mustard, the events of that horrible day flashed across his mind. The philosopher and critic William James once pointed out that people complain about the melancholy of remembering everything—but would be just as unhappy as if they remembered nothing. Forgetting, he believed, was a mixed blessing. The real trick is to remember just those things we need to know at some later date and to forget the irrelevancies. Many people use an imperfect version of this trick in their daily lives. If a bit of knowledge is important, it tends to reoccur again and again so that it is always fresh and new; while the irrelevant details do not recur and are soon forgotten.
Using Smell and Memory Trying to manipulate people’s memories can be a dangerous proposition. Memory is so personal and so complex that you can’t ever be sure your actions will trigger the response you want. But, as I said in the chapter on touch, modern people have become so conservative about triggering the wrong response in others that they miss the opportunity to trigger the right one.
Just as you should observe how various people will react to physical contact and touch accordingly, you should think about how smell can affect people and respond accordingly.
In the business context, using smell translates mostly into how—or whether—you use cologne or perfume. It’s become a common tenet of modern business etiquette that using a lot of either is an old-fashioned and ill-advised practice. Of course, too
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