A break from the news
I remember episodes of my childhood, times when I clearly misunderstood everything around me. I remember my interpretation of events as a child and I look back with some embarassment that I could have been so foolish.
I think everybody does that, I don't know for sure, but I believe everybody looks back at the way they thought as a child or young person and feels some ebarassment over their own naievite or, as was often my case, utter misunderstanding of the facts presented.
What I think is harder, and more important, is to look at my current understanding the same way. To know that one day, perhaps I will look back at the things I've said and believed, and think, "wow, I really missed the point on that one."
Because I often miss the mark. That's one reason I keep blogs. I don't expect anybody to read them, but I do want them to exist, to be out there in the world, part of the collective conciousness, to embarass me when I'm wiser, and perhaps to remind me that I'm rarely right.
Strange thing, memory.
Memory is the only thing that connects me to that child that I once was. My body has changed and grown, every single molecule has been swapped out several times over and the very brain that holds those memories can't even be said to be the same one that experienced the events.
So what part of me is this memory? How true is it?
I've experimented sometimes with changing my memories. I've gone back and re-lived events that I should have handled differently, and handled them differently, in my imagination. Objectively, of course, I know what really happened, and what was imagination. But the re-telling of the story, the changing of the memory to include this new, alternate version also changed me in the here and now. It changed how I look at the world, how I feel about the people involved so long ago.
And at the end of the day, they're my memories, nobody else will remember it anywhere close to the way I did, and considering the amount of information I've managed to forget, it seems only fair that what I do remember, I be allowed to edit.
I started out trying to talk about the impermanence of the moment. The fact that who I am now is not the same as 15 minutes ago. Not physically, chemically, nothing.
Yet I am the same.
It's like the a garment worn by a saint centuries ago, so often patched by the pious monks that not a stitch remains of the original cloth, but still revered as being the cloth worn by saint so-and-so.
Perhaps rightly so.
I think everybody does that, I don't know for sure, but I believe everybody looks back at the way they thought as a child or young person and feels some ebarassment over their own naievite or, as was often my case, utter misunderstanding of the facts presented.
What I think is harder, and more important, is to look at my current understanding the same way. To know that one day, perhaps I will look back at the things I've said and believed, and think, "wow, I really missed the point on that one."
Because I often miss the mark. That's one reason I keep blogs. I don't expect anybody to read them, but I do want them to exist, to be out there in the world, part of the collective conciousness, to embarass me when I'm wiser, and perhaps to remind me that I'm rarely right.
Strange thing, memory.
Memory is the only thing that connects me to that child that I once was. My body has changed and grown, every single molecule has been swapped out several times over and the very brain that holds those memories can't even be said to be the same one that experienced the events.
So what part of me is this memory? How true is it?
I've experimented sometimes with changing my memories. I've gone back and re-lived events that I should have handled differently, and handled them differently, in my imagination. Objectively, of course, I know what really happened, and what was imagination. But the re-telling of the story, the changing of the memory to include this new, alternate version also changed me in the here and now. It changed how I look at the world, how I feel about the people involved so long ago.
And at the end of the day, they're my memories, nobody else will remember it anywhere close to the way I did, and considering the amount of information I've managed to forget, it seems only fair that what I do remember, I be allowed to edit.
I started out trying to talk about the impermanence of the moment. The fact that who I am now is not the same as 15 minutes ago. Not physically, chemically, nothing.
Yet I am the same.
It's like the a garment worn by a saint centuries ago, so often patched by the pious monks that not a stitch remains of the original cloth, but still revered as being the cloth worn by saint so-and-so.
Perhaps rightly so.
posted by JC at 12:13 AM
1 Comments:
Memory can be a curse, and also a boon of continuity.
I remember yelling into my younger brother's ear to wake him up after a car trip - forgetting he had tubes in his ears, and fucking him all up. The memory makes me wince of shame to this day.
I remember telling my girlfriend's mother that I would take Economics again in summer school to get my high-school diploma - because the GED thing would cheapen all the hard-earned advanced math and English credits I worked for - only to have her quip that SHE had a GED (and I knew at that point, I'd lost family favor - a wince of *DOH!*)
But I also remember when a sparrow flew into the chicken coop, and we kept it and fed it and it became an adopted pet - staying even when the coop was opened again to let the chickens out (yes, we had chickens).
I was THREE.
If it wasn't for my consistent self-induced blackouts from alcohol, I'd be insane by now. I actively spend money to forget on a regular basis.
But I can tell that I'm still the same person, running the same program (though the platform is a little more pudgy).
I just have new data to compare with the old.
Case in point: A trip to visit family relatives in Texas. I toddled around the cow pature, and witnessed a calf nursing on it's parent.
I didn't understand what I was watching. I SAW that the little cow was eating the bigger cow. I SAW flesh peeling away, and it freaked me out.
I was about 3 years old also then.
What's interesting to me is that I can still play back that unaltered perceived memory. And its still disturbing. But I can tip-toe around the perception and now add logic to it. I can imagine a new scenario; where the calf is nursing not eating.
Maybe that's why acid was so friendly to me. I could wade past the mistaken perceptions, yet still enjoy the view. :D
I'm ambivalent about the concept of permanent written record though.
When I'm 80, some things I'll still pine to forget.
Though old age will probably have that in the game plan anywho.
Peas.
n2
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