“The
past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
- The Go-Between by Leslie Hartley
Once upon a time, way
back in the psychedelic haze of the mid-seventies, I was passionately impressed
to commence writing my personal history and, in connection with that process, to
also begin keeping a journal. At the time, my motivation for doing either was a
complete mystery, other than for the inexplicably compelling reason that I
seemed instinctively certain the activities would one day be important.
The historical volume has
been under intermittent construction since that incident, but has frequently
fallen to the sidelines as a task self-critically, either too cumbersome, too
wordy, too imaginative, too self-indulgent, or just too painful at times to
continue. However, because of the epiphany, I’ve managed to remain fairly diligent
to the demand. During sleepless nights I return to it with bleary eyes, but renewed
enthusiasm, and hope that the final collective, despite how fanciful I think it
sometimes appears, might at the very least, provide context for the choices both
good and bad, made throughout the paragraphs.
The challenge of keeping
journal entries seems to have been easier, fundamentally just requiring a
commitment to keep plodding along, ten minutes or so at a sitting. Once the
first year was wrapped up, it just made sense not to waste the practice and to
keep adding to it. And, even though the first half decade contains a fair
amount of mundane daily factoids, including weather and temperature statistics,
time constraints of an active, growing family eventually taught the lesson of
filtering. Very quickly the entries slacked off to less frequent, but hopefully
more notable, weekly and sometimes monthly, commentary.
In a nostalgic review of
both projects a while ago, I became aware of a rather peculiar phenomenon. At
their moment of documentation, the anecdotes in my history, although distant in
time… were quite distinct. However upon reading them again, after many years
since that initial record, a lot of those same memories had become like faded
images on old sepia photographs. Many were a little bit less recognizable. Early
childhood recollections of certain people, activities, toys, and events, once
crisp, colorful and poignantly clear, now read almost as if belonging to
another writer. The journal entries on the other hand, were still freshly
vibrant; maintaining essentially as much atmosphere and impact as they did when
originally delivered to paper.
Initially, I surmised
that the difference between the two was quite natural and simply a matter of
the growing distance between my current age, and the fixed-dated timing of the
actual events. Commentary detailed in my personal history was written well
after the facts from a post-partum mode and admittedly, may have been
potentially fogged at the outset. In contrast, my journal writing was penned
“within the moment” and was, and hopefully continues to be, as accurate and
honest as I dare care to present it.
The answer it seemed,
was obvious. Presumably, as my mental faculties would most likely diminish (as
indicated by statistical surveys of the elderly, but in my case hopefully only
after many years yet to come) I was rationally confident that my recollection response
to the journal writings would be similar.
And then… the faintest
scent of honeysuckle drifted through my open window.
Like a magician’s
illusion, logic and reasoned analysis vanished, to be mystically replaced by a
flood of emotion and sensory impact. Somehow, the sheerest of a whispering
fragrance managed to transport me from my book and recliner to another time and
place from my past. So vivid, real, and emotionally branded was the effect,
that it momentarily caught my breath and made me gasp in surprise!
The question, “Why do
we even have memories?” has, throughout the ages, evoked countless theories and
speculation both philosophic and scientific; each field generating even more
complex and convoluted questions and concepts to support and bolster their
separate views. Upon presentation of the query, a host of heated responses have
been, and will ever be generated, often dramatically emphasizing their
authority and righteousness, one over the other. However… most likely, only
when both merge, into a future, singular, and absolute knowledge, will the
correct answer be revealed.
It may seem like wishful
thinking mixed with a liberal dose of personal conceit, but perhaps some time
off in those halls of tomorrows, and unfortunately, only upon second or third
reading, maybe my family or a curious passerby, or even myself, will gain
additional insight into who any of us may have thought we were during this
time.
Meanwhile, particularly
since the advent of the computerized cloud of the Internet, let’s enjoy pondering this
provocative quote from the artificial life theorist, Steve Grand. - J.
“[Think]
of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something
you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all you
really were there at the time, weren't you? How else could you remember it? But
here is the bombshell: you weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your
body today was there when that event took place. Every physical bit of you has
been replaced many times over (which is why you eat, of course). You are not
even the same shape as you were then. The point is that you are like a cloud:
something that persists over long periods, while simultaneously being in flux.
Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are
not the stuff of which you are made. If that does not make the hair stand up on
the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important.”
