The artistry of memory

The artistry of memory

Posted on December 14th, 2010 by Frank Wilson

I have been blessed with an uncommonly good memory. I can not take credit for this, of course, no more than I can for the color of my eyes or hair. It’s just one of the good things that happened to come my way.

A useful thing it has been, too, especially so when I was in school. I could just sit and listen to a lecture, scribbling down from time to time a key word or phrase, and be pretty confident I would ace the inevitable test. The same was true with books. I could usually just read the book we were to be tested upon and get most of the answers right.

The latter, though, was not entirely because of my good memory. I had also correctly reasoned that the point of the test was to see if one had read the book. So the answers to the questions were likely to be pretty obvious — if you had simply read the book. Many of my fellow students focused on details — and missed the gist.

So far, my memory hasn’t slipped too much as age has crept up. I may not always be as quick on the draw as I used to be, but if I take my time, I usually can still hit the bull’s-eye.

What I do realize, now that I am a man of advanced years, is that the access-to-data aspect of memory, while important enough, is not the most interesting thing about our power to recall the past.

“Every man’s memory,” Aldous Huxley said, “is his private literature.” The most interesting thing about memory — at least in regard to one’s personal history — is how creative it can be. Often, when you try to conjure up an episode out of your past, you discover that your memory hasn’t simply recorded the facts of the matter, but has weighed them in such a way that what you really remember is not simply what happened, but — what is more important — what its impact on you was.

You also discover that many things that at the time seemed overwhelming have lost all resonance. Recently, I heard a song that long ago meant much to me in connection with a young lady I was then dating. I was at the time emotionally naïve almost to the point of imbecility. The young woman in question — much shrewder than I — sensed this and gave me the bum’s rush, thereby doing us both a great favor.

I didn’t think so at the time, of course. I was crushed, convinced my life would be a desert without her. Obviously, I got over that. But what is interesting is that, when I heard that song recently, it was only the facts of the matter I could recall — mostly with embarrassment. How I actually felt at the time completely eluded me. As far as that was concerned, it all might as well have never taken place.

On the other hand, when I was but a toddler, I came downstairs very early one morning — it was still dark, and my mother was about to take off for work — and before I was taken back to bed, I was give a sip of my mother’s coffee. I sometimes think that every first sip of coffee I have taken since has been connected to that moment. I can see the soft light in the kitchen that morning as if it had happened yesterday.

I am sure a measure of distortion is at work here, something on the order of the distortion an artist must employ in achieving perspective. In other words, memory does not merely record. It shapes, and in doing so arrives at a more accurate representation of ourselves than mere facts could ever provide. After all, what I thought at the time that young lady brushed me off wasn’t even close to the way things turned out. Not only was I not ruined, both of us were surely better off without each other.

That is why, when looking back, you often learn that you are not the person you took yourself to be.