On Memory
Posted on March 31, 2008
Filed Under Aphorisms |
A memory is an intricate, ever-shifting net of firing neurons and crackling synapses. Memory is not some vast cerebral warehouse filled with rows and rows of neatly ordered filing cabinets. It is more like a maze, the twistings and turnings of which rearrange themselves completely each time we step into the past. Not facts but fabrications, memories are perpetually remade and replaced as new experiences shift the skein of synaptic connections in our brains. When we recall, the neural pattern corresponding to the memory flashes through our skulls as quickly and as clearly as a lighting bolt. And like lightning, it is as swiftly gone. Nothing is more fickle, inconstant, flickering. Nothing is as true. “The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet,” British poet Edward Thomas wrote. That’s because every time we recollect the past we re-ignite it, and bring it back to life.
This abbreviated essay originally appeared in the April issue of Ode, on sale now.
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The advantage of seeing Hamlet played by different actors over the years is that your memory of the Prince and Shakespeare’s play is not closely identified with any one person or voice or time.
When I look into my personal diary from, say, three decades ago, I am often startled by the gulf between how I now remember something in the past and how I recorded it then.