Memory is a strange and fickle thing. Not a physical
thing, more a transient concept. How long is a memory? For that matter how
short is a memory? As long or short as it is remembered and before it is
forgotten. A curiously constructed phrase. I don't recall ever having written
down anything so odd before. Perhaps I have done. Just forgotten it. This is
rather like the question of how long is a piece of string? I remember reading
somewhere many years ago that it is exactly twice the length of the middle to
one end. Smart? Clever? Not in the accurate meaning of the terms. Most things I
do remember. Nearly everything, in fact. But this is only from what I have
remembered remembering. Or is that not remembering what I have forgotten? What I
have forgotten cannot be included since I don't recall it. It is a strange
concept this memory effect.
There was a time at school
when as a punishment I was required to write two "pages" on the topic
of how to turn a tennis ball inside out without cutting it. I have no idea what
I wrote except it must have been nonsense although I do remember that I
described how it can be done. Impossible? Of course, but I remember that I did
do that, though the details escape me! Clever? Smart? Perhaps, though not in the
accurate sense of the meaning. See what I mean by smart and clever?
How can I recall what I have
forgotten? Not simply failed to remember, but that which has been removed from
memory. All traces. It would be unfair to expect that of me. Surely, fairness
is only valid if you can remember the rules. What you forget cannot be held
against you, can it? The problem is to determine if you have really forgotten
something that you are supposed to know. Who says you should know it when you
have stated that you have forgotten it? There is a concept called
'registration'. If you never knew something then you cannot forget it, can you?
That makes absolute sense, yet the impression can be that there is still
something defective. No. Nothing wrong at all. Simply never noticed so there is
nothing to remember or forget. Like putting keys or spectacles down. If these
items or such like them are put down without noticing, then they are not
misplaced. They have never been lost though you may still have no idea where
they are. Bizarre? Absolutely, though quite reasonable, I think.
Going back to one of my
earliest recollections. An early sense of awareness. My first day at school
when I was about four years old. This still has strong imagery for me and is very vivid in my
imagination to this day. I can still see the winding slope through the gates as
I entered this place. I had no fear though I don't remember excitement either.
The memories come flooding back of the next forty five years, but if all these
memories were really remembered then I would have to be twice the age that I am
to relive it all. So, I either only remember triggers that activate the sense
of memory or I must be highly selective about what I choose to remember and by
definition what I choose to forget. It is like a dream where only fragments can
be remembered. As I think over my memories I am not being in the present, but
living in those distant memories in the past so the present is not being
registered and can never be remembered.
I am not confused, but memory
is very strange.
© Louis Brothnias (2005)