Goodness, a concept of time has slipped my senses again. Though I seem to be keeping better track of things than usual. I only really lack initiative.
The problem with memory is that it's dynamic. It will change with us. Not only how we remember, but also what we remember.
Lately, I've been searching my memory for signs of whether or not someone was being truthful. I have my own gimmicks for determining a person's legitimacy, roughly based around how I would BS a situation. So we're starting with an already broken method for filtering legitimacy. But, on top of that, my memory was of a time when I was drinking. AND, I have powerful personal biases for how I would like the situation I am remembering to have been.
The core of the problem for me seems to be, or at least the part I would like to think is the core, is my indecisive record-keeping. I'm not going to use alcohol as an excuse. And I do not plan on going in to some philosophical tirade that discusses the implications of false memories (Inception-style).
As far as I'm concerned, memories are inherently unreliable, as records of realty, from the moment they are created. Now I'm saying that based on a sliding scale of accuracy: obviously more recent and potent memories will be more accurate, and reliable, than others. I also take in to account that some people, probably based on a combination of early development and genetics, have different ways of remembering things. But the general problem seems to be that people will use their memories to form conclusions about their futures. Now take a breathe, I'm absolutely in agreement with "who we were, makes who we are." I'm not shooting that down, or criticizing it. But what's been bugging me, in my pursuit of past legitimacy, is the idea that spending too much time thinking about a memory may have altered it beyond any salvageable amount of authenticity. From there, not only will I be working with, effectively, stale and corrupted ingredients but I may make the further error of drawing a conclusion from it and assimilating it in to my future.
So, how do you stop it? How do you know when enough searching is too much? What is legitimacy if our only torch lighting our path, marching towards the dark unknown of the future, is our messy memories? Writing stuff down, for one, helps. Pictures are nice too. Other forms of external memory/record-keeping make things easier. Each other. My scrambled memories, if nothing else, stand to prove to me that moving forward is not something I should do alone; or for all I know, could do.
Memories. The future. The Now. What do I really want with it? I just want it to work. I think I have a hard time figuring out what I actually want in anything because I tend to be too isolated: I have too vague and colorless a sense of relativity and need more exposure to more colorful forms of relativity. I try too hard to not ask for help, or even look for it, when I really should. Pride, or arrogance, is something I feel like I need to come to terms with and sort out before I make too many other major decisions.
If anything, I fear not being who I'd like to think I am. I want to be more confident and in control of myself. I don't want to have to second-guess everything about me, and fear that the life I've created is something forged from an endless and convoluted history of preventable slip-ups.
Before I go back and sift through my memories for something useful again, especially a memory involving another person, I should consult things outside of my own head. Rely less on theories, and more on facts. Good advise for anyone; but in the eye of the beholder, it's easier said(understood) than done(committed to).
Take care,
-Etrius
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