The Memory Machine

This morning I was listening to an episode of You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes where Pete recounted a recent conversation he'd had with someone about memory.  To be specific, he was talking about memories his daughter, who's maybe preschool/kindergarten-aged, was forming.  Pete's friend said something to the effect of his daughter only really remembering big things, like a family vacation, and not the everyday things like her dad coming to pick her up from school.  Pete guffawed like this person was missing the entire point of life, doubling down that he was certain his daughter would only remember things like him coming to pick her up from school.  That was the core memory, not a random vacation.

It made me chuckle as I went about the business of doing a very mundane task -- changing the sheets on my bed -- as I thought about how much Pete wanted to be right about this.  That his daughter would be so evolved and so present that she would really remember their darling ritual of that daily pickup.

Maybe she will, only time will tell.

But my guess is that she will forget those kinds of details while Pete may retain them.  It might be the kind of thing that as she growing up, he will tell her the story of when she was in kindergarten and he would come to get her, every single day.  She'll probably smile sweetly and feel the love that goes along with the memory while not being able to recall any of it herself.

We humans are built to remember feelings more than facts -- maybe that's what makes feelings so unrelentlessly powerful.

Maya Angelou has two related sayings that both bear repeating as often as humanly possible:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

and

"When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time."

So much is coded in behavior.  It's not what we say but how we say it -- it's all about how we show up in the world.  I had an experience recently where, on paper, it looked ideal for me but then when I arrived in the space, I very quickly realized that this was not my vibe.  How can any of us quantify such a thing?  How do I explain it to someone else?  These gut-level instincts of ours, they're quite powerful -- they teach us, if we let them.  And what I've learned in my four-decades-plus is that I forget a lot of the mundane details -- and even some of the glorious details.  Mostly what I remember is what it was like to be around someone, how they imprinted on me in that way.  Memories, to me, are survival mechanisms.  We remember things in order to avoid repeating a mistake or to make us feel easy about re-engaging with something or someone that made us feel welcome, able to arrive as our authentic selves.

Not long ago, I was listening to this episode of RadioLab that kind of blew my mind.  It's called "The Secret to a Long Life" and it's all about the marriage of experience and memory.  The premise: if you've ever felt like time has sped up in your adulthood, it's not because it actually has but that adults simply make fewer new memories than children do.  First time experiences tend to become core memories that continue to inform and teach us whenever that scenario might pop back up again.  So the remedy to time feeling like its speeding by is to infuse as many new experiences into our everyday existences.  Go a different route to work, pick a new lunch spot, find a new playlist, choose a new podcast, find some activities you have never done before -- anything novel will, so to speak, slow time down.

Check out the episode here.  It's pretty cool:

 

Listening to the pod, though, I wasn't stirred by the notion of inserting all these novel activities into my life.  I am more or less content with the "speed" of my life.  But I am also someone who is rather committed to paying attention to details and seeing fresh angles even on things that have become fairly rote.  In the short term, especially, I can feel quite in awe of various learnings I take away from this or that relatively banal moment. I write about them often.  In some ways, this allows me to process and release them.  Because, frankly, if you told me I already wrote about this podcast episode and memory, I'd probably stare blankly at you, no recollection of that at all, even if it was only a few days ago that I wrote it.

My memory is a pretty good one, but the older I get, the more interested I become in what really stands out to me in that department.  Like, I'd really have to think hard to remember what happened two weeks ago or a month ago, but if you asked me to tell you about July 2014, I could go through it almost day by day with pretty specific details.  But July 2014 was a really pivotal, game-changing month for me.  A lot happened -- all of it ramping up to other big changes and shifts in my life that are key reasons for why I am who I am this very day.  

This time of year there are a lot of "let go of the past to make way for the future"-type reminders as we prepare to Ring in the New.  I hear that and I don't entirely disagree with the notion, but please listen very closely as you trust and believe: you cannot bury the past.  If you try to do that, it will zombie-fy and come after you with a vengeance.  

There is a major difference between letting something go through a healing process and pretending like something either never happened or it doesn't affect you anymore when it actually still does.  If you're not sure what the difference might be between these two distinctions, I would invite you to evoke dear Maya and ask: how does this memory or this person make me FEEL.  If that feeling is anything you might quantify as negative -- it makes you feel mad, bad, sad -- then there might still be some work to do there.  Because the rotten truth is that if we don't allow ourselves the space to heal, there is no "moving on" or "turning the page."  

Our memories are our survival mechanisms -- and one of the surest ways to know that you have healed or you are ready to move on is when you are reminded of a tough memory or you encounter a person who once made you feel negative feelings and all you feel is lightness, maybe even love.  

In other words: when you're no longer triggered, there's no longer a trigger.  You've defused that bomb and you are once again safe in this space.  I offer the caveat, though, that healing isn't a linear process and there may be moments where something you thought you'd put to bed is suddenly screaming in your face again.  That doesn't mean you failed at healing -- and it doesn't mean you're "stuck in the past."  It means that there's just a little more learning to do here -- so be patient with yourself and be willing to learn.

I'm definitely one of those weirdos who will linger around any conversation that has to do with our brains, especially when it comes to the function of memory and the function of dreams.  Both of these topics have to do with our imagination, our self-narrative, and they are involuntary responses to our day to day existence.  Personally, I don't give a shit if time seems "too fast" or "too slow" --  I care more about how experiences make me feel, how I react to them, and what stands out to me even in the short-term.  These are the building blocks that we, in turn, rely on to evolve and grow.  

How can we notice our evolution and growth without memory?  This is the stuff that makes out out-human ourselves, glorious machines that we are.  

Pete Holmes isn't wrong to wish and hope that his daughter will embrace the everyday experience she had of spending time with a father who wanted her, who loved her, who accepted her, who gave her space to bloom.  And my guess is she will embrace it -- just not through the memory of the rote act of him picking her up from school day after day.  All of that will mush together into a feeling of being protected and cared for and supported -- that will be the memory that will out-shine any family vacation.  

I'm grateful for all that I remember and grateful for all that I've let go of through forgetting.  We need both in our human experiences -- that's what makes space for us to acknowledge and understand our healing processes and see more clearly what else is still to come.  God willing, we won't be fooled again by learning things right on schedule.

Remind me to remind you of this later, in case either of us forgets.