Memory

 I have always had a good memory. For as long as I can remember existing I remember things. And I must admit that at times my memory is a blessing and at times it is a curse. Like all things.

Over the years as I have done work on myself and compared memories with people who have been in my life forever I am struck by how true the old saying about memory is. IE, every single person sees the same event and each one of them experience and remember it differently. Very personally.

For example, the Police consider an eye witness account as the least useful evidence in a case. Because people see thru their own filters and not reality. There are very few people in this world that can see what is in front of them without bias or interpretation. And who can then accurately convey what it was and not what they thought it was.

And, over the years, I have had to face something for myself as well. My memory of something can change over time. As time goes by my feelings can change the reality of what I think I saw and experienced until it has become something else entirely. My feelings for the people involved or the event that happened can make something either much better or much worse that it actually was.

So memory is not all that it was cracked up to be. For someone who believes that they are intelligent, such as myself, this can be a very humbling, or humiliating, experience.

It takes a lot of Emotional IQ, which I am sometimes missing, to be able to approach this with any sanguinity at all.

So why all this about memory today? I am glad that you asked :-)

The other day I was talking with my Mother about when she was still a child. The time we were talking about was just in the end days of World War II and just after. She was living in Florida.

Now, to say that I am not a fan of Florida would be a bit of an understatement. I do not like the place nor do I enjoy being here. I have Family and Friends there which is the only reason I go there at all.

My Mother, however, is a big fan of Florida. The old Florida that she remembers as a child. Before it became Americas retirement community. Before it became vastly over populated with so much of it's natural beauty built out of existence. A Florida that I will never know.

And as we were talking she told me about how the traffic in Florida of today would have been impossible in her day.

When she was in Florida they had not made any new cars for several years. The production of cars had been halted and those factories had been converted to making war machines, Tanks, Planes, etc. So cars, and the gas and tires for them, was limited at best. You kept what you had going as best you could.

Well, her Father, my Grandfather, had an old car, a wreck as my Mother describes it, called Ermentrude that her Dad kept going as best he could. I asked her what type of car it was, IE make and model, and she thought for a moment and said "Grey".

And as she was talking about this I could see and hear that these were enjoyable memories for her. Where as, for her Sister, my Aunt, when she talked about those days the memory had not been as enjoyable. Not bad, she just did not have the same amount of joy in her recollections.

Two people who had experienced the same place at the same time, and experienced and remembered it differently.

And lately I have been looking at my past life and wondering how much of it is as I remember it and how much of it is colored thru my own viewpoint. And the only answer that I can come up with is all of it. It is all as I remember it and it is all colored thru my own viewpoint.

Because that truly is part of the Human Condition.

And today in America we are having a big fight about how we shall remember our National Past. There are people who really feel that if we remember our past AS IT TRULY IS that it will say something about them and make them uncomfortable. And there are people who feel that we must remember our past AS IT TRULY IS with every horrible detail included.

I am of the school that knows we must remember our past as it truly is. Without sugar coating it. Without turning away from the unpleasant parts of it. Without excusing it. Without diminishing anything. And without turning away.

For, as unpleasant as that can be, it is the only way to heal out National Psyche. It is the only way to become truly One Nation Indivisible.

I know, from my own personal experience, a person, or a Nation, cannot heal it's wounds without looking at and accepting completely the entire past. As it is and is not. Being uncomfortable and walking thru it anyway.

And, until we, the United States of America, as a Nation, a Society, a People, come to terms with our past, especially those parts of it that make us uncomfortable, then we shall never heal.

And we shall always be fractured and divisible.

And that is not a Nation and Society that I want.

What about you?