Memories may be beautiful and yet...

[Nearly Sane]

Warning: long discursive post that I'm not entirely sure where it will end up


A memory was triggered when I posted about Johnnie Walker retiring in this thread

https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=22173.0

That I think it was him on the radio when I remember hearing Reach Out by the Four Tops on the radio for the first time. It's the first 'adult' song that I remember hearing and being amazed by. And it still amazes to this day

 https://youtu.be/2EaflX0MWRo?si=30M7ppCLX2HTv6nM

Now, I cannot be sure that it was Walker, and there isn't any way of checking it. I didn't note the date, and I suspect it wasn't when it was first released as I would have been 2, and even if I knew the date, there isn't a database of all shows done on that date that I could check.


I'm also conscious that the entire memory may be essentially wrong. It may not have been Walker, it might not be the first adult song that blew me away, it might not have been on the radio but a single on the 'radiogram'. And given that I think it's a memory that's more than 55 years old, it's not exactly clear though the feeling of hearing the song floods back.


As technology has progressed there is more chance of at least finding some things that confirm details but even with something like IMDB the details are often not sufficient, as per this thread, though it's also about something 50 years ago.

https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=22123.0

Included in that is a brief discussion of the power of such memories  referencing Proust's Remembrance of Things Past with its madeleine moment.


https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/07/more-than-cake-unravelling-the-mysteries-of-proust-s-madeleine


In 2 days time, it will be 10 years since my father's funeral, and I noted the memory of his death in this thread, a year after.

https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10948.0

I spoke at the funeral, about my memories of my father, and that became a memory thar I have often returned to in the past. There was a large leather bound bible at the crematorium, and the leather was bevelled. I remember rubbing my finger over it to help me focus while I spoke. As the memory gets older and replayed, I find the rerecording of ot makes the bevels  less clear. Unlike Scotch tape, the rerecording does mean it fades away to some extent.

https://youtu.be/oJzRpgXvM2I?si=k--7G5fcQx0aYOmI

I'm conscious as well that the memory of speaking at my mother's funeral last year, is for some reasons I think I know but quite possibly for reasons I have no clue about, is less clear than the memory from 10 years ago, or indeed the one of hearing Reach Out from 55 years ago.

Having mentioned Scotchtape, it highlights that our ability to access recordings of things we remember has increased exponentially over my lifetime. I am stuck wondering how that has affected how we recall things. Do we make less effort to remember things, not just memories similar to what ai have raised here, but poetry, phone numbers, directions? Is the Mandela effect something that's just more likely to be revealed now, or is it exacerbated somehow?

https://www.britannica.com/science/Mandela-effect


In all of this  I am haunted by quite how important memory is to who we are. Both my parents suffered from dementia, and it often made it difficult to recognise them as the people I knew. If technology is having a significant affect in what memory is, then it will be having a significant effect on what it means to be us.

Thanks for reading.

[ekim]

I think my memory works on a 'need to  know' basis.  If I don't need to know something it doesn't bother remembering.  My wife, who is a few weeks from 90 years of age, appears to be suffering from dementia.  She seems to switch between a fantasy world and an actual world, with memories of the dream world appearing more valid than those of the actual world.

[Gordon]

For me there is something about 'events' that get 'replayed' or referred to in the media - it could be a horse race (the only sport I have an interest in), or perhaps some notable public event or even something awful - provide it is associated with a date that is on or just before a personal loss.

When such 'events' are re-presented in a way that I become aware of I invariably think to myself - 'when that happened all was well because so-and-so was still alive'. The intensity does fade since 'events' invariably are less often referred to the older they are unless they have a particular significance in a wider sense - but when they are my memories are triggered.

Makes no sense - but then that doesn't matter I suppose.

 

[Nearly Sane]

I think my memory works on a 'need to  know' basis.  If I don't need to know something it doesn't bother remembering.  My wife, who is a few weeks from 90 years of age, appears to be suffering from dementia.  She seems to switch between a fantasy world and an actual world, with memories of the dream world appearing more valid than those of the actual world.

It can't be easy for you. When my dad's dementia hit, he'd get up in the middle of the night to go to a job he hadn't had in 20 years, and all sorts of stuff that made my mum's life hell.

One of the most moving things I've ever seen though was one time when he was lucid, he scrawled an apology to my mother on the only piece of paper he could find which was the instructions from one of his medications at the time, saying he knew that there were times when he wasn't himself and that he hoped he wasn't too bad, that he lived her.

[Nearly Sane]

For me there is something about 'events' that get 'replayed' or referred to in the media - it could be a horse race (the only sport I have an interest in), or perhaps some notable public event or even something awful - provide it is associated with a date that is on or just before a personal loss.

When such 'events' are re-presented in a way that I become aware of I invariably think to myself - 'when that happened all was well because so-and-so was still alive'. The intensity does fade since 'events' invariably are less often referred to the older they are unless they have a particular significance in a wider sense - but when they are my memories are triggered.

Makes no sense - but then that doesn't matter I suppose.

As we've talked about elsewhere social media entries mean I am reminded of more anniversaries than I would have previously. I would have missed yesterday that it was 2 years to the day that my mum moved into the home though I would have known it was around that. I don't know if that increased frequency of knowledge is something I'm entirely comfortable with. I have a pretty good memory for dates anyway and on occasion  in the past have wished I didn't.