Unused Memories

I have long been fascinated with memory and concept of memories. If you go back through this blog you will probably find several references to memory, memory studies, the meanings of memories. Recently I received an e-newsletter from Harvard outlining the 7 types of "normal memory problems."

I want to talk about one of them (besides that gives me 6 more reasons to post in the future....)

The first type listed was "transcience" the notion that we forget things over time. The article points out that information used frequently is less likely to be forgotten. I'm sure we can all relate to that. We remember more easily the phone numbers of people we call all the time, for instance. But, it is interesting to think of the things we DO remember, that we hardly ever call up. Why is that? What makes a memory stick?

I was really struck by this line in the story, though, "Although transience might seem like a sign of memory weakness, brain scientists regard it as beneficial because it clears the brain of unused memories, making way for newer, more useful ones." Is an unused memory useless? It seems to imply that only the things we remember every day are useful memories. I'd like to think that some events that I only call up once a decade are still an important part of my life and being. And, if you lose a memory is it completely gone? Maybe its content has become integrated somehow into your very being and so lives on in an indirect way.

I don't know, it makes me want to start using my old memories before they consider themselves useless and are displaced by some new information, like another computer password...

A poem

Okay, I'm already behind on posting something this week, so I'll take a short cut and put up a poem I read recently that I enjoyed....

On Punctuation
by Elizabeth Austen

not for me the dogma of the period

preaching order and a sure conclusion

and no not for me the prissy

formality or tight-lipped fence

of the colon and as for the semi-

colon call it what it is

a period slumming

with the commas

a poser at the bar

feigning liberation with one hand

tightening the leash with the other

oh give me the headlong run-on

fragment dangling its feet

over the edge give me the sly

comma with its come-hither

wave teasing all the characters

on either side give me ellipses

not just a gang of periods

a trail of possibilities

or give me the sweet interrupting dash

the running leaping joining dash all the voices

gleeing out over one another

oh if I must

punctuate

give me the YIPPEE

of the exclamation point

give me give me the curling

cupping curve mounting the period

with voluptuous uncertainty

"On Punctuation" by Elizabeth Austen, from The Girl Who Goes Alone. © Floating Bridge Press, 2010.

Exactly what's needed...

I had a long trip back from LA today and listened to an interesting podcast. I download a show called "Speaking of Faith," hosted be Krista Tippet on NPR. It deals with issues around religion, philosophy, and ethics. This episode was called "Listening Generously, " and was an interview with Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician. I've just copied part of the transcipt here....

"In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness of the world, the light of the world was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light, and they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.

Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. It's a very important story for our times. And this task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew. It's the restoration of the world.

And this is, of course, a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world. And that story opens a sense of possibility. It's not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It's about healing the world that touches you, that's around you.

It's a very old story, comes from the 14th century, and it's a different way of looking at our power…I think that we all feel that we're not enough to make a difference, that we need to be more somehow, either wealthier or more educated or somehow or other different than the people we are. And according to this story, we are exactly what's needed. And to just wonder about that a little, what if we were exactly what's needed? What then? How would I live if I was exactly what's needed to heal the world?"

I think it is a powerful way to think about our lives. Perhaps you are exactly what is needed.

Back in the saddle

I know hardly anyone reads this blog, so my absence was probably not noted by many. However, as a matter of self-discipline I am making a pledge to post something at least 2x a week for the rest of the year.

I've been meaning to write about Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and neuroscientist interested in language. His specialities are verb tenses and swear words. An interesting combination. He spoke at SU recently, and while his talk was somewhat disappointing, the reading I did before his lecture was not. One interesting concept, that I've actually written about here before, is the way in which languages use gender. So, for instance in French or Spanish , if I were to say "I had dinner with my neighbor last night," you would know if that neighbor was male or female. Not so in English. Does that make French and Spanish speakers more aware of gender? Does it change the way we think about gender? In the study I wrote about some time ago the issue was the assignment of gender to inanimate objects, like bridges. Assigning male or female articles to those items changed the way they were perceived.

The other thing Pinker talked about, which I found interesting, was the use of indirect speech, or innuendo. He pointed out how the use of indirect speech maximized payoffs. If the person didn't take the hint, you were no worse off, but if they did, you could gain tremendously. There is basically no risk. So, if you are offering a bribe, do it discreetly.

As a female instructor, let's put these two items together. How to best bribe me for a better grade?