I used to be really proud about how clever I could be and how much information I was able to amass in my cranium.
The past decade or so, however, I’ve been discovering how liberating it is to be the one asking questions instead of being the one who “knows” stuff. And how freeing it is to let “knowledge” slip away when the information does not have an immediate and proven need. I can always ask the questions, or read something, again and — sometimes, even — I learn something completely different when I learn something “from scratch”.
That means I can often reread books, for example, and see the story or the information with completely new eyes. Or find a new technique to troubleshoot a problem.
Forgetting doesn’t have to be the horror that some folks make it out to be. Memories are not something that require preservation. They may give you joy or feel useful, but there is no real reason to cling to memories, or that joy, just for the sake of remembering. Or is there?
9 responses to “Half-Penny Thoughts | 23jun25”
This is a comforting (and timely) viewpoint. I worry when I can’t remember if I’ve read a book, or not. But I tend to stuff my Kindle (I don’t have the space to store books) with titles and read almost non-stop. My late mother once remarked she couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have my nose stuck in a book. I’m hoping my forgetfulness (of books read and other stuff) is just memory overload and nothing more.
Well, I know some of my earlier memory loss is due to my alcoholism, but the latter stuff is quite possibly in large part due to my decreased need to cling to “knowledge”.
That said, I can already see signs that my noggin is not as robust as it once was. I don’t know if it is because I have stopped trying to retain everything or if I am seeing some degradation. Or, perhaps, my perspective has changed…?
My bad memory has often forced me to be more in the present. And not have the present as influenced by the past. Almost like rediscovery each day.
There are times it feels very much like that when the mood is set accordingly.
Good point here. Memory, for one thing, is quite unreliable, and also perspectives change alot. One example might be music – how often have you clung to an album which you loved before re-listening to it and wondering why? Of course music can be strongly linked to a specific time or event, but it’s not the music per se which is necessarily relevant.
Same with ‘facts’ and information. Experience colours our viewpoints and some facts change. Then again some memories, however skewed, can just be comforting!
I’m looking at that Pseudo Echo album and wondering just what made me like it. I mean… Ooof.
I think I discovered just how much “facts” are based on having a singular view that often ignores other evidence when I asked too many questions about chemistry when in college.
Organic chemistry theory is treated as “fact” (instead of a hypothesis, or even a solid theory), which is why my professor tied herself in knots trying to explain how we “know” certain reactions happen via the mechanisms of the theory when no one has made any actual observations of the phenomena in situ; just the inputs and outputs. The rest, she was loath to admit, was assumption.
“We call that magic,” was my response and I almost invited to withdraw my declaration to be a chemistry major at that point. I was an early third year (of four) for that degree.
Memory may have no basis in fact. The event may never have happened as remembered. Sometimes, the other observations do not dovetail as neatly as everyone would like to think. And yet we persist in insisting we remember events as they actually played out. I wonder why.
No, they passed me by completely!
I think that you are correct here in that sometimes the ‘facts’ are what we feel fits our situation best at any one point. And yes, ask any two people to recount an event they’ve witnessed and their accounts are likely to be (and sometimes wildly) different. Yet it’s not easy to reconcile oneself to accepting that ones own memory bank is fundamentally flawed.
Why indeed? Less frightening perhaps?
Hello. My name is Michael and I am a fundamentally flawed individual.
Hi Michael.
🤣
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