Memories, the stories we tell

I bought a book at the flea-market called "White Gloves". It's about how we create memories, actually subtitled how we create ourselves through memories. I have just read a little bit in it so far, but I think I have the gist of the idea of the author's thoughts on memory. I have a feeling that his idea might not make a whole book properly. I suppose I ought to keep reading it to give it a chance. But already there has been some stuff I consider not pertinent to the discussion.

Maybe more writers should publish essays, like Benjamin Franklin did. Maybe it would catch on, rather than writing so much fluff. Or maybe the writer got side-tracked as I am so apt to do!

So, however I do like his idea. Which I think is essentially that memories are like stories that we tell ourselves. And that they change and are not static.

I like this idea.

Someone asked me once "Why are you always looking back?" I don't know if that is an exact quote or not anymore. But I can't think of how many times I have thought about that question. It's not like other people don't talk about their memories. The questioner himself, I remember often premising a story with the phrase "years ago".... So I know he talked about things from the past. So that was not his point. He is not the only person to ever ask me a similar question.

I didn't know how to answer him. I still don't know how. It seems like I think of it as a challenge of my identity. But then I think he could have been right, I look back too much.

I have a fair amount of such incidents that I am apt to replay in my mind and ponder over, like beads on a rosary, pennies in my pocket. I take them out and finger over them again, and again.

Questions I didn't know how to answer seem like dreams--some of the dreams I have had recently, ones where I am trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle. In one dream I dropped some things and I was trying to pick them up. I kept leaning over and picking the things up and I kept dropping them again. They weren't such a great number of things that I shouldn't be able to pick them all up. So, over and over and over, etc., I kept trying. Until finally, finally I let go of the effort, and quit trying.

"Tell better stories" is a line in a commercial. Is it dependent on having better experiences? Or do I need to remember a better way, or think a new way.

The book White Gloves does also discuss different ways that memories are created. Someone tells you a story, or you read it, or you see a movie. But all of it becomes part of your storehouse of memories, and beliefs and knowledge about life.

I am reinforcing my memories in writing this blog.

How can I tell better stories or think new ways about my memories? Something to think about.


By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. Proverbs 24: 3,4 New American Standard Bible