Today’s Provocative Question, Fandango asks:
“How do you know which of your memories are genuine and which have been altered over time or even made up?”
Easy. Memory is subjective, so we don’t know. One person’s memory of a given event will be different to another’s. I guess the memory and reality might diverge over time, too. How many times have we said “I could have sworn I left them there”, when bemoaning our lost keys, wallet or purse?
Here’s another anecdote to consider.
The very first thing my daughter did after she was born, was to pee on me after I held her for the first time. Apart from the medical staff, I am probably the only person to remember this, because Mrs Bump was high as a kite on meds at the time.
Being pissed upon is hilariously entertaining (apparently) so I regaled the story many times over the years, The interesting thing is that my daughter now tells the story as if it were her own memory. The first thing I did was to pee on dad”, kind of thing. Conveniently forgetting that she would have been a minute old at the time.
I don’t know whether this is her making things up consciously because she thinks it is a cool thing to remember (and not realising that it is totally incredible), or whether it has burrowed into her subconscious over time, so much so that she believes it to be her memory. Really, with my daughter, either scenario is possible.
So it would seem that memories are not only subjective, they are transferrable, too.
Yes, it’s true. At times, I wonder are these my memories of the stories my parents liked to tell of the silly and ridiculous things I did growing up. Truth, probably a mix of both, but I love this idea that memories are transferable. Could be a seed for a poem for me……
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like copying files from one disk to another – the secret of everlasting life! All of a sudden Total Recall not so far-fetched now, is it?
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Well done.
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hey, buddy, nice to see you back. Good Easter?
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Not “back.” Not in full regalia anyway. Visiting between cross-country trips because I miss you guys. One more large set of commitments to settle, then a bit of breath-catching before I get back to writing (? is that what it is called?) for posts. Hang loose. Take care. Eat all your veggies.
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Hey. You’re back!
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Hobbo! Please see my poke at Mr Bump. This is a sanity-check visit. No posting of new content (whew, huh?) just reminding myself life goes on, and some of it quite sane. (One questions my judgement if I consider you guys’ posts ‘sane,’ eh?). A few chores here, repack, then on the highway again and undecided if I’ll take the laptop with me. Keep your eyes on the road. Wash behind your ears. Do good stuff.
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Will do SP, good to hear from you again. Stay safe on that road and keep taking the meds.
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My genuine memories are those which Mrs Hobbo corroborates. All others, according to her are fictional!
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I work the opposite. When Mrs B tells me that she already told me a week ago, I respond that she just imagined doing so 🤣
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It’s true. Sometimes, we take memories from bits and pieces that we gather from other people’s stories or even from photographs!
… so sweet of your daughter to be sharing that memory as if it was her very own… 😂
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It might be sweet, it might not. With my daughter it is difficult to know whether it is conscious or subconscious.
I’m always sceptical, because my own first memory (that I can pin to a concrete date) is my first day at school. So I must’ve been getting on for 5 – as a result, when somebody says “I remember such-and-such happening aged 2…” I conclude that they are fabricating.
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Haha. Definitely! Or they’ve probably based it on photographs or someone else’s memories… I am sure your daughter was channelling yours— daughters do a lot of this with their dads haha
I do remember how I was called a thief by the grandma of my classmate back in kg2 (I was 5y) for supposedly stealing her granddaughter’s workbook only to discover that it was the twin sister who’s kept it with her things by accident… I became classmates with the twins again in junior high and I told them the story… they couldn’t recall any of it… haha, selective amnesia much!?!
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I vividly remember changing my son’s diaper and all of a sudden being hit by a stream of urine. And my wife confirms that having happened. But she also claims to have instructed me to put a cloth over my son’s privates while changing his diaper just to avoid being peed on. I don’t remember her giving me those instructions.
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no, she probably just thought that’s what she would have done, in your place, and enjoyed the subsequent giggle 🤣
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Your closing lines say it the best.
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I like the idea of it being transferrable.
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total recall
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I can remember being pushed in a pram, the dark pram hood above my head and the sound of wheels made as the pram was pushed over each crack between paving flags. Just the one memory, not a constant repetitive one. I am told I didn’t have a pushchair so who knows how old I was.
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I vaguely remember playing in a pram in the hallway, when I was much too big for it But no memory of ever being pushed properly in it. I guess things just fell out of use, and there wasn’t the space to store it anywhere else.
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