Thursday, May 26, 2022
5:45 a.m. Continuing yesterday’s thought about how to organize and retrieve, I’ve done what I know how to do. I put it to you: What am I missing? What’s the way to do the work? Or, is there a way to do it? [I was referring to the process of mining my journals for specific information.]
You might do it in a more relaxed fashion. Trust that we know, which means your “unconscious” mind knows, which means you only need to intend to recall the information, to have it.
Not noticeably.
No, we’re saying something new here.
Well, I’ll listen. F, R, C, P.
You think: Memory can’t be relied on, especially as you age. But this is both true and spectacularly not true. It depends on what you mean, and how you live, and how you use the tool. Screwdrivers make poor hammers, but they are magnificent at applying torque to drive one piece into connection with another. Hammers can’t drive screws, but they are hell on wheels at driving nails. The right tool for the right job – and (something sometimes overlooked), the right job for the right craftsman.
So let’s talk about memory. The same word may have many meanings. Some overlap, some may seem to contradict one another.
- “What was that person’s name? When did that thing happen? What specific detail fits in the blank spot in my speech or writing?”
- That reminds me of a story, Abraham Lincoln used to say. But there are many ways the association-machine works, some of them unwanted, some seemingly uncaused or out of control.
- “Here’s an example of that.” This is like association, but more tightly focused.
- Not quite association; not pointed like instance; not the result of a query, like recall. You may be in an idle moment and you find memories popping up – seemingly for no reason; certainly unprompted by any stimulus you recognize.
We could probably continue, but these four examples ought to do.
As we began listing, I didn’t know what else would be added. I see that in fact these are very different processes, each a sort of specialty.
Do you think it was arbitrary, that you should have to fish for words sometimes? You can’t blame it on age, since you first noticed the tendency in your twenties.
Well, it has become more pronounced as the years accumulated.
Yes, because the brain’s natural tendency to prefer one type of memory over another is age-related, as everybody knows in practice, though they misinterpret what is happening. But you were blessed with the tendency to have words slip out of reach. Why, do you suppose?
I don’t know, I have always been very verbal, so it has been mildly puzzling. But I can’t say I ever worried about it.
It should occur to you that a tendency to be receptive rather than proactive may have something to do with it. What do you do when you can’t find a word you need?
Depends. In speech, I hesitate or I work around it or I say, “What’s the word I want?” and sometimes the other person can prompt me. In writing, I usually hesitate and if the word doesn’t come, I leave a space and fill it in when it does come, usually after a sentence or two.
You know what you want to convey, but you can’t find the counter, the symbol, that represents part of it.
That’s a good way to put it, yes.
How different is that from talking to us?
Hmm. The analogy hadn’t occurred to me.
Not really an analogy. Description, rather. What is happening is that you depend upon the word appearing when you need it. You are receptive, and the word usually fills the void.
So in a sense, it was practice in living in faith that what was needed would be provided.
You could put it that way. And what would have happened if such gaps had frustrated, even enraged, you?
I’d have concluded that the universe had it in for me, I suppose.
No, seriously, think of your progression in thinking about your lungs.
That’s very interesting. Good analogy. I used to be angry at my lungs for causing me so much trouble. It took a long time for my view of things to change to where I saw them as working on my behalf – doing the best they could – under great handicap. That is, instead of being angry at them, I became grateful to them. The situation hadn’t changed, but my view of it had, and that changed things in effect.
So when you can’t find a word, you can curse or laugh at the fact that “I’m getting old and can’t think as well as I used to” (which won’t be true), or you can observe the process and consider what it is allowing or encouraging, rather than obsessing over what it is preventing or discouraging.
It is a truism that as we grow older, old memories come forth and newer ones are harder to hold.
It is also a truism that as you age, you are likely to become more far-sighted. Do you think there could be a connection?
Another interesting connection I hadn’t made.
So now let’s return to the starting point. You have a mass of material and you have been trying to figure out a way to mine it. All of your schemes silently assume that you have to do it with a hammer. You already know everything that is written down; you wrote it. You have access to everything you need. Yes, detail may be – will be – missing. Yes, you will need to do work-arounds sometimes. So what? It’s all in your mind, because where else can it go? To the extent that you lived it, it is part of you. So, you listed three kinds of things you wanted to mine. Do you think you can do it by force easier than by requesting the librarian to fetch it?
Well, some of it I’m not going to recall spontaneously. I was thinking to go through looking for poetry, and dreams, and peak experiences. I still think it would be interesting if it weren’t so massive a task to comb 143 journal books.
However, it is a massive tasks, and you have repeatedly made attempts and have given up. So should you keep trying that hammer, just in case it drives screws now?
Yeah, it’s like Nasiruddin trying to cultivate yogurt in a lake, and when someone pointed out it couldn’t be done, he said, “Yes, but suppose I succeed!” Though, I have to admit a certain sympathy with the idea.
You are welcome to continue to try to make the lake into yogurt.
So particularly, how would I use the four kinds of memory to do what I want to do?
The first thing would be to know why you want to do whatever it is that strikes you.
That’s a thought.
If you just want an encyclopedic list, that’s one thing. If you want to use these stored memories for something, that’s different. Once you know why you want the information, you will see that different goals call forth different search procedures.
Recall, Association, Instance, Reverie. Could probably use a good acronym like F,RCP.
Meditation on a theme will work miracles. Let your librarians fetch the appropriate materials for you. They’re good at it, they live to serve.
Thanks for all this. Others may find it of assistance or not, but I think this will help me. We’ll see.