There is a sentence I have written several times here in different columns, and several people have written to me to tell me that it intrigues them.
All memories are false.
Are you certain? As certain as I can be. Just because I say that all memories are false, it does not mean that I’m saying that all memories are exhaustively false. All images (by definition) are incomplete, or else they wouldn’t be “images.” They are < (less than.) The you that you see in the mirror isn’t exhaustively you. A picture of your child printed on photo paper is not your child. In like manner, the things you experience and how you remember them are not perfect 3D impressions of what happened.
All memories are false, for a number of reasons. Partly because we are fallen, depraved creatures with finite perceptions, petty biases, and an eagerness to believe things in a way that (at the very least) doesn’t accuse us, and preferably excuses us. Partly, also, as the mechanism of survival, our minds immediately fill in blank spaces and our brains color our perceptions with details (sometimes incorrect) that help us to grasp, interpret, categorize, and store the things that occur to us. Moreso when two or more people begin rehashing a memory, like entangled quantum particles, we adopt memories or parts of memories that aren’t ours – and those parts become as real to us as our perceptions of what we actually experienced. The more people involved in the rehashing, the further the memory gets to the reality that was experienced by any one individual. Particularly if a group, small or large, is able to focus bad will toward an opponent or enemy. If we all have animosity about Kevin, perhaps even deservedly, and we sit around the fire relating events about Kevin, we will almost certainly corporately create a new reality in our consciousness about Kevin that probably isn’t accurate. This is the danger of gossip and why it is often akin to character murder. Now, realize that we do this socially, politically, and in every other venue.
I have written at length about this phenomenon, and, in this epoch of my life, I am every day confronted with the many layers of misperception that make up our daily experiences.
Do not confuse all of this with our almost universal practice of lying to ourselves. That is, it is one thing to adopt a lie and embrace it when we know it isn’t the truth. That, as I said, is a universal component of our fallen nature. We all do it. All of us. But what I’m talking about here is more the fact that we misperceive things, and our brains/minds are adept at creating very realistic memories that are indistinguishable from our senses and perceptions of what actually happened. In one case, we actively, but unconsciously, misperceive in order to justify or excuse ourselves or to make ourselves accept more comfortably a reality that might otherwise make us uncomfortable. In another case, we (again, unconsciously) adapt and adopt extraneous information, blend memories, or create them entire, all as a way of categorizing and accepting something.
All of these phenomena are well-documented and proven. Witnesses to crimes or accidents commonly will adapt or adopt information from other witnesses to the point that they are willing to swear in court that their perception is the truth (and they believe that it is, so help them, God.) Police and attorneys commonly use or abuse this phenomenon in interviews with witnesses or suspects. “Don’t you remember that there was another man, wearing a blue shirt, next to you during the incident? Because your friend Gary says he saw a man next to you in a blue shirt.” “Yes, yes, I remember now.” Later in court, the witness testified under oath that the man in the blue shirt was there.
Experts, hypnotists, charlatans, and performance illusionists have demonstrated creating whole false memories (alternate realities) that people will swear they experienced.
Not long ago, my wife and I were enjoying an evening with friends. During the evening I related a story, long forgotten, about something that happened in our family. I hadn’t even remembered the story for a long time, but it seemed apropos to the current topic, so I told the story. Later that night when we were home, my wife said to me, “You know, when you told that story – you were mixing up two different stories.” She then related the two different stories and explained how I had conflated them. “I see now.”
How many times in 31 years of marriage have I begun to tell a story only to have to turn to my wife and say, “Where were we?” “When was that?” “Who were we with?” “I can’t remember when it was.”
As a writer, we need to do this all of the time. Usually consciously and with purpose. You can’t tell all of anything. We blend and create characters from many people we’ve met. In my book God In The Storm, which is the true story of the family of a friend of mine and their escape from the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 70s, it was necessary that we create composite characters and that we blend events and experiences so that the reader could get a whole and completely true understanding of what happened without the book being 700 pages of dry and confusing recitations of historical events. We took experiences that happened to aunts, sisters, neighbors, and even strangers, and had those true experiences happen to our characters because it was necessary for the reader to know that these things happened commonly. To create a cast of hundreds of characters who only appear in order to relate one event would be unwieldy, and the result of the exercise would be to establish an unreadable account, one that was even less “true” than the partial history we had to write. These things we did knowingly and with forethought, but our brains do the exact same thing unconsciously every day. Our memories are not “true” in that they are not exhaustively accurate. They are not recordings. In some cases, they are completely untrue as to their composition and relation to what actually happened. Add to this that many of our cultural memories, our sociological story, are absolutely false – framed by a system of propaganda and misinformation. History is written by the winners.
Most arguments and disagreements are because two or more people remember things differently. This is the source of most relationship conflicts. And to exacerbate the problem, both parties are always misremembering. Always.
My children do not remember things the way that I do. My wife doesn’t see everything that’s happened to us in the same way. We are all human and we all perceive things from our own, wounded and corrupt perceptions. I know that I have to moderate my certainty. I have to understand limitations.
I don’t write this to frustrate or demoralize you. I write it because once we get a handle on this truth, once it becomes real to us and we understand it, it is a great tool for building humility and caution. It can help us with empathy, self-correction, and understanding.
Moderating your certainty is also grasping your limitations. Strangely enough, it is an important component of sanity and the ability to live in peace.
Moderate your certainty. Give it a try.
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