Essay of the Month
I am Because I Remember
"I think, therefore I am," wrote Descartes. Wits have expanded this notion: "I think, therefore I think I am." Still, joking aside, without our ability to remember our past, we would be bereft of our humanity. We would not be who we think we are. We would not be.
Historians remind us of our collective past, the major turning points, wars, rebellions, political intrigues, the saints and sinners who have influenced our lives, sometimes without our awareness. We are born, grow, and mature in specific social climates, and each of us is shaped by the strictures and expectations of our families and our societies. "The landscape of our life shapes our nature," declared Frederick Law Olmstead who, as one of the designers of New York's Central Park, knew what he was talking about!
What sparks our memories? A word, a photograph, a smell. Smells evoke complex emotions. Floral scents delight us - if we don't suffer from any of the allergies associated with the outdoors! The smell of food can, in a flash, take us back to when we were five years old, to a house left long ago, where grandma baked chocolate cup cakes especially for us. Alas, one of the early forebodings of Alzheimer's disease is a diminishing sense of smell. Smell and memory are closely allied and, as is well known, as Alzheimer's disease progresses, patients slowly lose their sense of self.
Still, even for the rest of us, memory is not always reliable. It can be manipulated. We know this from the substantial literature on recovered memory of abuse, sexual and otherwise, and from the records of the McMartin pre-school travesty. Reputations have been ruined, lives have been lost, through deliberate tampering by "experts" determined to prove themselves right.
Recently, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, has successfully -and openly - planted false memories in subjects' minds in an effort to persuade them that certain foods have, in the past, made them ill. While the researcher justifies her attempts as a way to manipulate memory for positive ends, it raises serious ethical questions. Who makes the decision that the ends are positive? How can we protect ourselves against manipulation that may undermine the reality, the truth, of our memories?
Like anyone who has lived a full life, I have my own personal store of memories. I have known hardships and losses but, overall, I relish the richness of my experiences. Manning, my husband of forty years, used to say, "The sun always shines on Monica. If I stay ever so close to her, maybe the sun will shine on me, too." I've been lucky.
Copyright. Monica B. Morris, July, 2008
* * * * *