How We Remember Our Past

If somebody asked me what my life was like five years ago, my immediate response would be, "what the hell was I doing five years ago?" I would then proceed to close my eyes, look up (which is a weird thing to do with my eyes closed), stroke my beard, and try to figure it out.

Five years ago was 2007, and since it is late November, I would be approaching the end of my first semester as a Junior in college. I don't remember all the specifics of my life at the time, but I was getting very deep into my Professional Writing classes. I was also getting very deep into my capoeira classes outside of school. I was living in Higgins Hall on the second floor, which was the same floor as the suite my friends lived in. I remember many late nights on my laptop, chatting with a number of friends, helping them get through personal problems, which means that at that point in my life, I had gone through one of the major revelations and personal developments at college and realized that one of the things I most enjoy in life is helping people feel better and work toward making their world a better place (which subsequently makes my life equally better).

I don't particularly care about my life five years ago. That was just an example. The point I really want to make is that humans do not think about their past the way computers would. The mind remembers bits and pieces. Every chunk of information may have bits that remind us of other chunks of information (like how the year indicated my year in college, which indicated the room I was in, which reminded me of activities in that room, which informed me of my mental state at the time), which ultimately gives us a fairly full picture of ourselves.

Humans also have the wonderful technology to give us memory aids. This could include photographs, journal entries, mementos/keepsakes which remind us of past experiences that were previously forgotten.

This imperfect, relative memory system is an intriguing one to explore. We have seen it used in stories where people with amnesia slowly reclaim their identity, and similarly used with dementia patients. But there is more that it can be used for. Consider a person simply reliving their youth, going to old schools or hangouts, visiting former teachers or other important adults. A person making such a trip would have a number of key places to go and people to see, but each new location would remind them of new places they had forgotten about, or stories that made these places more important than they originally thought.

This could also be used interestingly for a detective mystery. Sometimes just seeing evidence doesn't immediately spark an idea. Sometimes you have to be in the right place to trigger the brain to make a connection. (e.g. When you actually slip on a patch of ice, you realize that the body tends to fall in a particular way to avoid danger, so if the victim didn't fall that way, she must have been dead or unconscious.)

The one downside to the Digital Age is that it is easier to lose sight of how humanity works. Without going too deeply down that rabbit hole, I will conclude by saying that everyone can benefit by looking in themselves and trying to become aware of how they work, physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. And as a writer, use that knowledge, not only on yourself, but on all the other people you create.