Memory And Memories

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Sometime in the middle of the night I awoke with a strange thought in my head. It occurred to me that I could probably write the same blog post over and over and I wouldn't know the difference. This isn't about failing memory, it's about the repetition of thoughts, the shear volume of thoughts, and not being able to keep track of what I've already said or decided not to say, or for that matter, temporarily forgot while I was writing.

Somebody once said that 90% of life is just showing up, or something like that. That's true. Life happens whether we plan it or not and only a certain small part is under our control. Some people are better at controlling life than others. Daytime television directors, for instance. They show up determined to control what happens for that hour, according to script, and seem to succeed to some extent.

I don't have a script. I'm not even very good at improvisation. Life just unfolds before me with only a small amount of input from me. I can make a plan and one day in twenty some small part of my plan will be accomplished. Living with other people generally means there are multiple plans in motion, usually at some level of opposition, or at least incompatibility.

Don't get me wrong, other people are delightful creatures who lend spice and surprise to life, it's just that they are unpredictable. If I plan to spend the day working in the garden, one of my peeps informs me they had planned for me to go to town. And here's where that other kind of memory problem comes in: "You know we have that [wedding, funeral, graduation] to go to." "Oh, was that today?" I say, having no idea whether I've heard about this before. Besides, at the risk of seeming insensitive, if you've been to one [wedding, funeral, graduation] you've been to them all.

My blog posts are like that: old guy complains, reminisces, philosophizes, occasionally offers a recipe. Not that that's a bad thing. My memory is such that I can go back and read some of my old posts and be pleasantly surprised and entertained. But in the grand scheme of things, I'm not really saying anything that hasn't been said before. I just can't remember if I've said it before.

Stephen P..

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