Shyam advises me to write a journal about this new phase in life that I am going through. The people I am meeting, the varied experiences I have...he says it will be beautiful to write it all down and then reflect on it later. Will be entertaining of course, but will also show how my thoughts evolved over the period.
Frankly this has been a very tempting thought for me...I have even attempted it once or twice but funnily enough, I experience writer's block even when I know it is only me who is going to read it. (Ninad was commenting on my inherent shyness leading me to write better than I speak. But I think the shyness manifests itself in my writing also. )
What would one want to document? Bare facts or our interpretations at that moment in time.
If we want to just document facts, there is an issue. The moment one tries to pen (or keyboard) this, our interpretations of the events we want to document start clouding us. We start thinking of what we felt, what we perceived. We just can not keep aside our reactions (deep or subtle though they may be) when we remember an event can we? Memories are not just bare facts. They are not stored in our head as they are (how dry and boring life would be if that were true :) . They are interconnected with existing data and thats how we remember. So objective memory seems almost to be a myth. (Kurosawa's 'Rashomon') The memory is clouded, cajoled, coaxed into being modified by earlier memories. I read that even physiogically that is the way memory cells work. Also our experiences largely determine what we chose to observe, unknown to ourselves. I have experienced it numerous times. With Ninad and me, it is a ritual to spend time reliving our school days whenever we meet. Quite often we speak of the same set of people, same incidents and so many times we have seen that he remembers different aspects and different people who are part of an incident, I remember different ones. In fact we have seen contradictions between our versions many times!
Below is an extract from a book a dear friend is writing on educational theories...a comparision between "filling" a page with text and "filling" a brain with knowledge.
- The text I enter will remain in this exact form, potentially forever. Human memory, on the other hand, is extremely gist- and meaning-oriented. Nothing is stored or recalled in verbatim form, unless that were the intention (as when we memorise a poem).
- The page I type on is blank, and new sentences, when typed, do not transform old sentences (thankfully!). Human memory, on the other hand, works by incorporating new information into organised, existing information. Further, the new information transforms the old: thus if I read something about birds of
- The file I type in is stored in a folder, within another folder, within another and so on…And within the file the information is stored in a linear fashion, one sentence following the other. Human memory, on the other hand, is organised in exquisitely complicated and subtle ways – in fact, depending on the context, different memories appear to be connected, and therefore to elicit each other.
If we want to document our impressions, I think people rarely achieve such a level of spontaniety. We are constantly analysing ourselves, analysing our reactions, our impressions, comparing it with the personality we believe we are, juxtaposing it with the public stands we have taken in the past and hence the impression we think people have of us. These keep interfering with what we write what, we document. (Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle).
I think memory is not layers of experiences neatly laid on top of each other but a grand collage of numerous events, facts interlinked and networked with each other. When a new piece of data enters the mind, there is no telling which piece of existing data the brain will chose to bring forth and make an association with. (with me it is determined largely by my "mood"),
When we talk or say something or even write, we start imagining who is going to read this, what their responses will likely be, how this fits into your known image and whether you are wanting to negate it or reaffirm it...in fact I realized recently that my thoughts are almost always in the form of conversations.
There is a topic that bothers me and I am thinking about it, I imagine a dialogue with someone I think is equally or more interested in the same topic (it is usually someone who contradicts my view). This helps me evolve and formulate my thoughts and sometimes detect lacunae in my arguments through difficult questions the other person asks. Of course depending on how strongly I feel about the topic I either choose to react to the difficult question or bypass it and ask a counter question instead! Most of our opinions don't have much worth by themselves. They exist in the context of other opinions...if there was an objective truth this may not have to be the case...things would matter irrespective.
Sree Kant once happened to say, "thats my objective opinion...and I realize this phrase is an oxymoron" It is true isn't it? I think we just have a plethora of subjectivities that we all indulge in and each one of us chooses the subjectivity that is most comforting, and most comfortable to be with. Some adventurous types try to challenge it and live a difficult life...in a different kind of subjectivity! Objectivity could as well be an over rated myth!
No comments:
Post a Comment