Wednesday, July 13, 2005

What its made of

I'm interested in memory; how it works, how it fails, how it pieces the past together against the rememberer's will, despite the rememberer's will-lessness, when the rememberer wills.

What does it mean not to remember? Is forgetting a discrete act? Is forgetting a particular action of the mind, or the passive result of some lack of action? Is a memory revived? Resurrected? Resuscitated? Or is is reconstructed? Re-imagined? Is remembering a form of imagining? What's the difference between an idea of the mind based on past experience and that which is based on imagination, which ultimately is also based on experience? Do we imagine our pasts as we imagine our futures?

Memory: what is it made of?

Today's Dickinsonian oracle proclaims:

No Passenger was known to flee -
That lodged a Night in memory -
That wily - subterranean Inn
Contrives that none go out again -
(E. Dickinson, 1451)

(Yes, in fact, this poem was chosen at random. Sometimes the oracle is right on target.)

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