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The article I chose is called “Reinventing yourself” and it talks about research on memory. According to the author “who you are is limited only by your imagination”. What does it mean? That’s what I will try to explain on the following couple pages.
As I understood this article, it’s talking about how our imagination influences the memory. It starts with the examples from people’s lives. Bill Clinton told American people that he never served for Vietnam, and the reasons he gave appeared to be totally different from the reasons that came up after a research. Or, Gary Trudeau, cartoonist, that was telling people the same story for about 20 years about the way he avoided army, saying that he was a student and “his three-year student deferment had run out, which meant his call-up was imminent”. In fact, what appeared after a research, his dad was a doctor, and he didn’t serve in Vietnam because of his health condition. This is a good example of how our present life develops our imagination that adds to the memory and makes it different from a reality. But this is the way our imagination reflects and connects our past, present and future.
And sometimes we start to think about what do we need a memory for. And the answer is “to learn from our experiences without having to repeat them endlessly”. That’s why very few moments in our life can repeat exactly. And when we share the personal histories, it helps to keep the relationships going, but, as a matter of fact, what really happened is not that dramatic and critical as the way we talk about it afterwards.
Let’s imagine talking about memories from childhood, and suddenly somebody interrupts us and says that it couldn’t happened and you are wrong. What are you going to do? How are you going to prove it? And what the statistics show now is that many people instead of trying to find a proof such as pictures, tapes, videos will prefer just to imagine what could happen and how would it feel if this could happen now. Psychologist Helen Hembrook discovered this. In 1996 psychologists made a research by giving the example of the same events to the same people twice that could happen to them in their childhood, and it appeared that many of them gave different answers twice and, besides this, some of them just imagined that it could happened to them and this made them to really believe that it happened. That’s what the psychologists call “imagination inflation”. Also, sometimes, we can remember the source of the information better than the information by itself, and opposite, the information without a source, that is called “source monitoring” according to Marcia Johnson. And, of course, we remember recent experiments more accurately and more likely to interpret them correctly than childhood ones that we normally confuse. Certainly, we can’t confuse everything, and there are some things that we cant’ make ourselves to believe in, such as “I won a lottery”, when you never did win one.
So, basically, the whole article comes to the main point that “we rely on memories of the past to help us imagine and make sense of the present”. We develop some experiences that are common and don’t change, like for example, going to the restaurant, waiting for waiter to bring a bill, etc. “Sometimes people use their imagination to make sense of someone else’s past.” To prove this, author gives an example Hillary Rodham Clinton that was trying to explain her husband’s unfaithfulness as a result of being in the middle of conflict between two women that surrounded the boy in his childhood. And this is something that she has been told by couple psychologist and certainly can be right. The thing is that we often forget bad memories but scientific study doesn’t support this point of view and says that such bad memories as childhood sexual abuse and so on just seem to be forgotten, but they are not, and sooner or later the present will reflect this past.
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English Comp II February 4, 1999 One quiet summer afternoon I lay gazing into the big, blue sky watching the clouds form into immense moving objects that catch my eye for a second. I saw everything from birds to alligators and occasionally a car or bus. While staring at the sky in a world of my own I heard a clamor coming from the front of the house. I turned over on my stomach peering through the tall pampas grass that landscapes our backyard. I lay gazing through the grass as if I was a jungle cat searching for its next victim. I could not see anything so I faced the sky, once again, and enjoyed the sights and sounds of summer. I was in a daydream when I opened my eyes to see a young redheaded girl with skinned up and pig tails peering down upon me. Most of my friends would have run off yelling, girl alert or cooties but I just sat there in the soft turf grass in a daze. From that second on I believe that both of would be friends for a lifetime. April moved into the vacant house that was two houses to the east of my house. It was a tall, two-story house in which I could see the entire house from my bedroom window. We spent our days together exploring the woods, riding bikes, and catching bugs. Our families were very close and often said that the two of us were like brother and sister. One calm summer night April and I climbed to the top of the garage and lay on our backs staring at the thousands of stars in the black summer sky. The garage wasn't tall; in fact, it was perfect because we could sit up there without worrying about sliding off. That night we talked about everything that was on our minds. I will never forget that night because it was so beautiful outside. The tree frogs and crickets were performing their evening melodies, and the man on the moon was looking down upon us. After talking for nearly an hour we decided that it was time we should head home. I walked April to her house because I she had to be home before I did. As I was leaving April guaranteed me that she would be over first thing in the morning to start our day of fun. I was so excited that I ran home, chasing fireflies and skipping through the neighbor's yard. After getting 'tucked in,' the process where my mother wraps my blanket around me and tucks them under my body, I was ready for bed. The only thing I could think of that night was all of the fun things that we were going to do that next day. I left my window open so I could listen to the sounds of summer while trying to fall asleep. I awoke early that morning to hear loud sirens and to see flames towering above the elm trees that grew throughout our neighborhood. I jumped out of bed and ran through the living room bursting out of the front door to see that the flames were coming from April's house. I didn’t even bother to put shirt or shoes on; I was just worried about April. The neighborhood was lit up by the fire trucks lights, and the flames emerging from her house. I sprinted towards her house to see that it was totally engulfed by now. The fire fighters were trying their hardest to suffocate the flames but the water was not working. The heat was almost overpowering, but I knew I had to see if she was all right. When I started to run I as tackled from behind by someone. I started screaming out her name, April, April! The man who was holding me down said, There is nothing you can do son. I wiggled and squirmed to get free but it was no use. Between the powerful heat and his strength I slowly lost my energy. I lay in the grass watching the flames slowly decimate their two story house. The thick, dark smog coming from the fire slowly filled our neighborhood with darkness. My parents found me crying on the ground covered with sweat and ashes. My father slowly picked me up and took me home. My head was rested on his shoulder as we walked back to our house I slowly watched April's house disappear into the night. I knew deep in my heart that April was all right. That night I could not sleep. I listened through my window to the neighborhood, which grew quieter into the early morning hours. The smell of charred wood and smoke blew into my window with the calm gentle breeze as I lay there thinking about the fire. My parents woke me early that morning and explained to me what had happened. The blazing inferno that lit up our neighborhood had taken the life of my best friend, April. Immediately I started crying. I felt helpless. I had no one to talk to. I ran outside hoping to see April to start our day of fun like she promised. I looked toward her house and saw nothing but a heap of burnt wood and glass. The ashes were still smoking and the smell of smoke was still in the morning air. I dropped to my knees and cried. I finally came to realize that April was in fact really gone. To this day I still live two houses to the west of the empty lot where her house once stood. I sometimes walk outside and picture April, the little red head with skinned up knees, running to my house to start a day of fun and games. April had a deep impact on my life and how I view it today. I now realize that when I hug and say goodbye to my parents that that could be the last time I see them.
Word Count: 1004
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