We all have selective memories. There’s an ongoing joke in our family about a Chinese movie. I don’t know if our concept of a Chinese movie is accurate, but in our lore, we heard that stories get told from multiple perspectives with each person remembering things very differently.
There is a lot of humor in this. One person’s memory of a car jumping a curb and hitting a lamp post becomes another person’s memory of a bus crashing into a fire hydrant. Time will make vivid events dissipate. We forget details. Things become fuzzy. Everyone who was there has something different to say or add. Hence, Chinese movie.
The selective nature of what we remember makes things like high school or college reunions more important. We gather to share stories. We forget details. Friends fill us in. It’s great fun and we can lie or distort to our heart’s content. “I certainly don’t remember that, Harry.”
“Too bad, Eileen. That’s the way it happened.” Or not.
It’s not just reunions where we enjoy reminiscing and recreating our pasts. It happens all the time when folks get together to share stories. Even if you are just regurgitating last night’s party, there are gaps in your timeline that require others to fill in. In fact, what would be the fun if you remembered everything? You’d be one big know-it-all then and no one would want to ever hang out with you.
Just this past weekend, a good friend of mine joined us from his current roost in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He and I shared many spectacular times back in the early 1980s. But neither of us can completely remember which door of his pickup truck he had to keep sealed with a rubber hose so it didn’t fly open around corners. “Hmmm, was it the driver’s side or the passenger’s side?” It doesn’t matter. What does matter is how funny and scary it was hanging on when he drove that dinosaur, and the number of times we had to push it out of intersections when it broke down. If he reads this, he may even email me to correct some details. And that will be fun, too.
Selective memories help us share. By sharing, we find out who we are. We also remember who we were.
That’s another great thing about getting together with friends and telling stories, particularly in environments like reunions. Another good friend recently celebrated her 60th birthday with several other female friends. The group has known each other for 45 years, some of them longer.
That includes high school, college, getting married, raising kids. Through it all, they’ve remained close and stayed in touch. Their recent mini-reunion was an opportunity to piece together parts of their lives – the joy, pain, laughter and love. Their lives are enriched because of these gatherings. We should all be so fortunate to have a group of friends like that.
I could sit around a campfire late on cold evenings telling about the time 4 of us got kicked out of a camp site for taking a piece of wood from the owner. The story wouldn’t be complete without the other guys who were there because I can’t fully remember the details. We’d chortle and guffaw and wonder if the camp was still there, whether the owner had died from a popped blood vessel in his forehead when he got too angry over something trivial.
Selective memory opens those opportunities to share. If you get enough participants back together, you might even be able to create a Chinese movie.
There is a lot of humor in this. One person’s memory of a car jumping a curb and hitting a lamp post becomes another person’s memory of a bus crashing into a fire hydrant. Time will make vivid events dissipate. We forget details. Things become fuzzy. Everyone who was there has something different to say or add. Hence, Chinese movie.
The selective nature of what we remember makes things like high school or college reunions more important. We gather to share stories. We forget details. Friends fill us in. It’s great fun and we can lie or distort to our heart’s content. “I certainly don’t remember that, Harry.”
“Too bad, Eileen. That’s the way it happened.” Or not.
It’s not just reunions where we enjoy reminiscing and recreating our pasts. It happens all the time when folks get together to share stories. Even if you are just regurgitating last night’s party, there are gaps in your timeline that require others to fill in. In fact, what would be the fun if you remembered everything? You’d be one big know-it-all then and no one would want to ever hang out with you.
Just this past weekend, a good friend of mine joined us from his current roost in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He and I shared many spectacular times back in the early 1980s. But neither of us can completely remember which door of his pickup truck he had to keep sealed with a rubber hose so it didn’t fly open around corners. “Hmmm, was it the driver’s side or the passenger’s side?” It doesn’t matter. What does matter is how funny and scary it was hanging on when he drove that dinosaur, and the number of times we had to push it out of intersections when it broke down. If he reads this, he may even email me to correct some details. And that will be fun, too.
Selective memories help us share. By sharing, we find out who we are. We also remember who we were.
That’s another great thing about getting together with friends and telling stories, particularly in environments like reunions. Another good friend recently celebrated her 60th birthday with several other female friends. The group has known each other for 45 years, some of them longer.
That includes high school, college, getting married, raising kids. Through it all, they’ve remained close and stayed in touch. Their recent mini-reunion was an opportunity to piece together parts of their lives – the joy, pain, laughter and love. Their lives are enriched because of these gatherings. We should all be so fortunate to have a group of friends like that.
I could sit around a campfire late on cold evenings telling about the time 4 of us got kicked out of a camp site for taking a piece of wood from the owner. The story wouldn’t be complete without the other guys who were there because I can’t fully remember the details. We’d chortle and guffaw and wonder if the camp was still there, whether the owner had died from a popped blood vessel in his forehead when he got too angry over something trivial.
Selective memory opens those opportunities to share. If you get enough participants back together, you might even be able to create a Chinese movie.
