Thursday, May 12, 2005
Memories
I noticed a long time ago something that I found interesting and thought I should point it out here.
I once discovered sometime after college that when I thought back and remembered college, I would remember it or replay the moment in one of 2 ways: 1st person and 3rd person. It seemed that most of what happened my Freshman and Sophomore years was remebered in 3rd person, or I would view the memory from outside my self. Later years I remembered in first person, seeing through my eyes. I found it kind of weird and figured it had something to do with how old the memory was, since my pre-college memories were also 3rd person.
Then one day at work I was remembering a particular good memory from early high school where I was at a party and making people laugh. But it suddenly hit me that I had remembered it from 1st person. Why? My history theory did not fit.
After that I just started randomly remembering things to see how I remembered them. I found quite a few old memories that I remembered 1st person, although most were 3rd person. So, I have come up with a new theory that appears to work. What I think is going on is if I was acting like my true self in the memory, I see it 1st person. If I am not being myself and more or less going through the motions of life, I see it 3rd person. I did not discover myself until early Junior year in college. By discovering myself I mean I said, "To hell what anyone thinks, I am tired of being judged by my peers, parents, and employers. I am going to be who I want to be." From that point on most if not all of my memories are 1st person. The old memories that are 1st person are all situations where I was truly being myself, not caring what others thought or worried about how I looked.
After I figured this out, I wondered if when I grew older and changed over time if I would start switching some 1st person memories to 3rd person memories. But, I have yet to notice that. I could still care less what anyone thinks... or not too much anyway. :)
I once discovered sometime after college that when I thought back and remembered college, I would remember it or replay the moment in one of 2 ways: 1st person and 3rd person. It seemed that most of what happened my Freshman and Sophomore years was remebered in 3rd person, or I would view the memory from outside my self. Later years I remembered in first person, seeing through my eyes. I found it kind of weird and figured it had something to do with how old the memory was, since my pre-college memories were also 3rd person.
Then one day at work I was remembering a particular good memory from early high school where I was at a party and making people laugh. But it suddenly hit me that I had remembered it from 1st person. Why? My history theory did not fit.
After that I just started randomly remembering things to see how I remembered them. I found quite a few old memories that I remembered 1st person, although most were 3rd person. So, I have come up with a new theory that appears to work. What I think is going on is if I was acting like my true self in the memory, I see it 1st person. If I am not being myself and more or less going through the motions of life, I see it 3rd person. I did not discover myself until early Junior year in college. By discovering myself I mean I said, "To hell what anyone thinks, I am tired of being judged by my peers, parents, and employers. I am going to be who I want to be." From that point on most if not all of my memories are 1st person. The old memories that are 1st person are all situations where I was truly being myself, not caring what others thought or worried about how I looked.
After I figured this out, I wondered if when I grew older and changed over time if I would start switching some 1st person memories to 3rd person memories. But, I have yet to notice that. I could still care less what anyone thinks... or not too much anyway. :)
# posted by chroi @ 15:06 
