Fear of the (Previously) Known

When you remember things, your brain interprets the memories and then re-stores those memories, only it stores the re-interpreted versions. Over a (not so) long period of time, a memory can undergo the psychological equivalent of a game of telephone and by the end hardly resemble the original occurrence.

When a memory is stored in the first place, it is first filtered by your brain's interpretation. Not one memory is raw perception. Every thing you remember and know is shaped by how you perceive, both at the time of perception as well as when you remember.

What is possible, then, is for the capacity for an emotion at the time of perception and storage of a memory to be different than at the time of remembrance. In other words, there are memories that you can't comprehend at certain valleys of emotional fortitude.

This poses a fascinating problem: Does the recall of a memory with a strong emotional content at a weak emotional state result in the destruction of the emotion present in the memory? In other words, can you forget by remembering?


Writing is an invention that allows humanity to pass information throughout the ages. It is by this invention that we know the works of Homer, Shakespeare, and have the Bible to this day. The correlation of literacy to the elevation of civilization is constant and parallel. Writing's main purpose, though, is not to aid in remembering. It was created so we could forget. We write things down so we don't have to retain it. The words don't change or alter throughout time. They are the same today and will be in a thousand years.

I wish there was a language for the soul. I wish I could remember by forgetting into a medium that could contain my emotion. Then I could safely remember without the fear of losing dear memories. There isn't. I can't.

I've been trying not to remember so I don't forget.

Linguistic Windex

The study of rhetoric, I have learned, is not the study of the art of speaking. One would think that oration would be the main emphasis in the education of an orator, but it is not. Words, I have come to realize are mere noises, vibrations caused by vibrating tissue, apart from the meanings behind them. In order to speak, one must think. In order to speak well, one must think well. Rhetoric is the art of thinking. Public speaking is as much about critical listening as it is about making speeches. The ability to process information and organize it into a logical flow is at the heart of oration. This is Logos.

That is, though, only part of the education of an orator....

Everlasting Song

I wrote you a song
With images fair
Of beautiful eyes,
Long golden hair

Of beauty of souls,
Noblest minds
Perfection of pathos,
Hearts that are kind.

The words never change
Their images mirror
perfection in heav'n
incorp'rated here.

The deep tearing pain
My tears now show;
The reason you changed
I never will know.

Or maybe it's me?
And I'm in the wrong?
I guess time will answer
When you hear my song.

Brothers Karamazov

In the study of rhetoric, there are three things you can appeal to; Logos, which is logic, Ethos, which is ethics or morality, and Pathos, which is the appeal to the emotions. These make up the entire human being, and thus Rhetoricians of old said to appeal to the whole man. I was reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and I noticed that each of the three brothers correspond to the three appeals of rhetoric. We begin the book meeting Ivan, who is a rationalist, Dimitri, who is a sensualist, and Alyosha a monk, who is a moralist. Dostoevsky speaks to the whole man, not just the intellect, like a technical manual, or to the emotions, like a soap opera, but to the mind, heart, and soul of the reader. The conflicts between the three characters ring familiar the conflict inside us. I learned a lot about myself, while reading. The situations and episodes are unlike most anything that I’ve experienced, but he presents them in a way most like everything. He creates a reality quite real. A part of me left me when I finished the book, because it affected the whole of me. I was almost sad to leave a world so real. I think I may go visit again sometime. :-)