Chockamo here. We started this blog because memory is ethereal and malleable.
This is mostly a bad habit, and I blame my high school teachers. They insisted we pay attention to the news. “Know at least a little about what’s happening.” And yes, there was a test, once a week.
It worked. I’ve been hooked on the news ever since. Try it for a month or two; it really is addictive.
A few months ago, I saw a PBS story; a history of the early Obama administration. That stuff had been important to me. I’m a long-time political junkie, so I’d been following the news and politics at the time. I knew all the details. I’d seen everything unfold the first time.
This was at the beginning of Obama’s first term, so (as of this writing) just under eight years ago. So they weren’t still recent events, but it was recent enough I’d have thought I’d remember most of the details.
Except I didn’t remember the specifics. Honestly, on my own, I didn’t even remember the rough outline of the drama. Watching the documentary reminded me of exactly how that drama had played out. And how little of it remained in my memory.
I was dumbfounded. If you’d asked me about the events, what I ‘remembered’ was only the common wisdom from other people: the newspaper summary version, colored by political spin. I hadn’t forgotten the details, which was the odd part, but I’d let them be subsumed by the louder versions anyway. Weird. When I saw the details again, it came back to me almost as a shock. How had I my mind overwritten what I knew with what I’d only heard afterward. I hadn’t forgotten, not really. I was there, for god’s sake!
So this blog is my attempt to keep up with things, hopefully manage to hold it in my memory better. To remember things a little more truthfully than the last time.
Chockamo
Oh, and here’s some three-string fun, if you’re interested. Great shovel work.