Engineering Memory
Here at Derivative Psychology, we try to take a novel approach to the mind, its function and maybe more exciting, its potential. It is generally known that memory is formed by the arrangement of our neurons and more recently, their plasticity (or ability to change). As we experience something like eating an apple or riding on a bus, our brains have the ability to update the associated cluster with additional information. So if the apple is rotten or the bus too crowded, our brains are quick to associate all the little details we previously attributed to the subject with the inclusion of the most recent one, ultimately changing the verdict on whether or not we will be eating apples or riding on buses in the near future.
Memories are built upon. Repeated sensations are reinforced while new information, if strong enough, has the ability to shake the entire system. The feeling can be jarring and tends to leave us in confusion while our mind goes through an 'update' of sorts. To a kid, figures like Santa Clause can be a very real thing and as children, our imaginations tend to reinforce the mythos of our culture but only when we begin to go back and imagine our families secretly carrying out the actions of those characters do we feel like we have gotten a sneak-peek behind the curtain and now have some deeper understanding of the real story.
Memories are flexible. With additional information, the entire story can change and in psychology, sometimes the inclusion or extraction of a single insight can span decades, revealing truths and changing one's entire perspective. Oftentimes in psychology, it's the goal of the psychologist to instill or remove a psychological linchpin and more often than not, it is the role of the psychologist to guide one through their own memory to a place where either a gap in understanding or psychological lock is located.
Memory can be powerful. They are constructed under the design of free association, so that if you had only ever been shown the color red by looking at the skin of an apple, the relationship between the color and the fruit would be immensely strong, so much so that wearing a red shirt may make you feel like you might as well be in an apple costume. What is real to you is assumed to be real to everybody else, so if you think that you are short, fat, dumb or ugly, you tend to think that others feel the same way about you.
Memories can be changed. When we think about our past, the good and the bad, it is up to us whether we feel like a champion overcoming the odds or a victim under constant attack. Perspective is a choice and our ability to change it is only as strong as our imagination. A painful memory can be seen as something that has the destroys us or as something that defines us, the difference is how we choose to approach the situation. That choice is a decision made in the moment.
Memory is immediate. Memories aren't formed when we look back on them. They are made now. They are made now. I write 'choose' a memory and your mind fills in the blank, but before I could even ask you what that memory was, you've chosen. If you're lazy about it, you get a random image, maybe something determined by immediacy or prevalence in your life, but if you take control of your present mind and deliberately choose something attached to an emotion, you immediately experience a bit of that emotion again, ultimately raising or lowering your perspective.
So choose now, decide if you are ultimately a challenger or someone who is challenged. Get a general sense of who you want to be and then go back and remember the things you did that support that self-image. Remember that time you were brave, creative or kind and add to that memory. Strengthen it and enforce it and it will grow in depth while anything that does not support the image will be cast to the wayside. You've got all the control in the world to be who you are, but you need to take an active role in how you perceive life. Remember that.
