The Storage Locker Memory Experience
Apr. 16th, 2010 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattbellI spent about six hours yesterday attacking the contents of my remaining storage locker.
I encountered a variety of old memories ranging from my childhood to recent times. Some things I've observed.
- I had rich memories of my young childhood (4-10) until I went off to college. A few months into college, I noticed that the majority of these memories were gone. It appears that the same thing happened with memories of college, though I recall those memories were still strong until I was 24 or so.
- I found a box of old notebooks, containing various private writings from the age of 8 or so up to 23. They were powerful to read... seeing versions of me at various ages struggling with similar challenges and making progress was fascinating. It was amusing to see a couple of pages I wrote on the eve of my 20th birthday. I made a prediction about my life at age 30 by thinking about what 10 year old me would have expected for 20 year old me and realizing how wrong he would have been -- I concluded that I really had very little predictive ability whatsoever. Overall though the experience was incredible, better than any old photos or mementos. This is why blogging is a wonderful thing. It encourages us to share in ways that will help our future selves incorporate our present selves into their lives.
- I found a box of ordinary objects designed to trigger memories. There was, for example, a spiky seed pod I found when I took a walk to think about the fascinating girl I had met at a wedding the previous day (back in early 2001). Objects have no meaning save for the value we give them, and this box full of ordinary objects illustrated it rather well.
- I stopped looking at my analog photos the moment I got a digital camera. They sit there in boxes, wrapped in little paper cocoons. Each one is another reverse fortune cookie, offering portents of your past. I should spend a few hours going through them and tossing the best ones through one of those high speed rolling photo scanners.
- I found a newspaper from 2003. It had articles about the Iraq war. Yes, we have been at war for that long. Today's 13 year olds don't remember a time when we *weren't* at war with Iraq.
- In my day to day activities I sometimes forget the bigger picture of the trajectory of my life. These sorts of visits to the storage locker solve this, but I don't get daily reinforcement that way. I could have a wall full of old pictures, but I notice that static backgrounds tend to be ambient and end up getting ignored after a while. I could solve this by adding hundreds of photos to my computer desktop background -- that way I'd always be getting semi-fresh surprises.
------
As far as purging, I didn't have too much to show for my work. About 2/3 of the space of the locker is taken up by three art projects. The biggest project is this giant Settlers of Catan game, which I'm looking to find a new home for.
The rest of the locker contains various supplies and records of my life going back to elementary school.
Of the ~40 boxes I went through, I managed to generate 4 boxes of trash and about 6 boxes of stuff to donate. I also found numerous possessions that have been eluding me for a long while, packed hastily in heterogeneous and unlabeled ways before my trip.
I encountered a variety of old memories ranging from my childhood to recent times. Some things I've observed.
- I had rich memories of my young childhood (4-10) until I went off to college. A few months into college, I noticed that the majority of these memories were gone. It appears that the same thing happened with memories of college, though I recall those memories were still strong until I was 24 or so.
- I found a box of old notebooks, containing various private writings from the age of 8 or so up to 23. They were powerful to read... seeing versions of me at various ages struggling with similar challenges and making progress was fascinating. It was amusing to see a couple of pages I wrote on the eve of my 20th birthday. I made a prediction about my life at age 30 by thinking about what 10 year old me would have expected for 20 year old me and realizing how wrong he would have been -- I concluded that I really had very little predictive ability whatsoever. Overall though the experience was incredible, better than any old photos or mementos. This is why blogging is a wonderful thing. It encourages us to share in ways that will help our future selves incorporate our present selves into their lives.
- I found a box of ordinary objects designed to trigger memories. There was, for example, a spiky seed pod I found when I took a walk to think about the fascinating girl I had met at a wedding the previous day (back in early 2001). Objects have no meaning save for the value we give them, and this box full of ordinary objects illustrated it rather well.
- I stopped looking at my analog photos the moment I got a digital camera. They sit there in boxes, wrapped in little paper cocoons. Each one is another reverse fortune cookie, offering portents of your past. I should spend a few hours going through them and tossing the best ones through one of those high speed rolling photo scanners.
- I found a newspaper from 2003. It had articles about the Iraq war. Yes, we have been at war for that long. Today's 13 year olds don't remember a time when we *weren't* at war with Iraq.
- In my day to day activities I sometimes forget the bigger picture of the trajectory of my life. These sorts of visits to the storage locker solve this, but I don't get daily reinforcement that way. I could have a wall full of old pictures, but I notice that static backgrounds tend to be ambient and end up getting ignored after a while. I could solve this by adding hundreds of photos to my computer desktop background -- that way I'd always be getting semi-fresh surprises.
------
As far as purging, I didn't have too much to show for my work. About 2/3 of the space of the locker is taken up by three art projects. The biggest project is this giant Settlers of Catan game, which I'm looking to find a new home for.
The rest of the locker contains various supplies and records of my life going back to elementary school.
Of the ~40 boxes I went through, I managed to generate 4 boxes of trash and about 6 boxes of stuff to donate. I also found numerous possessions that have been eluding me for a long while, packed hastily in heterogeneous and unlabeled ways before my trip.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 12:08 am (UTC)Blogging doesn't replace private writing, though! Many people filter, or write differently, for public consumption
I'm glad you got to have memory-lane and introspection time. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 02:23 am (UTC)I made a prediction about my life at age 30 by thinking about what 10 year old me would have expected for 20 year old me and realizing how wrong he would have been
So, what was the prediction? Get it anywhere close?
I love posts like this. And going through stuff and sparking old memories.
I should try to make a prediction for what I'll be doing at 50. Hmmm... problem is, I haven't the slightest clue. I could imagine just about anything =)