Unpacking Memories: How We Find Meaning
IF TODAY I asked you to think about what a museum is, I’m fairly certain almost all of us would come with the mental image of a space, a place, or a building that stores and holds the material history of a people or place. Museums are carefully designed in manners that help contextualise the lives (and pasts) of those who are deemed interesting enough to be studied, whose culture or practices manage to hold enough intrigue for them to be documented for people to see.
We have museums because they help us make sense of the world; they chronicle the lives we lead (led), and the times we face(d)–after all, the human mind loves to organize and categorize all that it can see. Doing so helps us make better sense of the past, and in close connection to that, the present. This practice of ours is not one we restrict merely to large institutions and places of recorded history; organization of information is a cognitive ability that is nurtured and developed throughout our lives.
Think about how a child makes sense of the world around them. Each day, a myriad of new information is thrown at the child, formally or informally–leaving the child to make sense of it. At this point, there are two routes that the brain can take. The first of these is that it can store each piece of information separately as a single data point, as though any information learnt is being learnt for the first time; the problem with this approach is that the mind would get overwhelmed by information. Alternatively, it can begin to make connections, identify how some things relate to others, and try to make sense of the relatedness instead. In doing the latter, we have already begun to organize the information we have.
And this isn’t something we do just with abstract ideas of math and science. Our entire lives are organised into these silos of experience, which influence how we perceive our memory. At the end of the day, our memory is not just something that helps us remember to carry our bag to work or help make sure that a particular something is checked off of your list. In layman terms, we can assume that memories are these intangible things that are stored, but it is in fact so much more than that.
Our personal memory is a place of great history–both personal and collective. Whenever we come across an experience that’s just-different-enough to be remembered, we all behave like–and in a sense, really are–automated custodians of history. Our mind takes in and processes a particular experience, and by storing it in that context provides the narrative through which it will be remembered in the times to follow.
Just like a custodian, however, this also means we are not completely unbiased about the representativeness of our memories. We would prefer to be unbiased and it is usually what we set off to do–we all want to have good memory systems that remember things that need to be remembered and serve as a source of information. However, bias has already crept in from the moment we process certain information in a certain way–whether it remains ‘fact’ or becomes part of a narrative truly depends on what information we processed in a particular manner in the first place.
Our protectiveness towards our memories, similar to the sentiment of a custodian means that we cannot be detached about them. We have spent so long attributing meaning to these ideas and taking care of them and nurturing them in different forms that changing any part of them begins to feel like changing what they stand for, the essence of them. And so, we walk past the cases and cabinets that hold these memories, we sternly make sure they have no way of being damaged, and we continue to move past them.
But perhaps, we need to think about memories slightly differently. There are times when we need to engage with artefacts (memory, in this case) more interactively. The idea of “examining” a memory by revisiting it and paying more attention to it holds merit. An artefact gains meaning not just through how it has been used in the past or the descriptive value assigned to it as part of this process. The act of interacting with a physical artefact in a museum ascribes meaning to it. You can observe this in memorials of significant events or museums that document stories of migration, where physical everyday objects (such as a plate or a glass) hold layers of meaning. At one level, they carry personal meanings for the owners of the artefact, and at another, provide significant insight into their lives for people who engage with the artefacts.
Humans are social beings and our memories are constantly communicated to others in some form, it stands to reason that these memories benefit from the interaction too, if given the chance to be explored in a similar manner. Sharing a memory with others helps it exist not just in the consciousness of an individual, but also bring it closer to the collective conscious.
Every museum has sections that you are not allowed to touch or get too close to given its fragility or value. This is not to say you shouldn’t approach them at all, just that you need to handle it with care. It becomes important to exercise this restraint when it comes to memories as well — knowing which memories require better preserving than others, which ones hold more value, and taking the degree of care that is required to make sure the memories continue to exist close enough for recall.
In 1999, Emmanuel Arinze noted that “the museum as an institution tells the story of humankind the world over and how humanity has survived in its environment over the years.” Our minds do the same with the story of us — carefully curated and stored as memory. And just as the best museums can serve as a cultural conscience for society, perhaps our own personal museums can serve as the medium through which our understanding of our personal conscience can facilitate the story of our future.
~ENDS~
