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| Clouds over Amesbury, Massachusetts |
Reading "Dr. Faustus" in college at age 19, The Phantom was struck by a line from Mephistopheles, "The greatest hell is remembering happier times."
Why, at age 19, having had fewer memories, and having so many new memories lying ahead, this struck the Phantom so powerfully is hard to say. It may be that, even then, the Phantom appreciated the centrality of memory to what makes an individual, an individual.
Now, in this week's New Yorker, a piece by Michael Specter about a memory neuroscientist, Daniela Schiller, addresses, once again the nature of memory.
That memory is fallible, mutable, not to be trusted is a clear message of the work of Elizabeth Loftus, who was vilified by lawyers who had a collective fit over the emerging truth from science that blew out the foundation of their clients' testimony about "recovered memory" in cases where adults sued priests, teachers, parents and other assorted adults, who the plaintiffs now recalled had raped or otherwise sexually abused them as children.
Hollywood has, of course, tried to market the essential elements of the discussion: "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" proceeded from the fascinating premise of two people who had had a doomed love affair and decided to expunge that memory by use of a commercially available treatment in some future time. Of course, they meet again and are drawn to one another all over again, not knowing they've been down this path before. "Total Recall" exploited the notion that once the adventure is over, all you have left is the memory, and so why bother with the risks and uncertainties of the adventure when you can have memories of the adventure in your brain? You've had a virtual experience.
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| Great Boar's Head, Hampton, NH--Obadiah Youngblood |
As there is more road behind the Phantom, than that which lies ahead, memory has been more on the Phantom's mind.
When he was 30, the Phantom realized he has some important memories about the cancer wards at Memorial Sloan Kettering and he published a novel about them. That was a significant violation of the code of silence among physicians of that era, and the Phantom was rebuked for trying to exploit private experience, for violating the privacy of (even un named) patients, of selling out colleagues and his former teachers. But the Phantom wanted to "remember" it all before he forgot it. And the experience had been traumatic, and writing about it was therapeutic. Fine, his former friends said, write about it and then destroy it, or keep it but don't display bloody linen in public. Why publish?
Because, the Phantom said, the public perception of doctors, of what patients face in hospitals is all wrong and is perpetuated by what is publicly available. This was all before "ER" and "Hopkins 24/7" and a whole variety of "reality" TV shows based at Cornell and Columbia medical schools and courses at medical schools about "narrative medicine." What was then an anathema, a violation of trust, has now become a whole industry within medicine of presenting the "real" story of doctors and patients. After all, it is now argued, why should we allow people from the outside, Hollywood people to tell our story? They always get it wrong. Let's tell it right. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Now, it is perfectly okay that doctors give up their careers in medicine to go to Hollywood and write doctor TV and movies and reality shows.
One thing about revisiting memories which the Phantom wrote down half a life ago, after many years, is the shock of reliving experiences as they were recalled then. The memory of patients, the details of how they suffered, brings back the experience and scrubs off the patina from those memories. We often remember painful stuff in a way which is easier to live with now, and we make marble statues which show no warts or blemishes, but when you have a record written at the time, those details emerge to dissolve off the smooth surfaces down to the cracked and uglier stuff beneath.
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| View from Plaice Cove, Hampton, NH--Obadiah Youngblood |
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| Rte 1 A North Hampton--Obadiah Youngblood |
What Dr. Schiller is learning about memory is uncovering, reliving horror, may not be as cathartic as Freud once claimed. Suppressing or even changing terrible memories may detoxify them.
People from Rwanda to South Africa to Israel to Germany have known this all along.
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| Hampton Snow Storm |
Phantom,
ReplyDeleteMemory is such a confounding and elusive thing, yet so essential to who we are, or who we think we are, so it's odd to imagine it reduced to a series of chemical reactions in the brain, like described in "Partial Recall". "This American Life", on NPR yesterday, also did a segment on memory. It was about a woman who was in an accident and then in a coma for three months. When she awoke she was delighted to see her husband, the man she loved so deeply. Lovely-except the reality is they're divorced and, in the two years prior to the accident, she despised him, she just couldn't remember any of that. During the marriage he had been bad tempered and abusive, but subsequent to the divorce, "mended his ways". Now they go out on dates and there is the possibility they may re-unite, except that she keeps getting pesky bursts of returning memory in which he's not exactly Prince Charming. No one, including the woman knows how it will play out.
In this case the brain and memory have been altered by injury and recovery, traumatic, but still a "natural" process. The alterations Daniela Schiller is working on are far removed from natural. I agree the recollections of her father, when he finally relays them, are so horrifying and painful it's not hard to see why the psyche would repress and bury them. His pain is so palpable one can see where there could be benefit in erasing some of the fear associated with these types of memories for victims of such trauma. But I do see your point, that future generations could be facing a Faustian dilemma when it comes to the ability to alter the mind and thus the person in such a profound way. It's also more than a little eerie, to me anyway, to think of how amazingly quick technology has progressed in our lifetime and what that would mean for humankind if neuroscience experiences a similar burst. One simple discovery in technology became the springboard for advancements and tools we never could have imagined as kids. What will the future of the human brain be like if a similar seminal discovery is made in some neuroscience lab out there. Guess the reality isn't if there's such a discovery, but more what it will be and when.
It's also not hard to imagine how difficult your memories of Sloan Kettering must have been. As I've said before, I'm always amazed that people in the medical professions are able to function day after day in that type of stressful environment. One can see why writing about it would have been helpful and you must feel vindicated, now that what you were once criticized for, by some, has become not only commonplace but applauded...
So, more great artwork Phantom-each different in the way it depicts local scenes. In the cloud photo, the contrast between the overwhelming sky and dwarfed landscape is something you'd expect in a photo from out west and the Hampton snowstorm has an ethereal effect that is lovely, almost like a painting. Obadiah's latest work-Boar's Head-has a great mix of color and action-a "cheerful" painting--once again impressive...
Oh and one last thing-did you see Dylan turned 73 yesterday-hope you listened to a couple songs in his honor...
Maud
Maud,
ReplyDeleteI did not know Dylan's birthday. But I play his songs every day, so I guess I celebrated.
His songs are part of my memory bank. I can remember what I was doing when I first heard, Like a Rolling Stone and others.
The story of the woman and the estranged husband is wonderful. Julie Christie was in a movie about a woman who descends into dementia and forgets her husband, the more common event. That was very affecting. Her husband does not try to intervene with the nursing home, because it realizes he's already lost her.
Phantom