Everyday Canvas

Memories and Insight

Prompt: Victor Hugo said: "Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant." Do you feel that your memories work for you, or do you feel beholden to your memories?


Whenever I take a backwards glance, I see that more memories have accumulated to learn from with time. To analyze the past is a mental strategy for living a more meaningful life. This is a psychological as well as an emotional undertaking.

I believe that all future actions of any person springs from her past experiences and the memories of those experiences. Some of my memories can be false or warped because of my viewpoint or not seeing or judging events or people fairly, for humans are emotional beings and act from emotions, and an emotion can deceive a person very easily. For example, as a child if I got mad at an adult for yelling at me, I may remember that anger instead of finding an insight at the adult’s viewpoint, his background, and personality. Yet, when I go into the memory of that incident as an adult myself, I understand the situation with much better awareness.

Where happier memories are concerned, they are the stepping stones from which I jump to more pleasant, more productive missions and moods, as their encouragement makes me adapt to new situations.

A newborn has a blank slate as her mind. Everything is new to her, and by trial and error, her brain adjusts and corrects. I think this goes on for a lifetime. When the baby becomes a grown-up, if she gets stuck with the negativity of earlier incidents and emotions arising from them, she won’t be able to grow fully as a human being. This is why religions and spiritual practices preach forgiveness. This is where analyzing our memories as objectively as we can comes in to enable us to progress successfully through life’s trials.

In short, I have to say, my memories define me and how I perceive the world.