It’s a time of year when I face anniversaries – memory and blame – a past I cannot revise to serve me, though I wish I could.
To some degree, we’re all rewriting the past. It’s a perpetual process that eases pain on the one hand, yet is unnerving on the other.
I know that I struggle in search of something absolute; one clear set of facts to support my perceptions, or a single truth of self. Yet I recognize that multiple movable truths offer a more complete and accurate picture.
Blame, forgiveness, and self-image
Yesterday I read an illuminating article in the New York Times reporting on a study of morality, memory, and time. Specifically, it dealt with youthful indiscretions involving breaking the law, concluding that we all refashion our memories. And frequently, by diminishing our poor moral choices, couching them in excuses, we thereby find a means to live with them.
But that’s not all.
Apparently we tend to righteously recreate our self-image. It seems that whatever allowances we make as time goes by, we make them for ourselves — and less so for others. For example, if we engaged in shoplifting as kids, we dismiss it as a phase though we’re less forgiving of the neighbor’s son plucking products from the supermarket shelf.
Whitewashing our memories
As we recall our misdeeds, we whitewash the circumstances. Morality, or so it seems, is a slippery slope by anyone’s definition.
So does that mean that in hard times or desperate ones, anything goes? Can we slide by on concepts like all’s fair in love and war, or the end justifies the means? Do we genuinely view our own actions with a less critical eye, at least, with the passage of time?
I wonder if some of us do the opposite, turning up the vindictive volume on self-image, while willing to forgive others the same transgressions. Our patterns may involve taking on blame rather than absolving ourselves of it.
So where did we learn that behavior? Is it particularly American? And is it more common to women?
The mind’s role in recreating recollections
According to the New York Times article,
We can’t make up the past, but the brain has difficulty placing events in time, and we’re able to shift elements around…
And thus I examine the parade of my own moral choices, expecting memory to soften their outline as well as their substance. I review the facts of my life as I see them. I consider, too, those whose choices have impacted me, my children, and my friends, revisiting the legacies that are often a woman’s: the aftermath of abuse, of abandonment, of infidelity.
Is getting beyond these events a matter of forgiveness as some like to say, or is that too simplistic? Is it the natural course of memory reshaping the past? If so, why is it easier for some, and less so for others?
Time plays tricks
Apparently this phenomenon isn’t solely about lying, cheating or stealing, nor other moral lapses. The article goes on to state:
Other researchers note that many unpleasant events feel more distant than they actually are, not just morally charged ones.
So what about events that are painful? Loss, disappointment, the wrong path taken?
Why can some of us tuck these in distant history and move on, while others replay these moments over and over? Are there physiological reasons for this, or are they purely psychological?
More selves of interest
The article is fascinating and I certainly recommend it, though I wish more data were provided. I’d like to know the gender breakdown along with other details like marital status. After all, doesn’t society judge its women more harshly when it comes to parenting or infidelity? Might social strictures mitigate against whitewashing the past when it comes to women?
Also addressed by the article’s experts are possibilities for moral vigilance, comparisons to others that enable us to feel better about our actions, and the notion of future (more righteous) selves.
The future self is linked to our subtle recreation of the past, and our ability to conceive of ourselves in a better light. Making better choices. Establishing more moral lives. If that’s the case, it’s a hopeful sign for humanity, but problematic if we make a habit of diminishing mistakes and assuming redemption “eventually.” Yet it seems we’re determined to imagine a future happy ending, even if we’re doing so through revisionary reality.
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Thanks. I will read all the links. My first impression, however, is not about me. But, the memory trick explains in part the wholesale re-writing of history by former husband about me, the marriage, and family life.
My thought, too, is that my estranged child also filters history through self-protective barriers.
That such behavior is rather human is some how comforting. I always appreciate coherence and reasons. This helps with the intellectual shock, expressed as how could this be? Why is this happening?
Knowledge about humanity, even the less angelic parts, somehow is a sort of balm.
About me? Within that stand of woods (Dante: in the middle of my life I found myself in a dark woods), I used filters of rose and sunshine to survive the subtle horror of what really was occurring: abuse by the most spider-silken of cords that were not visible in many lights, and the trading upon these chemicals: 1) the oxytocin of mothering and 2) bonding of hormones in the act and wake of intermittent but rather fabulous sex.
2) Item number two, then, was a relief and pleasure; item-that is now the source of shame and shock: how could I have participated? how could I have been so dumb?
The kindness in this woods of internet strangers reminds me to be gentle with myself. And, that I am telling the truth. And, believed.
“Filtering history through self-protective barriers.” Oh, NoName. You’ve hit on something there.
This is interesting. “…concluding that we all refashion our memories. And frequently, by diminishing our poor moral choices, couching them in excuses, we thereby find a means to live with them.” I think that many often do that, and as you pointed out we are less forgiving of someone else doing the very same thing. I think humans are very judgmental by nature. “Is getting beyond these events a matter of forgiveness as some like to say, or is that too simplistic? Is it the natural course of memory reshaping the past? If so, why is it easier for some, and less so for others?” – I think where life has taken a person beyond that is relevant to the forgiveness. We are complex and I think we each process differently, maybe it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. I really don’t know, but it gives me much to think about.
I’m in the midst of interviewing my mother about the early years in which she and my father dated (almost entirely long-distance after college). At one point she related a fairly vivid memory to me that she later had to correct after she dug out some old love letters. She’d totally misplaced the time of year in which the events occurred. It’s interesting how the brain fills in holes sometimes, even when our self-concept isn’t at stake.
I often see people secretly thinking they are “bad,” and then needing to try overly hard to be “good” (not to mention being very defensive when criticized). A key aspect I like to consider is the difference between what we think of as a bad behavior vs. bad character; even a hurtful behavior is something we can feel remorse for, repair where possible, apologize and move on; but when we think it is our character that is negative, this is shame and it is much harder to shift and heal (which is one reason that abuse is so insidious, it often leads to shame—which is why the way our caregivers respond if they find out about our being hurt can be critical in whether it becomes entrenched or a wound from which we heal).
Finally, I do think that betrayals (those done to us, those we’ve done) tend to haunt in particular, as they erode trust and leave us unsure about our lovability and the safety of trusting (or if we are trustworthy). However we actually lived our pasts, not to mention how we come to think about them, still may be less important than our belief that we can now be authentic, which is likely to build trust, at least in ourselves, moving forward.
I wonder about rewriting my history. Am I too hard on myself? Not hard enough? Do I cut people enough slack or too much? These seem to be all mental gymnastics.
I do so much better when I’m living in this particular moment.
And yet, reflection does allow growth. It is the tension held in the paradox that serves me best.
I love the questions you’ve raised here and the authentic way I’ve been asked to deal with myself.
Thank you so much for this interesting perspective. Yes, I am definitely “guilty” of this. I do obsess about incidents in which I “wronged” another person but whenever my mind goes there, I’d stop myself “DON’T GO THERE! FORGET IT NOW!” I can’t bear to live with the guilt so I have selective memories. *ashamed*
This post also reminds me of the episode in 30 Rock when Liz Lemon went back to her high school reunion and was told that SHE was the bully. This is like Rashomon… (Did I go too far with this?…)