Marking The Passing

FTLComm - Tisdale - Monday, December 24, 2001

The lives we all lead are substantially longer than most other life forms that we share this little planet with. Those that live longer than us mark the passing of each year some way to declare to themselves that another year has passed. Trees add another layer to their trunk, and some animals have some particular addition of some kind that show them to be a year older. We humans suffer from an interesting problem. Though we never spend much time thinking about it and foolishly believe the "sort of scientists" who tell us how we only use a fraction of our mental capacity, or how we can remember everything that happens to us in our lives. The facts of the matter are that our ability to record and recall past experience is extremely important to us and seriously limited. Our learning depends upon learning form our mistakes and without some accurate memory system we would be in a lot of trouble. Much of our existence is spent dealing with the extremely limited memory storage capacity we have. Without hard drives and external storage systems we have to rely upon the systems that have developed in our brains from the time of conception and though this is usually enough space, we are constantly involved in maintaining this system and we have to do so without the benefits of upgrades and adding system enhancements. To be efficient ,our recording and retrieval system relies upon sensory input that is stored in what we know to be short term memory. Short term memory can hold approximately seventy-two hours of experience and if it is not allowed to purge that memory, brain damage can occur or we will begin dreaming while in a conscious state. This means that you need to get some sleep during which time your brain has the option to dream, this will allow it to clean up the material on hand and move those present experiences to longer term memory. Though we are not completely aware of this process, without it taking place, a person becomes irritable, simply because they are having to find a place in their mind each moment to store what is happening. This also explains why when a person experiences a head injury they will often lose all memory of part, or all of the day, since at the time of the injury, the memory in short term is lost, wiped clean. So how does that relate to Christmas? Well that is a really interesting question. Ceremony, important events in our lives are sort of the underlined passages, the highlights of life, and we tend to use these events to mark time. Events are filed before or after each significant event and Christmas,which occurs each year, is one of these shared memory markers. With me it is the Christmas tree, where it was obtained, how it was decorated, the way it looked and what happened around it Christmas morning. Most years, just to help my memory out I snap a picture of it and often put a calendar year on the tree just so I can use the picture to correct and adjust memories with the image. The blur of the passage of time is a sad thing to those who are under stress and unable to enjoy their lives, or have factors like survival that consume their energy. The complexity of development and growth of a child robs them often of their ability to recall as adults, what happened to them as preschool children. Parents often recognise this and take steps to develop markers for their kids so that later they will be able to reconstruct their childhood. Those birthday parties and the birthday pictures, that is what it is all about and they are just wonderful in helping a child verify his or her existence. Perhaps the main message of this little story today is that life is only as valuable as you make it, and memories are the verification of your importance. We are the combined experiences of our life and when we pass on, it is the affects and achievements of our lives that proclaim that we had lived, even more significant because we interact so much with each other, our impression and affect on others becomes part of their lives, and we indeed experience immortality through our live time by the affects on those around us, and they in turn upon us. May you have many more Christmases to experience. Timothy W. Shire