Here's a test, if you were asked to keep a secret by a family member would you protect it as much as you would if the secret was that of a friend? Or vice versa? Or does it not matter?
Again it might be that your philosophy is that any secret, whether that of a friend or family member, needs to be put out in the open!
There are many of us out there who have the restraining strength of a dental floss and a stomach lining so thin that you could see the acid bubbling inside if we lifted out shirt in sunlight.
In my experience secrets are best forgotten once they have been ingested. Whenever a friend or a family member has told me a 'deep, dark' secret I must admit I have forgotten it almost immediately.
This does not come from my loyalty to my friend than it does to the preservation of the 'attic' in my head. Every piece of non-information is filed in the 'delete' folder.
(When I say non-information, I mean information that I do not intend to use later or such that can be retrieved without having to commit to memory. This is generally information that I can ask someone and get. For example there is no reason to commit to memory telephone numbers these days, since it is on my mobile and stored in a number of other easy to retrieve places; besides in these active times of multi-communication methods, people have multiple numbers and multiple links associated with them – unnecessary overload.)
In my mind (pun, intended?) there may be infinite space for storage but I feel it is unnecessary to store bits of data that I have no use for in the future, as a result the archive in my mind is easier to access since there is less 'clutter,' so to speak.
Not to offend members of my friend and family circles who have been made me a party to their secrets, I would like to just categorically clarify that I have not be relegated their secrets to the 'delete' files, but have been filed away from my immediate memory data bank.
Moreover, secrets are safe with me because I do not feel the need to share them with other people to a) gossip, or b) inflate my self-worth in the eyes of a second person (having decide early enough in my life that I will not look for approval from anyone for my actions or how I choose to live).
Having said that you can't simply 'delete' information from the cranial memory banks. Snippets of information is always left behind that, on practice, can be re-assembled to make up the 'forgotten' incident. In my case I think that the information is not retrieved, mind you, but re-assembled from fragments of other memories and life experiences.
If the memory is that of a hot summer's day – I remember what I was wearing or what I was doing not so much because I remember exactly what happened but on what I would customarily wear or do on hot summer days (unless it was something quiet out of the ordinary, but then it would be filed elsewhere for retrieval).
That the human mind is an amazing tool there is no doubt, I rely completely on my intellectual faculties (despite my best critic's notions of its fallibility) to recall any bit of personal historical trivia. If an incident has occurred with me as the pivotal point, I will be able to pull it out of the abyss. If it happened I will remember, and by the same token if I don't remember it never happened.
(Good way to erase any uncomfortable memories, if you ask me. Not that I have any such memories that need erasing, you understand).
Of course I fall prey to my own Talatism truth and my mind absorbs like a sponge all that I ask it to forget – if only to remember what I don't want it to store.
Again it might be that your philosophy is that any secret, whether that of a friend or family member, needs to be put out in the open!
There are many of us out there who have the restraining strength of a dental floss and a stomach lining so thin that you could see the acid bubbling inside if we lifted out shirt in sunlight.
In my experience secrets are best forgotten once they have been ingested. Whenever a friend or a family member has told me a 'deep, dark' secret I must admit I have forgotten it almost immediately.
This does not come from my loyalty to my friend than it does to the preservation of the 'attic' in my head. Every piece of non-information is filed in the 'delete' folder.
 |
| All stored away for easy retrieval |
(When I say non-information, I mean information that I do not intend to use later or such that can be retrieved without having to commit to memory. This is generally information that I can ask someone and get. For example there is no reason to commit to memory telephone numbers these days, since it is on my mobile and stored in a number of other easy to retrieve places; besides in these active times of multi-communication methods, people have multiple numbers and multiple links associated with them – unnecessary overload.)
In my mind (pun, intended?) there may be infinite space for storage but I feel it is unnecessary to store bits of data that I have no use for in the future, as a result the archive in my mind is easier to access since there is less 'clutter,' so to speak.
Not to offend members of my friend and family circles who have been made me a party to their secrets, I would like to just categorically clarify that I have not be relegated their secrets to the 'delete' files, but have been filed away from my immediate memory data bank.
Moreover, secrets are safe with me because I do not feel the need to share them with other people to a) gossip, or b) inflate my self-worth in the eyes of a second person (having decide early enough in my life that I will not look for approval from anyone for my actions or how I choose to live).
If the memory is that of a hot summer's day – I remember what I was wearing or what I was doing not so much because I remember exactly what happened but on what I would customarily wear or do on hot summer days (unless it was something quiet out of the ordinary, but then it would be filed elsewhere for retrieval).
That the human mind is an amazing tool there is no doubt, I rely completely on my intellectual faculties (despite my best critic's notions of its fallibility) to recall any bit of personal historical trivia. If an incident has occurred with me as the pivotal point, I will be able to pull it out of the abyss. If it happened I will remember, and by the same token if I don't remember it never happened.
(Good way to erase any uncomfortable memories, if you ask me. Not that I have any such memories that need erasing, you understand).
Of course I fall prey to my own Talatism truth and my mind absorbs like a sponge all that I ask it to forget – if only to remember what I don't want it to store.
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