Some 38 years ago my mom dropped off my brother and me downtown one night to wait in a line some 3 blocks long, along with hundreds of others, to see a new film called “Star Wars.”
Truth be told, that one sentence is all I really remember. Was it cold or warm? Why were we insistent on seeing it that night? Why didn’t our youngest brother accompany us? Was it spring or summer? In fact, other than that fuzzy picture of standing in line, I can’t remember anything about it … except that it happened.
Or did it?
I was surprised at the rush of relief I felt when my brother told the exact same story this Christmas night when he and I went to the Star Wars reboot, this time with his two sons.
In that rush of relief, I realized that I had started to wonder if that 1977 wait in line at the Strand Theater had really happened at all. The more we learn about memory through neuroscience research, the more we find that memory is a tricky beast. Researchers at Northwestern University have shown that “memory is designed to help us make good decisions in the moment and, therefore, memory has to stay up-to-date. The information that is relevant right now can overwrite what was there to begin with.” In fact, the more often we recall something, the less accurate it is. Our memories operate more like a game of telephone than a photograph: every time we call up a memory, it is altered just a bit.
Yet some scholars assert that storytelling is what separates us from other animals on this planet – essentially, it is what makes us human. (Jonathan Gottschall’s “The Storytelling Animal” is a fun review of this theory.)
But if our memories aren’t reliable, what does this mean for storytelling? What does it mean for our ability to make meaning of our lives?
For myself, I’ve decided this means two things. First, that collective memory – storytelling in groups – is probably far more reliable than the individual memories we call up alone. And second, that I should be cautious about the stories I tell myself about myself.
We all do this. We tell ourselves stories: I’m a leader. Or, I’m a follower. I’m a social butterfly. Or, I’m a loner. I can succeed at this. Or, I’ll never make it. Often these stories we tell about ourselves are based on childhood memories, or memories that are years or decades old. Those stories become so woven into our self-image that we don’t even realize how they affect us anymore – how they strengthen us and how they limit us.
When stymied in making a change in our lives, it’s a good idea to first check under the hood for the stories we tell ourselves. Our beliefs about ourselves determine our behavior far more than rewards and punishments, or any other motivators that those New Year’s resolution advice columns routinely advise you to design.
