Writing about the fallibility of recorded memory, Walter Kirn cautions, “Despite our tendency in the computer age to think of ourselves as soft machines, the human mind is not a hard drive, a neutral repository of information.” Rather, “Memory is an imaginative act; first we imagine what we’ll want to keep and then we fashion stories from what we’ve kept. Memories don’t just happen, they are built.”
Beautifully put, and very true. We do not impartially, objectively store all of the information gathered by our senses (at least not in a retrievable way). We pick and choose the images and conversations that will create narratives, often self-serving ones, and reconstruct our stories every time we recall them.
Graffiti spotted in Portland, OR… if I remember rightly.
You can only trust your mind when it’s skeptical of its own results. Even then, are you sure that you’re sure? This is why eye-witness testimony is dangerous.
Dave Pell ruefully describes giving his son “paparazzi” treatment at the toddler’s birthday party, positing, “The digital age gives a new (and almost opposite) meaning to having a photographic memory. The experience of the moment has become the experience of the photo.”
What are we sacrificing when we save so many snapshots?
“The process of interpretation occurs at the very formation of memory—thus introducing distortion from the beginning. […] Rarely do we tell a story or recount events without a purpose. Every act of telling and retelling is tailored to a particular listener[.]”
“[T]he mere fault of being human results in distorted memory and inaccurate testimony.”
“[People] are not passive victims of an inherent, accelerating logic of digital technology. We can and do make choices about how we interact with machines. […] Human beings build the present and imagine the future with tools designed for certain purposes, and there are more reasons than ever to think about what kind of society we want those tools to advance.”
“Objects — even ones that seem beautiful or benign — communicate ideologies and narratives, and sometimes those ideologies and narratives are ugly and oppressive and violent.”
Phillips is talking about “things” in the sense of “general events”, but his observation is equally true when “things” are material objects. Humans have an uneasy relationship with stuff. We want it — lots of it — but we also worry about being tethered to our possessions. We wonder, “Will I be distracted from what’s really important?” We wish we could suppress the desire to acquire. Someday our warehouses will subsume us, those buildings formerly called “homes”.
I’m happy to worry about this; the alternative is misery porn on Hoarders. At the same time, anti-materialist fretting is odd, because we are physical creatures and therefore inherently bound to a material world. (Should we all be as unabashed as Madonna?)
Stuff is scary because it occupies a stunning amount of mindspace, without us noticing that the mental real estate is taken. We intellectual types prefer to understand what’s going on — control is even better. Interacting with the basic layer of life, the touch-smell-taste experience, tends to be fairly unconscious. Sure, there are think-pieces aplenty about the Apple Watch and every other new comm-tech offering, but when you use something all the time — for instance, the internet, which to be fair is not exactly an object — you can’t constantly meditate on the implications of your habits. Brew K-Cup coffee every morning and I promise that you’ll stop thinking about the environmental impact. (Or just buy a reusable steel version!)
We don’t notice until after the fact, but the expectations paired to objects are fluid. Look at the history of the telephone. What began as a device for limited audio communication is now the most boring feature of a pocket computer. What started as a newfangled contraption only used when the great expense was worth it has evolved to be a prerequisite to American normalcy. Alright, “normalcy” overstates the case, but circa 2013 more than 50% of American adults owned smartphones. Also in 2013, my parents got rid of their landline. The meaning of the word “phone” has changed substantially. The concept of a thing begins to morph immediately after its inception.
What do we do about any of this? What’s the call to action, the kicker? IDK. Maybe: we need to pay attention to our stuff and what we do with it. Archaeologists and anthropologists will tell you, a society is defined by its material residue. So is an individual life. To which we must respond…
“The whole point of being a person and not a brand is to at least try to get some dumb enjoyment out of things.”
Today I paid for something that I could have gotten for free. The process was kind of annoying but I still did it. Usually people put up with extra hassle to avoid paying, like when they install a program in order to pirate media. On the other hand, I voluntarily underwent hassle to pay $10 for something I didn’t need to pay for. What was it, and why?
It was a blog, which positions itself as an online book, called Practical Typography. I read an article that Matthew Butterick wrote about Medium, a platform that I find insidious. Then I clicked around the site a little. I saved an article about the font Times New Roman to read later. Crucially, I found the page “How to pay for this book” and read it. Butterick explains that he doesn’t like paywalls but wants to be compensated for his work. Basically, he asked me to donate. I didn’t—and don’t—plan to read all of Practical Typography. But I donated $10 because I respect what he’s doing and I want it to continue.
I can’t put my finger on exactly what motivated me to chip in. This isn’t a website that I read often and am devoted to. It’s just something I came across while browsing, after following a link from Twitter. I wouldn’t pay $10 for a physical version of the same thing. And yet I voluntarily, at slight inconvenience to myself, gave the guy money. (The inconvenience was entering my debit card information, which I still haven’t memorized.) Maybe I did this because the author holds a view that I agree with:
“The immutable law remains: you can’t get something for nothing. The web has been able to defer the consequences of this principle by shifting the costs of the written word off readers and onto advertisers. But if readers permanently withdraw as economic participants in the writing industry [by refusing] to vote with their wallets—then they’ll have no reason to protest as the universe of good writing shrinks.”
Quote from “The economics of a web-based book”. As a writer, I have a vested interest in convincing readers to pay for good writing. So of course I agree with Butterick. I think that’s probably why I donated. The other factor is identity.
People are fundamentally self-interested. We don’t do things that benefit other people for the sake of benefiting other people, but because of how the actions make us feel. Our culture prizes magnanimity, finds it to be publicly laudable, so there’s an advantage to being generous. Even if you don’t brag about it and nobody else knows, you know that you possess a personal quality regarded as admirable. That makes you feel good.
Everything I do that seems largehearted is actually selfish. For instance, giving out my zines for for free—I just want my writing to be read widely. Paying the other people who contributed to Balm Digest—I want to live in a world where the work of artists and writers is materially valued, so I take steps to create that world. All of it makes me feel good about myself.
Patreon succeeds not only because people realize, “If I don’t pay for this thing to continue it will stop existing, and then I won’t be able to enjoy it,” but also because being generous boosts their identity. Our culture commends that behavior. Which makes evolutionary sense: generosity nurtures strong communities, which enable our species to better survive and propagate.
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