Truth and Fiction

[rowyn]

I'm taking my lunch break late, and at my desk, today. I've been snacking on junk food most of the day and have decided to skip eating lunch entirely. All right, perhaps not the most nutritionally sound of choices, but, face it, my regular lunch isn't exactly health food anyway.

I was thinking about the way I write the "Postman" entries. I made a conscious choice to present them as "stories" and not as "entries". One of the results is that I ramble a bit less, and that they are less accurate to actual memory than my regular entries.

I don't have a good memory for exact words on spoken dialogue, and bus conversations are particularly tricky, because the noise of the bus itself, and other passengers, will drown out snatches of dialogue. Certain things will stick out in my head, but other parts I will miss or forget. Trying to write it up afterwards, as a coherent conversation, is a bit like early paleontology. I've got some key oparts, and I can make a good stab at how they must've fit together, but really, I'm just guessing and most of my skeleton is plastic.

For example, in this entry, I remember these parts actually happened:

* Paper-reading Lady told Postman to pay an extra dollar and sit at the back of the bus. I did chime in on this, but I don't recall our exact words.
* Postman didn't say anything about that -- he did rustle Paper-reading Lady's paper, and said we had a point, but I'm not sure of exact words there, either.
* Postman offered her an apple, but I'm not sure where he got it from. I'm also not sure where this feel in the sequence of events. I know Paper-reading Lady said "No thank you" -- those exact words.
* Shortly thereafter, I remember she said "I trained to be a teacher, but I'm glad I'm not one." But I don't know for sure how this connected to the apple -- I was just guessing.
* Postman said, at some point "I'm smarter than you think." and Paper-reading Lady replied something very close to "Are you now? 'Cause I didn't think you were very smart." But I don't know exactly when for this, either.
* I meant to say "It's not a high bar to jump over" but I think I fumbled the line.
* Paper-reading Lady commented on his shirt being open, and said "You're out of uniform, Mr. Mailman" but what other exact words she had, I don't know.
* Postman said something about being glad she was his employer/inspection officer/? but the comparison wasn't clear to me.
* Somehow, the conversation did move to military stuff -- Paper-reading Lady said "I kicked butt" and mentioned her "steel-toed boots" specifically, but the surrounding words were something of guesswork. She may have specified a branch of service; I'm not sure.
* Postman said something about being in some branch of service -- probably the army brt I'm not positive -- and Paper-reading lady did say exactly "When was that -- forty years ago?" Postman said something imprecise with the thirty-year figure in it. I recall the "I've crossed fifty-five" words, but not what prompted him to say it.

And that's pretty much the jist of what I clearly remember. But I made a decision, in typing in the entry, that I didn't need to be strictly accurate, or truthful. I tried not to fudge too much, or do violence to the events ... but the writing would be a lot less interesting to read if it were sprinkled so liberally with "I didn't catch the next part" or "I don't remember what he said". It's more elegant to make something up that fits and seems appropriate.

But it's still a little odd. It makes me keenly aware of how much I miss in the average conversation. It's probably good exercise for me, trying to remember all the details, and reconstruct them.

Oh, the other interesting part: having written down this story in a particular way, I've become more convinced this is what actually happened. Even though I felt uncertain about it as I wrote it, I'm starting to think that what I wrote down is what happened, what I remembered. I have to work to recollect where I was inventing bits -- and I may've gotten those wrong. I can visualize Postman taking an apple from a brown paper bag now -- but I'm pretty sure I didn't register at the time what he took it from. It's like self-hypnosis: what I write as my recollection, becomes it. A little scary, that. But we all do it, one way or another.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Just an illustration of why there's such a concern with "contaminating a witness" at an accident or crime scene, for instance. We don't have video cameras in our heads. We have associations. One item links to another. And, the thing is, if an interpretation of events is presented to us, it's very easy to get it mixed up with another version (which happens to be the actual memory). There are stories I read when I was a kid, and I get them mixed up, because they were so similar in genre and I read them around the same time. I don't have strong enough "handles" to separate the bits and pieces apart clearly.

Things only get more solidly anchored in our memory when they're emphasized and repeated ... and the thing is, events only happen once. We can't relive them seven times to make sure we've got the facts straight. (Hmm. Thinking of Groundhog Day now! ;) )

I definitely understand. When I try to recount events, there's this delicate bit about figuring out whether I need to insert disclaimers after every detail, or whether I can safely just paraphrase the events - since, after all, it's not really that important, is it? Sometimes, I wonder if my memory is particularly bad, though. There are times when someone asks me something, I can't remember, and it seems like it's an important detail I really should have remembered. But without a notebook handy to keep track of things, I don't think I'd be able to get by very well. =P

(Grocery lists! I cannot go shopping for groceries without a LIST! And poor Gwendel is often frustrated by the sheer number of to-do lists that come out of my pockets when I get home, and I'm reluctant to throw them away, because there's one or two or more things that haven't been done yet....)

[rowyn]

I almost never do grocery lists. :) Then again, Lut and I don't do much cooking, and we tend to fix the same things over and over again. So there's a pretty short list of things we're likely to need at any given time.

I've felt that this qualified as "not really that important" that I get it exactly right, so I've been willing to take a few liberties to make it more readable. I have considered, once or twice, bringing along a notebook so I can jot these things down more accurately. :)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Consolidate lists! Even if you haven't done all the items on them, you can just write down the undone stuff onto a new to-do list.

I've been amazed how much story you can pull out of that dreambit you've got going, myself, in the process of explicating.

[rowyn]

Me, too! If I had to write down a dream that long, I'd've forgotten most of it long before I got to the end. :)

[lady-anne.livejournal.com]

Don't spoil it for us - it's your reality;)

Actually, it would sound 'manufactured' if you reported all the simultaneous comments and conversations. Considering that most of us only remember those portions of a conversation that have an impact on our emotions, I'd say you're doing pretty good.

As it is, I can't wait to hear the postman's side of the story. Maybe you'd consider taking the later bus and hearing how he interacts with a different cast.

It's interesting to 'hear' your analysis of your thought process - and getting to know you is a pleasure.

Be good - The Lady, Anne

[rowyn]

Don't spoil it for us - it's your reality;)

Except that it's not, quite. It's the dressed-up, coherent version of my reality. :)

I couldn't report all the unrelated comments that occur, even if I wanted to -- I don't remember them. I'm doing well to remember who else is there, and I don't catch half of the conversation I am trying to follow.

I am tempted to try to talk to Postman. I feel a bit bad -- but I don't think he's taken my teasing seriously, at least. Perhaps there was some incident on Wednesday that I missed, and that's caused him to quit. Or maybe it was just a fluke. Well, I'll see. Or not. That's life. :)

[level-head.livejournal.com]

All of this makes the implanted memory effect, which the child-abuse profession dines out on, rather more understandable.

Not to mention alien abductions...

However, here, it is rather benign. Curiously, watching the bonus material -- the early draft storyboarding-- on the "Monsters, Inc." DVD, I had a similar feeling: something like "That's not what really happened!" when "what really happened" was the movie as released. ];-)

===|==============/ Level Head

[rowyn]

All of this makes the implanted memory effect, which the child-abuse profession dines out on, rather more understandable.

Yup, this is one of the things I was thinking of. That, and stuff like a large percentage of people surveyed asserting that they remember watching footage of the first plane crashing into the WTC as it happened -- even though no such footage was broadcast on the first day. O.o