You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
~ Day 3 of the 28 Day Self-Growth Plan
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
Today’s summary was a tough read. I think it is because it is more material heavy than many books in this genre and therefore harder to summarize. Written by Noble Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, there is a ton of supporting science explaining the way the brain works to make choices. If someone was super interested in that kind of thing, get the whole book – this summary ain’t gonna cut it.
What it DID do, however, was leave me feeling completely validated in my crazy. I am not entirely sure that was the author’s intent, yet here we are. The steps offered to help control the thought process is one I do all the time. I don’t know that any of my mental work has ever been labeled “fast,” but it is methodical and, evidently, scientifically supported.
That’s so scary.
I am not entirely sure where to go from here in today’s musings. The idea of a summary of the summary is not very appealing. That was never my intention for this little project and I am not super interested in making an exception. The whole of the notes I took while reading the summary are pretty wide encompassing. I have don’t the patience, nor expect you to have it, to write a dissertation outlining my brain spaghetti. Honestly, I don’t even know that I am equipped for that kind of undertaking yet.
What I am equipped for is telling you about the surprising way in which the scientific facts of the Nobel Prize winning psychologist reminded me of a passage written by Pat Conroy. Dr. Kahneman says:
Inadequate and inaccurate history about the past tend to affect the present and the future…The illusion of understanding is a major determinant in the way people think and approach life. The knowledge of the past, rewritten to suit certain narratives, only talk about things that happened, neglecting things that didn’t happen. These narratives have created the belief in humans that as long as they can know the past, they can shape the future. But how well can a future be shaped when the knowledge about the past is a result of an inaccurate description?
This unfortunate truth is something that I have always been keenly aware of. I understand how flawed my memory is. I also understand how accurate it can be. Unfortunately, because accuracy is not 100%, there is never a time when my account of my own life cannot be called into question by someone else. For a long time I allowed this singular fact to be wielded like a weapon across my boundaries, my beliefs, and my ownership of my story.
Pat Conroy says:
I will speak from my memory- my memory- a memory that is all refracting light slanting through prisms and dreams, a shifting, troubled riot of electrons charged with pain and wonder. My memory often seems like a city of exiled poets afire with the astonishment of language, each believing in the integrity of his own witness, each with a separate version of culture and history, and the divine essentional fire that is poetry itself.
Yet the laws of recall are subject to distortion and alienation. Memory is a trick, and I have lied so often to myself about my own role and the role of others that I am not sure I can recognize the truth about those days. But I have come to believe in the unconscious integrity of lies. I want to record even them. Somewhere in the immensity of the lie the truth gleams like the pure, light-glazed bones of an extinct angel… I write my own truth, in my own time, in my own way, and take full responsibility for its mistakes and slanders. Even the lies are part of my truth.
Because my memory is imperfect does not make my ability to move forward into the future impossible. Everyone has an imperfect memory – even those who are nearly perfect. We must move forward anyway. Because my memory is imperfect does not make me incapable of knowing and understanding my past. It does not forfeit my ownership of my story. It does not remove my right to put voice to it.
It does require, in my personal moral lexicon, that I refuse the allure of indignation – righteous or otherwise – at least most of the time. Because I attempt fairness in that my memory may not be reliable, I must also concede that my recollection of mistreatment may be flawed. Do not misunderstand, some events are simply fact and I give no quarter to myself or others in those. However, the subjective is left open, at least in part, to interpretation.
However, it is time to let that knowledge of fallibility cease to be a reason to not put voice to my thoughts. “I write my own truth, in my own time, in my own way, and take full responsibility for its mistakes and slanders. Even the lies are part of my truth.”
I’m going to go workout – I’m too much even for myself today…