When We Save Every Memory We Forget Which Ones Are Special Summary

The Impossible Knife of Memory, by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a father-daughter duo who were trying to live a normal life so Hayley Kincain, the daughter, could finish her last year of highschool. Hayley’s father, Andy Kincain, was a veteran soldier who suffers PTSD from his active-duty days, and now currently is an alcoholic who has difficulty holding onto a steady job. Hayley constantly worries about her dad, as she inspects his truck’s mileage daily to see if he has gone to work, and skipping school to check up on him when she heard that Andy’s ex-girlfriend, Trish, has been contacting the school. Somehow, past all the panic and worry, Hayley manages to develop a close and stable friendship with her neighbor, Gracie Rappaport, who

Once you die, does what you left behind really matter? Do any of those things you’ve held so dear to your heart retain value? These question are all posed in Dara Horn’s essay, When We Save Every Memory, We Forget Which Ones Are Special. Horn argues that people hold on to the past through old photos because they feel like the tighter they hold on, the slower the future will come. People are afraid of time and the inevitable because no one knows what it will entail.

I felt The Impossible Knife of Memory was to pedestrian for a college-level course. In my belief, the author should have focused more on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how it affects families and friends.

In many cases, at least in my experience, photos serve to trigger more memories and they inhibit. Almost every photo I’ve ever taken is automatically stored in an off-site location, so it can be accessed anywhere anytime, so long as you have an authentication key. This constant backing up of photographs has helped me remember many events that I may not have otherwise remembered. For example, a photo of two people arm wrestling has triggered a memory of a fantastic lunch that I had with a few friends several years ago. A few days later, these friends were asked about their memories of lunch in that timeframe, of which they can seem to ever anything at all.

Rather then visiting a grave, many visit a “ ‘memorialized’ profile” (589) in order to remember a loved one and share memories with others. Social media allows memories to be shared with one another when separated and unable to come together. It allows those divided by distance to grieve together. In “grief in the age of Facebook”, Elizabeth stone explains how the tragic death of a student named Casey opened her eyes to social media and how well one actually knows their peers. Stone explains that social media became a place of consolation for grieving friends and family, but it also made them question how deeply they actually knew their friend. “I’m not sure, but I wander- if I should have known her better” (598). Stone questioned how well she actually knew her student because of the characteristics that were revealed through others memorializing posts about Casey. Stone struggles with the thought that social media is a place for “solace but also uncertainty” (588). Often times one believes they know their peers very well, but once they examine their social media and what their other friends posts, they seem to think they no longer know them as deeply as they previously believed. Social media allows one to learn a lot about a person with just one click, but that one click likely leaves out what hardships someone is going

Furthermore, the “selfie” or digital image seeks to represent a moment of time or fun that does not prove to be an authentic representation of one self. Moreover, it can be eluded from the text that self portraits are the art and the selfie or “digital” image is the human need. The text elaborates this ideology, stating “…digital photography has

He puts it best by using the example of the tourist who has waited his whole life to see the canyon. Once he gets there, he is only comparing what he sees in front of him with what he has seen in other places like postcards and pictures. He says that we do not appreciate the sheer vastness or the enormity of what has been laid in front of us but instead spend our time taking pictures and judging our experiences by how many shots we take. Daily, I fight a battle with social media. The most prominent example is not getting wrapped up in taking pictures and up loading them for others to see and “Like”. I make a conscious effort to make sure my life does not consist of getting validation from others about my thoughts or my actions. There is a fine line between sharing and sharing for authentication. This causes people to give others the ability to assign value to a person’s experiences.

Holladay, April. "How Does Human Memory Work?" How Does Human Memory Work? USATODAY.com, 15 Apr. 2007. Web. 04 October 2015.

The author Andrew Leonard has said "We've offered up every detail of our lives to advertiser manipulation, voluntarily embraced a panopticonic existence of constant surveillance, and supinely allowed a bunch of techno-utopian Silicon Valley companies to guide and shape our behavior."(Leonard). In this review the author agrees with Silverman about being under constant surveillance, he also agrees with Silverman that we should constantly be alert about the data that we put on social media as in this statement "Silverman is correct: It is critical that we monitor and understand the consequences of "the data-ization of the digital self." "(Leonard). Andrew does not agree with Silverman on the point "Photos become less about memorializing a moment than communicating the reality of that moment to others,"(Silverman, 55). Andres says that “Before social media, you could argue that the modern world specialized in tearing us apart, in atomizing the relationships that once bound societies together. Now we've got something that helps lace the grand tapestry back together. This is not a bad thing” (Leonard). In a way Andrew finds something good in Social

These three concepts highlight the new yet deeply woven habitual actions humans use in modern day extended by the utilization of new technologies. Thompson attributed prodigious external memory to recording our ideas and events of our lives in the channels of writing and social media such as twitter to share our everyday experiences with others. The new channels of social media foster an emerging collection of dot connecting in which people are more connected than ever before by the sharing of pictures, news, and other people’s lives. Social

Salvador Dali’s 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory is a hallmark of the surrealist movement. Dali famously described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs” and The Persistence of Memory is a prime example of that description. The Persistence of Memory depicts striking and confusing images of melting pocket watches and a mysterious fetus-like structure all sprawled over the dreamscape representation of Dali’s home of Port Lligat, Spain. Dali uses strange images, color, and shadows in The Persistence of Memory to convey an abstract view on dreams, time, and reality.

Thesis: Stay in the present moment, don’t let yourself believe you’re going to forget a memory because you didn’t document it through social media.

Possible thesis: Current situations are a result of the past, but the true events of the past are subject to distortion from time and human manipulation. Historical Background Setting: Macondo Founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia, the town of Macondo experiences growth and decay throughout the course of the novel. Initially the world untouched by humanity at large and “was so recent [that] many things lacked names” (Marquez 1). This state purity quickly disappears as ripples of political unrest begin to affect Macondo, inciting a revolution. The town’s isolated nature makes it fall victim to the imperialistic “hegemony” of outsiders (Gray).

I feel that it would be unbearable for me to lose many or all of my memories. Every day would be a completely fresh start but there would be no starting from scratch. Mainly, because I would have no memories to guide me and no recollection as to who I am or was. I would identify myself based on what I knew at that present time or I may make up a confabulated presentation of myself that is regulated by transient thoughts. I think losing partial memories would be better than losing all memory because at least I would have some recollection as to who I once was. Yes, I feel that awareness of the loss would be more devastating because I would know that I once had memories that gave me an identity. Not to mention, I would know the memories were

Memory makes us. It is, to an extent, a collection of unique and personal experiences that we, as individuals, have amassed over our lifetime. It is what connects us to our past and what shapes our present and the future. If we are unable remember the what, when, where, and who of our everyday lives, our level of functioning would be greatly impacted. Memory is defined as or recognized as the “sum or total of what we remember.” Memory provides us the ability to learn and adjust to or from prior experiences. In addition, memory or our ability to remember plays an integral role in the building and sustaining of relationships. Additionally, memory is also a process; it is how we internalize and store our external environment and experiences. It entails the capacity to remember past experiences, and the process of recalling previous experiences, information, impressions, habits and skills to awareness. It is the storage of materials learned and/or retained from our experiences. This fact is demonstrated by the modification, adjustment and/or adaptation of structure or behavior. Furthermore, we as individuals, envision thoughts and ideas of the present through short-term memory, or in our working memory, we warehouse past experiences and learned values in long-term memory, also referred to as episodic or semantic memory. Most importantly, memory is malleable and it is intimately linked to our sense of identity and where we believe we belong in the world.