The Peripheral Stimulus

​Just a simple sort of mid-sabbatical work today; just to keep the ball rolling. I looked at applying the fractionizing techniques I've been developing, but in the end decided simple works better. Even simple techniques suggest a dreamy, idyllic atmosphere with one foot in realism and one in the imagination. Not every dream has to be complicated.

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A good friend I’ve known for a thousand years reminded me of a time we and another guy took off walking across town on a January day to see Little Richard. His career had waned at the time, and while it would resurge again later that hadn’t happened yet. So we got to see him at a small club in downtown Bloomington, Illinois after walking at least five miles through the cold and ice to the small club he was playing at. We sat in the front row and he talked to us between songs and shook our hands a number of times.

So says my friend; the thing is, I have no memory of this. None. Doodley squat. One of the most important live performances of my life and I don’t remember it.

Several possibilities here, the most obvious of which is that I’m self-centered in the moment and don’t place enough importance on people or things in the external to prioritize remembering any of it. (In other words, I’m an asshole). Indeed, I have been known to go through doors pretty hard; I have a terrible time remembering names even of people I met 30 seconds ago, and I do put the past behind me rather absolutely. I’m the worst person on earth to talk about “old times” with because, well, I ain’t got any.

Just as strong a possibility is that my friend is confusing me with another guy. I like to think it’s a stronger possibility except that the guy he’s confusing me with is not necessarily a guy I’d like to be confused with.

​I’ll probably never know for sure. And that’s the thing about memory, really. We forget about the most important things in our lives. We remember as “great” things that were really crap. We grope about the present for context. And all life is ‘context’.