Whimsical memory experts

Recently I wrote about mid-life and reflected upon the ability to think about the future.  The contemplative mood I was in that day returned whilst I was on the tube today.  Having gone underground, retreating from a bright day with a hint of spring about it, my mind wandered, fixing on places I should have preferred to be exploring - walking up Helm Crag and along its ridge to where it joins the end of Grasmere Common, perhaps descending through Far Easedale, or carrying on up to High Raise.  Or maybe an easier day of strolling around Grasmere and Rydal Water, binoculars fixed in hand, only to be replaced by a pint at Tweedies at some suitable stage.

I was yearning for some time out, an interlude to reflect on life in places that I am familiar with but that never cease to amaze me.  The more I thought about these walks the greater the clarity of my memory and I began to feel some of the benefits of having visited whilst I was rattled along the northern line in a flurry of discarded Metros.

Whilst I would not refer to this daydream as nostalgic (I visit the Lake District regularly) I have noted that as I get older these moments have increased in frequency, and the pleasure (or relief) that I get from them has grown.  It would seem that my use of memory has changed.  From my mid-thirties my episodic memory deteriorated, to the point that I now rely on my curriculum vitae and diary to figure out where I was and what I was doing.  This strips my recollections of mountain sojourns down to the bare minimum of the experience - I can only tell you when due to my external records.  Meanwhile, my knowledge of my field, and memories of arcane corners of the literature has never been better.  This is normal - my brain is changing both through deterioration and exercise.  So, I have had my 10,000 hours contact with my field and this has given me a level of expertise that brings a certain fluidity to my litany of citations annunciated during lectures and elsewhere.

The 10,000 hour rule might illuminate this issue further.  It occurs to me that I have also had 10,000 hours of exposure to daydreams, to the use of the key aspects of past episodes to elicit emotions, to calm and to arouse.  Whilst memory has basic functions that aid learning and shape future well-calibrated behaviours, perhaps those with more time on their hands have also had the opportunity to play with memories, rework them through thought and writing.  In this way memory is a tool that gains another, more meditative function.

When I am stood next to Rydal Water I understand the contrast with my normal day.  I have not yet become habituated to the experience of walking by this lake and seeing the hills rising up behind it.  When I am there I am never on my way to an awful meeting.  I am free, for a time, stimulated by numerous inputs and adding detail to a basic memory that I shall retain for later use on public transport.  It is in those mundane settings that the memory will do its work and it is because of the frequency of those mundane settings, the sheer tedium of much of life, that my visits to Rydal Water and elsewhere have such utility.  10,000 hours of extracting the best from that which contrasts most with everyday life has improved my life: I know how to use these memories.  Yet to understand what ordinary is one requires time to learn the repetition, probably 10,000 hours.  And to this end I feel we should celebrate the mundane far more than we currently do.  First we must master it and then we must contrast it.  But the mundane, quietly crafted as it is, must be maintained for otherwise those mountainous memories, equally sculpted, will lose their potency.