Friday, August 9, 2013

Good vs. True

I didn't post last month because I spent most of it in Ukraine revisiting the people and places of my now-previous life. And in addition to affirming to me the positive memories I had, it reminded me of both pleasant and unpleasant aspects that I'd forgotten. It's so easy to romanticize the past, and one could argue it's evolutionarily advantageous. After all, sorrow and regret can be debilitating. This got me thinking: is it better to remember only the good things, or to remember things as they truly were? In what situation would it be disadvantageous to see the past through rose-colored glasses?

It should be noted that one's past influences his future at the subconscious level if nothing else. At the very least, past experiences serve to form one's worldview, which drives decision-making going forward. At most, a person actively mines past experiences for specific insights to guide him in the future. In this case, it would clearly be better to recall accurately past events--that the lemon stand wasn't as successful as the lemonade stand, despite the fact that the lemon stand did find two loyal customers in Grandma and Grandpa.

But what about the case for selective memory, or at least memory with "positive spin"? Certainly such memory protects us from the anxiety and heartache of shame and loss? Imagine for a moment that a young person asks you for advice. You give her some piece of wisdom and send her on her way. Now imagine that she didn't understand your advice, or even worse, took your meaning for something entirely different. If you were to discover that she had misunderstood, you'd likely feel compelled to set the record straight--that you did NOT advise her to join a cult or some such thing--because you, like most people, feel a need to be understood.

When I lived in Ukraine, I found that people were more gratified by conversations with me when I avoided or minimized telling them when I didn't understand. Because if I furrowed my brow or revealed my confusion, the other person would feel at least partially responsible for the miscommunication. And so, when it wasn't a high-stakes, super-important conversation, I would simply read the person's emotions when his words were unclear. In times when the meaning of a sentence eluded me, I came to be quite adept at knowing when to laugh, when to look concerned, and when the conversation was coming to an end. You might say this is shameful, that it's unconscionable to pretend to understand and let someone go on thinking all is well. Some might call it "manipulative." But from my perspective, the point of those innumerable little chats with strangers was to show that I as an American was amicable and willing to take time to stop and chat. The point was not actually about the gardening anecdote itself. It would have been selfish and needlessly taxing to force the person to explain repeatedly, with increasingly simple words, exactly what was being planted, when, where, why, by whom, and with what tools. I would have been demanding not more than I was interested and willing to hear, but more effort than the other person was willing to afford the conversation. I had enough experience to know that my patience with my own limited vocabulary and interest in learning exceeded the other person's time and energy. So I often let him walk away feeling entirely understood.

It seems to me that rose-colored glasses are a boon due to our innate human desire to fix things. Let your friend continue to believe his joke didn't fall flat. Spare him the embarrassment. Let your sister remember her childhood piano recital as a revelation. Let people remember the old pond as a hidden oasis, not as the glorified marsh it actually was. But when a charitable view of the past threatens to misinform a future decision, you should seek to reveal the truth, even if it's your own recollection you're setting straight.

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