Memory is who we are, yet memory is also dependent on whom we’ve chosen to be. Our ego some say is just a shell. Whether you were to agree with Freud, Jung or Buddha, on the technicalities of how our ego is a shell, or disagree and believe that our ego is all we have, regardless, the ego itself is comprised of something. Memories are the bricks of our reality and our inherent human desire to keep them is the mortar. Memories hold us together and can break us apart. Alzheimer patients are an example of what disastrous consequences can occur when our memories are seriously impaired. As the patients memories disappear or fuse their entire world virtually breaks down around them. I myself have always had a temperamental memory. Some call me absent minded, some see me as an encyclopedia. My memory changes as the situations change. In one context, I might be able to recall with ease and with an agility that is fascinating, in others I’m beyond cumbersome, I’m slow, and I’m the fool for the day. What dictates this? How does it work? I have a million questions, as I’m sure a plenty have had before me. But due to the extremely personal and individual nature or memory my answer are sure to be just mine.

The three states of memory as I see them are as follows. First is external information gathering, second is information analysis, and third is information retrieval and fusion.
For the first step (Information gathering) with our fives sense simultaneously working together we gather information close to instantly. Because of the way our senses are individually aligned, some individuals retrieve with a certain sense more heavily than other individuals. The network of our senses also dictates how we place our memory in our subconscious. By using differing degrees and ratios of one sense with another, our mind is able to use an almost infinite number of collaborations of the senses to categorize our memory and store it into a single place or into numerous places with numerous perspectives at the same time. In the second stage (Information analysis) our mind overtime starts to tear apart the bonds of our memory and analyze what memories we need and which ones we don’t. Some memories are detrimental to our mental health and are sometimes repressed; others are held as ideals and constantly used as references. Our mind (not to be confused with Freud), or rather whatever one feels is the totality of us, takes these memories apart not just to clean out the closet so to speak but also to see which memories might be better altered than others. For as we grow, with the memories we acquire our sense of self also grows, and our ideals start to transform the memories we have to reflect the goals we hope to achieve. In essence our mind understands that what’s important for our survival is what we reach, and so tailors our memories to help us achieve success in life. Finally in the last stage (Information retrieval and fusion) our mind in order to make some concrete step in our lives, retrieves information either from one source or several, and fuses it into a new entity, an entity that will immediately become a new memory. Just as our mind takes in information it can also send out. And just as the mind subtly changes the external world when it imprints a memory into our subconscious, it also changes it when it sends it out. The result we all know is the act of creation, which at any one time is always different and unique even if we fail to notice. But the act of creation we know to be an act we control, an act perhaps of the ego, and definitely an act that reflects who we are. Does memory control the act of creation? Does our ego? And if our ego controls the act, how much play did memory have in sculpting that ego, so that we created just so? There could be countless questions?