So Chat GPT is my writing ADhd medicine, and I will be correcting what it did to organize my writing, perhaps disorganizing it again, and thus, this is still my writing, and you can see how Chat GPT helps you make sense of what I’m writing:
There’s a memoir by Vladimir Nabokov called Speak, Memory, and though I don’t remember all the details, the first sentence has always stuck with me: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” What Nabokov is really talking about here is memory, not life itself. He begins the book by addressing memory directly—what’s known as an apostrophe, where you speak to something that isn’t a person. Actually of course the first sentence did not stick with me. The memory that the first sentence captured something like that- is what sticks with me.
From the point of view of memory, that “brief crack of light” is what we remember, while the “eternities of darkness” are the parts we don’t—what came before and what we lose after. It’s a striking metaphor for how fleeting memory can be.
Chat GPT didn’t quite capture this. It’s not a striking metaphor… Nabokov has, I believe, total recall.
“The phrase “total recall” means the ability to remember with complete accuracy and in great detail.”
Every moment of that book is clear memories, details of his life, and the ones he chooses to write. The memoir is a curation of memories.
The movie I was thinking of is Still Alice, based on a book I tried to read, but couldn’t finish. It’s about a professor in her 50s who gets Alzheimer’s. She writes instructions to her future self so that when she no longer knows who she is and doesn’t want to exist anymore, she’ll have a way to understand how to kill herself. It’s a heartbreaking concept, but it got me thinking about memory in a different way.
My idea is more about leaving “crumbs” for my future self, like Hansel and Gretel, to find my way back. If I start making videos or keeping a video diary, in addition to capturing bits of my life now, I’ll be giving myself a way to look back—almost like what I would’ve done if I had had an iPhone camera and social media in high school. If that had been the case, I could now be watching videos of myself at 16, remembering who I was, what I did, and whom I was with. I’d have footage of the plays I was in, conversations with friends, and moments I cannot recall now.
People today, 20 years from now, will have access to their high school memories through videos, photos, and digital records. They won’t have to rely on their minds to store everything, and that’s a fascinating shift in how memory works. With a record. Starting today with my video diary entries in iPhone’s Journal app, I wouldn’t need to remember as much, even if what I’m saying in these videos doesn’t feel particularly significant at the moment. Who knows what will be worth remembering down the line—especially if I do end up dealing with memory loss or something worse, like dementia?
I once planned to write a memoir because I wanted to capture the things I remember. My memories are often triggered by physical objects—art materials, mostly. Those things bring me back to moments with clients or experiences where I used the materials myself. It’s interesting because, while I’d rather remember conversations and people, my memory seems tied to tools and objects instead.
It makes me wonder about who I was at 7, 10, 12, 14. Who was I really? I don’t know—there are no clues left to piece it together. Maybe because I’m packing up my studio after 30 years of having art studios, 8 ones I can remember actually-maybe more.
6 Impossible Things For Breakfast 