T/P/S – When You Can’t Rely on Memory
From JP | 05.15.2025
A lot of my thoughts from this week revolved around the concept of memory itself. How much we rely on it, how it affects us when it fails, and the lengths we go to reinforce it. I’m liking the idea of having a theme that connects the Thorns, Petals, and Seeds, but I wonder if it’ll eventually start to feel forced. Eh, I’ll deal with that as it comes. This week’s thoughts were more contemplative than outright applicable, but hopefully there are stories or character motivations hidden in them that you might be able to extract.
Thorns
My poor memory is a looming source of concern for me. I know it’s a common problem for people as they get older, but I’m particularly scared of how it’ll manifest in me.
I think it wouldn’t worry me as much if I didn’t also have a really powerful imagination. And those two together wouldn’t worry me as much if I wasn’t also extremely gullible and prone to suggestion. Is there a word for a negative synergy? Whatever that word is, I seem to have a lot of them.
My memories are faulty, but my ability to imagine memories that are plausible is high. On top of that, I don’t have a strong enough foundation or confidence in reality with which to ground myself. There’s power in that, admittedly. I can carve my past—eroding it with a steady flow of imagined-yet-plausible memories—to shape it in a way that makes my mistakes seem less humiliating, and my victories more glorious. But I can also see the reverse happening. It would be just as easy. Maybe even easier.
I have the potential to not only construct, but believe an entirely self-fabricated past. Terrifying.
Petals
On the bright side, I’m a writer. The entire purpose of my chosen craft is to make solid and tangible the thoughts and experiences of the past. It’s not just comforting, but liberating to know that I’m capable of creating anchors for a mind that drifts and forgets as much as mine does.
I think that’s also why love letters are so special. Even if a person’s feelings for you change, or if you forget or doubt that those feelings existed in the first place, you’ll have that letter—the undeniable evidence of a moment in that person’s life when they loved you enough to make those thoughts physical.
I would do well to remember that the same dynamic applies to the works created by a writer. The act of recording something on the page is an act of love and respect for the ideas and state of mind that generated it. At some point, your past self thought the idea was good enough to put that idea down. In moments of doubt, I find that idea reassuring.
Similarly, the act of putting down any idea (even the bad ones) is an act of respect for the mind itself. It acknowledges the need to be unburdened in order to produce better, clearer thoughts. I suppose the real trick is recognizing which thoughts are which.
Seeds
While the Petals of this week are comforting, I do still need something that can help me deal with my unreliable memory in a way that’s a bit more tangible. With that in mind, I want to try employing the Method of Loci, a.k.a. memory palaces. It’s a concept that I’ve been really fascinated with in the past, but have never really taken the time to properly learn and implement as intended. That will be my next mini-project for the coming week, and we shall see whether or not my memory improves.
Wishing you reminders for the things you need to remember,
JP Violet
The Path Behind — A postscript
Last week, I aimed to preserve anticipation in the early stages of a new project (this one) by “always leaving something for tomorrow”. Without context, that totally sounds like someone trying to justify procrastination, which is kind of funny, but definitely not what I was going for. Anyway, I tried it, and it worked! For the most part, at least. There was, however, one night when I let myself stay up a couple extra hours to work on nailing the formatting of a page. Absolutely the wrong move, and it wrecked my sleep schedule. I have no idea how I did that kind of thing in college. But I managed to recover, and have learned from the mistake (for now, at least). I’d call that particular management technique one to hold onto for the moment.
JP Violet 