From dc5968ed003c08743d0f37ea81caa9a42a286434 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Case Duckworth Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 10:53:56 -0700 Subject: Add Stark Raving to src/ --- src/ouroboros_memory.txt | 75 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 75 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/ouroboros_memory.txt (limited to 'src/ouroboros_memory.txt') diff --git a/src/ouroboros_memory.txt b/src/ouroboros_memory.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd0f4e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/ouroboros_memory.txt @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +--- +title: 2. Ouroboros of Memory +genre: prose + +epigraph: + content: | + He used his body to remember + his body, but in the end could only + remember the string. + attrib: Jonathan Safran Foer + link: 'http://www.bet-tal.com/index.aspx?id=2315' + +project: + title: Stark Raving + css: stark + order: 12 + next: + - title: L'appel du vide + link: lappel-du-vide + - title: 3. Love as God + link: love-as-god + prev: + - title: Table of contents + link: table_contents + - title: 1. Initial Conditions + link: initial-conditions +... + +[He said][] at the beginning, "It's like rolling yarn into a too-small ball. +Sure, you can roll the memories around for a while, and maybe even use some of them. +Eventually, though, you'll wind them all the way out and you'll be left with nothing but a small loop. +You can tie this loop around your finger, and start wrapping your body, but this is an extension of the same problem. +You'll turn into a mummy of memory. +There'll be nothing left underneath but a dead body. + +"But what does it mean, _To remember the body with the body?_ +I imagine a creature made of memory, putting its feet in its mouth, turning into a ball. +In this way, it could roll all around the landscape of its memory. +I've tried explaining this to other people, but it doesn't make any sense to them. +The task of eating one's feet is, to them, an unsolvable problem. +They seem to forgotten that, as babies, they were able to make themselves into loops. + +"So I increase the count to two: two snakes eating each other's tales, forming a loop. +In this way they are able to put two heads on one body. +This doubles the number of memories, which really only exacerbates the problem. +It's like trying to roll two different materials up into a ball. +The people I tell this to don't understand this either, they say using two animals makes sense to them. +They say there must be different types of memory. + +"I disagree with this theory of memory. +I think there is, at bottom, only one type of anything, with subtypes grouped together along the edge of a loop. +Color becomes a good metaphor: look how many of them! +yet they are all consumed by the same part of the body. +Maybe two different materials are still made of material, and maybe they can be rolled into a ball. +Maybe there actually never was a problem. + +"Or maybe, and this is more likely, I need to restate the problem. +I think it all boils down to the fact that I have a truly lousy memory. +I've tried different mnemonic devices, like imagining each thing I need to remember being visited by a bouncing ball. +I've tried trying string into finger-loops. +I've even tried writing the things I need to remember on my body. +If you asked me, 'Do any of these work,' I would have to answer, 'None of them.' + +"Sometimes in the morning I realize dumbly I've forgotten my words, all of them. +They generally come back by around ten o'clock, but the frequency with which this is occurring is becoming a problem. +I feel that my brain is being separated from my body. +Is there a place in the universe for a misplaced memory? +Does it eat its own tail and roll around the universe as it loops? +Does it shrink down and become lost as a tiny ball? + +No matter what happens, eventually _I_ will become _them_ as I lose the last of my memory. +I won't be able to solve the problem of my being, and my being will become my problem, in an eternal loop. +I will roll my body into a prenatal ball. + +[He said]: joke.html -- cgit 1.4.1-21-gabe81