• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Women's Legacy Project
  • Home
  • About
  • How To Curate
  • Our Collective Legacy
  • Writing Online Memoir
  • Blog
Women's Legacy Project > Blog > A TO Z > Yearning for Youth

Yearning for Youth

Written by: Nancy Hill
Published: April 29, 2022 -- Last Modified: April 29, 2022
No comments yet

Why do we do this? Was the past really so great? Remembering does not really allow us to re-experience anything, and each time we remember something we are rewriting the memory by accessing it. I know this concept can be disconcerting. Let’s clear up a few technical aspects of memory before we delve into what it is to yearn for something that has come before.

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Memories Change

The best statement of how memory works that I’ve come across is not a technical one:

…(O)ur brain stores a series of brief fleeting moments – visual snapshots, sounds, smells, thoughts and feelings – and each time we remember, we piece these back together to create something called an episodic memory of an event. 

— https://theconversation.com/serial-your-memory-can-play-tricks-on-you-heres-how-34827

I like to research and read both in social science and in biology and have been reading and thinking about memory for a very long time all the way back to when I was studying clinical psychology at Purdue University in the 70s. These “reconstruction of events via images, sounds, smells, thoughts and feelings” fit very well with my understanding of how chemical signals in the brain and body can trigger reconstruction of times when those same sets of signals occurred. Are they always reconstructed identically to the first time when those signals coalesced into a discrete event? Probably not.

But that said, totally false memories of trauma are rare unless they were created through suggestive interviews by therapists or law enforcement.

Then we can also show that forgetting is helpful to everyday living

along three important (if not entirely independent) roles supported by forgetting, namely (a) the maintenance of a positive and coherent self-image (“Guardian”), (b) the facilitation of efficient cognitive function (“Librarian”), and (c) the development of a creative and flexible worldview (“Inventor”)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211368119301767

and to creating the self we want to be.

Do You Yearn for Youth?

Most of us, when we were young, knew practically nothing of importance. Let’s agree that young is under 30 years of age but still adult – for this discussion. Life experience trains us in all sorts of ways. We learn, but we are also conditioned.

“Does it hurt when you do that? Then don’t do that.”

Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash

Much of that conditioning hurt in one way or another, and I would not want to go through that pain again. Some of us may have been happy little puppies who were trained only with positive reinforcement and treats, but from my perspective, most of us were smacked on the nose by relationship breakups, job changes, family restructuring through alienation or death, and lots of other unpleasant experiences.

There are pleasant experiences I might love to re-experience, but most of the life that surrounded those experiences were nothing I would want to relive. That is why my memory of those times is incomplete and that I probably forgot much of what went on at that time. Forgetting might have happened because I simply did not re-member (Literally re: again — and member: a constituent piece of a complex structure).

What I am saying is that yearning for what once was is silly. One: you can’t go back. Two: the back that you remember never existed as you remember it.

We pare.

We rewrite.

Do this consciously and be happy. Even in your legacy writing or stories.

Categories: A TO Z, A to Z of Personal History, Personal HistoryTags: memory, reconstruction, remembering, the past, the Y in the A to Z of Personal History, youth

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org
Previous Post: « Xs on the Map
Next Post: Zero to Zenith »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badgeShow more posts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Ending, and Beginning
  • For Our Daughters
  • Stand and Write
  • Context and Little Things
  • A Month is Just a Month… as Time Goes By
  • Processing Two Very Different Deaths
  • A Dehydrated and Delusional Friend Found Wandering in 100° Heat
  • About Women’s Legacy & Hill Research
  • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Archives

Powered by
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
View my Flipboard Magazine.

© 2023, Nancy Hill, Women's Legacy Project of Hill Research Services, LLC

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT