'An Open-ended Project'

Two writers separated by language, experience and two and a half centuries make complementary observations about memory. Here is Dr. Johnson in The Idler essay he published on this date, February 17, in 1759: 

“The two offices of memory are collection and distribution; by one images are accumulated, and by the other produced for use. Collection is always the employment of our first years; and distribution commonly that of our advanced age.”

 

In the Fall 2002 issue of the journal Common Knowledge, Adam Zagajewski writes about a friend and fellow Polish poet in “Poetry Versus the World: Remembering Zbigniew Herbert” (trans. Clare Cavanagh):

 

“It also turns out that we have at least two kinds of memory. One is intelligent, educated, not only able, but eager, to synthesize; this sort of memory sets down large outlines, rational theses, vivid colors. But there is also a humbler sister, the memory of little snapshots, fleeting instants, a single-use camera producing atoms of recollection that are not only unsuitable for enlargement and standardization, but seem even to take pride in their absolutely idiomatic character.”

 

When young, Johnson suggests, the world is new and filled with wonder. Accumulating impressions is a fulltime occupation: “[W]e have nothing more to do than to open our eyes, and curiosity is gratified.” As we age, “Every revived idea reminds us of a time when something was enjoyed that is now lost, when some hope was not yet blasted, when some purpose had yet not languished into sluggishness or indifference.” Memory becomes bittersweet torment. We celebrate our memories of loved ones now gone, remembering our worthy dead, and feel the ache of their loss. The dual nature of memory distills what it means to be human. In the same essay Johnson writes:

 

“Whether it be that life has more vexations than comforts, or, what is in the event just the same, that evil makes deeper impression than good, it is certain that few can review the time past without heaviness of heart.”

 

Zagajewski’s essay was collected in A Defense of Ardor (2004) and retitled “Beginning to Remember.” He writes: “After a death, everything changes. The memory sobers, and settles down to its great labor. Now its goal is synthesis. It longs to capture and combine all the scraps and pieces it remembers, along with the thoughts they inspired, into a single portrait.”

 

That portrait is not painted in the style of photorealism. Nor does it remain unchanging. It can fade or grow more vivid. Watching film of the departed, reading letters and journals, experiencing a seemingly spontaneous burst of memory, can reanimate them:

 

“[W]e are dealing with an open-ended project, with a process of remembering that cannot be seen through to conclusion. Of course, you can write down recollections, pronounce the words ‘the end,’ send your text off to the printer—only to realize a few days later that you had forgotten something, left something out. Often the most important something . . .”