It's a tricky balance, figuring out what's appropriate to talk about here and what has no right to be online.
In university, many professors stressed the absolute gravity and seriousness of not writing about anyone unfavourably unless you have their permission. Hell, even writing favourably about someone leaves a question mark because countless people on this planet are private and aren't okay with having anyone know their business.
I respect people's privacy and do my best to honour it. I leave names out and try to be vague... but I am a writer. I gotta be able to write honestly, or what is the point?
My favourite course at university was Creative Nonfiction. A quick Google search pulls up dozens of definitions, so I've chosen one that's to the point:
- Creative nonfiction adds characterizations so that the reader becomes involved and can relate to the subject. Pure nonfiction focuses on facts.
As much as we'd like it to be, memory is not like a filing cabinet. We don't experience something and then file it away only to bring it out later when we want to think about, talk about, or relive it. Over time, memory decays and becomes distorted. It becomes malleable, like clay or dough.
This creates a real problem with creative nonfiction because, so often, nonfiction writing can go back decades. Adults often write memoirs about the trauma they experienced as a child. I am not saying they didn't experience trauma, are lying, or what they are writing can't be trusted.
What I am saying is that specific details can change in our minds. Maybe events occurred slightly differently than you remember, words were said with a different tone, or perhaps the pain was worse, and your brain has protected you by covering much of the truth.
Two people can also remember the same event very differently. Who is right? Either of us? Neither of us? There are so many things that shape how we remember something. Were you afraid at the time the memory developed? Were you laughing and experiencing something new and exciting or doing something that caused anxiety, boredom, or tediousness? Were you drunk? High? Were you distracted? Everything shapes memory.
There are conscious, unconscious, short-term, and long-term memories.
To understand memory and how it is formed, scientists study those with Alzheimer's: first, scientists need to figure out why people forget.
